Any integration added to an account will be automatically synchronised. Adding e.g. a product sync integration to Amazon will tell CrescoData to publish any new products on the account automatically to Amazon. This is done in real-time. 

Additional integrations can be added to publish a product to other channels as well.

 

If an integration is added to retrieve data, the CrescoData platform will, depending on the channel, either automatically connect to that channel to check for updates, or subscribe to real-time events if this is support by the specified channel.

 

For example, Amazon could also be setup as a product sync source whereby the CrescoData platform would regularly check for updates in the product catalog.

 

For CrescoData integration partners, integrations can be added to check the source system regularly for product updates. Alternatively, real-time notifications can be sent to the CrescoData API.

Data flows - Real-time events

For CrescoData integration partners that would like to send updates in real-time, rather than offering an API that CrescoData can regularly check for updates, a range of APIs is available depending on the format and authentication. These are specified in the APIs section of the developer guide.

 

Real-time notifications that are sent to CrescoData, e.g. product updates, will be published to all connected channels of the account in real-time - keeping channel-specific throttling rates in mind.

 

Please note 

The speed it takes for products to go live on channels then only depends on channel api throttling rates that our platform follows automatically and channel review QA times, i.e. Zalora reviews products before putting them live. CrescoData monitors for this feedback which is available in our management portal and via the API as well.

 

Considerations 

 

Once your platform is connected to the CrescoData Platform for Product and Order Sync you can also use The CrescoData Product Importer to import and on-board new merchants who are on supported platforms for example Shopify or Amazon thus minimising on-boarding time and removing manual work

 

Features - Overwrites

Rules in the CrescoData platform are applied through overwrites. The standard record is stored and would apply as a default to all channels that are setup for the specified account.

 

It is possible to specify overwrites for any attribute of any sync type.

 

It is, for example, possible to setup a product with a default title and price which would be used for all channels. But add overwrites to change the title and price for Amazon but not the other channels.

 

The CrescoData demo api client includes samples of how this can be achieved and what format the overwrites take in the payload.

Features - Scheduled updates

For any sync type, i.e. orders, products and prices, records can be sent to the CrescoData API or automatically be retrieved on a schedule by the CrescoData platform.

 

Usually, any record that arrives in the CrecsoData platform is first checked for changes. If no changes are detected, the record is simply recorded as unchanged and no further steps are taken. If a change is detected, the record is processed and distributed to all connected channels.

 

This does however require source records to change for an update to be processed. To run scheduled updates without the source record changing, it is possible to specify a refresh time for every record at which point the record will be loaded from it’s last source version and re-processed automatically. This can include multiple schedules and is setup on a per-record basis as part of the payload provided.

 

An example of when this might be useful is scheduled price promotions. On many channels, promotions cannot overlap meaning one product can only have one standard and one sale price. However, source records might include a list of overlapping promotions which means the channel will need to be updated at certain intervals without the source record changing.

 

Specifying updates times is part of the CML (Cresco-Mapping-Language).