Avalara's TTR (Transaction Tax Resources)

Note:  Avalara acquired Transaction Tax Resources (TTR) in Q4 2020

Author: Eric Vasbinder  

Support Status:  APPROVED

Integration Method:  ODBC Direct Database

Connection Methods:

• PREFERRED:  TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN)

• IPSEC VPN

Hosted:  NO

Hosting Location:  EXTERNALLY to customer on-premise server and clients, connected over TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or IPSEC VPN.

Additional Charge:  NO (VPN add-on included in every cloud contract by default - if not on your contract, additional charge will be required to add VPNs)

Vendor URL:   https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/content-data-and-insights/avalara-tax-research.html

Product Use Case:

Avalara's Tax Research, formerly Transaction Tax Research (TTR), provides a solution that automatically calculates Sales Tax impact on jobs and costs for our Vista and Spectrum customers, reducing the burden of tracking local tax rates.

Similar Products:

None known at this time.

Description: 

As per many other server-side integrations to third-party products, this product is designed to talk to Vista's database directly using ODBC.  This connection requires that the Vista server be "visible" to the third party system.  To ensure that the two systems can communicate, we set up either a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or a site to site IPSEC VPN between our cloud and the customer environment.

Deployment Methodology:

We do not support hosting of this product in our cloud.  As such, the customer must continue to host the actual program (i.e. "bits") in either their on-premise environment or in another cloud.  As a result, since this product and Vista will be on separate networks, a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or IPSEC VPN is needed to bridge the gap between the two networks.

Detailed Instructions:

• 1. Stand up remote connectivity to our cloud:

     1. (PREFERRED) TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) with the remote, public, static IP of the vendor's cloud added to the pre-approved list for the customer's environment:  TLS Database Endpoint 

        1.  OR

     2. IPSEC VPN between hosting location of third party product and customer's Vista environment in our cloud:  How do I set up an IPSEC VPN to access my Vista database directly?

  2. Create SQL account to allow third-party to authenticate to Vista:  I need a dedicated SQL account for my integration to Vista in your cloud. How do I set that up?

  3. Configure the third-party solution to talk to the IP address of the new Vista server in our cloud.

tl;dr:  Customers who need to integrate Avalara's TTR tax solution with Vista in our cloud need to host it on their local systems and set up a connection to Vista using either a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or an IPSEC VPN.  Once configured and in place, we stand up a SQL account to allow TTR to communicate to Vista, then configure TTR to point to the new IP address of Vista in the cloud.