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Lee Mrkonjic, our Director of EDI Sales, often gets questions about API, EDI and Integral Group.
Here are some of the most common ones that he gets asked.

Lee Mrkonjic, our Director of EDI Sales often gets questions about API, EDI and Integral Group.

Here are some of the most common ones that he gets asked.

 

API

Do you have an API?
I find that most customers asking this question want to understand our role as an outsource provider around APIs. APIs facilitate front-end request and back-end response data (transactions) between cloud-based applications in real-time. To enable these transactions, we code to the application-specific API. Our API service connects hundreds of application combinations: ERP, accounting, WMS, TMS, order management & inventory, shipping systems, shopping carts and marketplaces.

If you are looking for your own API, we offer that through our i12 Gateway API™. This custom-built solution is developed, hosted, and managed by us and published under your brand for internal and external distribution.
Can you work with our {software name’s} API?
Yes: Without exception, we will integrate with the software currently in your environment. The only condition is that the software must have a documented API.

Asserting that we will integrate with any software may sound like an exaggeration – but it is a statement of fact. Many of our competitors will decline a project with an API they do not know. Others will levy a surcharge on the project to cover the additional work to get familiar with the new code.

If your chosen software has an API we have not seen before, we take responsibility for mastering the process: you will not pay additional costs over our regular integration fees.
Can you work with our customer’s API?
Yes, we can. We facilitate all API integrations – between our customers and us and between you and your customers. We also integrate with APIs for home-grown software just as seamlessly, providing there is documentation.

When your customer needs you to connect to their software through an API, we take care of it. We will pull orders, push shipment tracking information and more with your customer’s application.
 

EDI

Have you connected to my specific trading partner before?
Most likely, as we’re already connected to 650+ retailers and manufacturers in North America. If it’s new to us, we’ll simply add your trading partner. It takes a little longer the first time but there is no additional cost with your flat rate monthly plan.
Can you work with the EDI 753 / 754?
Yes, we frequently do this. Amazon and a handful of other retailers use the 753 / 754 to communicate the routing instructions for shipping an order. Depending on what you and your 3PL have in place, there are two approaches. If possible, we’d simply integrate these transactions with your warehouse or transportation management system. However, many suppliers and their 3PL warehouses don’t have the capabilities to handle 753 / 754 in their software. If that’s the case for you, this is easily handled manually in the retailer’s portal or by using our Commerce Desktop portal.
 

General

How long have you been in business?
Integral Group has been in the EDI business since 1986. We’ve adapted to many changes in technology since then and continue to thrive. We’ll be ready to meet the next EDI challenge in whatever form it takes.
Are you available to participate in a call with my customer?
Absolutely, I’m always pleased to join on a customer call as a subject matter expert. It’s the best of both worlds for your customer; your in-depth knowledge of your products partnered with my ability to answer all the technical questions relating to API and EDI setups. During the call I will typically ask about the technology currently being used to then specifically address how the pieces will fit together. From there we can have a conversation about Integral Group’s technical capabilities and what can be achieved.
 

Integrations

How long will it take to complete my integration project?
In the past you may have experienced this with your former EDI service provider: you awarded them a new project and the salesperson meets the news with excitement and assurances of a timely completion. And then the project moves to their operations department only to languish, especially if it’s a larger EDI company. In those organizations there is often a disconnect between sales and operations and you end up being caught in an open-ended queue, possibly waiting months for your ‘timely completion’. The bigger they are, the less important you become as a customer.

At Integral Group we’re different. We’re smaller, more agile and customer focused. I let a customer know up front how long it will take to complete an integration project. I have ongoing communication with our operations and development teams and all timing commitments are made in collaboration with the people doing the work. We follow a process that was assembled from many years of experience integrating hundreds of different applications for customers. Our approach is to do it right the first time. You can then add more EDI customer connections with confidence.
Can you provide a demo showing how the integration will work with my system?
I get it … you’d like to effectively ‘try before you buy’. And from a technical perspective we could do that. Unfortunately, the economic reality is that creating a demo like that becomes a custom project in-and-of-itself. Add to that, we don’t have configurations and licenses for every piece of software out there – and there are hundreds.

But we can definitely walk you through an integration. We’ll provide you with a general web portal demo showing examples of data that will be coming from your trading partners and elaborate on how this will fit into your system specifically.

