E-commerce middleware for BlueBioTech International —
four systems, one flow of data.
01 · Starting point
BlueBioTech has been producing and selling food supplements for more than twenty years — among them the Dr. Peter Hartig® brand, sold through the teleshopping channel HSE and through its own online shop. In a first joint project, om3 had already connected Shopware to Microsoft Navision. That direct connection was the right approach for two systems, and it did what it was meant to do. As the business grew, further channels came along — and with them a different question: no longer whether a connection works, but how many connections a company wants to run day after day.
02 · Challenge
The follow-up project was to connect Shopify, Plenty and PayPal to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central — four systems in all, one ERP, and between them order, article and payment data that has to flow reliably and traceably.
03 · Decisions
After the requirements analysis, the choice of technology for the e-commerce middleware fell on the Alumio integration platform — on the grounds of performance, scalability and compatibility with the systems already in place. Architecture, communication paths and the mapping of data formats were settled before implementation began. Connecting a system for the first time is rarely the hard part. What comes after it is: every connection needs to be monitored, logged and traced when something fails — by someone who did not build it. That is what the selection aimed at, and that is where the larger part of the work lay.
04 · What we did
Configuring and adapting the middleware, including data routing and protocol conversion; functional and load tests along realistic processes; the move into the production environment with data and process migration; setting up monitoring and ongoing maintenance.
05 · Result
Orders, articles and payments move in one flow of data between the shops and the ERP — monitored, logged, with nothing keyed in by hand. Alumio has been the data hub ever since and has taken on further connections, most recently Amazon product data. That the decision holds is shown by no metric, but by this: every new channel docks onto the same place instead of creating another direct connection.
Business Central
Technologies used
What we took away
Choosing a middleware is an operating decision, not a project decision: monitoring, error handling and maintainability count for more than the fastest first connection.
The work began with Shopware and Navision and was extended to the new generation of systems — a follow-up assignment after the first project.
A manufacturer that also sells direct sharpens the systems question: two channels, one warehouse, one price. Direct sales is therefore not a sales decision alone.
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