Getting started with master data in Hii Retail
Getting started with master data in Hii Retail
Integrating your own ERP system to Hii Retail should be easy. We want to provide the best possible experience to allow you to utilize the extensive features in Hii Retail.
All integrations to Hii Retail requires a valid tenant id, and a valid token provided in the header of all requests. For further details have a look at our Identity and Access Management Service and Oauth2 Client Management Service
But first..
Why use it?
In Extenda Retail we want to offer the best possible solutions for helping our customers perform their business in the fastest and most efficient way. That is why Hii Retail will be ever evolving to support the best practices and business requirements needed in the retail industry.
In Extenda Retail we understand that customers often have their own ERP system or PIM system that can provide a lot of the Master Data needed. The problem with ERPs and PIMs is that they are often used for so much more, and they do not have all the capabilities that are needed in the Retail Domain. Large ERP systems often focus on integrating finance, HR, production and supply chains, and do not focus on the day-to-day business retailers need to have, and hence a lot of the functionality is limited or not even there.
Similarly PIM systems often focus om managing the information on a sellable Item, but not so much how this item should be used and priced in the different markets the retailer operates in.
Given the knowledge we now have of Master Data and its management, Hii Retail offers advanced capabilities and business advancements that can be utilized. Some of the capabilities available in Hii Retail include:
- Allow Master Data to be maintained on group levels, and we will calculate, verify and distribute to all underlying business units.
- Allow Master Data to be maintained on business unit level in ERP, and Hii Retail will only distribute
- Inherit default values onto underlying entities from hierarchies
- Extensible data model to facilitate most common use-cases
- Support most Retail domains like Fashion, FMCG, Convenience, etc.
- Versioning your data to guarantee correct sequence
- Maintain rules for validation and alerting
- Identify changes to highlight what has happened with the data
- Provide change tracking, or tracing of all entities
- Distribute data to all down-stream systems
- Distribute data to legacy in-store systems
- Distribute the correct data using assortment
- Provide search capabilities and lookup
- Provide reusable search capabilities
- Date and time in integrations
- Be the central hub for Master Data Distribution
How does it work?
The services in Master Data Processing are reactive in nature. This means that we allow almost any input conforming to the API specification, and we allow the consuming downstream services to determine if the content is applicable or not. When data is received it triggers events to process the data depending on customer subscription and configuration.
This means that potentially invalid input will be received and the caller of the API will receive a 202 - Accepted response code. Other services will be triggered by the input, and might do their operations successfully or report a validation error.
If errors occur it is important to subscribe to alerts and notifications through the External Events service.
All our services are accessible through APIs. We have separate APIs for data input, and for querying data already present in Hii Retail.
Our input APIs are generally split in two. Business Unit specific inputs and Business Unit Group inputs. This is done to prevent unauthorized access to functionality not intended for certain user groups, but also to allow advanced ERPs to do the "heavy lifting" when applicable.
Please have a look at the API section in the Developer Portal for more details.