The situation

One benefit of using APIs is a more reliable data communication that can reduce your IT costs. Here’s a situation. You have a morning meeting to report on yesterday’s sales, but your ERP is not pulling data from one of your terminals. You contact IT, but they’re saying the issue is with the vendor’s terminal automation system. IT then contacts the vendor, but they say the issue is on your side. Maybe the data schema has changed? The vendor can triage the problem, but there will be a cost. Meanwhile, you need to go into your 11 am meeting with no idea what’s happening at your terminal. Does any of this sound familiar?

This problem can result when systems rely on legacy interfaces that can break, resulting in downtime and IT costs.

One of the major enhancements that Toptech Systems has included in TMS7® and Tophat®7 is the use of APIs. APIs reduce the likelihood of these data connectivity problems by providing more consistent, secure communication.

Communication breakdown

Often, a customer uses SAP or another ERP system to manage their terminals. To authorize transactions, they might send file extracts from their master data down to the terminal – information like customer data, stock information, etc. A terminal management system would then ingest these files, translating the data into variables used in their systems. The TMS vendor then codes their applications using these variables and custom calls.

With this legacy approach, communication more easily breaks down along the way. Something as simple as a small database change on either side could send both teams off analyzing code to determine what happened and who is responsible for fixing it. This increases the time it takes to get the error corrected and could result in unexpected costs.

A standardized, secure way to send and receive data

To minimize these problems, TMS7 and Tophat7 leverage the REST API and the OpenAPI Specification, creating APIs that deliver a more standardized and secure integration. To reduce IT costs, TMS7 and Tophat7 offer a library of the most common API calls needed for terminal operations. APIs for customer data, order data, stock information are all prebuilt. A terminal operator can simply use these pre-built APIs to integrate more quickly and efficiently. And since these calls are standardized, there’s much less likelihood of a breakdown of communication that results from custom code.

There are other benefits, as well:

1. Improved security – Using APIs enhances security by enabling controlled access to data and services, ensuring that only authorized applications can interact with your system. Additionally, APIs can help enforce security protocols and monitor for suspicious activities, reducing the risk of breaches. Learn more about how TMS7 supports the security of your terminal.
2. Greater consistency – APIs standardize how different applications interact, leading to more uniformed data handling and processing. This helps maintain reliable and predictable performance across different platforms and services.
3. Less overhead and latency – Using APIs can reduce latency and overhead by streamlining communication between systems, allowing for faster data exchange. This efficiency minimizes the processing load on servers, leading to quicker response times and improved performance.
4. Reduces the need for middleware – Since APIs provide a direct communication channel between applications, this reduces the need for middleware, simplifying integration and lowering the cost and the complexity of the system.

TMS7 and Tophat7 customers can access the Toptech APIs, along with a toolkit that explains how the API works, how to generate a client code, create tests, apply design standards, and exchange data from and to TMS7 and the Tophat® Terminal Management Host.

APIs are just one reason to switch to TMS7. To learn all 5 ways that TMS7 can improve your terminal operations, check out our blog post or contact sales now to get a virtual web demo of the system.