Microsoft Dynamics NAV Connector for Shopware

Role: Integration specialist
Year: 2021
Technologies: PHP, Shopware 5, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SOAP, RabbitMQ

Complete rewrite of a Microsoft Dynamics NAV connector for Shopware 5 — bidirectional customer and order sync, unidirectional product sync, built on CQRS with RabbitMQ queueing and a full audit trail.

The challenge

Reliably synchronising customers, products and orders between Shopware 5 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV with different directionality per domain — resilient to outages and loosely coupled so neither system blocks the other.

My role

Complete rewrite of the Dynamics NAV synchronisation as integration specialist: a CQRS architecture with RabbitMQ queueing, SOAP communication and a full audit trail, loosely coupled to Shopware 5.

The outcome

Dependable, near real-time data exchange — bidirectional customer and order sync, unidirectional product sync — that eliminated the gaps and manual reconciliation of the previous partial sync and scales with order volume.

Context

A merchant running Shopware 5 used Microsoft Dynamics NAV — formerly Navision, today Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central — as their ERP system of record for customers, products and orders. An existing connector synchronised only part of that data between Shopware and Dynamics NAV, leaving gaps that forced staff to reconcile records manually and undermined confidence in both systems.

Challenge

The integration had to reliably synchronise three domains with different directionality: customers bidirectionally, products one-way from Dynamics NAV into Shopware, and orders — with all their line-item and address data — bidirectionally. It needed to guarantee data integrity under load, stay resilient to ERP or network downtime, and remain loosely coupled so that neither system could block the other. The legacy partial synchronisation offered none of these guarantees.

Approach

I performed a complete rewrite of the Dynamics NAV synchronisation. The architecture follows the CQRS pattern, separating read and write concerns, with RabbitMQ message queues decoupling Shopware from Dynamics NAV so each side processes at its own pace and survives outages without losing data. Every synchronisation operation is recorded in a complete audit trail, making data flows fully traceable and debuggable. The connector communicates with Dynamics NAV over SOAP and is loosely coupled to Shopware 5, keeping the storefront responsive even during heavy ERP traffic.

Outcome

The rewritten Microsoft Dynamics NAV connector delivers dependable, near real-time data exchange between Shopware and Dynamics NAV: bidirectional customer and order synchronisation, unidirectional product sync, and a full audit trail. The queue-based, CQRS design eliminated the gaps and manual reconciliation of the previous partial sync, giving the merchant a robust Shopware–Dynamics NAV ERP integration that scales with order volume.