Distributed order management depends on the coordination of many different operation teams and technologies. As operations scale, demand for faster communication increases and for integrations that means real time, reliable movement of transactions from one system to another.
Until now HotWax Commerce integrations ensured reliable and auditable workflows by using batch data processing. This allowed technology admins to easily configure syncs to their specific needs and troubleshoot odd edge cases, like a customer using a butterfly emoji in their billing address. When order volume spikes during peak seasons, batch jobs allow Shopify and HotWax to share and process data at their convenience with the goal of eventual consistency even if any system suffers downtime.
To ensure our real-time integrations retain benefits that retailers love about job based syncs, HotWax Commerce will use a sophisticated message-based integration architecture available to retailers on any tier of HotWax Commerce.
Real-time integrations fundamentally have two roles, a publisher and a receiver. In the case of new order sync from Shopify to HotWax, Shopify publishes real time webhooks that include the details about the order created. HotWax Commerce doesn’t simply subscribe its create order process to this webhook because during times of peak order volume, the order creation rate may exceed the OMS’s rate limit for API calls. To ensure the real time order creation process remains reliable at high volume, HotWax Commerce leverages Shopify’s integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to capture and store all new orders published by Shopify. A second processor in HotWax’s integration layer pushes orders from AWS to HotWax OMS at the maximum intake rate allowed.
All errors caused by odd edge cases in customer information are still stored in an easy to review error log for administrators to review and resolve just like job based flows. Retailers using real-time HotWax integrations with Shopify can still rely on batch jobs to back up essential flows while benefiting from real-time data sync. When both real-time and job based flows are enabled for a process, HotWax automatically deduplicates records to prevent data corruption.
To begin using real-time each out to our support team at support@hotwax.co or your dedicated account manager.
