Flexible data model in the PIM interface for Shopware

The first version of the Pimcore interface for Shopware 6 was released by scope01 in the Shopware store in March 2020. At this early stage, our solution was one of the first complex interfaces to Shopware 6 in one of the first versions of the popular e-commerce software. To this day, our Pimcore interface is the only standard solution on the market that is free to purchase and is not a proprietary agency solution.

Fixed class model in Pimcore

The interface is based on a class model in Pimcore that covers all the data of a standard Shopware installation. This is the promise of our standard interface, that it maps the Shopware standard data out-of-the-box. This class model can then be extended individually to cover the individual requirements of companies. So far, this approach has perfectly met the needs of companies that already use Shopware and now want to use Pimcore as the basis for professional product data management. In the meantime, however, we are increasingly receiving inquiries from customers who already use Pimcore and want to connect Shopware to Pimcore as an e-commerce solution. This also means that data models are already being developed in Pimcore and used in practice. These data models must then be harmonized with the data model of our Pimcore interface for Shopware. So far, we have had the following solutions:

Export and import of data into a new instance using the Data Director, a powerful extension of Pimcore
Mapping of the previous product classes and objects with the existing classes and objects of the standard interface of scope01
Data migration of objects from existing Pimcore installation to new Pimcore instance

Flexible data model instead of fixed classes

We have now extended these approaches with a flexible solution so that the customer’s existing Pimcore data models can continue to be used. This is because our own Shopware objects are currently required to export the data to Shopware. This limits the use for customers with their own objects in the existing Pimcore installation.

The transfer will therefore also take place independently of our classes in future. For the necessary data mapping, we use the Data Director from Blackbit, which is used in all our Pimcore projects.

When an existing object is changed, a DTO (Data Transfer Object) is created for the transfer to Shopware, executed and then deleted again. In this way, no duplicates are created in Pimcore. The transfer is stored in the Application Logger for each object in the usual way.