Make your program work with other programs

Question

Hello everybody I'm a newbie when it comes to C-Sharp but I'm more then willing to put the time in to learn. I have a question. Im building a program that stores my customers information. After I collect the info I need it to send the data to another program (ENCOMPASS 360). I think I have to look at ENCOMPASS360's dll file but Im not sure. Can someone tell me the best way to go about doing this? I would be willing to pay for the help. I have already built the software to gather my customer info I just need to know how I can pass it along. Thanks in advance.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Do you have the documentation for Encompass? Are you sure there is nothing documented about import and export? If no help is available then I suggest asking the company. Can you get help from the company? You should ask them if the import and export is documented. Are you sure that you don't find export and import functions in Encompass? In other words in any of the menus such as the file menu or whatever it has.

Gaetano D · Answer

The only way I know how to export is by printing.... Im really lost with this. Well we use a lead managment system called leads360(online website that organizes customer info) They have an option that transfers the customers data to Encompass. But its not software  its a website... is there anyway I can pick that apart to find out how it transfers the data?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Yeah an API is close enough to the same thing as a SDK. Are you able to do a sample export? As for dialing if Encompass does not have the ability to do that and if the SDK allows you to read the data then you could write a program to make the call. I don't know what the exact functions and classes are but Windows can do it. Probably Encompass uses SQL Server for the data and you can probably read the data directly from SQL Server. Also it is nearly certain that software exists to do the dialing stuff. If Encompass is lacking then thre is plenty of contact management software (such as Goldmine?) that would certainly have an interface for doing it.

Gaetano D · Answer

Well I dont know about an api but there is a SDK. I think I get what your saying.... But I have one other question that I cant seem to get a straight answer. I want to get a customers contact info (telephone number) imported into my program and then be able to dial the number through my program(by clicking on the telephone number or dial button) basicly I want to make an auto-dialer that uses my computers internal modem.. any ideas?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Hopefully you will not need to call anything that is part of the software. Hopefully you can write a program that writes the data in the proper format and then use the software to import the data. The thing you need most of all is the documentation of the format of the data to be imported. One trick to use is that you can export some data and look at that; it is likely to answer many questions about what the data needs to look like. You must however use the documentation as much as possible. Some software documentation is better than others but it appears that this software (Encompass) is likely to be documented relatively well. Is there an API for Encompass? Do you have that? Most software such as Encompass have an API that must be purchased at an additional cost. You might need to purchase it if you want to automate the process so that you don't need to do the import yourself but perhaps you don't mind doing the import; you probably just want to write a program that re-formats the data int the format needed to import into Encompass. You might however need to purchase the API just to get the documentation of the import format.

Gaetano D · Answer

first of all THANK YOU for replying. Yes it is ENCOMPASS 360 from Elliemae... So how do I use the import function with a custom C# program? It would be for Loan info and contacts. Please advice.. Again thank you so much for replying. This will help me out greatly

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Hopefully ENCOMPASS360 has an import capability and if so then use that. That would be the easiest and most reliable solution. Otherwise hopefully you can write the data to the database that ENCOMPASS360 uses without executing ENCOMPASS360 at all. There might be business logic in ENCOMPASS360 that is not easily determined but I would sure start by attempting to determine if the data can be written to directly. So do you know what format the data is in? Is it a SQL Server database or some other database? Is ENCOMPASS360 from Ellie Mae for mortgages? If so then is the data to be imported loans or contacts? It appears you can import either one or both.