Which direction does data move between Plex and Fishbowl Advanced?

The main flow is Plex into Fishbowl Advanced. Purchase orders, suppliers, parts, and inventory levels flow from Plex cloud into the Fishbowl on-premise system. The integration reads from Fishbowl to detect inventory adjustments and can write those back to Plex if configured. Plex GL accounts are not synced because Fishbowl Advanced is inventory-focused and does not expose GL posting.

How does the integration handle Plex OAuth2 and Fishbowl session tokens?

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted. Plex OAuth2 client ID and secret are used to request a Bearer token on each poll, and the token is cached and refreshed before expiry. Fishbowl login credentials (username, password, appName, appDescription, appId) are sent to the customer's server to obtain a session token, which is also cached and refreshed when it expires. Both tokens are managed transparently across retries.

What networking setup does Fishbowl Advanced on-premise require?

Fishbowl Advanced runs on a customer-hosted server at a URL like http://{FISHBOWL_SERVER}:2456/api. The customer must supply the server URL and open outbound https from the ml-connector environment to that server. If the on-premise system is on a private network, the customer firewall must whitelist the integration's IP range or allow outbound traffic to the server address and port.

PlexFishbowl

Plex and Fishbowl integration

Plex runs manufacturing operations and financials on the cloud. Fishbowl Advanced runs on-premise inventory management for the same manufacturer. Connecting them keeps purchase orders, part numbers, and stock levels in agreement across both systems. When Plex receives a new supplier invoice or updates a part cost, Fishbowl reflects the change without re-entry. When Fishbowl counts physical inventory, Plex sees the adjustment without a manual upload.

How Plex works

Plex exposes suppliers, purchase orders, purchase order releases, invoices, sales orders, parts, inventory, GL accounts, and payments through REST APIs at https://cloud.plex.com/api, authenticated with OAuth2 client credentials and Bearer token headers. Plex also supports legacy SOAP Web Services with Basic auth using a username, password, and company code (PCN). The cloud product does not offer native webhooks, so integration requires polling on a configurable schedule with filtering by modified_date or created_date. Rate limits are not publicly documented, so backoff with exponential retry on HTTP 429. Finance entities are less documented than manufacturing, so some reporting integrations rely on SFTP DataSources extracts for historical bulk loads.

How Fishbowl works

Fishbowl Advanced runs on-premise and exposes purchase orders, sales orders, vendors, parts, inventory, manufacturing orders, payments, and customers through a REST API. The integration calls a customer-supplied server URL (typically http://{FISHBOWL_SERVER}:2456/api) with a session token obtained by login with username, password, appName, appDescription, and appId. Every request includes the Bearer token in the Authorization header. Fishbowl Advanced does not expose GL accounts or support webhook pushes, so integration is read-heavy and requires polling with no documented rate limit.

What moves between them

The main flow runs from Plex into Fishbowl Advanced. Purchase orders, purchase order releases, and supplier data from Plex are read on a 5-15 minute polling schedule and inserted or updated in Fishbowl as new purchase orders and vendors. Part master records including part numbers, descriptions, and cost are synced from Plex to Fishbowl so the inventory system reflects the same bill of materials. Inventory levels can flow both directions: Plex supplies initial stocking levels from Plex inventory records, and Fishbowl adjustments can be read back into Plex on a separate schedule if the customer chooses.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted: Plex OAuth2 client ID and secret are refreshed on each poll request, and Fishbowl login credentials are used to obtain a session token that is cached and refreshed when it expires. Plex API calls are filtered by created_date and modified_date to detect only new or changed records since the last poll. Supplier records are matched to Fishbowl vendors by Plex supplier ID mapped to Fishbowl vendor external reference, so a Plex supplier update finds the right vendor in Fishbowl. Purchase order line items flow into Fishbowl purchase orders with the part number and cost from Plex so the on-premise system has the authoritative pricing. If a Plex API call returns HTTP 429 (rate limit), ml-connector backs off exponentially and retries. Because Fishbowl is on-premise, the integration opens outbound https to the customer's server URL, which the customer must whitelist in their firewall. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a downstream call fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized aerospace parts supplier runs Plex cloud ERP for purchasing, inventory, and financial close, and Fishbowl Advanced on-premise at two distribution centers for local inventory control and order fulfillment. Before the integration, the purchasing team emailed updated purchase orders from Plex to each Fishbowl site weekly, and the distribution center staff re-entered line items and quantities by hand. Inventory counts at each site were reconciled to Plex once a month by exporting CSV and re-uploading. With Plex and Fishbowl connected, each new purchase order in Plex appears in both distribution centers within minutes, part numbers and costs sync automatically, and inventory counts are current across both systems. The manual data entry step is eliminated, and purchasing can close POs in Plex without waiting for Fishbowl confirmation.

What you can do

Sync purchase orders and releases from Plex into Fishbowl Advanced on a regular polling schedule.
Keep part numbers, descriptions, costs, and supplier names aligned between Plex and Fishbowl.
Map Plex suppliers to Fishbowl vendors by external reference ID so updates find the right record.
Authenticate Plex with OAuth2 and Fishbowl with session token login, refreshing each when needed.
Poll on a 5-15 minute schedule with exponential backoff on rate limits and a full audit trail per record.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Plex and Fishbowl Advanced?: The main flow is Plex into Fishbowl Advanced. Purchase orders, suppliers, parts, and inventory levels flow from Plex cloud into the Fishbowl on-premise system. The integration reads from Fishbowl to detect inventory adjustments and can write those back to Plex if configured. Plex GL accounts are not synced because Fishbowl Advanced is inventory-focused and does not expose GL posting.
How does the integration handle Plex OAuth2 and Fishbowl session tokens?: ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted. Plex OAuth2 client ID and secret are used to request a Bearer token on each poll, and the token is cached and refreshed before expiry. Fishbowl login credentials (username, password, appName, appDescription, appId) are sent to the customer's server to obtain a session token, which is also cached and refreshed when it expires. Both tokens are managed transparently across retries.
What networking setup does Fishbowl Advanced on-premise require?: Fishbowl Advanced runs on a customer-hosted server at a URL like http://{FISHBOWL_SERVER}:2456/api. The customer must supply the server URL and open outbound https from the ml-connector environment to that server. If the on-premise system is on a private network, the customer firewall must whitelist the integration's IP range or allow outbound traffic to the server address and port.

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