Synchronizing customer data

What are options for keeping customer data in synch with internal system

[Follower]

We've got an internal order system which is VisualBasic and SQL Server for phone and mail orders (80% of business). And we're taking orders over the web (the other 20%).

What are best practices/options for keeping the data in synch between the two systems, eg. keeping out duplicates, adding new orders to the right customer account even if they order using their nickname or their spouse orders, sharing the SQL database without exposing privacy issues, etc.

So far we're taking orders and reentering them into the internal system and want to streamline that -- but I'm reluctant to create more problems. Is there a good reference or ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Ray

[dvduval]

It's not too terribly difficult to create an order import feature. Export the orders to a text file from your web server, and then import the text file on your internal data server. This eliminates a lot of data entry.

You could do some more advanced things like scheduled tasked or xml feeds that sync up the two servers, but sometimes this can be dangerous, because you still need a human to review the order in most cases.