SmartConnect Saves Sight and Sound Technology 50+ Hours a Day with Zoho CRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration

Sight and Sound Technology is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of software and hardware for people who are blind or are visually impaired, as well as those with learning and reading difficulties. Headquartered in Northampton, with additional offices in Glasgow and Dublin, Sight and Sound is committed to improving lives through assistive technology while staying at the forefront of innovation.

James Everson, General Manager and Head of Operations, oversees logistics, workshop engineers, technical support, and trainers. Part of his job includes reviewing the team’s tech stack and ensuring the systems they use are as efficient as possible.

When they take on a new integration, James goes through the setup phases, including the sandbox and testing phase, and maps out the correct processes for his team. He then rolls it out to other departments, allowing them to use the product and provide feedback on what needs to be tweaked. When it came to their data processes, he noticed there was a gap between their CRM and ERP applications and knew something had to change.

Sight and Sound was running two systems that weren’t talking to each other. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central houses the company’s complete order history (invoices, sales records, and customer details), but that same information had to be manually re-entered into Zoho CRM with every order.

With over 300 orders coming through daily, that redundant work added up fast, and the risk of human error grew with every entry. On top of that, the team couldn’t rely on their data being current.

Knowing this workflow was unsustainable, Sight and Sound turned to TSG (Technology Services Group), their Business Central support provider, for help. TSG recommended Popdock and SmartConnect as the solution.

Previous to [utilizing SmartConnect], we’d have to wait for an overnight transfer to be done, and you’re then playing catch-up all the time

James Everson, on what his process looked like before finding eOne

The Solution: Real-Time Sync Without a Developer

Sight and Sound needed a way to connect D365 Business Central and Zoho CRM so sales data stayed accurate and accessible in both systems, without requiring a developer to sustain it. That’s exactly what Popdock and SmartConnect delivered.

Popdock was used to build optimized D365 Business Central queries to surface the right data. This is especially important because every customer and document has a unique identifier number. Utilizing serialized items requires complex queries across 5 tables, and this solution provides a no-code way to work with that complex data. Without Popdock, it would have required a developer to expose the Business Central data.

Those Popdock-generated queries are accessed directly by SmartConnect. Now, data entered into Business Central automatically transfers to Zoho CRM, and the Zoho CRM data is visible within Business Central. The team has total visibility and confidence that what they’re looking at is up to date.

With manual double-entry eliminated, Sight and Sound saves roughly ten minutes per order. Multiply that by 300+ daily orders, and the math is striking: Popdock and SmartConnect are saving the team around 50 hours every single day.

“It’s like going from caveman stage to evolution,” said James.

Beyond the time savings, the solution is built to last. Because eOne’s products are designed to integrate at the architectural level, workflows don’t break when a system updates, a critical advantage for a team that can’t afford downtime.

“I couldn’t recommend it any higher,” said James. “It is stable, you know, no matter how many updates you have to your Business Central application. It doesn’t break, so you can update one and it still works. You don’t have to refresh.”

eOne provides more than just an innovative iPaaS, with a services team dedicated to solving even the toughest problems.

James worked closely with Ethan Sorenson, an eOne Consultant, throughout the build. “This is where Ethan’s patience comes in because he’s very good at putting things together, but he’s also very good at showing you what needs to be done and how you should be doing things.”

James also reflected on how the journey began with eOne and the relationship he continues to have with our team.

I think the relationship we’ve actually had with eOne—it’s been tremendous right from day one.

James Everson

Looking Ahead

As Sight and Sound continues bringing the latest assistive technology innovations to people across the UK, their data infrastructure is ready to scale with them, freeing the team to focus on what matters most.

“I can’t see us ever not having SmartConnect or Popdock,” said James, “Without it, I think our business would suffer and we’d end up probably bringing on more employees to actually do the role.”

Need to sync data between Zoho CRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? Reach out to our team at sales@eonesolutions.com.