RConnect is a REST server on top of the Retail Pro database. Starting out as a script server intended to provide maximum access to the Retail Pro 8 and 9 plug-in interfaces, its REST interface builds on that to give developers a simple means of accessing Retail Pro's data. The intention is to provide access to any business object surfaced by the plug-in interface and, where called for, to maximize performance by using direct read-only access to any table or view used by Retail Pro.

RConnect, and its sister products RSignal and RFeed, are designed to facilitate a strong, cohesive, stable, integration between disparate systems.

V8 and V9

You've probably got a collection of old CDs, records, tapes, whatever, laying in a closet somewhere collecting dust. If you could have the entire collection digitized in one pass, would you do it?

Now imagine your V8 and V9 databases are suddenly directly accessible using web application technologies for shopping carts, online reports, integrations with off-the-shelf, market-leading, data management solutions, etc., simply by installing one application. Imagine writing network appliances in C#, Java, Ruby, Perl, Go, Angular, Node.js -- you name it -- and accessing the V8 or V9 data using Retail Pro's internal business rules. All the power, no risk, and you saved months of development time.

RConnect's REST Treatment

RConnect expresses each BO accessible through the Retail Pro plug-in API as a resource, accepting requests that detail the attributes to retrieve, the filters to be applied, the sort order to use, the format used for the request and response, and the maximum number of rows to return. It supports the following operations, mapped to HTTP verbs: Create=POST, Read=GET, Update=PUT, and Delete=DELETE.

So that a given request to read customers who last made a purchase on January 1st, 2019, might look something like this:

https://myserver/customer?cols=id,lastname,firstname&filters=lastsale,eq,2019-01-01%2000:00:00

RConnect's Script Server

The script server implements a very simple macro language that gives direct access to the plug-in API, allowing a developer to implement complex behaviors and execute them on the server.

Additionally, RConnect is designed to talk to other RConnect servers as a network. Scripts can be broadcast and the results aggregated and acted upon by the requester. Each RConnect acts as a separate, powerful node, with the capability of multiprocessing transactional analysis across the enterprise.

RFeed: ETL for Retail Pro 9

RFeed is TGE Software's one-size fits (nearly) all automated uploader for all Retail Pro data.

Constructed similarly to our other connectors, you can set up multiple feeds to independent endpoints, pulling data and formatting it uniquely for each feed. And like our other connectors, RFeed is designed to give you, your Retail Pro Business Partner, and TGE Software alerts when there are problems with the ETL process so we can proactively contact you to triage the issue. This is the tool of choice for doing complex data extractions as easily as possible.

RSignal: Event Signals

RSignal is designed to transmit messages to any endpoint, in any format, to describe changes to the Retail Pro database in real time.

On systems that need to be aware of changes to customer, inventory, transaction, and order data as soon as it happens, this system can send messages formatted to your specification describing the change that occurred.

Development and Bundling

If you don't have a Retail Pro instance on which to develop your integration, we have RConnect test servers that you can use to develop your products.

Once your integration is tested and ready to deploy, contact us about bundling RConnect with your product for single-pass installation.

The following links allow you to download the installer for RConnect for Retail Pro 9, Retail Pro 8, RConnect Lite for Retail Pro 9, and the GTest utility documentation. All versions require that a test license be set up by TGE Software personnel.

Contact TGE Software for test licenses, access to our internet accessible test server, and to see an online live demo of RConnect.

Inside the Zip files are installers. Run the setup, follow the directions, and if you run into any issues, feel free to contact us.

Click here when you're ready to purchase a license subscription for RConnect.

Also keep TGE Software in mind for all your software customization needs. We build plug-ins and utilities for Retail Pro 8, Retail Pro 9, and we can help you migrate your customizations to Retail Pro Prism.