Connecting Boltrics 3PL Dynamics to your supply chain
Your warehouse runs on 3PL Dynamics, while your transport and your clients use other systems. We connect them through the Boltrics DataHub, so orders, stock and shipments flow through automatically.
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Boltrics connected to the rest of your supply chain
Do you use Boltrics 3PL Dynamics, the WMS built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? We integrate it with your TMS, your carriers and your clients’ systems. Orders, advance notices, stock, shipments and statuses then move back and forth automatically, without Excel lists or retyping.
Boltrics has a clear policy: every integration with 3PL Dynamics runs through the DataHub, Boltrics’ own integration platform. We work within that policy. We deliver messages to the DataHub in the format Boltrics expects, pick up the messages it sends out, and build the side of your TMS, carrier or client.
This keeps your 3PL Dynamics environment clean and upgradeable, and you can be sure the integration keeps working after a Boltrics update. See also how we integrate your WMS with your TMS.
What Boltrics offers for an integration
The DataHub as the central hub
All message flows run through the Boltrics DataHub: one place for translation, routing, monitoring and error handling. Boltrics does not support direct integrations straight onto the ERP.
Four message formats
The DataHub can work with JSON, XML, EDIFACT and CSV, so the other party’s format is rarely the problem.
Common connection methods
Messages can be exchanged via REST API, SOAP, AS2 and SFTP. Plain FTP is not among them, and rightly so.
Available as standard
Boltrics already offers standard integrations with accounting packages such as Twinfield, Exact Online, AFAS and Unit4, and with customs, Portbase and Cargonaut. We do not rebuild those.
What we connect to Boltrics
- Your clients’ orders into 3PL Dynamics, as inbound or outbound orders, via EDI, API, a webshop or a file.
- Advance shipping notices (ASN) and receipt confirmations, so an inbound delivery is ready before the lorry reaches the dock.
- Stock levels and movements to your clients, into their ERP, webshop or portal.
- Shipments to your TMS or to a carrier, with statuses and POD coming back. See carrier integration.
- Integrations with your own TMS, if you also run transport yourself, for example Mendrix, Transpas or Qargo.
What to plan for with Boltrics
Every package has its own rules. These are the points that, with Boltrics, make the difference between an integration that keeps running and one that stalls every now and then. We take them into account from day one.
Agreements about the DataHub
Because everything runs through the DataHub, Boltrics is involved in every integration. We agree up front who does which part: the mapping, the configuration in the DataHub and the partner’s side.
The process must exist in 3PL Dynamics
An integration automates a process that already exists. If a step does not yet exist in 3PL Dynamics, such as a particular way of receiving goods, it has to be set up first.
A message specification per flow
Boltrics works with a message specification for each flow, often a MIG from the partner or a Boltrics template. If your client or carrier does not have one, we draw it up.
Testing with real messages
Sample and test messages from the partner are needed for validation. The sooner they are available, the sooner the integration goes live.
A 3PL connects its client and its carrier to 3PL Dynamics
Take a logistics service provider that receives orders from a webshop client by email and outsources transport to a carrier with its own TMS. The warehouse itself already runs on 3PL Dynamics.
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01
The webshop’s orders come in via an API. We translate them into the outbound message the DataHub expects, and the order is ready for picking in 3PL Dynamics.
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02
Once the order is reported as completed, the DataHub prepares a transport message. We turn it into an order for the carrier’s TMS.
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03
The carrier’s statuses come back through the DataHub into 3PL Dynamics, and the track & trace code is passed on to the webshop.
From webshop order to delivery status without retyping, with every message visible in one place in the DataHub.
Arian Masselink, Enschede
I own Transportkoppeling and build the integrations myself. So you don't talk to an account manager, but directly to the person who designs and builds your Boltrics integration and then keeps an eye on it.
Using Boltrics? Call Arian.
You speak straight away to the person who builds your integration. No salesperson and no call centre: within ten minutes you know whether and how your integration can be done.
Or email contact@transportkoppeling.nl
Useful to have to hand
- Which version of Boltrics you use
- Which customer, carrier or system you want to connect to
- How it works today: email, Excel, a portal or retyping by hand
Boltrics integration in brief
Do you work together with Boltrics?
We work within Boltrics’ policy: all integrations run through the DataHub. For each project we agree what Boltrics does and what we do, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Can an integration work without the DataHub?
Boltrics does not support direct integrations straight onto the ERP. Anyone who builds one anyway is responsible for its design, build and maintenance. We advise against it and work through the DataHub.
Which messages can you integrate?
In practice, all the usual flows of a logistics service provider: orders, advance notices, receipt and dispatch confirmations, stock, shipments and statuses, and invoicing data.
Who maintains the integration after go-live?
We maintain our side of the integration and the connection with your partners. The DataHub itself is managed by Boltrics.
Other packages we integrate
Connecting Boltrics to your clients and carriers?
Book an introductory call without obligation. Together we look at your systems and partners, and at what an integration will deliver for you.