The last couple of Sage 100 releases have included some nice updates to the Visual Integrator module. While it doesn’t grab big headlines, it’s an important integration tool for companies that manage multiple software applications. So, let’s take a closer look at Visual Integrator.
What is Sage 100 Visual Integrator?
As the name suggests, Visual Integrator is an integration tool that connects your Sage 100 database with other external applications. Many businesses that use Sage 100 also rely on other software to perform specific functions such as point of sale systems for retail stores or medical billing applications for the healthcare industry.
In the past, companies may have had to perform database gymnastics to manually move transactions from an external software application into Sage 100 for accounting, reporting, and other processing. But with Visual Integrator, you can set up a seamless and automated process to import (or export) data from any ODBC-compliant system.
All that without any need for manual intervention such as dumping data to Excel, massaging the spreadsheet for proper formatting, and then importing to Sage 100.
But Wait, That’s Not All ...
While the process of importing or exporting data to and from Sage 100 is simplified with Visual Integrator, the REAL power lies in its ability to execute additional integration commands.
For example, Visual Integrator jobs can be scheduled to run at pre-determined intervals of any length. If you need to keep your Sage 100 customer data synchronized with an external prospect database, you can set the import to run automatically every day, every hour, or even every minute.
Plus, you can run additional commands, scripts, or other functions based on three events: before job start, on job success, or on job failure. What’s more, validation logic is built into Visual Integrator to ensure that the data being imported conforms to Sage 100 data structure and rules.
Other capabilities that may come in handy depending on the complexity of your import/export needs include:
- Import/export user-defined fields
- Chaining of job sequences
- Nesting Logic criteria to select and skip records
- Test and preview of sample data before import
- Much more...
Get Better Connected
If you’re still performing manual import and export routines moving data back and forth with other applications, contact us to learn more about how Visual Integrator can get you better connected with Sage 100.