Once we have a signed agreement in place and your project is underway, we go through a testing cycle to make sure all the pieces fit together.
Can you integrate with our home-grown system?
Absolutely. You have in-depth knowledge of what is required to integrate EDI with your system. If you prefer a file exchange, we can work with any format that you like: CSV, XML, EDI and even SQL tables. Or, if you have an API, we will code each transaction to your specifications.
We’re moving away from the software we currently use. Can you recommend one you’ve worked with before?
I understand where this question is coming from ... our customers see us as their trusted technical advisors. But, as much as I like to help a customer when they ask, this is one question that I refrain from answering.

We’re experts at EDI integrations, working with APIs and creating custom applications. We work with a lot of software and generally stay abreast of new technology.

However, choosing the best software to run your business can be a complex decision impacting your whole company: goals, cost, technical fit, implementation and user experience. It’s an important decision you are in the best position to make.

I am always happy to be a resource and give you my technical perspective on applications we’ve worked with.
Have you worked with our specific software before?
I defy anyone to claim they've worked with every software. There are just too many, with new ones constantly being introduced.

We have worked with the thousands of combinations of software our customers use – ERP systems, warehouse management systems, shipping systems and more. Yet there are some we haven't seen yet.

Even if we haven't worked with your specific software, as long as there is an API, we can still integrate it.

Many of our competitors surcharge to work on something new to them: We don't. There are no additional costs for the extra effort.
 

Pricing

Do you have an unlimited plan?
The answer to that is yes, but it needs some explanation. Our current 4 levels of service plans were created to capture the common transaction volume bands that we see. The goal is twofold: To offer level options to address most needs and to simplify pricing so our customers don’t have to do complex math to determine what they will pay each month.

If a customer does an exceptionally large volume – for instance, over 100,000 transactions per month - we will create a custom unlimited plan.
What counts as a transaction in your flat-rate plans?
Our flat-rate pricing plans include transactions (500, 1,000, 2,000, 10,000+) depending on the plan level chosen.

One order through EDI can result in an exchange of 3-5 transactions depending on your customer. When your customer sends a purchase order (850), they want a shipment notification (856) and an invoice (810) in return. Some of your customers request a purchase order acknowledgement (855), and others will send you a purchase order change (860), and each of these EDI transactions is acknowledged (997). All these transactions, except the 997, stem from the initial order (850) and are counted against your plan.
Will I pay transaction fees?
You do not pay transaction fees when you are within the limit of your flat-rate plan. If your monthly volumes occasionally exceed your current plan – but are not at the threshold for the next plan level – you will only be charged for the extra transactions when they occur. These one-time costs will be lower than those of a plan that includes more transactions than you need. If there is a consistent increase in your orders so that the next plan level will save you money, you will be moved to that level automatically.
Do I pay for each additional trading partner setup?
The simple answer is ‘no’. At Integral Group new retailer trading partner setups are simply repeating a process we’ve long since established and you don’t need to pay extra for that. There’s still some setup and testing effort involved but that’s included in your flat rate monthly plan.
Our EDI activity is seasonal, does your service plan cover that?
Yes, it does. We have many customers who have seasonal fluctuations, so we’ve designed our service plans to accommodate that. To begin, you’d choose the one of our 4 service plan levels that most closely matches your typical transaction volumes. This, then, becomes your standard flat rate monthly cost. When your volumes move to your high season, rather than move you up to a new plan level, we simply charge you for the transactions over and above your current plan. Once business volumes return to your norm, you automatically revert back to your standard flat rate pricing.

 

Service

How often does your system go down?
I am often perplexed when this question is asked. In fairness, companies are probably used to dealing with down time with their internal systems or current service provider. At Integral Group, we have designed and honed our infrastructure so that it does not go down. Those are big words, but we stand behind them and can back them up.
What support do you offer?
Our goal is to provide support to our customers when and how they need it – at your convenience, not ours. Every customer has access to ongoing and unlimited support. We understand that if you face an issue, it can impact your business, so you need the problem addressed quickly.

When you call our support desk, you’ll speak to one of our specialized team members (yes! a real person). Support requests submitted online are logged and tracked in our ticketing system. We typically respond to tickets within 5 minutes to an hour. In most cases, issues can be resolved during the initial contact. Some issues are more complex, with diagnosis and resolution more involved, but they remain a priority until full resolution and you are kept informed of the status.

Our support line is available 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM eastern time; outside of normal business hours we have on-call support for urgent issues.
Can you handle our volume of transactions?
Yes we can. The reason we can reply definitively to a generic question is that we currently have customers whose monthly transaction volumes run the gamut; from less than 100 to over 100,000. We process tens of millions of transactions each year with ease.

The point here is that our infrastructure is designed to deal effectively and efficiently with all transactions.

