In general, how are integrations to Vista handled?  Where are they hosted, how much does it cost?

Author: Eric Vasbinder

tl;wr:  Significant improvements to the security posture of Viewpoint's Vista Cloud hosting now prohibit any application other than Vista from being hosted on the Vista server(s) in a customer's cloud environment.  These include, but are not limited to the App Server, Database server, Terminal Server (if applicable), and VRL Proxy server (if applicable).  As such, third party integrations will now, with few exceptions, be supported through external hosting with a VPN connection. 

Any integrations that need to be HOSTED by Viewpoint will require the purchase of a separate server in our environment.

Integration Methods

Viewpoint recognizes that Vista is a powerful solution that is the hub of many organization's operations.  In fact, there are hundreds of third party tools that integrate with Vista, ranging from timekeeping, to financial reporting, to tax updates, and more.  These integrations to Vista can take several forms:

• 1. Integrations through DataXchange / AppXchange (formerly Ryvit).

     1. See this link for more details:  https://appxchange.trimble.com/

  2. Import ONLY Integrations that work through import files manually added into Vista.

     1. No hosting, VPN, or approval is needed for these integrations.

  3. Integrations that speak directly to the Vista database over ODBC.

  4. Integrations that write files to an automatic pickup directory.

Integrations that either need automated access to a "pickup" directory on the Vista server, or to the Vista database itself using SQL or ODBC direct connectivity, have two general mechanisms by which they may integrate to Vista:

• • Option A (VPN) (Default):  An IPSEC VPN tunnel from Viewpoint's cloud to the server where the third party tool is hosted.

    • Usually the third party tool is hosted at the customer site or in the third party's cloud.

  • Option B (HOSTED) (RARE):  Viewpoint hosts the third party component itself in its entirety or a database connector shim that then connects to the third party's solution hosted elsewhere.

    • Rarely approved and rarely used - in cases of specific workflows and / or performance needs only.

In order for these third party tools, also known as integrations, to work with Vista in our cloud, Viewpoint needs to have reviewed how those third party tools work and validate that they meet the stringent security requirements expected of solutions that touch our customer's cloud-hosted ERP data.

See here for information on how to request support for a new third party integration in Viewpoint's cloud.

Costs

First, as a bit of background information, our Vista cloud environment is designed to be single tenant, as Vista itself is a single tenant client-server application.  In fact, each customer’s environment is set up to be a Single Tenant Network using segmented VLANs.  Note that I wrote, “Single Tenant Network”; each customer in our cloud has a completely separate, segmented VLAN for their single-tenant instance of hosted Vista.  This ensures that no one customer can adversely affect the entire infrastructure.

Second, Vista does have REST APIs, such as that provided by our DataXchange / AppXchange solutions.  However, financial data access is currently only possible through direct database connectivity using ODBC, etc.  As such, partners integrate with Vista using either AppXchange / DataXchange OR by data shim connectors that speak ODBC directly to the Vista SQL tables.

• • In some cases, with third party applications hosted on a customer's own network, all that is required is to set up an IPSEC VPN to connect the customer's network to our network.

  • In some cases, the third party system requires the use of a server-side data connector (a.k.a. a shim).  These shims are almost always hosted on an external server, such as the vendor's cloud, or the customer's own Azure instance, and then connected to Vista over an IPSEC VPN tunnel.

    • NOTE:  In the rare instance when a connector must be HOSTED by Viewpoint, it is required to be installed on a separate VM in our DMZ.  See here for pricing and specifics on additional servers.

  • In some rare cases, Viewpoint will need to hosted the entirety of the third party solution, and in a couple of cases, the third party solution needs a full Microsoft SQL server.  Due to Microsoft licensing costs, we need to charge an additional fee for this server.

  • Some of our most complex, HOSTED third-party integrations require two or more servers, including a combination of standard and SQL servers.

    • Examples of two server integrations:  MSI Data and Kofax

NOTE:  Each additional third-party integration that Viewpoint hosts also has a maintenance fee included.  As a result, the total price for a customer to host an integration is a combination of the servers and the app maintenance fee. 

See here for pricing and specifics on the VPN and additional server add-ons. 

IMPORTANT:  These items MUST be listed in your sales order prior to the start of transformation, or delays could be experienced.  A Google Forms/Word Doc survey on the integrations you use with Vista will be sent to you after your contract is signed to ensure you thought of everything during the pre-sales cycle.