MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail
Use case 1 - Customer profile sync
Enable a single view of your customer by simplifying connectivity between ERP, CRM, marketing and commerce systems
Overview
- Description
- Glossary
- Solution overview
- Assumptions and constraints
- Workflow
- High-level architecture
- Sequence diagram
- Processing logic
- Successful outcome
Use case extensions
- Customer profile sync from B2C Commerce
- Customer profile sync from Salesforce
- Customer profile sync from Marketing Cloud
- Customer profile sync from SAP
See also
The Customer Profile Sync use case enables retail developers to create a connected view of customer profiles by unlocking customer data from disparate systems. Simplify connectivity between ERP, CRM, marketing and commerce systems with pre-built APIs, connectors, and implementation templates. This solution streamlines manual processes and consolidates profile data, all while securing sensitive information.
Retailers can connect profiles and build an ID graph to enable activities like unsubscribing to all, which is critical for GDPR compliance. Of course, a connected profile also allows employees to deliver meaningful interactions both in-store or online.
Description
The customer profile sync use cases enable the creation and updates of consistent and connected customer profiles across relevant applications, regardless of where the starting point of the customer's journey is. They empower you to meet your customer where they are, across market-leading applications in sales, service, marketing, commerce, and all of your additional touch points.
The customer profile sync achieves the following goals:
- Supports the creation of customer profiles across relevant applications, inclusive of Salesforce Clouds
- Support the creation of Master ID and ID attribution
- Orchestrates controlled profile updates across designated applications
- Accesses customer engagement data across applications
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| MDM | A Master Data Management solution provides an accurate, consistent and complete copy of master data for use by enterprise applications and business partners. Most solutions include data quality tools and workflow processes for managing conflicting updates. |
| CIM | The Cloud Information Model defines a set of standard data structures that can be used as canonical representations of common entities for integrating systems. |
Solution overview
New and updated customer profiles are captured and published from the following systems:
- B2C Commerce Cloud - Customers
- Salesforce (includes B2B Commerce, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud) - Person Accounts (i.e., Accounts with record type Person Account plus associated Account Contact)
- Marketing Cloud - Subscribers
- SAP (on a polled basis) - Customers
Customer profiles published from step 1 will be recorded in MDM first
The MDM master copy will be synchronized with profiles in downstream systems
The master identifier will be recorded in all systems, including the system that published the update (if it was not provided)
CIM entities supported (system agnostic): Party, Individual, Customer, ContactPointAddress, ContactPointEmail, and ContactPointPhone
Primary criteria used to match an existing party in other systems, in order of priority:
- Master identifier
- External identifier specific to target system
- Email Address
- Customer number
- Some systems assign a customer number in addition to the internal identifier, which can be used todistinguish between customers in the same system
- Customer number is not supported by all systems
- Used only when multiple matches on email address are found
- In all systems, a new party will be created if not matched to an existing one or if multiple matches are identified
- Update errors will be reported in the logs and sent to the appropriate dead-letter queue only; no conflict resolution support will be implemented
Assumptions and constraints
- The Cloud Information Model (CIM) will be used as the canonical model for all business types; see the CIM usage guidelines in the Appendix.
- Master identifiers will be maintained in MDM. Wherever possible, these will be assigned as external identifiers in target systems.
- References to the master IDs will be reflected in downstream systems using custom properties to avoid conflicts with the usage of other external identifiers (e.g., global party IDs).
Updates made in Salesforce will be pushed to MuleSoft via the Push Topic technology.
Receive a new or updated customer profile from an external system.
- Attempt to match the input to an existing customer profile in MDM.
- If a match is found, update the existing entry in MDM. If no match is found, create a new entry in MDM.
- Publish the update to downstream systems registered for updates.
High-level architecture
Sequence diagram
The diagram below illustrates the sequence of processing customer profile updates to MDM from any external system.