Recently, we performed a proof-of-concept test for a prospect looking at our services. We pulled 30,000 orders from their Shopify and integrated all the orders into their ERP system in a matter of eight minutes.

API

Do you have an API?
I find that most customers asking this question want to understand our role as an outsource provider around APIs. APIs facilitate front-end request and back-end response data (transactions) between cloud-based applications in real-time. To enable these transactions, we code to the application-specific API. Our API service connects hundreds of application combinations: ERP, accounting, WMS, TMS, order management & inventory, shipping systems, shopping carts and marketplaces.

If you are looking for your own API, we offer that through our i12 Gateway API™. This custom-built solution is developed, hosted, and managed by us and published under your brand for internal and external distribution.
Can you work with our {software name’s} API?
Yes: Without exception, we will integrate with the software currently in your environment. The only condition is that the software must have a documented API.

Asserting that we will integrate with any software may sound like an exaggeration – but it is a statement of fact. Many of our competitors will decline a project with an API they do not know. Others will levy a surcharge on the project to cover the additional work to get familiar with the new code.

If your chosen software has an API we have not seen before, we take responsibility for mastering the process: you will not pay additional costs over our regular integration fees.
Can you work with our customer’s API?
Yes, we can. We facilitate all API integrations – between our customers and us and between you and your customers. We also integrate with APIs for home-grown software just as seamlessly, providing there is documentation.

When your customer needs you to connect to their software through an API, we take care of it. We will pull orders, push shipment tracking information and more with your customer’s application.

EDI

Have you connected to my specific trading partner before?
Most likely, as we’re already connected to 650+ retailers and manufacturers in North America. If it’s new to us, we’ll simply add your trading partner. It takes a little longer the first time but there is no additional cost with your flat rate monthly plan.
Can you work with the EDI 753 / 754?
Yes, we frequently do this. Amazon and a handful of other retailers use the 753 / 754 to communicate the routing instructions for shipping an order. Depending on what you and your 3PL have in place, there are two approaches. If possible, we’d simply integrate these transactions with your warehouse or transportation management system. However, many suppliers and their 3PL warehouses don’t have the capabilities to handle 753 / 754 in their software. If that’s the case for you, this is easily handled manually in the retailer’s portal or by using our Commerce Desktop portal.

General

How long have you been in business?
Integral Group has been in the EDI business since 1986. We’ve adapted to many changes in technology since then and continue to thrive. We’ll be ready to meet the next EDI challenge in whatever form it takes.
Are you available to participate in a call with my customer?
Absolutely, I’m always pleased to join on a customer call as a subject matter expert. It’s the best of both worlds for your customer; your in-depth knowledge of your products partnered with my ability to answer all the technical questions relating to API and EDI setups. During the call I will typically ask about the technology currently being used to then specifically address how the pieces will fit together. From there we can have a conversation about Integral Group’s technical capabilities and what can be achieved.

Integrations

How long will it take to complete my integration project?
In the past you may have experienced this with your former EDI service provider: you awarded them a new project and the salesperson meets the news with excitement and assurances of a timely completion. And then the project moves to their operations department only to languish, especially if it’s a larger EDI company. In those organizations there is often a disconnect between sales and operations and you end up being caught in an open-ended queue, possibly waiting months for your ‘timely completion’. The bigger they are, the less important you become as a customer.

At Integral Group we’re different. We’re smaller, more agile and customer focused. I let a customer know up front how long it will take to complete an integration project. I have ongoing communication with our operations and development teams and all timing commitments are made in collaboration with the people doing the work. We follow a process that was assembled from many years of experience integrating hundreds of different applications for customers. Our approach is to do it right the first time. You can then add more EDI customer connections with confidence.
Can you provide a demo showing how the integration will work with my system?
I get it … you’d like to effectively ‘try before you buy’. And from a technical perspective we could do that. Unfortunately, the economic reality is that creating a demo like that becomes a custom project in-and-of-itself. Add to that, we don’t have configurations and licenses for every piece of software out there – and there are hundreds.

But we can definitely walk you through an integration. We’ll provide you with a general web portal demo showing examples of data that will be coming from your trading partners and elaborate on how this will fit into your system specifically.

Once we have a signed agreement in place and your project is underway, we go through a testing cycle to make sure all the pieces fit together.
Can you integrate with our home-grown system?
Absolutely. You have in-depth knowledge of what is required to integrate EDI with your system. If you prefer a file exchange, we can work with any format that you like: CSV, XML, EDI and even SQL tables. Or, if you have an API, we will code each transaction to your specifications.
We’re moving away from the software we currently use. Can you recommend one you’ve worked with before?
I understand where this question is coming from ... our customers see us as their trusted technical advisors. But, as much as I like to help a customer when they ask, this is one question that I refrain from answering.

