Create clean external service integrations with Magentos Soap API
Having an inbuilt API system opens your eCommerce website platform to so many possibilities. With a flexible platform like Magento it’s almost limitless.
What can you do with an Magento API system
We can start with something simple: Lets say run an external email followup system like Mailchimp. Wouldn’t it be great for every new customer to your store to be automatically transferred to your followup mail system. Lets take that one step further and take those same customer names share them with your account program, such as; Quickbooks or MYOB.
Things can get really interesting
One of our favourite things is to build external programs that perform tasks and share, create data, import and export adding all sorts of possibilities.
Some programs we have created in the past are; Custom product creators, POS Extensions and dedicated custom systems, Live stock control systems, warehouse stock control connections, Barcode reader connections, multi-vendor systems, highly complex customer management systems and databases.
There is a really nice little extension from Beetailer which allows you to put a store in your Facebook page. It use SOAP API to talk to Magento and export the products to facebook.
How does an API work
APIs are basically usernames and passwords for other programs to access set areas of information from your Magento Store (SOAP/XML-RPC). The API allows the external program to access Magento through controlled ports securely (if under SSL) and either, copy, create, delete, import or export data.
With Magento you can create multiple APIs and limit their access as you need. In practice it is a little more complex, but this is essentially the idea behind SOAP API.
If you want to add additional features to your Magento store drop us an email at info@mebsites.com.au
