Integration Methods (API, file transfer, etc.)
This document focuses on Yellow Dog's Fetch API as a means to integrate your own POS with Yellow Dog's Inventory system. You may also wish to consider the following alternatives to the Fetch API approach:
- There are tools to exchange data via CSV files. For example, Yellow Dog's Sales Sync.
- If you have your own API, Yellow Dog may be able to build a custom integration for your POS.
Contact sales@yellowdogsoftware.com to discuss your options.
Integration Types (one-way vs. two-way)
All POS integrations need to submit sales to Yellow Dog so that their impact on inventory can be computed. The difference between one-way and two-way integration is how the POS and Yellow Dog come to agree on which inventory items are affected by each sales transaction.
In one-way integrations, the client creates items both in the POS and in Yellow Dog. When the POS provides sales data to Yellow Dog, there are two potential methods for matching the POS items to the Yellow Dog items:
- Matching on Yellow Dog's SKU or UPC for the item. a. This is commonly used in Retail and Concessions operations. b. This requires that the POS and Yellow Dog share the agreed upon codes for the integration so that the POS presents the Yellow Dog SKU or UPC as the SKU in the sales data. c. The client will be responsible for ensuring that the required codes match between the two systems.
- Mapping the POS item to a recipe in Yellow Dog. a. This is commonly used in F&B operations. b. This requires that the POS provide their item identifier as the ItemNumber in the sales data. c. The client will be responsible for assigning the appropriate recipe in Yellow Dog to the POS item in Yellow Dog's UI. The POS items will be available in this UI after the sales data has been provided to Yellow Dog.
In two-way integrations, the POS asks Yellow Dog for all relevant item data before it is made available for sale. The POS can then refer to those items using Yellow Dog's own identifiers thus saving the client from some of the manual labor involved in a one-way integration.
Both One-Way and Two-Way POS integrations submit sales transactions to Yellow Dog for computing the impact of sales on inventory.
Two-Way POS integrations assume that Yellow Dog will serve as the source of truth for item data. When a POS pulls item data from Yellow Dog, it will be able to refer to items using Yellow Dog's item identifiers such as sku, upc, or item.id. The POS may also define requirements to add POS specific information to the item data via Third Party Codes / Interfaces.