Transforming Shipping Data Ecosystem for Enhanced Decision-Making
Ourclient, a growing e-commerce organization, faced a critical need to migrate itsshipping platform from ShipStation to ShipHero. With both platforms playing a centralrole in their operations, this migration presented unique challenges due to thefundamental differences in their data extraction mechanisms—ShipStationutilizes REST APIs, while ShipHero leverages GraphQL. Additionally, theclient’s existing operations were further integrated with Katana MRP forproduction management.
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Business Challenge The client’s overarching goal was to establish a unified and reliable data infrastructure that would enableseamless data integration, storage, and reporting across their operationalplatforms. Key challenges included:
Data Incompatibility: Bridging the gap between REST API-based data from ShipStation and GraphQL-based data from ShipHero.
Scalability: Ensuring that the data pipeline could scale with the business’s growing operations.
Data Normalization: Creating consistent relationships among disparate datasets to provide meaningful insights.
Reporting Efficiency: Delivering comprehensive, real-time dashboards in Power BI for decision-making.
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Solution Approach Our team of data engineers designed and implemented an end-to-end data pipeline that addressed these challenges comprehensively. The solution leveraged modern cloud technologies, automation,and thoughtful data architecture principles.
1. Multi-Source Data Integration: The solution began by pulling data from three distinct sources:
ShipStation: REST API endpoints were queried to retrieve shipping and operational data.
ShipHero: GraphQL queries were structured to fetch data efficiently, leveraging GraphQL’s flexibility to request exactly the needed data fields.
Katana MRP: Data was extracted via its API to integrate production metrics.
Data from these sources was ingested into an AWS S3 bucket,chosen for its scalability and cost-effectiveness as a data lake. AWS ECS, Python scripts, and AWS Lambda were employed to automate and orchestrate the data extraction processes, ensuring daily updates.
2. Centralized Data Warehouse Once ingested, data from the S3 bucket was loaded into Snowflake, a modern cloud-based data warehouse. Snowflake’s unique architecture allowed for:
Scalable Storage and Compute: To handle increasing data volumes.
Seamless Data Integration: Its capabilities to process semi-structured data facilitated loading diverse formats from ShipStation, ShipHero, and Katana.
3. Data Normalization and Mapping To enable a holistic view across platforms, we designed and implemented a custom mapping table in Snowflake. This mapping table created relationships between disparate data sets, such as:
- Matching shipping details between ShipStation and ShipHero.
- Aligning production data from Katana with order fulfillment records.
This step was pivotal in ensuring consistency and reliability of the data used for reporting.
4. Advanced Reporting and Insights With normalized data now centralized in Snowflake, Power BI was connected to provide executive-level dashboards. Key features included:
Real-Time Insights: Daily updates ensured timely visibility into shipping, inventory, and production metrics.
Cross-Platform Comparisons: Unified views highlighted performance trends across ShipStation, ShipHero, and Katana.
Custom Visualizations: Tailored dashboards supported strategic decision-making with clarity and precision.
Results Achieved The implemented solution delivered transformative outcomes for the client:
Streamlined Operations: Automated data pipelines saved significant manual effort. Enhanced
Decision-Making: Executives gained a unified view of operations, enabling data-driven strategies.
Future-Ready Architecture: The scalable solution supports the client’s anticipated growth and additional integrations.
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Conclusion This case study underscores the power of integrating modern technologies to overcome complex data challenges. By leveraging AWS, Snowflake, and Power BI, we created a robust data infrastructure that not only addressed the immediate migration challenge but also positioned the client for sustained operational excellence.
About Us As a specialized Data Engineering Agency, we pride ourselves on solving complex data challenges with cutting-edge solutions.Our expertise in AWS, API integrations, GraphQL, Snowflake, and Power BI enables us to deliver impactful outcomes tailored to our clients’ needs.