Running an ERP connection

Before you start

• A licensed pCon.basket gatekeeper of your own. It is licensed per named user and refuses anonymous sessions, so the number of seats you take is the number of people who can configure at the same time. Size this before you start, because it is a real recurring cost and not a formality
• A pCon.login client. Your salespeople sign in interactively the first time and the session is reused afterwards, so no shared password ends up stored in your ERP
• Odoo 19, with the standard Sales application. The module depends on nothing beyond sale_management, so there is no second app to license or install
• Manufacturers who publish OFML data and have shared their catalogue with your account, exactly as on the webshop side
• Access to the Odoo filesystem, or to whoever deploys to it

What you do not need: a domain whitelist, a pCon.ui instance, or a catalogue import. pCon.basket brings its own catalogue, and the configurator never runs on a public page of yours, so none of the webshop machinery applies.

The order of operations

1. Arrange the licence and the seats. This waits on EasternGraphics and is the long pole, so it goes first.

2. Install the module. An Odoo module lives on the server's filesystem, usually inside a container. Put it in your addons path and update the module list, the way you would with any other third-party module.

3. Fill in the four settings described below, and save.

4. Open a draft quotation with a real customer on it and press the button. You are checking two things at once: that the configurator opens, and that the customer's address came with it.

5. Configure something and bring it back. Check the line description, the quantity and the unit price, and confirm that the project is attached to the order.

6. Reopen it and change something. This is the step people skip and it is the one that proves the integration is worth having, because it is where a retyped quote would fall apart.

The settings in Odoo

Four fields, in the Sales section of Odoo's own settings screen. Two of them look similar and are deliberately not the same thing.

pCon bridge URL. Where the bridge is hosted. It is served centrally by us, so this is normally the value we give you and not something you invent.

pCon tenant and pCon tenant key. These identify your company to the gate so it can hand the bridge the right configuration. They end up in the address of the embedded frame, which means they are visible in the salesperson's own browser. That is by design and it is why they are scoped to do exactly one thing.

pconnector API key. A different key on purpose. This one stays on the server and is what the update check authenticates with. The rule behind the split is simple and worth keeping: a credential that is visible in a browser must never be able to open a server to server channel.

Underneath them sit the installed version, the latest available version and when it was last checked, with a button that asks the channel. The button only reports; it does not install. Replacing a module on a server, often inside a container, is a deployment and not something a settings screen should do behind your back.

What travels into the basket

The point of opening the configurator from the quotation rather than next to it is that the quotation already knows things. All of this goes across when the panel opens:

• The customer, with their customer number
• The main address, and the delivery and invoice addresses when they differ from it
• The quotation reference as the project name and number, so the project is findable later from either side
• A header text you set once in the settings, and the note on the quotation as the footer text
• Your company logo and colours, so the basket opens in your own house style rather than ours

That last one sounds cosmetic and is not, for a dealer who turns the screen around and configures with a customer sitting next to them.

What comes back

Per configured item, one quotation line carrying:

• The title and the manufacturer article number on the first line of the description
• The long description, when it says more than the title already does
• The chosen configuration in readable form, underneath
• Any remarks entered in the basket, kept with the line they belong to
• Quantity and unit price, in the columns Odoo already has

The lines land on one generic item, deliberately. A configured composition is not a product in your catalogue, and creating one would fill Odoo with thousands of one-off article records that nobody will ever order again. The manufacturer's article number travels on the line itself, so purchasing still has what it needs.

Currency is reported, not converted. If the basket priced something in a different currency than the order, the line says so rather than quietly applying a rate. Converting silently is how a quote goes out wrong, and the person best placed to decide the rate is not the integration.

The project is attached to the order. The complete pCon project is stored on the quotation as an attachment. That is what makes everything in the next section possible, and it is the single most valuable thing the integration does.

Revisions and reorders

Pressing the button on a quotation that already has a project opens that project rather than a blank one. The salesperson changes what needs changing and brings it back.

Reopening replaces the configured lines rather than adding to them. This is worth stating plainly because it is the behaviour people expect least and want most. Your own manually added lines, delivery, assembly, discounts, are left alone. Only the lines that came from the configurator are replaced.

The practical consequence is that a revision costs a minute instead of an afternoon, and a reorder a year later starts from what was actually built instead of from a PDF that someone has to interpret.

How this differs from the webshop side

If you are running both products, or considering it, these are the differences that matter operationally rather than commercially.

Authorisation. The webshop side is authorised by domain and serves anonymous visitors. This side is authorised by an interactive login against a licensed seat. There is no domain list here, and no anonymous session is possible.

Catalogue. The webshop side imports articles into your shop as products. This side imports nothing. The catalogue lives in pCon.basket and is never copied.

Where the configuration ends up. On the webshop side it becomes a cart line with a 24 hour reopen link. Here it becomes a quotation line with the project attached to the order indefinitely.

They meet in exactly one place. Both use the same connector, and that is the whole of the overlap. Running both means two subscriptions and two pCon licences, with no shared credential and no shared session between them.

What you can change without us

• The four settings above, and the header text that goes onto every project
• Your company logo and colours, which come from Odoo itself
• Issuing and revoking keys in the portal, with both actions recorded
• Checking for a new module version, whenever you want

Installing a new module version is a deployment on your own server, so it is yours to schedule. Everything about when and whether is in your hands; the channel only tells you that something is waiting.