This Guide is specifically designed to provide insights to clients who are leveraging automated integrations, enabling seamless synchronization of their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with Catalyst. If your organization employs nightly data extractions to maintain this synchronization, this article will enhance your understanding of these automations and their manual management.

Streamlining Data Integration & Ingestion

This article contains the following topics: 

• Defining data integrations and automations
• Data refresh options
• System status and ad-hoc refreshes

Understanding Automated Data Integrations

Automated data integrations are a cornerstone of modern data management. For our clients, these integrations play a pivotal role in ensuring data accuracy and timeliness.

• By setting up automated data integrations, your ERP system communicates with Catalyst, our platform.
• These integrations occur automatically and frequently, typically during overnight periods.
• The main objective is to fetch the latest data from your ERP system and align it with Catalyst, Excel cubes, and the array of relevant reports and schedules.
  

  Note: For data from a given year to flow through to your Catalyst website you must create an actuals scenario for that year. For example, you're starting to book entries or activity to an upcoming year in your source ERP; this data needs a respective scenario in Catalyst to allow the system to ingest that data. Learn more about creating a new scenario here. 

Manually Refreshing Automations

While automated data pulls work seamlessly in most cases, there might be instances where disruptions or failures occur, causing delays in data synchronization. In such scenarios, the most current data might not reflect accurately in Catalyst, Excel cubes, or your reports.

• When facing this situation, you have a couple of options. You can either wait for the system to rectify these discrepancies through the automatic nightly automations, or you can expedite the process by requesting manual intervention from our team.
• Though we can't provide an exact Estimated Time of Delivery (ETD) for manual data repopulation, on average, the process may take anywhere from 1 to 5 hours.

Taking Control: DIY Refresh and System Status

If you're simply looking to update Catalyst or your cubes after making changes, you can certainly initiate manual refreshes. We have resources that can guide you through these refreshes. However, when it comes to integrations and the nightly data automation between your ERP system and Catalyst, hands-on intervention is not recommended.

There is an exception, though...

• If you possess a custom-built Integrations Refresh button on your System Status page, this provides an ad-hoc option. However, please note that this feature is typically not available by default.
• Should you wish to explore this capability further, which is an add-on service, our business team is readily available to discuss costs and potential benefits.

Automated data integrations bring remarkable efficiency to your data management. While some manual control is available for certain refreshes, it's prudent to rely on automated processes for data synchronization. If you're intrigued by the idea of enhanced control through an Integrations Refresh button, our business team is eager to assist.