FileMaker and eCommerce Integration – Part 3

In Part 1 of our series on FileMaker and eCommerce Integration we outlined the challenges many small businesses face when they go live with an online store and the new workflow challenges that can create, leading to the prospect of having to do double data entry in multiple places. In Part 2 we showed how you eliminate any double data entry by making your online store visible to your FileMaker solution by using the ESS (External SQL Data Sources) feature of FileMaker Pro/Server, allowing users to see online orders on a normal FileMaker layout.

Not all FileMaker Pro solutions will be able to take advantage of the ESS feature however for a variety of reasons, including:

• your online store doesn’t use a supported ESS data source
• your online store hosting provider doesn’t allow remote SQL access
• your company firewall won’t allow ESS access to the hosting provider
• you wish to avoid the expense of purchasing ODBC drivers

There are a number of alternatives to having a “live” view of your online orders using ESS which can be broadly defined as either a push or pull approach, whereby data is either pushed from the online store to your FileMaker solution or pulled/downloaded from your online store by your FileMaker solution. Like all solutions there are pros and cons to each approach and the particulars of how your FileMaker solution is hosted will determine which options are available to you.

In the following examples we’re going to be using the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress as it offers both a push and pull API and is a popular eCommerce store, powering over 37% of all online stores at the time of writing.

Push Online Orders to FileMaker – the push approach is usually considered the most optimal solution as it is only invoked when there is new data to transfer, thus reducing the number of unnecessary requests to the online store to check for new orders. In WooCommerce you implement a push solution through the use of Webhooks – Webhooks are are very common form of server event notifications which trigger an action by sending a request to a URL that you specify. WooCommerce has a number of Webhooks that you can activate, for example each time a new order is created.

We’ve helped many customers over the years implement a Webhook solution that works as follows:

• a new order is created on the customer’s online store
• a Webhook is triggered which sends the details of the new order as JSON encoded data to a URL (a PHP page) on the customer’s FileMaker Server
• the PHP file uses the FileMaker PHP API to convert the JSON encoded data into a new customer record, order record and order line items

The customer also receives an email for each new order, which prompts them to open their FileMaker database and review the order details and ship any required products then push the invoice to their accounting software (Xero, MYOB etc). The customer hasn’t had to do any double data entry or query the online store for new orders – everything is pushed through as it happens. It does require the customer to have FileMaker Server with Custom Web Publishing enabled and allow external access to the PHP file hosted on their server.

Pull Online Orders to FileMaker – if the push approach is not a viable option WooCommerce also offers a REST API that you can also use with FileMaker Pro. The WooCommerce REST API allows you to query your WooCommerce online store and retrieve details about customers, orders, products etc, as well as being able to push data from FileMaker to WooCommerce if necessary. A typical solution using the WooCommerce REST API works as follows:

• customer receives an email notification from the WooCommerce store about a new order
• customer then clicks a button in their FileMaker solution to query the online store for any new orders since a timestamp (typically the last time they checked for new orders)
• FileMaker sends a REST API request for any new order details and receives a JSON encoded response from the WooCommerce REST API with details about each order
• the response is parsed out to create new customer, order and order item records

Once again the customer has been able to eliminate any double data entry and simply has to click a button in FileMaker to get all the new order details.

As we have illustrated in this series there are typically a number of options available when it comes to integrating your online store with your FileMaker CRM, whether that’s a direct live view using ESS or having new orders pushed or pulled into your FileMaker solution. With an integration into your accounting software such as Xero, MYOB AccountRight or MYOB Essentials you can completely eliminate any double data entry for the entire order and sit back and watch as the data flows from your online store to FileMaker and then to your accounting software.

If you would like to discuss integrating your online store with your FileMaker CRM please get in touch for a free initial consultation.

FileMaker and eCommerce Integration – Part 1

FileMaker and eCommerce Integration – Part 2

FileMaker and eCommerce Integration – Part 3