[6.1] Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Vantage Integration

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Hi Todd

 

Thanks for the information this looks to be exactly what we are attempting to do here but with later versions of the software.  Only slight complication for us is that the authoritative source for customers would be vantage and the authorititive source for prospects would be CRM.

Kind Regards Roddy

 

 

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We are implementing MS Dynamics CRM. We have hired Power Objects to do the data integration. They are trying to use a product called Scribe Insight to pull data from Vantage via ODBC but are having trouble with the Customer and CustCnt tables. All other tables work fine. I know the Customer table has an unreasonable number of indexes and causes ODBC issues but we have been using the DataDirect 4.1 Progress SQL92 ODBC connector for a long time with Excel, Access and Crystal with no issues like the Merrant 3.5 version had. The Scribe people are currently working on it but we have a deadline of tomorrow to decide if we will use their product due to an impending price increase. Are there other ODBC methods compatible with the Customer table? Scribe comes with a bunch of DataDirect connectors including one for Progress but that is generating an error on the test connect. It may not be Progress 9.1d compatible.

We are making Vantage the "gold standard" for Customer info and pushing it down to CRM and then to our SQL database for our quoting system. Objective is to enter new customers in Vantage and have them show up in the other systems automatically via a periodic update (5 minutes or so).

Anyone else doing anything like this with Dynamics CRM (that works) and care to share any insights on your method?

Thanks,
Todd Caughey
Harvey Vogel Mfg. Co.



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Hi Todd

 

We are looking to do a very similar thing here at FLEXcon I wondered if you got the integration working in the end.  Did you consider using Vantages WebServices to provide the communication . 

 

Any pointers you can provide would be greatfully received

 

Thanks

Roddy

 

 

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We had the integration written as a series of SQL Server flows that populated the CRM database from data in Vantage.  It was triggered by changes on the current date in the Vantage logs and ran every five minutes. We made Vantage the “gold standard” due to hesitation to write to the Vantage DB.  Later we figured this was a mistake and the “entry” point for new customers should have been CRM and we could have figured out how to make new customers in Vantage (or change existing ones) without corrupting the database (with LOTS of testing!). But even the way we did it it worked pretty well. If we had been on 8.03 or 9.x I think it would have been very much easier.Â

 

The integration work was done by a consultant from PowerObjects in Minneapolis. I am afraid I never got that good at SQL Server to understand exactly how the process worked but it was stable and users could count on a Suspect entered into Vantage showing up in CRM within 5 minutes. We also did the same to push them to a SQL database for our home grown quote system. We only did Customers (with contacts), Sales Reps and some very basic part info (for linking Cases to).

 

One thing we added later, since we were pushing to CRM, was on weekends everything was refreshed from the Vantage tables to CRM. This corrected cases were someone changed info directly in CRM, rather than via Vantage, in order to keep them reasonably synched up.

 

-Todd C.

 

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 3:45 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: [6.1] Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Vantage Integration

 

 


Hi Todd

 

We are looking to do a very similar thing here at FLEXcon I wondered if you got the integration working in the end.  Did you consider using Vantages WebServices to provide the communication . 

 

Any pointers you can provide would be greatfully received

 

Thanks

Roddy