General Information

Getting Started - Extensiv Integration Manager Fulfillment Account

3.6 min read

| September 14, 2024
 

This page is designed for Integration Manager Fulfillment Plan users. If you are a merchant using a Merchant Account, please see our Getting Started - Integration Manager Merchant Account page.

 

What is Integration Management and what does it do?

Integration Management is a web application pre-integrated with most of the popular e-commerce shopping carts, allowing fulfillment centers to easily connect their merchant's online order sources to a Warehouse Management System/Order Management System (WMS/OMS) for order fulfillment.

There are four steps of communication to complete the order process:

  1. Integration Manager downloads orders from each shopping cart. 
    Download schedule can be set as frequent as every 5 minutes, or as infrequent as once per day (per cart). 
     
  2. Integration Management delivers your orders to your WMS.
    Delivery schedule can be set as frequent as every 5 minutes, or as infrequent as once per day (per cart). 
     
  3. Integration Management retrieves shipment confirmations (tracking numbers) and inventory levels from your WMS. 
    Ship Conf schedule can be set every 15 minutes. The inventory schedule can be set once per hour. 
     
  4. Integration Management uploads shipment confirmations (tracking numbers) and inventory levels to your shopping carts.
    Ship Conf schedule can be set as every 15 minutes while the inventory schedule as once per hour. 

What account types does Integration Manager offer? Does it matter which I choose?

Integration Management offers two account types:
 

  1. Integration Management Fulfillment Account - designed to be managed by a 3PL fulfillment center, allowing them to connect the e-commerce order sources of each of their merchants to their WMS system.
     
  2. Integration Management Merchant Account - designed to be managed by a merchant (seller of goods), allowing the merchant to connect their e-commerce order sources to their 3PL fulfillment center or their own WMS/OMS system.

    Each account offers the same functionality. The only difference is that the Fulfillment account is used to manage connections for multiple merchants, and the Merchant account is used to manage integrations for a single merchant.

     

Which systems can the Integration Management download orders from?

Integration Manager can download orders from any number of order sources per account. In Integration Manager, these systems are called Carts.
 

You can view a full list of supported carts here: https://help.extensiv.com/en_US/im-order-sources

Which systems can the Integration Management send orders to?

Integration Manager can send orders to one order destination per account. In Integration Manager, this is referred to as WMS.
 

You can view a full list of supported order destinations here: https://help.extensiv.com/en_US/im-order-destinations 

Which functions does an Integration Management integration include?

Standard integration functions include (all on automatic schedules set by a user): 

Function
 

Result
 

Frequency
 
Order Download
 		 Orders are downloaded from order source (e.g. Shopify, Amazon, etc.) into Integration Manager application
 		 Frequency set per cart connection
 
Order Delivery
 		 Newly downloaded orders in Integration Manager are sent to the WMS system
 		 Frequency set per merchant
 
Shipping Confirmations
 		 Shipments (tracking numbers) are retrieved from the WMS system into Integration Manager application
 		 Frequency set per merchant
 
Shipment Upload
 		 Newly retrieved shipments (tracking numbers) are sent to the order source from Integration Manager Frequency set per cart connection
 
Inventory
 		 Inventory levels are retrieved from the WMS system into Integration Manager application
 		 Frequency set per merchant
 
Inventory Upload
 		 Newly retrieved inventory levels from WMS are sent to each order source by Integration Manager Frequency set per cart connection
 

Some integrations may include purchase order sync and/or product sync in addition to the functions above. Some order sources do not support shipment confirmations or inventory sync, although the vast majority do.

 

Basic Setup

Step 1: Sign up for an Integration Management Fulfillment account and select Fulfillment Center for business type.

Step 2: Connect to your Warehouse Management system.

The Integration Management can pull orders from different sources and can deposit them into any system that manages fulfillment and shipping. We define the recipient system as the WMS (Warehouse Management System). You may be using an Order Management or other system, but for simplicity we will call all these systems by WMS. Your account can only map to one WMS. Contact support if you need more advanced order routing.
 

Step-by-step guide

  1. Add any supported WMS to your Integration Manager account by clicking on WMS Setup in the left navigation area.
  2. On the WMS Setup screen, select the WMS you use from the Select WMS dropdown field.
  3. Fill out the required information needed for that particular WMS and click OK. See the list below for the setup guide specific to your WMS.

Choosing a CSV File allows you to create virtually any CSV file format you need without any coding required. You can then send/receive the .csv files via FTP or Email.

 

Need to send orders somewhere that we don't yet support? Open a support ticket to request an integration.

 

Step 3: Set up your first merchant: How to set up a merchant

Step 4: Connect to your shopping cart(s): How to set up a shopping cart connection

Step 5: Turn on the cart connection. If you haven't done so when entering cart settings, you can turn on your cart connection on the cart setup page. 

If you click away from the page, you can find it from the Carts > Edit Setup > Services. 

Setting each service will turn on the connection to the shopping cart. 

Service
Description
Order Download
 		 Sets how often the Integration Management downloads orders from the shopping cart
 
Shipment Upload
 		 Sets how often the Integration Management sends tracking numbers received from the WMS back to the shopping cart
 
Inventory Upload
 		 Sets how often the Integration Management sends inventory levels received from the WMS back to the shopping cart
 

Step 6: Place test orders in the shopping cart

If you do not already have orders waiting to be downloaded in the shopping cart, it is a good idea to place test orders to verify the connection passes the order information to your WMS as desired. If you are mapping ship methods in Integration Manager it is a good idea to place a test order using each offered shipping service in the shopping cart. This will prevent you from having to map each ship method one by one over time. 
Learn more

 

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