Accessing Volusion through Crystal Reports

[Former Member]

I am trying to set up the interface between Crystal Reports and the database files on Volusion. Volusion's API program gives me a http: address that ends in WebService.aspx followed by a login, password and then EDI_Name=

When I try to set up; the data connection as "Universal Web Service Connector" it asks for the server, user ID and password, but returns with the message "Failed to open the connection"

If I try to set up the connection as XML and WebServices, I choose Use HTTP Data Sorce and put in the URL that I have been given. It then gets me to the next screen asking for HTTP Parameters.  Add Property is then asking for Property and Value info, neither of which I have. 

Any ideas on how to get these 2 programs connected? Both of their support departments are telling me that it can be done, but neither has any info on how to do it. I would think this would be something that numerous people would need since volusion reporting is horrible unless you are an SQL programmer.

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jim,

Not sure if Volution allows direct access, I had a look at their API set and the extra log on info may be this:

  var api_url = "http://YourUrl/net/WebService.aspx?
  Login=YourEmail@YourDomain.com&
  EncryptedPassword=YourPassword&

In the C# example I found this which could be closer to what the values to add are:

<add key="VOLUSION_BASE_API" value="http://www.yourdomain.com/net/WebService.aspx"/>
<add key="VOLUSION_USER" value="YourLogin"/>
<add key="VOLUSION_PASSWORD" value="YourEncryptedPassword"/>

Try it using the Universal WEB Service Connector also.

Looking at their Developer help it appears they only allow extracting data into XML format and then 3rd party applications can use it as a data source.

Developer &amp;ndash; Volusion Knowledge Base

This may be your only option, of course we don't have access so I can't test or suggest anything else.

And yes, it does appear you need to generate a SQL for your reports. Also appears to be limited to 100 rows of data at a time. Likely to stop users from downloading their entire database which would/could cause performance issues on their server.

So I believe the problem is their is no direct access to the Database, only allowed to run queries which outputs a XML file.

You can report off of XML but how you generate that would be outside of CR.

Look at this link to their site:

https://support.volusion.com/hc/en-us/articles/209098397-GlobalShopex-Integration-With-Volusion-API

I believe the last property is you need to add a query to the connection string, that is likely the EDI_Name= property it's looking for. Which now makes sense, since you can't access the DB directly and browse around the DB you need to pass in the query in the connection string.

So you need to build the query using the tool above and then copy that URL into the connection property for the universal connector.

That's about all I can suggest...

Good luck

Don

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I found a sort of work around. I could never get it to connect directly. When I would try to connect,it would show me the database structure, but as I went to finish and make the connection  it would crash Crystal completely.

What I was able to do was export the databases that I needed to an xml format. Then I used the ADO.net option in crystal to make new connections to each of these xml versions of the data.

I can then connect the databases I need to generate the reports and save them. From there, next time I need to run them, I can just export each of the databases again and refresh the report and it will use the updated data.

Not a great solution, but one that is better than the zero reporting that Volusion provides.

I would believe that someone with more knowledge than me could set up a way to nightly export any new data from Volusion into the xml files but for me this will work now.

The new fun point I am having with this is that Crystal doesn't recognize the $ fields that came from Volusion as numbers so I can total them. (Found this solution with the formula ToNumber({YourTable.YourField})