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Components of a Platform Connector

The following diagram shows how the components of a platform connector project fit together and interact.

For example, the following sequence of calls would occur in order to initialize a checkout and display a basic checkout flow:

  1. The storefront makes a call to the Checkout Backend API to initialize the checkout.
  2. The customer logs in to their store account when prompted. The storefront makes a call to the Checkout Backend API to add an authenticated customer to the order.
  3. The customer adds their shipping and billing addresses, and Bold Checkout adds these to the order. The customer enters their payment information and clicks “Confirm”.
  4. Once the order is complete, Bold makes a series of calls to the platform connector API to create and edit the appropriate resources on the platform.

The following sections break down the major components of a platform connector project.

Bold Checkout Experience Suite​

The Checkout Experience Suite is composed of Bold Checkout, Bold Subscriptions, and Bold Price Rules. These applications provide functionality to improve your store’s checkout experience.

Platform​

An ecommerce platform provides the interface for merchants to sell their goods and services, and for shoppers to purchase those goods and services. Platforms usually offer a form of product management, customer authentication, order management, and other management features.

Bold provides out-of-the-box support for several platforms, including BigCommerce, commercetools, and Shopify. In order to use another platform, a merchant or partner must create a platform connector so that Bold can communicate with it.

In a platform connector project, Bold expects the following to be provided by the platform:

  • Platform connector implementation, a server which:
    • Responds to requests from Bold using the format defined in the Platform Connector API Specifications
    • Sends requests to Bold when a resource is updated, using the format defined in the Platform Event Notification Specifications.
  • A persistent database solution for storing product, customer, and order information.
  • Storefront code that calls Bold APIs.

Platform Connector APIs​

Bold’s functionality relies on data about your store’s products, orders, and customers in order to create a checkout experience. If your platform is not officially supported by Bold, you must implement a server that allows Bold to retrieve and manipulate this data. Throughout the documentation, these APIs are referred to as the Platform Connector APIs.

You must create this server based on the Platform Connector API Specifications, which define the ways that Bold expects to interact with your chosen platform. These requirements adhere to the Version 3.0 of the OpenAPI specification.

Bold provides three Platform Connector API Specifications:

Platform Event Notifications​

It is important to ensure data is synchronized between your platform and Bold applications. It is likely that you will be adding and removing products from your system or making other changes through a means other than the Platform Connector APIs (such as through Bold applications), so additional action must be taken to update Bold of the changes.

In addition to a standard API, a platform connector project must also include the creation of events that notify Bold when a change happens in the platform. Bold provides three Platform Event Notification Specifications: