Platform · 11
Automations and integrations
How a company automates routine work without giving up approvals, and how its ERP and other systems exchange records with the platform.
Automations
An automation reads as When, Only if, Then, and is built on a canvas:
- When: what starts it. A message arrives from another system; a lot is registered, delivered, processed or changes status; a certificate is added, withdrawn or about to expire; an approval waits too long; a report is ready; a new finding is opened; a supplier sends a recall notice or an evidence request; a number crosses a value; or a schedule.
- Only if: conditions such as "the product is …" or "the receiver's country is in the EU".
- Then: notify in the console, e-mail members, propose a status change, a certificate or a lot rule setting, generate a report, or send a message to another system. Branches, a step repeated for each lot and calculated values are available.
An automation can ask for a review before a step: it pauses and a person decides to continue or stop it. Anything that would change the records is prepared as a proposal, and a person still approves it.
Operators draft and test automations; in a test run conditions are evaluated for real and actions are only simulated. An owner or administrator switches one on after reading a summary of what it will do, where it sends messages and which proposals it prepares. Every run is listed with why each step ran or was skipped. Owners and administrators can halt all automations at once.
Templates cover common work, such as a certificate expiry alert, an EUDR pack on each delivery, holding lots whose certificate was withdrawn, approvals waiting too long, and a weekly inventory report or dashboard snapshot. Using a template creates a draft to review.
Connecting an ERP
A company's ERP and other systems connect in Settings ▸ Integrations:
| Direction | How |
|---|---|
| From the ERP to A-REX | an inbound endpoint receives the ERP's messages (goods receipts, harvest tickets, deliveries) in the ERP's own format. Messages that do not match the expected fields are quarantined for a person to fix or discard. A message can start an automation, which prepares proposals; it never changes the records directly |
| From A-REX to the ERP | webhooks send events (a lot registered, a delivery executed, a certificate expiring, a recall notice) to the ERP. Each message is signed, and ready-made snippets show how to check the signature |
| Both ways, by program | machine clients and API keys call the API with their own permissions and limits |
The company's own identifiers (its ERP's lot numbers, item codes, partner codes) are kept next to A-REX's, so each side keeps using its own. Every integration can be practised in a sandbox first.
The API and every event are described in OpenAPI and AsyncAPI files; see Developers and agents.
Further reading
In the help: Automate routine work, Connect your ERP and other systems.