Dynamicweb ERP plug-in units

Dynamicweb provides a series of plug-in units that are meant to be installed directly on the ERP system either locally or through the Microsoft appsource marketplace. The main function of a plug-in unit is to expose web services with which Dynamicweb can communicate. The ERP data exposed in these web services are formatted to be understood by Dynamicweb and handle calculations on the ERP side. 

The data-flow of a plug-in unit based integration is as follows:

  • The Dynamicweb solution makes a request for data in XML format
  • The request is relayed to the remote system by either the Dynamicweb Connector service or the Endpoint management tool
  • The plugin unit reacts by extracting data from the remote system
  • The data is wrapped in an XML format understood by Dynamicweb
  • The XML is returned to the Dynamicweb solution as a response either via the Dynamicweb Connector service or a scheduled task add-in
  • An integration activity maps the XML response to the Dynamicweb database

The following guides cover installing and configuring a plugin on the remote system.

Both batch and live integrations work in the same general manner:

  • Dynamicweb sends a request for data 
  • The request is relayed to the remote system by the Dynamicweb Connector Service or by a Scheduled task add-in. 
  • Data is returned as a response

While the request XML can vary slightly depending on the remote system, the response XML always follows the same general structure:

XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <tables> <table tableName="Table1"> <item table="Table1"> <column columnName="Column1"><![CDATA[5]]></column> <column columnName="Column2" isNull="true"/> <column columnName="Column3"><![CDATA[James]]></column> </item> </table> <table tableName="Table2"> <item table="Table2"> <column columnName="Column1"><![CDATA[7913]]></column> <column columnName="Column2"><![CDATA[VIP]]></column> </item> </table> </tables>

Follow the links below to see the standard requests and responses for specific systems.

The codeunit/plug-in unit works by extracting data from certain ERP data fields, wrapping it into XML-format and inserting into the corresponding Dynamicweb tables. A comprehensive overview of the mappings between Dynamicweb og the remote systems can be accessed below.