Integration of crossbase.office and Navision at Publicare AG

Dättwil, 23/10/2009: Publicare is one of the leading manufacturer-neutral home care companies in the German-speaking region, specializing in stoma, incontinence and wound care. It offers a full range of supplies and accessories from leading manufacturers and its customers include patients, health insurers and hospitals.

In the first joint project between Vanilla crossmedia GmbH in Switzerland and crossbase mediasolution GmbH, Publicare AG is close to project completion. Publicare uses crossbase to manage its extensive product information database and for catalog production. One key requirement was the integration of the crossbase solution in the existing ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics Navision.

A large amount of item master data is maintained in this system and then transferred to crossbase on a daily basis through an automatic XML interface. Certain events are checked upon import, e.g. the event "new item", and the relevant users are notified that there is a task awaiting processing. This might be "Maintain image", "Assign keywords" or "Translate".

So in crossbase, the product data from Navision is enhanced with marketing-relevant information such as images and descriptions. It was important that the text and images be available to Navision users whenever they searched for an item. To achieve this, crossbase.office was integrated in the Navision system, where it can be launched with just a click.

crossbase.office is launched in the background, allowing the user to search for the required item. All text and images associated with the item are then clearly displayed. The user can then copy selected text and images to Word, drag and drop them in other applications or the desktop, or send them by e-mail.

The integration of Navision and crossbase is hugely beneficial to Publicare because it gives Navision users access to marketing content and the marketing team access to up-to-date item master data, which changes on a daily basis.