ODBC access to Miva

[captainboom]

I am working with a developer to create a Filemaker middleware solution to pull inventory information from and push sales order information to Finale Inventory. We will use Filemaker as the point of truth for Miva's inventory, thus push/pull to/from Miva. It is his desire to use ODBC with Filemaker to connect to the Miva database tables if possible. We are aware of the usual 'be careful' caveats of accessing tables directly.

Two questions:
1. Is this possible to do without confounding PCI compliance, etc.?
2. Is there a better way, perhaps using the Miva API or webhooks using a micro service?

Looking for some direction here.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

That is not a compatible configuration with PCI, as the intent is for only the 'payment application' to interact with the database. It's not just ODBC, this includes the same access by other web applications that are not Miva Merchant. Allowing anything else to connect expands the PCI scope to all of those applications, and if they bypass the relevant security, auditing, and logging controls implemented by Miva Merchant, it can create real liability.

We don't permit such connections, but regardless of that, the other issue with database access is that we offer no guarantee that the database systems, type (relational), schema, etc. will not change as our software evolves. We are constantly evaluating the technology available for changes that could benefit availability, scalability, and performance, and that can mean what may currently be a relational MySQL-derived DBMS, could be a radically different system in the future, where such a change would break anything that had been utilizing direct database access.

The above is also why it's critical to use the API. It ensures consistent data structures and access methods for input and output of data, and regardless of what happens behind the scenes in Miva Merchant, the API continues to behave as expected. I could not find reference to Filemaker and access to remote API's, so I'm not sure if that's native functionality it has, or if some type of middleware would be needed.

We do have an additional option that might work, if it presents the data your developer is after, but I'd highly recommend against going this route if at all possible. The option is a custom connector for Windows, which exposes ODBC local to the machine, but utilizes the Miva Merchant API for data access. It was intended for use by UPS WorldShip but given it's presenting data via ODBC, it can potentially be used by other applications. https://docs.miva.com/odbc-driver You'll find on the page "Data Available via the ODBC Driver" showing which fields are available. If you need fields not in that list, then it will not work. Additionally, given its purpose is UPS WorldShip integration, it and the API functions it calls may change over time specific to UPS WorldShip, which may make it behave unpredictably for other uses.

[captainboom]

ILoveHostasaurus Very helpful. I will pass this on to my Filemaker developer. Thank you.