by Matt Springfield | November 11, 2022

Introducing New Connectors, Sample Flows and API-Driven Features in CData Arc

Following a successful launch of CData Arc Cloud this summer, the CData engineering team has been hard at work bringing exciting new features to both Arc Cloud and Arc on-premises. While the latest release contains too many improvements to list exhaustively, the following deserve special attention:

  • Industry-specific sample flows for faster time-to-value
  • New connectors for integrating all aspects of your data environment
  • A new Flow API for kicking off B2B workflows via API requests
  • Enterprise enhancements in performance and configuration management

Industry-Specific Sample Flows

CData Arc's flexible workflow canvas enables users to build a wide range of automated B2B pipelines. Sometimes, though, the endless possibilities leave users unsure where to start. To inspire our customers and enable a quick and easy onboarding process, we have built over 40 sample flows that help you get started customizing your B2B communications.

The new sample flows, targeting the B2B needs of specific industries, are available for free on the sample flows webpage. While these flows may not capture every detail within your specific integration needs, they serve as a powerful launch pad for building your own B2B workflows. Each sample flow contains an **.arcflow** file containing pre-configured connectors that can be imported directly into your CData Arc workspace.

Each sample flow contains any necessary sample input our output files and a walkthrough description of each connector to help test and understand these sample flows in practice.

Logistics & Supply Chain

Logistics and supply chain flows involve important EDI documents like Load Tenders, Load Tender Invoices, and Shipment Status updates. Integrating these files into your back-end system like a database or Warehouse Management System helps ensure that your B2B automations are fully end-to-end with no points of friction or manual slow-downs.

Suppliers & Manufacturers

Guaranteeing the receipt and delivery of order documents, invoices, and inventory requests can help buoy your relationship with retailers by maximizing efficiency and reducing risk.

Retail

Generating outbound purchase orders based on sophisticated back-end processing, all within a fully automated data pipeline, ensures that your B2B communications react seamlessly to dynamic demand within your stores.

Healthcare

Any organization involved with the healthcare industry must exchange insurance claims, invoices, and enrollments under strict HIPAA protection. Sample flows for integrating these types of documents give users confidence that patient data is being handled appropriately and effectively during communication between insurance providers and service providers.

E-commerce

E-commerce flows help demonstrate how data from Amazon, Shopify, and other retail platforms can be automatically integrated into your full data ecosystem to streamline ordering, shipping, and inventory processes.

Introducing New Connectors

CData Arc now supports 10+ new connectors! Each connector provides the ability to integrate even more applications, data warehouses, and APIs into your B2B workflows. New connectivity in Arc includes:

  • FHIR, the cutting-edge healthcare API
  • Stripe and Square for expanded e-commerce integration
  • ERP systems like Dynamics 365 and Odoo
  • Data warehousing through Snowflake and Databricks
  • Sage Intacct for advanced accounting integration

FHIR

The FHIR Connector deserves a special shoutout due to FHIR's increasing prominence in the healthcare space. For a deeper dive into what FHIR is and how it is supported in Arc, please see our FHIR: Modernized Healthcare EDI blog.

The FHIR Connector serves as a case-in-point for CData Arc's ability to bring together traditional and cutting-edge B2B communication. Arc provides all the necessary tools for using both EDI documents and APIs like FHIR when communicating with your business partners.

Snowflake & Databricks

The Snowflake and Databricks Connectors also merit an additional mention as we expand Arc’s integration solutions into the data warehousing world. B2B communication frequently involves updating back-end systems, whether that be business applications like CRM and ERP systems, or data storage solutions like databases and data warehouses.

While Arc has long had extensive database and business application integration capabilities, the addition of Snowflake and Databricks connectivity kicks off an exciting new era of data warehousing support in Arc.

Flow API

Arc's new Flow API pushes B2B automation into the API-driven future. Now, every Arc workflow can be triggered by custom API requests in addition to the standard file-based or polling-based approach.

APIs are increasingly popular among enterprise organizations for orchestrating technical processes. Treating each aspect of your data environment as an API endpoint helps streamline and simplify your data architecture.

The Flow API ensures that B2B processes like EDI translation and AS2 messaging can fit into this API model. Firing off an API request with EDI data, for example, can now trigger the full process of conversion into an EDI document, mapping and integrating into back-end systems, and sending files to trading partners.

CData Arc Cloud and the Flow API

The Flow API fits naturally with CData Arc Cloud, the cloud-hosted, fully-managed version of Arc. With this combination, you can treat your EDI and B2B processes like any other cloud-hosted data solution – simply send an API request and the black box in the cloud will send out an EDI message to your trading partner.

The Flow API realizes the promise of Arc Cloud as a B2B integration platform that you can treat like a cloud service. If the rest of your data ecosystem is hosted in the cloud and processes API requests, then Arc Cloud and the Flow API fit naturally into your existing infrastructure.

Watch a short demo video:

How CData Arc Enables B2B Communication Via API Calls

Enterprise Enhancements

With this release, we’re introducing two major updates that benefit enterprise users:

  • The Arc Vault for storing and standardizing configuration values,
  • And Batch Group processing improvements.

Arc Vault

The Arc Vault serves as a central repository for common or sensitive configuration values in CData Arc. Updating values in the Vault automatically updates any instance of those values across the application.

As a result, important values like identifiers that are used in multiple locations are never at risk of becoming inconsistent. In practice, this means that multiple Arc users are not at risk of stepping on each other's toes: changes to configuration values by one user are guaranteed to be applied to another user's work.

Further, sensitive values like passwords can be maintained by a central administrator and remain private. When they need to configure passwords, users with lower-level permissions can now reference the Vault token instead of the password value itself.

Batch Group Improvements

The latest CData Arc release includes improvements to batch group processing, which allows many large volume transactions to be treated as a single transaction – reducing processing time for reading and writing files or data.

In practice, this means that large transaction groups have improved performance and are unlikely to provide a bottleneck for high-volume B2B transaction processing.

Get Started with CData Arc

If you're interested in trying out any of CData Arc's new features yourself, then you can take advantage of Arc's free fully functional trial and build out your own proof-of-concept. You can get started with a free trial today! For access to the fully-managed CData Arc Cloud service, you can sign up for free here.

For more resources tailored to Arc newcomers, discover our Getting Started Guide.