Berries encased in ice.

Break free with SimTransIF

Free your SigmaNEST data with SimTransIF bi-directional web API. Easily send MRP /ERP data to SimTrans and receive data from it in near real time, regardless of whether your MRP / ERP system is on-premises or in a cloud or other remote data centre.

“Why would you spend weeks connecting your systems when you can use SimTransIF to achieve the same thing in days? Focus on functionality—not plumbing.”

Overview

SimTransIF is a simple to deploy and simple to use Web API into SigmaTEK's SimTrans product.

It provides a standard and secure method to communicate between your MRP, ERP or custom internal systems and SimTrans across a network—whether that network is local, a private wide area network or the public Internet.

It is ideally suited to cases where some of your systems are in the cloud or another remote data center.

All submitted transactions are supported, as well as SimTrans feedback and logs.

Issues

SimTrans is SigmaTEK's interface between its SigmaNEST suite of products and customer MRP and ERP systems. SigmaTEK provides two methods of interacting with it:

  1. Direct data base access
  2. CSV file transfer

The problems with these approaches are:

  1. Direct data base access:
    • It requires SQL knowledge and it is not always easy to embed SQL into a 3rd party MRP or ERP product.
    • It requires knowledge of the internal data base structures in a data base that has a few hundred tables and the data base tables are more likely to experience change than an external API is.
    • It is only practical if all the components are on a local network. It is not practical if the ERP system, for example, is in a central or cloud data center.
  2. CSV file transfer.
    • This only makes sense if some of the components are not on the same local network as the others. Otherwise, it would make more sense to use the direct data base access.
    • This is a "batch" process, as opposed to a near real-time operation, so immediacy is lost.
    • If one transaction out of the batch fails, it is not always immediately clear which one it is.
    • If an ordered sequence of transactions is submitted, they either all fail if one fails, which holds up all the work, or if some succeed and others do not, then critical steps in the sequence may be lost and this may be difficult to recover from.
    • A method to periodically transfer files to and from SimTrans across a network still has to be devised. This can be particularly troublesome if the MRP or ERP system is running in a cloud service.

Resolution

SimTransIF alleviates these problems:

  1. It provides a simple, industry standard API that can be called from a variety of sources and languages.
  2. It works equally well if everything is on the same computer, the same local network, distributed across a private wide area network or the Internet.
  3. It uses technologies that practically all modern systems can interface with, regardless of the platform they are running on.
  4. The network and security mechanics are almost completely hidden behind the API. They are only a concern on initial configuration and initial configuration is extremely simple.
  5. For practical purposes, the network "disappears".
  6. Data is sent to or retrieved from SimTrans immediately and success or failure is immediately indicated for each transaction.

Architecture

  • There is a Windows service that must be installed on the same local network as the SimTrans database. It is sufficiently low-impact, that it can legitimately be installed on the same physical or virtual machine as the database. There is no messy web configuration and IIS is not required.
  • The client library is required for .Net and Powershell clients and is recommended for Javascript clients. It provides structures for all the SimTrans transactions and handles the mechanics of the web calls for .Net and Powershell clients. In a JavaScript environment, the supplied module provides the transaction structures and API to handle the mechanics of the web calls. Alternatively a library, like jQuery, can be used to actually make the web calls.
  • All network communications are encrypted using standard TLS / SSL.
  • Clients are authenicated with tokens. In a .Net environment tokens are obtained locally. Tokens can also be securely obtained from the server by supplying a shared and encrypted identity.