Resolving File Import/Export Dilemmas
By Linda Christie

Migrating data between various software packages can be extremely challenging. "One of the biggest mistakes we made in purchasing our component software was not looking at import/export capabilities," said Chris Bolton, President of FlashPoint Innovations, Ltd., an industrial supplier of gamma ray scintillation detector crystals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. "So, we ended up with an accounting software package that didn't talk to our inventory software, customer contact software, or online web-enabled applications. Consequently we had to manually enter information three or four times--a process that's time consuming and introduces mistakes."

"Likewise, if we tried to export paragraphs of text from our Web database into our contact management software, every time it detected a comma, it wanted to delimit a field," Bolton added.

To avoid the expense of replacing their software with products capable of importing and exporting standard file formats, FlashPoint investigated using XML messaging solutions to communicate information between the different packages. However, they soon discovered it would cost from $150-200 per hour to customize the interfaces--a process that conceivably would have to be repeated with every software upgrade.

"Fortunately we found an order fulfillment Application Service Provider (ASP) that provides software solutions that can talk to anything," Bolton said. "PreferSoft's eControlOrders was designed from the ground up to integrate with accounting software such as Great Plains, AccPac, and Solomon, and their eControlCustomers package talks to all the major contact databases such as Maximizer, Lotus Notes, Outlook, Goldmine, and Act!"

"Using an ASP that can solve many of our software compatibility problems--from online catalog ordering to back-end integration--has lowered our cost of operations, sped up our order processing, and freed up our time to grow our business and serve our customers."

Companies adopting e-business solutions should purchase online, front-end, and backend software packages capable of exchanging data. If not, they face the same dilemma as FlashPoint: face customizing expensive messaging solutions to eliminate reentering data, or look for some less expensive solution.

Linda Gail Christie is a contributing editor, based out of Tulsa, Okla.