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Shopify JSON Mapping

White Paper: Shopify JSON Mapping – Intelligent JSON Mapping for the Shopify Connector.

Abstract

As companies increasingly move their applications to the cloud and leverage web APIs for data exchange, the need for efficient and flexible data mapping becomes critical. Shopify JSON Mapping is an innovative solution designed to address this challenge. It provides a seamless way to map JSON payloads to relevant Business Central data fields from tables such as “Sales Header” and “Sales Line”.

Introduction

The Shopify Connector communicate using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as the data format. While JSON is flexible the Shopify Connectors implementation does not cater to individual mapping of JSON keys to Business Central data fields.

The JSON Mapping Challenge

  1. Schema Changes: Unlike relational databases, where table structures rarely change, JSON schemas evolve frequently. The Shopify Connector does not cater to changes in JSON.
  2. Business Central Changes: Maintaining data models to match evolving JSON structures. This constant upkeep is resource-intensive and error-prone.
  3. Business Central Extensions: Data fields from 3rd party extensions cannot be populated from the JSON Schema.

Introducing Shopify JSON Mapping

Shopify JSON Mapping is a solution specifically tailored for Shopify Connector for Business Central. Here are its key features:

  1. Declaration of JSON Mapping: Users can define JSON Mapping structures once, that will be reused to convert JSON data to Business Central Data fields.
  2. Dynamic Field Mapping: Users can use Shopify JSON Mapping to dynamically maps keys from JSON data payloads to corresponding Business Central data fields.
  3. 3rd party extension fields: When extensions are added to a Business Central data structures change. Shopify JSON Mapping can be used to populate extionsion fields from 3rd party extensions, ensuring robust data handling.
  4. Shopify JSON changes: Shopify JSON Mapping also enables mapping of the JSON data structure and if keys are added, they can be mapped to Business Central data fields.
  5. Action Invocation: After setting up the mapping, Shopify JSON Mapping is triggered from events such as “On After Create Sales Header”, “On After Create Sales Item Line” and “On After Create Sales Shipping Cost Line”.

Use Cases

  1. Base app: Shopify JSON Mapping enables mapping of JSON keys to Business Central base app data fields.
  2. 3rd party: As a Business Central solution evolves with 3rd party apps, Shopify JSON Mapping enables the mapping of JSON keys to data fields that are added from 3rd party extensions without involving developers.
  3. JSON changes: As Shopify and related JSON payloads evolves with, Shopify JSON Mapping enables the mapping of new JSON keys to Business Central data fields without involving developers on the Business Central side.

Conclusion

Shopify JSON Mapping bridges the gap between dynamic JSON payloads and a dynamic data model of Business Central by streamlining JSON to data fields mapping. Shopify JSON Mapping is a valuable tool for efficient data exchange.