Customization and Integration

[rjledger]

Can anyone from Sage give an official posting on the status of SData and MAS500?

A - When?

B - Integration Contract Info?

[LouDavis]

Good question.

[rjledger]

Louis,

   Have you gone to: SData.Sage.com and looked the SData specs over? There's also a Forum there forSData discussions - although it seems nobody (at Sage) is looking at it or posting...

Shame.. Sage came up with the stuff (SData).. said it was the best thing since sliced bread and now seems to be backing off.

[LouDavis]

Hey RJ,

     I have looked at it and was impressed.  However, I'd hate to build integrations with it to MAS 500 and just be re-inventing the wheel if Sage is already going down that road.  Also,  I'd hate to start building something with it and find out Sage was going to drop it for something else like Microsoft has with LINQ to SQL classes in favor of Entity Framework.

     So I'd like to hear from Sage what the future holds for SData and if Sage is doing work with it for MAS 500. If not where can one find sample source, instructions, best practice information and discussion forums on it before one dives head first into coding.

[trevor_fritz]

SData is a Sage global initiative that is aimed at allowing products to be able to integrate easier.  The SData technology is currently being used by products across the world, including North America.  The basic idea is that a consumer of data (either program or person) is unaware of the product being connected to and does not care about data access technology.  A consumer need only be able to consume SData providers and know that the provider of data implements certain SData contracts.  So for example, say there is a resource named Customer.  Product A uses Microsoft SQL to store its data.  Product B uses proprietary data storage routines.  Both expose the customer data through the SData Customer contract.  A consumer can point to either A or B and retrieve a list of customers from either product. 

I am currently working on a project that will enable SData for MAS 500.  We currently do not have this slated in any release however expect to be able to answer that question over the coming months.  Once done with enabling the product we can start implementing SData contracts which expose common things like Sales Orders, Customers, GL Accounts, etc... to an SData consumer.  The intention would be for MAS 500 to provide contracts as well as 3rd party... either way anyone would be able to consume.

[rjledger]

I can tell you that Sage IS committed to SData as (eventually) the only way to "integrate" with their products.

On the SalesLogix side, it's been released and in use. We have a fully deployable SData web service portal.  Also, there's a special class in the SalesLogix "Master's" Series training. We have a library suite that one can use in VS2008 that hides up all the "ugliness" of the actual RESTful protocol itself.

I'm putting together a Windows7 "gadget" that uses js to communicate w/SalesLogix via SData. The plan is to make it publicly available (but retain copyright to rjlSystems ;-).

We also have a design on the drawing board to replace DynaLink (and ERPLink) w/an SData based integration tool.

[rjledger]

Thanks for the posting Trevor. As you are also probably aware, SalesLogix has already released their SData portal. SageU (SalesLogix side) has some good stuff going there on it as well.

We have been working w/SData for over a year now and see great potential in it. The SalesLogix SData dev team has been putting together a C# library (which is available for SalesLogix BP's to use) to hide up some of the underlying parts of SData to make life easier. Maybe you should take a look at what they did and see if you can reuse some (or all) of their code and create the same thing for MAS500 ;-)

[trevor_fritz]

I believe the SalesLogix code is nicknamed Gobi.  We checked that out a little while ago.  It is tied to an object-model approach to data access so we determined it wasn't right fit for MAS 500.  If they have other helper classes we would be very interested in seeing them.  I'm currently working on SData helper classes as we speak and don't wish to re-invent the wheel if I don't have to. 

My group is also working on an integration project between SalesLogix and MAS 500 using SData. 

[rjledger]

The SalesLogix helper classes should be useful for you. They have created a library that is very useful in building SData Client Apps. In fact, it's used in the SalesLogix Mater's Series training on SData (great one day course at SageU - SalesLogix).

I have the libs ;-)

FYI - Gobi is the SalesLogix Web Platform "technology"  - uses nHibernate, etc...  It's not the name of the "code" and really has nothing to (directly) do with the SData Portal. In fact, we use the SData Portal in "non-Gobi" situations. What's really slick is that the SData "server" side is implemented above the "business rules" layer so that we can create business rules that reduce the need for such logic in an SData "client app

Message Edited by rjledger on 03-08-2010 06:56 PM

[rjledger]

Latest word I heard is that the SData effort has been shelved... True/False?

Can someone at Sage please conform/deny this?