Norbro Energi (formerly Primagaz) is part of SHV Energy, the world's leading supplier of LPG. SHV Energy operates in 25 countries across four continents and has over 30 million customers.
Since 2011, Corpital has supported Norbro Energi’s processes and IT systems (Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics NAV solutions and related system integrations).
Yield
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From work-arounds to "Out of the box"
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Optimised error handling for synchronisation errors
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Improved support for BC and Salesforce functionality.
As a long-term partner, Corpital has in-depth knowledge of Norbro Energi's processes and has been instrumental in designing the architecture of their IT landscape in Scandinavia.
Norbro Energi's primary system landscape consisted of NAV as the ERP system, Salesforce as the CRM solution, and a well-known integration tool. For many years, Corpital has developed and supported all the aforementioned systems for Norbro Energi.
When Norbro Energi needed to upgrade their NAV solution to Microsoft Business Central, Corpital became part of the project team. The new BC solution was to be a shared solution with Benelux and Scandinavia, hosted in Azure.
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Long-standing partner with in-depth knowledge of Norbro Energi’s processes
Claus Heine, IT Manager at Norbro Energi: "I have come to know Corpital very well. As we faced a massive project with great complexity and many external partners, I wanted to use Corpital as a general sparring partner and 'witness to the truth'. They have a great technical overview and are good at asking the right questions.”
Existing integration solution caused problems
In the project, Corpital was primarily to drive the tasks regarding the integration between Business Central and Salesforce, while another European IT provider was responsible for the ERP upgrade itself.
The project was paused for a long period due to complexity. When the project was resumed, it quickly became clear to Corpital that the existing integration tool would be a challenge.
For many years, Norbro Energi had used the integration tool to exchange data between NAV and Salesforce. In recent years, however, the integration has continuously caused problems in daily operations and generally seemed vulnerable.
The issue with the integration tool was that if there was invalid data in the data stream that was not accepted by Salesforce or NAV, the integration between the two systems stopped.
Since Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is even more stringent regarding data, the existing integration tool would only create further daily challenges. Norbro Energi would potentially experience more integration stops than before. Furthermore, Norbro Energi found that synchronisation after a stop started from the very beginning and created duplicates.
Claus Heine: “We have on several occasions experienced downtime, which has created great insecurity in our organisation. Corpital has always been able to help, but the prospect of more integration stops was not acceptable, and therefore we chose to look at other integration tools midway through the project.”
OneLink 365 for Salesforce - “Built Inside” Business Central
The choice fell on OneLink 365 for Salesforce, which is built inside Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. This means that the data exchange itself happens directly between Business Central and Salesforce - i.e. without data having to pass through a third-party provider's data centre.
The great benefit for Norbro Energi is that the data exchange engine does not stop at invalid data. The invalid data is simply skipped, and the remaining data exchange continues.
Data that is not synchronised is written in a log, which is monitored and handled. There is also the possibility of sending an email to one or more persons with these errors in real time.
Claus Heine, IT Manager at Norbro Energi: “The transition to the new Business Central and OneLink 365 for Salesforce has gone very well, and I am very satisfied with Corpital's efforts in connection with the project.”
From “workarounds” to “Out of the box”
In the existing NAV solution, a number of “workarounds” had been coded so that the integration with Salesforce could support Norbro Energi's business. By replacing the integration engine with OneLink 365 for Salesforce, we have removed all “workarounds”. For example:
- Ship-to: Previously, the logic was hardcoded in NAV to handle multiple ship-to addresses for the same customers. In the new setup, this is solved via configuration of standard flows in Salesforce.
- Owner / Salesperson: Similarly, logic regarding record ownership has been placed into flows in Salesforce. This means it is no longer necessary to have complicated logic in the integration engine to handle, for example, a change of salespersons. Furthermore, a Salesforce administrator can now, with a simple tick, determine who should be the default owner if necessary.
A number of new opportunities for process optimisation have now opened up, which in the long run will benefit individual employees.
Data flows freely between Business Central and Salesforce
Today, data and processes flow naturally between the two systems using OneLink 365 for Salesforce. Employees can trust the data, whether working in Business Central or Salesforce, and daily life has become simpler.
References
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