Lee

This will be using the older type of integration rather than the Connector.

I don't know about the Sage 200 side. I do know about the CRM side.

I think philosophically you need to decide which is dominant. If there is a conflict, which would win the argument.

This isn't just about data structures, but also includes business rules that encompass the whole question of data integrity.

My hunch is that when push comes to shove, that the accounting system should win.

That means that the business rules contained within the Sage BMS system are the definitive business rules.

I would spend time checking that is actually the case, that the Sage 200 contains the business rules that are needed for the business. I would guess that since the business has been working fine with a un-integrated CRM and accounting system that this is most likely the case.

I would create a series of baseline audits. The purpose of this is to get a real sense of what customizations have taken place in CRM and therefore what might be 'trashed' when the sync takes place.

If you have developer program membership of the community to can see some scripts that I use for investigations here:

community.sagecrm.com/.../27474.aspx

I would first see how has Sage CRM changed from a vanilla Sage CRM 7.1 database.

Assuming that you have access to backup system and test environment I would do an experimental sync between Sage CRM and Sage 200 and this will indicate how much actual damage would be done to the Sage CRM customization BUT more importantly by running the comparison scripts you would be able to tell what exactly you would need to do to restore the customizations in Sage CRM.

I hope this helps.

Thanks Jeff. I'll check the link you provided. The system was always going to be an integrated one. The 200 side of things is largely out of the box. Certainly the customer/vendor data in 200 will "win". The customisations in CRM are all entities linked to the company or person and will never be needed in the 200 side.

If I had been on this project initially, I would have insisted that the system was integrated to begin with as it says in the installation guide so that the customisations already in there were then maintained as screen chnges, scripts and ASP pages were added to the system. however, with the best will in the world, sometimes this doesn't happen and we get stuck with stuff to deal with. I know from experience that the 200 customisations on the initial integration will update several CRM screens to add scripts, but the integration will assume that the system is vanilla so any CRM customisations in place get overwritten which makes it a little problematic integrating at a later date.

Hi Lee,

You mention that the customisations are mainly just custom entities linked to company / person?

When integrated with Sage200 it will reset the Company Tabs and the company summary screen. (i.e. what fields are visible) So any custom fields / tabs will be removed (but not from the database) and any script on them as well. you'll just need to add the fields / tabs and scripts back again

Is this a live system?

No, it's still in development, but when it comes to live, if I set up the integration, and then release my components, they will overwrite changes provided by the customisations. If I don't integrate but release all my components first, then integrate, it will potentially wipe out some of my customisations.