Leverage the Internet to integrate enterprise and partner business processes

BuyDesign® Web Services provides an infrastructure for extended functionality available to distributed BuyDesign users when they are connected online. For example, web services may include the ability to:

• Automatically submit orders once a BuyDesign user has placed them in their desktop system
• Check for inventory availability
• Perform a credit check
• Request specific content that may not be available on the local installation

The BuyDesign Web Services architecture is designed to be extensible with plug-in objects to provide functionality that is specific to your organization.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

BuyDesign Web Services also provide the infrastructure for a service oriented architecture (SOA) to support your business processes. For example, as part of submitting an order, your process may require a credit check from your back-end system, a shipping address verification to ensure a valid address, and a tax rate check for the current tax rate in the ship-to area. The first item might utilize a built-in BuyDesign Web Service, while the latter two items may be accomplished by subscribing to other web service providers. The BuyDesign Web Service client can be setup to automatically trigger this business process when an order is placed.

BuyDesign Web Services incorporate security and performance features such as:

• Extensions to ensure access only by authorized applications and users
• Data encryption to ensure it is not intercepted during Internet delivery.
• Data compression during transport to minimize bandwidth usage and make the process responsive to the end-user.