[Vtigercrm-developers] Interfacing Query

[Alan Lord (News)]

Hi Guys,

I have a small idea that I want to try out. It came following a roadshow 
I went to yesterday looking at the Talend Open Studio Data Integration 
tool.

I have another app that I would like to "connect" to vtiger.

There is already a connector in Talend OS for vtiger which seems to be 
built for 5.0.3 and uses the interfaces set up for the external plugins 
(i.e. Outlook, TB, Word, firefox etc).

There doesn't appear to be a more "generic" interface into vtiger. I am 
wanting to synchronise some common data between vtiger and this other 
app (which I'd rather keep to myself for now) and I am wondering what 
the best solution is:

1. Access the MySQL db directly
2. Use one of the existing module interfaces (but each has it's 
limitations such as one only handles leads and not contacts...)
3. Use the webservices library/API?

Both apps may well reside on the same host (for me at any rate) and use 
the same db so I am wondering about even using triggers and some stored 
procedures, but this would limit it's usefulness to just me.

On a related but more general question, when one of the applications' 
databases changes, what is the usual method used to maintain 
synchronisation? MySQL triggers do not appear (easily at least) to be 
able to fire of external apps or scripts so I am thinking that syncing 
might need to be run automatically on a periodic basis.


Sorry I'm a bit vague but I've only just started thinking about this.

Al