Synchronizing Magento with Google Contacts and Gmail
Google Contacts offers a central place to administer all contacts used by Google's services.
For a recent client project we had to find a solution to synchronize Magento's customer data with Google Contacts. Google Contacts is a service offered by Google that manages all the contacts for Google's other services such as Gmail.
Integrating Magento with Google Contacts offers various benefits such as:
- Google Contacts acts as an additional external backup for all customer data
- Integrating third-party applications and services with Google Contacts is easier than integrating them with Magento
- Adresses can be managed in Google Contacts or Magento, depending on the store admin's preferences
- All Google Contacts data is automatically available in other Google Services. If Gmail is being used for sending email, all the customer's email addresses will automatically be available in Gmail
- Google Contacts can easily be synchronized with mobile devices such as smartphones. Most smartphones offer automatic synchronization with Google Contacts. This means that all customer data will also be available on the smartphone
The synchronization between Magento and Google Contacts happens automatically with our extension. Every time our script is executed the following happens:
- A backup is being created with all the data from Magento as well as Google Contacts
- The current customer data is being compared to the data from the previous synchronization. This way the script can find out which data has been created, deleted or updated
- The synchronization updates all these changes in the two environments
An additional function offered by the extension is the test suite. This test suite runs in the background and does various tests and checks to ensure that the synchronization will run smoothly. The extension also logs everything so that the store admin can always see what has happened during the synchronization.
A detailed log keeps track of everything that happens during the synchronization.
Optionally it's possible to limit the synchronization to just one-way. This means that all the changes from Magento will be synchronized to Google Contacts but not vice-versa. This option is preferred if the store owner wants to limit the editing of customer data to just Magento, and doesn't want to be able to update customer data via Google Contacts.
Are you looking to integrate your Magento shop with Google Contacts? Please get in touch with us and we can install the extension in your store as well. Just contact us for a free consultation and a quote.