Rank: Member
Joined: 11/22/2006(UTC)
Posts: 6
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Has anyone integrated BVS with MAS 90/200. In the integration features of the software, its written that it can integrate with MAS 90/200 but how do you do that... Can anyone help me with that?
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Rank: Member
Joined: 2/16/2006(UTC)
Posts: 11
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Yeah, whatever happened to Sage integration?
From my experience, there are a couple of systems that allow some type of data flow like DynaLink from IIG and StoreFront partner (sorry I dont remember the name) whose implementation is Providex for data input, ODBC for output (good luck if your files have millions of records). All of them are literally slow and useless.
I remember I called BV customer service regarding MAS 200 integration in August and there was no information available at the moment. In fact, I wanted to share some of the development ideas with BV software and save myself a lot of time, but I guess they were either too busy with BVC 5 release or my initial input didn't interest them
I work in a company with roughly 60 users and we run MAS 200 3.71 to its extremes. We also run Business Alerts, invoice emailing, crystal custom reports . Any additional ODBC inquiries would exhaust it response completely. Speaking of which, we found quite a few bugs in their ODBC driver :burger: Anyhow, I've spent literally almost a year looking for a solution myself. Finally, I got a hold of a master developer for MAS 90/200 who designed a synchronization tool between some of MAS 200 and SQL tables. We can send inbound data to AR1, IM1, SO1, and SO2 tables and the same plus a whole other bunch for outbound tables. Once we had that in place, I spent literally more than two months either talking on the phone with our MAS 200 developer fixing bugs, linking up tables, or testing. Once I had SQL tables linked up, it was only a matter of another month for me to write the SO generation web service. Sweet Jesus, everything works like a miracle - it takes less than 2 seconds for the sales order to show up in MAS with no strain on performance. I am running live tests with Costco through our own website. So connecting the web services to BvSoftware should be not more than a snap.
So, to answer your questions shortly - integration with MAS 200 on some basic levels is possible ( e.g. sales order, inventory, kitting, customers, shipping addresses etc. )
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/17/2004(UTC)
Posts: 456
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Let me know if/when you figure this one out. Its something I have been trying to figure out for a long time my self. Actually, any integration with larger accounting packages like Sage MAS 90 / 200, or MS Dynamics GP (Great Plains), or MS Small Business Financials.
I would assume web services and XML would be the way to integrate BV with an accounting package, but I dont know what level of integration, one-way? two-way? What would be transferred, products? orders? customers? stock status? All of those questions fall under the task of integration.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 11/22/2006(UTC)
Posts: 6
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Oh wow... that was a long reply.... Thats a great news.... this means that i can actuallt integrate MAS200 with BV Software... Can you provide some more information as how to go about the integration process.. I know this might take some writing on your part but this will really help me and other people. I will also contact BV Software to see if they have any documentation for the integration. I guess they should have some because MAS200 is mentioned in their integration section in the features. Originally Posted by: "Iuras"  Yeah, whatever happened to Sage integration? From my experience, there are a couple of systems that allow some type of data flow like DynaLink from IIG and another ecommerce product partner (sorry I dont remember the name) whose implementation is Providex for data input, ODBC for output (good luck if your files have millions of records). All of them are literally slow and useless. I remember I called BV customer service regarding MAS 200 integration in August and there was no information available at the moment. In fact, I wanted to share some of the development ideas with BV software and save myself a lot of time, but I guess they were either too busy with BVC 5 release or my initial input didn't interest them I work in a company with roughly 60 users and we run MAS 200 3.71 to its extremes. We also run Business alert s, invoice emailing, crystal custom reports . Any additional ODBC inquiries would exhaust it response completely. Speaking of which, we found quite a few bugs in their ODBC driver  Anyhow, I've spent literally almost a year looking for a solution myself. Finally, I got a hold of a master developer for MAS 90/200 who designed a synchronization tool between some of MAS 200 and SQL tables. We can send inbound data to AR1, IM1, SO1, and SO2 tables and the same plus a whole other bunch for outbound tables. Once we had that in place, I spent literally more than two months either talking on the phone with our MAS 200 developer fixing bugs, linking up tables, or testing. Once I had SQL tables linked up, it was only a matter of another month for me to write the SO generation web service. Sweet Jesus, everything works like a miracle - it takes less than 2 seconds for the sales order to show up in MAS with no strain on performance. I am running live tests with Costco through our own website. So connecting the web services to BvSoftware should be not more than a snap. So, to answer your questions shortly - integration with MAS 200 on some basic levels is possible ( e.g. sales order, inventory, kitting, customers, shipping addresses etc. )
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Rank: Member
Joined: 2/16/2006(UTC)
Posts: 11
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Atif,
Before suggesting you anything I would recommend to check with BV Software to see if they have a viable solution for integration with MAS 200.
BigHeadRob
At this moment I dont have a full integration solution, but a couple of webservices that could be easily linked to BV Software. In fact, I am trying to integrate MAS 200 with our major customers' POS systems and webservices seem to be the only way. Then for each and every POS system we are designing small plugins that connect their system to our webservices. Such approach could used for BV software as well. Although, you can take a shortcut to host BV Sofware and MAS SQL inbound and outbound tables in the same database (I would not recommend that for various reasons).
