PunchOut Catalog

[mjhaston]

Has anyone been tasked with integrating with a PunchOut system? It seems we can integrate via our website and plug-ins ... or we don't need the website as the middleman and can make calls to and from our IBM i. Wondering if anyone has gone down this road (either way) yet?

[JonBoy]

Can't see anything on their web site that references their APIs but if they are like most similar platforms it will be via JSON based REST services. Those can be handled easily via HTTPAPI or a number of similar approaches including IBM's IWS stuff - maybe even directly via SQL depending on the complexity and your pain tolerance.

[mjhaston]

Yeah, they supposedly can use cXML, JSON or EDI to pass data back and forth. I was able to XML-INTO a sample cXML PO without too much effort. We already make quite a few REST and SOAP calls, so I'm thinking we could "roll our own" here if we want to!

[JonBoy]

I'd go JSON if you have the choice. DATA-INTO with YAJLINTO is every bit as easy to use as XML-INTO and Scott's YAJL library also provides a good JSON generator which makes building the requests quite simple.

[mjhaston]

Yep. I always choose JSON over XML if I have the choice. I haven't tried out DATA-INTO with YAJLINTO just yet, but I use YAJL pretty heavily. I also use Scott's HTTPAPI. I've tried the new httpPostGlob SQL functions and they work really well, unless you're running Java somewhere else in your job. I think you figured that issue out for me!