Link Storages

Overview:

The Link Storage feature lets you store and retrieve cross-system key values in a simple and centralized way. Instead of creating extra fields (like “ExternalId”) in your ERP or CRM, Rapidi stores these links inside the Rapidi service configuration database.

Link Storage helps you:

✔ Avoid creating extra fields
No need to add “ExternalId” or similar fields to ERP or CRM tables.
✔ Speed up your integration setup
Mapping and lookup logic becomes much simpler.
✔ Simplify ERP upgrades
Fewer customizations mean fewer upgrade issues.
✔ Work around ERP limitations (especially Microsoft Dynamics GP)
GP has strict limitations on custom fields, so Link Storage is extremely valuable.

Quick Links:

• Create Link Storage Values
• Using a Link Storage on a Transfer

For example, you can store:

• ERP Customer Number → Salesforce Account Id;
• ERP Item Number → CRM Product Id;
• Any other pair of unique identifiers between two systems.

Link Storage is fully dynamic.

• Values are automatically created and updated at runtime every time a transfer runs.
• You can also manually upload or insert values if you want to pre-populate the storage or adjust existing links.

How Link Storage Works:

Each Link Storage represents one specific type of relationship (e.g., CustomerNo ↔ AccountId).
You define:
A code (e.g., CUST, ITEM)

• Descriptions for the left and right sides
• The key fields on each side
• Optional separator for multi-field keys

1. Reads the source key fields
2. Reads the destination key fields
3. Writes or updates the link in storage
4. Uses the stored values to match records (if Table Link is empty)

Using the Link Storage (on a Transfer) as the Table Link
If you just specify the Link Storage on a Transfer as described above, the Link Storage Values will be updated, but the Transfer will still use the Table Link specified to know what records to match between the systems. This is still fine in many situations - for example, if the Customer No. from the ERP system is also transferred to a corresponding Customer Number field on the CRM Account.

If you want the Transfer to use the Link Storage to know what record is actually Linked, then you can simply leave the "Table Link" empty on the Transfer. Then the Transfer will do a lookup in the Link Storage Values to find the Key to use to check the record in the destination, or if it does not find a match, it will know that it should create a new record in the destination (and subsequently update the Link Storage Values).

Link Storage Values
If you click the second [+] in the header for the Link Storage, you will see a new section with all the Link Storage Values that are currently in this Link Storage. The titles for the 1st and 2nd column corresponds to the "Description" and "Description 2" values entered for the Link Storage and should be descriptive of the content of each column.

You will be able to use pagination (situated to the right) to navigate forward and back in all the Link Storage values.
You can also use the two search fields to quickly check for specific values in each column.
Entering something in each search field will update the pagination also. If you want to revert to show all values, simply blank out both search fields.
When you see one or more Link Storage Values in the list, you can edit or delete each one using the icons in the action column (third column).

Below the list with Link Storage Values, there are buttons to create a new Link Storage Value (in case you want to do that manually) and to delete all Link Storage Values for this Link Storage (in case you want to delete all values and start again).

Using the LSLookup function to retrieve values
Now that you know how to set up Link Storages and to get values into the Link Storage Values, it's time to put these values into use in other Transfers. Using the LSLookup(<link storage code>,<link fields values string>) function, you can retrieve values from the Link Storage from other Transfers.

This is very useful, for example, if you have a Link Storage with the combination of ERP Customer No's and corresponding CRM Account Ids, you can use this function on an Invoice or Sales Order Transfer to get the Account Id to attach the Invoice or Sales Order on the CRM side. It is usually much faster to get this information from the Link Storage than to use, for example, a DBLookup formula to get the same from the CRM system.

The LSLookup function can also look up values in the reverse order - e.g., having the Account ID and retrieving the Customer No.

You can learn more about how to use the LSLookup function here: LSLOOKUP

Statistics issued from the Link Storage feature
When a Transfer is running, it will collect some statistics for the use of a Link Storage and also for the use of the 'LSLookup' function. These statistics are shown both in the console (the section above 'General') and in the Log after the Transfer finishes.

Example 1:
The statistics for using a Link Storage named 'CUST' on a Transfer could look like this:

LinkStorage Statistics for CUST: Get 5, Checked 2, Updated 2, Added 1 (00:00:03-422)

which means that 5 lookups were made to the Link Storage Values, 2 records (links) were the same, 2 records (links) were updated and 1 new entry was made in the Link Storage Values. All the database operations took 3 seconds and 422 thousand a second to complete (total time).

Example 2:
The statistics for using an 'LSLookup' function on a Transfer (in the Field List) could look like this:

LSLookup Statistics for CUST: Get 18 (00:00:02-345)

which means that 18 lookups were made to the Link Storage Values and it took 2 seconds and 345 thousand of a second to complete (total time for all 18 lookups).

The statistics allow you to get an overview of the usage of the Link Storage feature and how it performs.
Using the Link Storages feature requires that you use version 4.0.01g or later (central and RapidiConnectors).