Dynamics AX eCommerce Integration
24 Feb 2015
Hi guys,
In this post, we’ll be looking at Dynamics AX eCommerce integration and some of the top eCommerce platforms that you can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics AX to sync sales orders, customer data, products, inventory & other details automatically. Helping you not only save time and effort by avoiding manual data entry, but also to improve productivity and customer support. Let’s take a look at these below.
One of the first options we’ll look at is Sana Commerce AX, which is an eCommerce web store that is certified for Dynamics AX and offers complete integration with the Dynamics AX ERP. Developed by Microsoft Gold Partner Sana Software, this is a fully customizable web store that comes with an easy to use front end editor that enables you to easily edit and update the look and feel of your web store. It’s integration with AX allows you to pull real time pricing, product info and inventory data from AX and display that in your web store, in addition to syncing sales orders and customer data from your web store to AX, and order fulfillment details from AX to the web store.
It also offers a number of customization options that allow you to extend its out of the box functionality to match your business’ requirements, whether that’s to do with web store design, product configuration, product catalogs or Point Of Sale discounts. It also offers support for multiple currencies, languages, web stores and payment gateways as well as SEO, product reviews, recommendations, discount coupons and discount promotion campaign functionality, among others.
Then there’s K-eCommerce, a CMS based eCommerce web store developed by another Microsoft Gold Partner for Dynamics AX. In addition to integration with Dynamics AX, for syncing of sales orders, customers, products, inventory, pricing, etc., it offers level 1 PCI-DSS certification, responsive design, support for both B2B and B2C web stores, scheduled recurring orders, frequently ordered products, simultaneous management of multiple shopping carts, a real-time order tracking dashboard, front end customization and customer reviews and ratings, among others. A comprehensive feature set with plenty of unique and high value features.
Last we have the Magento eCommerce platform, which is owned by eBay, the most widely recognized and trusted name in the eCommerce space. Even though Magento does not provide integration with Dynamics AX out of the box, it offers extensive functionality for web store design and development that far exceeds the functionality offered by the other two platforms above. The web store feature list covers pretty much everything you can think of – support for multiple payment gateways, currencies, web stores, pricing schemes, a laundry list of customization options, numerous plug-ins that extend its standard functionality and backed by a vast community of developers, which is something that the other two platforms don’t offer.
As for its integration with Dynamics AX, there are several options available, since there are a number of third party companies that have developed integration connectors for linking Magento web stores to Dynamics AX. Most of these are Microsoft partners that offer secure, real time integration solutions specifically designed for Magento and Dynamics AX. Our own integration solution F3MAX is one such offering that provides real time, fully automated syncing of sales orders, customers, products, inventory, pricing, billing and fulfillment data between Dynamics AX and Magento. It’s also highly customizable and can be tailored to add any extra functionality or features required, to it’s standard feature set.
Wrapping Up
All of the above platforms are great in their own right, as they all offer extensive eCommerce functionality and integration with AX. But if you’re looking for the best, I personally would recommend Magento, since it’s the most widely used and most popular eCommerce platform in the market today, with an exhaustive feature set that’s constantly being updated, and is backed by a huge community of developers that greatly extend its functionality via their plug-ins. Plus it offers several versions including both paid (Magento Enterprise and Magento Go) and free options (Magento Community Edition) and so can be adopted by small businesses and even start-ups. And with turn-key and cost effective Dynamics AX integration solutions available for it such as F3MAX, it is the best option, if you’re using the Dynamics AX as your ERP and are looking for the ideal eCommerce platform to setup your online shop.
About Folio3 Dynamics Services
FDS (Folio3 Dynamics Services) is a dedicated division of Folio3 that specializes in Microsoft Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP based development, customization and integration services. Our main focus is on Enterprise Mobility. We firmly believe that opening up Microsoft Dynamics AX and other products to iOS Android, Windows 8 and Windows Phone users will have a huge impact on organizational agility and productivity.
If you have a Dynamics AX based development project you’d like to discuss or would like to know more about our Dynamics AX development services, please get in touch with us.