So far this is what I have achieved:
1. Webservices are based on WSE 3.0 username token authentication
2. MAS 200 sales order generation web service with type 1 so and line import with some omitions because we don't use them which are: divisions and price levels. I guess, this could be completed and tested within one day if needed.
3. I am working on customer generation and ship to addresses edit/generation for MAS. It is also possible to create products through IM1, but at this moment we dont need it and it's not scheduled.
As for the outbound, things stand much easier. Since the information is already in SQL tables, designing outbound functions is really trivial. The choice is great: AR1, AR4, AR6, ARD, ARF, ARN, ARO, AR_19, BM1, BM2, inventory full descriptions, IM1, IM2, IM3 ... ETC. The list is for around 40 tables.
With all said, the most important is the real time synchronization.
I hope this helps, but again I would rather suggest to see if BV Software has any integration solutions.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/17/2004(UTC)
Posts: 456
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I have been reading about "Visual Integrator" for MAS90 to see if thats the best way to make BV and MAS90 communicate. But, it appears to be ODBC driven. I'm wondering if web services, and maybe XML would be the best method, instead of using a tool that rely's upon ODBC drivers.
Really, I think integrating BV and MAS90 is just getting the data out of BV and down into MAS, and visa versa (backwards for two-way communication). Even though MAS90 is on a providex (spelling?) database, and BV is on SQL , do you think that is a problem? I don't think so but not 100% sure.
I'm hoping BV will inform us on how they recommend and/or have been and/or plan on, integrating BV with an accounting package like Sage MAS90, Sage MAS200, MS Great Plains, or MS Small Business Financials. I don't know if this is something BV is interested in or not but it would be interesting to hear what they have to say or recommend using to connect their product with a larger accounting package like the ones I just mentioned.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 2/16/2006(UTC)
Posts: 11
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Here are a couple of things you want to take in consideration. First of all, MAS 200 ODBC drivers are read-only ( I believe since version 3.61 but dont quote me on that). Thus, you virtually would be able to copy data using ODBC drivers into a SQL table for further outbound data manipulations. But here are a few things that might catch off-guard. Say we take the case of open sales order table such as SO1 and SO2. In SO2 at any given time we have more than 40 thousand lines. It takes on average say 15-20 seconds to go through them. The question then would be how often would you have to sync mas tables with SQL tables? What would you do with invoice history tables like ARO and ARN that we easily exceed over 2.5 million records. It takes hours and that on top of the normal business operations. Trust me, I tried writing a ASN windows service based on Providex ODBC for one of our customer's and it turned out to be nothing more than a disaster. You'll see when ODBC uses too many resources and your sales reps won't be able to print out sales orders. :cool:
You see, the whole point is to have the data in SQL server synchronized with MAS database. Once you have it SQL, you can manipulate it whichever way you want. As I said before, you can have it within the same database as BV. Since webservices work well with ASP.net, PHP, Java it turned out that this was the smartest choice for us. In fact, I am working with a customer that will feed us purchase orders straight from their POS. And as I have mentioned before, BV would need just a small plug-in to shove the orders through. If you want, I can show you how I designed a small site for Costco reps that sends the orders right through.
I completely agree with you that BV should look into integrating with bigger accounting packages. That is why StoreeFront, regardless it's messy code and it sluggish performance, easily wins over BV. There are thousands of companies, like the company I work for, that pay over 8 thousand dollars just for MAS customer support and upgrades on the yearly basis. Such companies would easily afford to cash out way over 15 thousand for a good integration solution with BVshopping cart. If I am not mistaken, we had a quote for 20 thousand for integration via ODBC :lol:
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/17/2004(UTC)
Posts: 456
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Thank you Iuras for the communication. It's appreciated.
Yep, Ive been hearing that ODBC is kinda slow, and it's probably not the best route to take, when web services, .net, and xml are now available. However, the Sage Visual Integrator module seems to be what Sage Resellers are using to connect MAS to shopping carts. Even though I dont think its the best method, its a good tool. Just kinda stinks that it rely's upon ODBC to work.
If anyone out there has input or ideas on the best way to make MAS90 and BV communicate, would be nice to hear. I'm still in my research phase of selecting an accounting package. I can see where quickbooks, or peachtree isnt worth the time if you plan on having a successful webstore that does a fair amount of orders each day/week/month. I suppose if you sold high-dollar items and you sold 20 orders a month total, then maybe you could use those lower-end accounting packages. But if you're doing 1000 or more orders a month, quickbooks and peachtree do not have the capability to hold the # of records needed. The best quickbooks (enterprise) is advertised to go to 100,000 records. With inventory, customers, orders, vendors, I think within a couple of years a store could easily hit the 100,000 mark and max the software out. This is why MAS, MS GP, and the other larger packages are attractive, along with distribution feature sets (like multi-warehouse, kitting, returns, etc), and multi-user capabilities.
Iuras, yes, $6k to $8k annual is about what one can expect to pay for support for MAS90/200. I think the first year is required (dont quote me on this), and I've heard that many companies do only the first year and stop. However, it all depends on what expertise you have in-house, and your level of support needs.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/17/2004(UTC)
Posts: 456
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Dear BV,
What do you recommend to be the best method of getting data out of BV and ready for use with MAS90/200? ODBC? Web Services? Is there any information available that explains more about the integration with BV and MAS90/200? I see "MAS 90, MAS 200 Integration Add-On" listed on the BV5 features page but don't see anything more than that.
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