The purpose of this article is to present the process of data migration from an easy-to-understand perspective for people without a technical background, who find themselves facing this challenge while using an ERP system.
Data migration is the process by which information is transferred from one software application to another. This can happen in two typical situations: when a company starts using a new application (an ERP, an accounting package, and so on), or when a permanent, ongoing transfer of data between two applications is required — the alternative being to enter the same data twice, manually, in both systems.
The most common scenario: a website and an ERP system
One of the most frequent cases is the permanent transfer of data between a website and an ERP system. In most situations, the website provider is different from the ERP provider, and for good practice, neither of them will directly access the internal data sources maintained by the other. Data still needs to move between the two, however. To make this possible, the data has to be made available to the receiving party through a buffer zone — an intermediate area both parties can reach without touching each other’s core systems. This buffer can take the form of XML, CSV, Excel or plain text (TXT) files. In practice, the data from the website is exported into physical files, placed in a location accessible to both providers, from where the ERP implementer reads and processes them as needed.
This file-based method, however, is being used less and less. Today, data is more commonly transferred through web services — collections of functions that, when called with a specific syntax, extract the required data directly from the source system, on demand, without an intermediate file.
What this means for the ERP implementer
Once the data is returned by these functions, the ERP implementer still has to make use of it. There are many possible approaches here, depending on the programming language involved. Most languages come with predefined functions and syntax for calling a web service and reading its response. This kind of work cannot be done without a programmer — someone who has access to the area of the ERP where custom code can be written, who can read and process the incoming data, and transform it into records the ERP application actually recognizes.
Things become considerably simpler when the ERP vendor provides the implementer with a dedicated software component for data migration or systems integration, instead of leaving everything to custom-built code. Technical and programming knowledge is still required, but development time is much shorter. Beyond faster development, these components typically come with a set of ready-to-use functionalities out of the box: a timer to automatically trigger a data transfer at a set time, and built-in monitoring of import results, so errors don’t go unnoticed.
Integration Framework, in the case of SAP Business One
In the case of SAP Business One — the ERP built for small and medium-sized companies, developed by SAP SE in Germany — the dedicated data migration and integration utility is called the Integration Framework (often referred to as B1if, or by its underlying platform name, B1iP).
Rather than a single-purpose migration tool, the Integration Framework functions as middleware: it acts as a bridge between SAP Business One and virtually any other system a company relies on — other SAP products, third-party applications, mobile apps, cloud services, and even hardware devices. Every integration is defined as a “scenario” — a reusable definition of how data should flow, be transformed, and be validated between systems. Building custom scenarios generally requires some familiarity with XML/XSLT, JavaScript and basic SQL, along with a general understanding of how data is structured inside SAP Business One. That said, a number of standard, ready-to-run scenarios already come out of the box, covering common needs such as connecting to e-commerce platforms, handling Requests for Quotation, or meeting country-specific legal requirements like electronic invoicing.
On the technical side, the Integration Framework supports both SOAP-based and HTTP/RESTful web services, and can exchange data through either of SAP Business One’s two APIs — the classic DI API and, for companies running the HANA version, the Service Layer. It also includes an IoT programming model, which means its reach extends well beyond migrating data between two pieces of software: it has the ability to retrieve data captured directly from sensors — light intensity, temperature, motion — and feed it into SAP Business One as structured, usable records. This makes it just as relevant for connecting factory-floor equipment or smart devices as it is for synchronizing a website with the back office.
Underneath the scenario layer sits the integration platform itself, which takes care of the less visible, but equally important, technical groundwork: parallel processing, load balancing, monitoring, error handling and security. In practice, this means the Integration Framework is built to run reliably and around the clock, not just as a one-time migration tool used during an initial implementation.
More details about the Integration Framework can be found here.
