Sage 300 and IBM Sterling integration

What moves between them

Purchase orders and invoices move in both directions. Sage 300 POs are polled, translated to EDI 850 by ml-connector, and pushed to Sterling for partner routing. Inbound EDI 810 invoices from partners arrive in Sterling mailboxes; ml-connector polls Sterling for new messages, extracts the EDI payload, translates it back to invoice line items, and creates APInvoiceBatches in Sage 300. Vendor master data flows from Sage 300 to Sterling to validate trading partner accounts before routing outbound orders.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector maintains separate HTTP Basic Auth credentials for Sage 300 (uppercase username and password) and Sterling, and polls both systems on the same schedule. For outbound Sage 300 POs, it retrieves POPurchaseOrders and POReceipts via OData filters on DocumentDate and status, translates each PO line to an EDI 850 segment (item, quantity, unit price, GL account, ship-to location), and stages the 850 in Sterling via REST POST. For inbound EDI 810 invoices from partners, ml-connector polls Sterling mailboxes every 2-5 minutes, extracts the raw EDI message payload via GET mailboxMessages/{id}/extract, parses the 810 segments (supplier, invoice number, amount, PO reference, tax, freight), maps the 810 back to Sage 300 GL dimensions and vendor records, and creates APInvoiceBatches via POST. Both directions handle retries on 5xx and HTTP 429 (rate limit) responses. Sage 300 polling uses date filters to avoid duplicate POs, and Sterling polling tracks processed mailbox message IDs to avoid re-ingesting invoices. Credentials and certificates are stored encrypted.

A real-world example

A mid-market goods distributor runs Sage 300 on-premise for order entry and accounts payable. They ship to 20+ regional trading partners who require EDI POs and send back EDI invoices for received orders. Before the integration, the procurement team manually created POs in Sage 300, exported to spreadsheet, keyed EDI 850 segments in Sterling, monitored Sterling mailboxes for 810 invoices, manually extracted invoice data, and re-entered it into Sage 300 AP. Month-end reconciliation required chasing invoice status across two systems. With Sage 300 and Sterling connected, each new PO in Sage 300 flows automatically to Sterling, gets routed to the partner in EDI 850, and inbound partner invoices arrive back through Sterling as EDI 810 messages that ml-connector parses into Sage 300 APInvoiceBatches, reconciled to the original PO. The procurement team spends their time on exceptions, not data entry.

What you can do

• •Translate Sage 300 purchase orders to EDI 850 and route them through Sterling to trading partners.
• •Ingest EDI 810 invoices from Sterling and create invoice batches in Sage 300 accounts payable, matched to purchase orders.
• •Map Sage 300 vendor master data to Sterling trading partner profiles so orders route to the correct partner.
• •Poll both Sage 300 (OData filters on date and status) and Sterling (mailbox message polling) on a schedule you control, with retries on failures and a full audit trail.
• •Store Sage 300 Basic Auth credentials and Sterling OAuth tokens encrypted, and handle credential refresh without downtime.

Questions

How does ml-connector handle HTTP Basic Auth for both Sage 300 and IBM Sterling?

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and includes the HTTP Basic Auth header (base64-encoded username and password) on every request to Sage 300. For Sterling, it uses either HTTP Basic Auth or OAuth2 Client Credentials if v6.2.2+ is available, with a local token endpoint per customer instance. Credentials are cached and refreshed only when needed, not on every call.

What happens when a new purchase order is created in Sage 300?

ml-connector polls Sage 300 POPurchaseOrders on a schedule (e.g., every 5-10 minutes) using OData date filters to find new orders. When a PO is found, ml-connector translates it to an EDI 850 segment (lines, quantities, prices, delivery address), stages it in Sterling via REST POST, and marks the PO as 'synced' in the audit trail. Sterling then routes the 850 to the designated trading partner according to its partnership and routing rules.

How are inbound EDI invoices from trading partners processed?

ml-connector polls Sterling mailboxes every 2-5 minutes via GET /B2BAPIs/svc/mailboxMessages/ to detect new EDI 810 messages. When an invoice arrives, it extracts the EDI payload, parses the 810 segments (supplier, invoice number, amount, PO reference), maps them to Sage 300 vendors and GL accounts, and creates an APInvoiceBatch for the accounts payable clerk to review. The audit trail links each batch back to the Sterling message ID and original EDI.