Plex and Orderful integration

What moves between them

Purchase orders, invoices, and supplier records flow from Plex into Orderful. ml-connector polls Plex on a 5-15 minute cadence and transforms each purchase order into Orderful's 850 schema, then POSTs it to Orderful, which translates it to X12 or EDIFACT and delivers it to the partner. Supplier purchase order acknowledgments (855) and ship notices (856) are polled from Orderful and written back into Plex to update PO status and expected delivery dates. Payments and adjustments flow the same direction as purchase orders.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector maintains encrypted credentials for both systems: Plex OAuth2 client ID and secret, and the Orderful API Key. It polls Plex using the REST API at a configurable interval, filtering by modified_date to retrieve only new and changed purchase orders. Each purchase order is mapped to Orderful's 850 schema, including line-level detail, dates, and buyer and supplier identification. The mapped record is POSTed to Orderful with the correct ISA identifiers for the supplier partnership. When Plex rate limits return HTTP 429, ml-connector backs off and retries. On the return path, ml-connector polls Orderful's polling bucket endpoint for incoming EDI documents (855 acknowledgments, 856 ship notices), parses them, and writes the status and tracking data back to the matching Plex purchase order. Every record carries a unique external reference ID so duplicates can be detected and skipped on retry. The integration stream is configured to test during development and switched to live when deployed.

A real-world example

A mid-sized automotive supplier manufactures components for OEM platforms and builds parts to order. The company runs Plex ERP for manufacturing, planning, and procurement, and uses Orderful to connect with its OEM customers who require EDI purchase orders and ship notices. Before integration, the procurement team manually exported purchase orders from Plex, opened Orderful, and re-entered the PO data into an HTML form, then waited for the supplier acknowledgment to arrive in Orderful's inbox before pulling it back into Plex. With Plex and Orderful connected, new purchase orders flow automatically from Plex to Orderful, which translates and sends them to the supplier as EDI 850. Supplier responses arrive in Orderful and flow back to Plex automatically, so the procurement team sees shipment dates and exceptions in real time and can focus on exception handling rather than data entry.

What you can do

• •Poll Plex purchase orders on a schedule and post them to Orderful for EDI translation and partner delivery.
• •Map Plex supplier and customer master data to Orderful ISA identifiers so purchase orders route to the correct partner.
• •Receive EDI 855 purchase order acknowledgments and 856 ship notices from Orderful and write them back into Plex purchase order status.
• •Handle Plex OAuth2 and Orderful API Key authentication, with retry and backoff when rate limits are hit.
• •Track every record with a unique external reference ID and detect duplicates on retry.

Questions

How does ml-connector bridge the different authentication methods between Plex and Orderful?

Plex uses OAuth2 client credentials, requiring periodic token refresh, while Orderful uses a static long-lived API Key passed in a custom header. ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and uses the appropriate auth method for each system on every request. For Plex, it refreshes the OAuth2 token when a call returns 401.

Can ml-connector handle both Plex REST and legacy SOAP APIs?

Yes. ml-connector supports both the modern REST OAuth2 API and the legacy SOAP Web Services interface for Plex. Your integration user must have the correct Plex role assigned to avoid 403 errors or empty results. The integration is configured per customer instance to use the available API.

What happens when a Plex purchase order is acknowledged by a supplier in Orderful?

ml-connector polls Orderful for incoming 855 purchase order acknowledgments and 856 ship notices and writes the supplier's response back into the matching Plex purchase order. The PO status and delivery dates are updated so the procurement team sees acknowledgments and exceptions in real time without manual intervention.