Processing logic
The primary handling and orchestration of customer updates will be implemented in the Customers Process API. The logic of this process can be described as follows:
MDM updates
Find a matching customer entry in MDM. The lookup will be done by attempting to match on the following criteria, in sequential order, returning once one or more matches have been found:
- Master Identifier (if provided)
- External Identifier (of source system)
- Email Address
- Customer Number (only if multiple matches found at this point)
If a single match is found:
- Retrieve the existing customer and associated individual
- Apply the incoming updates and save them back to MDM
- If not matched on external identifier, associate it with the customer
- Invoke System APIs to update the downstream systems
- Associate missing external identifiers back to the MDM customer
If no match was found, or if multiple matches were found:
- Create a new customer and individual entries in MDM
- Associate external identifier of source system with the customer
- Invoke System APIs to update the downstream systems
- Associate new external identifiers back to MDM customer
Downstream system updates
The replication of customer updates to downstream systems follows a similar process as for MDM. The following steps apply to all downstream systems:
Find a matching customer entry in the target. The lookup will be similar as for MDM but using the following criteria, also in order by priority:
- Primary identifier in target system (if one has been associated)
- Master identifier from MDM
- Email Address
- Customer number
If a single match is found:
- Retrieve the existing customer/individual and apply the incoming updates
- If not matched on master identifier, associate it with the entity
- Save the updates back to the target system
If no match was found, or if multiple matches were found:
- Create a new entity in the target system
- Associate the master identifier with the new entity
- Return the system identifier of the new entity to the parent process
Successful outcome
After successfully completing the update processing for all target systems, the following conditions will be met:
- MDM holds the master copy of the customer, related individual, and contact information
- All target systems will hold at least some minimal representation of the same
- The entity created/updated in each system will reference the master identifier from MDM
- MDM holds a list of all external identifiers associated with the customer and individual
- A 360 degree view of the customer can be constructed by first retrieving the master copy from MDM, and then from all associated downstream systems
Customer profile sync from B2C Commerce
Overview
This use case records updates published from B2C Commerce via the sync cartridge into MDM and other downstream systems.
Before you begin
|
The Accelerators setup guide provides general information on getting started with the accelerator components. This includes instructions on setting up your local workstation for configuring and deploying the applications. |
Workflow
The use case is triggered when
- A customer profile is created or updated in B2C Commerce
- A customer profile is created in B2C Commerce during the order checkout process
A sync cartridge invokes the B2C Commerce Experience API with the customer profile data.
- The B2C Commerce Experience API converts the customer profile data to the CIM format and places it in a queue
The Customers Process API consumes the message from the queue and orchestrates the following by invoking the appropriate system APIs for each system:
- Create or update the customer profile in MDM with an associated master ID.
- Create or update the customer profile in Marketing Cloud with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in SAP ECC with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in Salesforce core (includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and B2B Commerce) with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Update the customer profile in MDM with a list of external IDs that link the customer to their corresponding profiles in B2C Commerce, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, B2B Commerce and SAP ECC
- Update B2C Commerce with the master ID from MDM if it was not part of the customer data from step 2
Sequence diagram
Systems involved
- B2C Commerce
- Marketing Cloud
- MDM
- SAP ECC
- Salesforce
Setup instructions
B2C Commerce configuration
Setup B2C Commerce with the sync cartridge to invoke the B2C Commerce Experience API when a customer profile is created or updated. The custom cartridge needs to be properly installed in the active site by a qualified B2C administrator or developer.
SAP Configuration
Follow the Custom BAPI setup instructions.
Salesforce configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Customers System API to create custom fields and enable Person Accounts.
Marketing Cloud configuration
Please see setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Marketing System API.
MDM configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the MDM System API.
Customer profile sync from Salesforce
Overview
This use case records updates published from Salesforce into MDM and other downstream systems.
Before you begin
|
|
The Accelerators setup guide provides general information on getting started with the accelerator components. This includes instructions on setting up your local workstation for configuring and deploying the applications. |
Workflow
The use case is triggered when
- A Person Account is created or updated in Salesforce
An event is published to the Salesforce push topic which is picked up by the Salesforce Topic Listener with the Customer (Person Account) data.
- The Salesforce Topic Listener converts the Person Account data to the CIM format and places it in a queue
The Customers Process API consumes the message from the queue and orchestrates the following by invoking the appropriate system APIs for each system:
- Create or update the customer profile in MDM with an associated master ID.