We’re experts at EDI integrations, working with APIs and creating custom applications. We work with a lot of software and generally stay abreast of new technology.

However, choosing the best software to run your business can be a complex decision impacting your whole company: goals, cost, technical fit, implementation and user experience. It’s an important decision you are in the best position to make.

I am always happy to be a resource and give you my technical perspective on applications we’ve worked with.
Have you worked with our specific software before?
I defy anyone to claim they've worked with every software. There are just too many, with new ones constantly being introduced.

We have worked with the thousands of combinations of software our customers use – ERP systems, warehouse management systems, shipping systems and more. Yet there are some we haven't seen yet.

Even if we haven't worked with your specific software, as long as there is an API, we can still integrate it.

Many of our competitors surcharge to work on something new to them: We don't. There are no additional costs for the extra effort.

Pricing

Do you have an unlimited plan?
The answer to that is yes, but it needs some explanation. Our current 4 levels of service plans were created to capture the common transaction volume bands that we see. The goal is twofold: To offer level options to address most needs and to simplify pricing so our customers don’t have to do complex math to determine what they will pay each month.

If a customer does an exceptionally large volume – for instance, over 100,000 transactions per month - we will create a custom unlimited plan.
What counts as a transaction in your flat-rate plans?
Our flat-rate pricing plans include transactions (500, 1,000, 2,000, 10,000+) depending on the plan level chosen.

One order through EDI can result in an exchange of 3-5 transactions depending on your customer. When your customer sends a purchase order (850), they want a shipment notification (856) and an invoice (810) in return. Some of your customers request a purchase order acknowledgement (855), and others will send you a purchase order change (860), and each of these EDI transactions is acknowledged (997). All these transactions, except the 997, stem from the initial order (850) and are counted against your plan.
Will I pay transaction fees?
You do not pay transaction fees when you are within the limit of your flat-rate plan. If your monthly volumes occasionally exceed your current plan – but are not at the threshold for the next plan level – you will only be charged for the extra transactions when they occur. These one-time costs will be lower than those of a plan that includes more transactions than you need. If there is a consistent increase in your orders so that the next plan level will save you money, you will be moved to that level automatically.
Do I pay for each additional trading partner setup?
The simple answer is ‘no’. At Integral Group new retailer trading partner setups are simply repeating a process we’ve long since established and you don’t need to pay extra for that. There’s still some setup and testing effort involved but that’s included in your flat rate monthly plan.
Our EDI activity is seasonal, does your service plan cover that?
Yes, it does. We have many customers who have seasonal fluctuations, so we’ve designed our service plans to accommodate that. To begin, you’d choose the one of our 4 service plan levels that most closely matches your typical transaction volumes. This, then, becomes your standard flat rate monthly cost. When your volumes move to your high season, rather than move you up to a new plan level, we simply charge you for the transactions over and above your current plan. Once business volumes return to your norm, you automatically revert back to your standard flat rate pricing.

Service

How often does your system go down?
I am often perplexed when this question is asked. In fairness, companies are probably used to dealing with down time with their internal systems or current service provider. At Integral Group, we have designed and honed our infrastructure so that it does not go down. Those are big words, but we stand behind them and can back them up.
What support do you offer?
Our goal is to provide support to our customers when and how they need it – at your convenience, not ours. Every customer has access to ongoing and unlimited support. We understand that if you face an issue, it can impact your business, so you need the problem addressed quickly.

When you call our support desk, you’ll speak to one of our specialized team members (yes! a real person). Support requests submitted online are logged and tracked in our ticketing system. We typically respond to tickets within 5 minutes to an hour. In most cases, issues can be resolved during the initial contact. Some issues are more complex, with diagnosis and resolution more involved, but they remain a priority until full resolution and you are kept informed of the status.

Our support line is available 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM eastern time; outside of normal business hours we have on-call support for urgent issues.
Can you handle our volume of transactions?
Yes we can. The reason we can reply definitively to a generic question is that we currently have customers whose monthly transaction volumes run the gamut; from less than 100 to over 100,000. We process tens of millions of transactions each year with ease.

The point here is that our infrastructure is designed to deal effectively and efficiently with all transactions.

Recently, we performed a proof-of-concept test for a prospect looking at our services. We pulled 30,000 orders from their Shopify and integrated all the orders into their ERP system in a matter of eight minutes.
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