Commerce integration
In most organizations, commerce systems are typically not considered the system of record. Organizations most often rely on other legacy business applications and information systems to handle their business processes and data. For example, in most eCommerce implementations, orders placed from a storefront are typically sent to a back office system like an enterprise resources planning (ERP) or an order management system for further order processing. Another common integration scenario is when customer data residing in a CRM or a point of sale (PoS) system needs to be shared with the eCommerce site.
Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) is designed to interact with other external entities as part of ongoing operations. The Commerce Service API supports the execution of Commerce commands through the service endpoint. This section provides information about how you can use the Sitecore XC endpoints to support the exchange of commerce-related data with other business systems, including line of business (LOB) applications and (ERP) systems, or for integration with third party service providers.
In addition to examples based on Sitecore XC RESTful, OData compliant web API, there are also examples that use the Views and Actions API, an authoring API that leverages Commerce Views.
The Views and Actions API is an authoring API designed to service a business user interface and is not optimized for integration scenario.
You should consider the following when using the Views and Actions API for your commerce integration:
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The Views and Actions API can only process one Commerce entity at the time and does not support batch processing.
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The Views and Actions API carries more overhead than the Commerce web service API. A call to the Views and Action API is typically a 3-step process that requires getting the action's view, modifying the view's properties with updated values, and then executing the action.