- Create or update the customer profile in Marketing Cloud with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in SAP ECC with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in B2C Commerce with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Update the customer profile in MDM with a list of external IDs that link the customer to their corresponding profiles in B2C Commerce, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, B2B Commerce and SAP ECC
- Update Salesforce with the master ID from MDM if it was not part of the person account data from step 2
Sequence diagram
Systems involved
- B2C Commerce
- Marketing Cloud
- MDM
- SAP ECC
- Salesforce
Setup instructions
Salesforce configuration
- Create custom fields as described in the README in the Salesforce Customers System API
- Enable Person Accounts as described here
- Create a push topic on the Account object as described in the README in the Salesforce Topic Listener
SAP Configuration
Follow the Custom BAPI setup instructions.
Marketing Cloud configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Marketing System API.
MDM configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the MDM System API.
Customer profile sync from Marketing Cloud
Overview
This use case records updates published from Marketing Cloud into MDM and other downstream systems.
Before you begin
|
|
The Accelerators setup guide provides general information on getting started with the accelerator components. This includes instructions on setting up your local workstation for configuring and deploying the applications. |
Workflow
- The use case is triggered when a subscriber is created in Marketing Cloud
- An event is published by Marketing Cloud which is picked up by the Salesforce Marketing Listener with the Individual data.
- The Salesforce Marketing Listener converts the individual data to the CIM format and places it in a queue
The Customers Process API consumes the message from the queue and orchestrates the following by invoking the appropriate system APIs for each system:
- Create or update the individual profile in MDM with an associated master ID.
- Update the individual profile in MDM with the external ID that links the individual to the corresponding subscriber profile in Marketing Cloud
- Update Marketing Cloud with the master ID from MDM if it was not part of the individual data from step 2
Sequence diagram
Systems involved
- Marketing Cloud
- MDM
Setup instructions
Marketing Cloud configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Marketing System API.
MDM configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the MDM System API.
Customer profile sync from SAP
Overview
This use case records updates made in SAP via the ERP Customers Process API into MDM and other downstream systems.
Before you begin
|
|
The Accelerators setup guide provides general information on getting started with the accelerator components. This includes instructions on setting up your local workstation for configuring and deploying the applications. |
Workflow
- The ERP Customers Process API polls SAP for customer updates on a periodic basis
- The ERP Customers Process API converts the customer profile data to the CIM format and places it in a queue
The Customers Process API consumes the message from the queue and orchestrates the following by invoking the appropriate system APIs for each system:
- Create or update the customer profile in MDM with an associated master ID.
- Create or update the customer profile in Marketing Cloud with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in SAP ECC with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Create or update the customer profile in Salesforce core (includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and B2B Commerce) with an external ID that links to the master ID in MDM.
- Update the customer profile in MDM with a list of external IDs that link the customer to their corresponding profiles in B2C Commerce, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, B2B Commerce and SAP ECC
- Update B2C Commerce with the master ID from MDM if it was not part of the customer data from step 2
Sequence diagram
Systems involved
- B2C Commerce
- Marketing Cloud
- MDM
- SAP ECC
- Salesforce
Setup instructions
SAP Configuration
Follow the Custom BAPI setup instructions.
Salesforce configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Customers System API to create custom fields and enable Person Accounts.
Marketing Cloud configuration
Please see setup instructions in the README file in the Salesforce Marketing System API.
MDM configuration
Follow the setup instructions in the README file in the MDM System API.
Mule projects
Accelerator System APIs
- B2C Customers System API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- Salesforce Customers System API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- Salesforce Marketing System API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- MDM System API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- SAP ECC Customers System API | API Specification | Implementation Template
Accelerator Process APIs
- Customers Process API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- ERP Customers Process API | API Specification | Implementation Template
Accelerator Experience APIs
- B2C Commerce Experience API | API Specification | Implementation Template
- Salesforce Experience API | API Specification | Implementation Template
Accelerator Listeners
- Salesforce Marketing Listener | Implementation Template
- Salesforce Topic Listener | Implementation Template
Custom components
- B2C Commerce Sync Cartridge | Source