Integrating with 3rd party apps

Trying to import data from Goldmine and Quickbooks

[rasslin russ]

Let me start off by saying that I've been prowling the boards for a couple of weeks and have found a lot more answers to questions I was getting ready to ask than I ever thought I would!

I've been working on PHP E-Commerce sites for a couple of clients, with plans on using MySql to handle all of the data storage.

I talked with customer #1 yesterday and found out they have all of their customer contact information stored in Goldmine, and they would prefer to keep all of their customer information in one place instead of duplicating it in the customer tables I had set up in MySql for the shopping cart to use.

Customer #2 has just purchased Quickbooks Point of Sale and wants to use it to maintain their inventory and prices instead of using the MySql tables I had set up and been planning to use.

I'm a little lost now, because I'm not sure of (1) how to interface with either Goldmine or Quickbooks (APIs, export data back and forth, other) and (2) the best way to find out what my course of action should be. Does anybody have any hints good hints?

Thanks,
-Russ

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld rasslin russ,

What I usually do when I have to work with any other program is sit for a bit with the person using to see what my options are. Since we are sometimes a million miles away I try tohave an in depth phone conversation and then grab a copy for myself for testing. The most important thing is to identify the specific needs of the client, and the software, so you can figure how to make it happen.

I wouldn't ditch the mysql db that you already set up right away. How the site deals with the data still has to be addressed and if it is already set up then it just ay be what is called for.

You need to figure out a way for the two systems to work together. It may be as simple as having an export feature on the site that can then be imported into their software. I hope they are not thinking of doing 2 way replication because that will be a big hassle. I always use the website as a collection point and the client software package as the master storage.

You can also look on the web for scripts that already do what you need. With popular software packages there tend to be little apps around already.

When you figure out how to do it you then need to really analyze the structure of one of these files ,that you are going to get php to create, and then build one. Figure out all of the necessary data that needs to be included, the format of that data and the structure of the file.

Once you get all that done you get php to write it that way and you're off to the races.