IDS Connect is the standardised interface protocol for the German wholesale sector – particularly in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning (SHK) and electrical sectors. It enables tradespeople and specialist firms to search for and select products directly from their industry-specific software within a supplier’s catalogue and add them to their own shopping basket.
Unlike OCI (SAP environment) and cXML (Ariba, Coupa), IDS Connect is specifically tailored to the requirements of the technical wholesale sector in Germany.
New: PunchCommerce now supports IDS Connect as a fully-fledged PunchOut protocol in Gateway Mode.
In Gateway Mode, PunchCommerce acts as a bridge between your customer’s industry-specific software and your existing online shop:
The IDS interface (version 2.5) defines seven actions. PunchCommerce supports all actions with the exception of Send Heating Label (HLS).
| Action code | Action | Supported | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
WKE |
Receive shopping basket | ✅ | Transfer of a shopping basket from the shop to the trades software. |
WKS |
Send shopping basket | ✅ | Transfer of a shopping basket from the tradesman’s software to the shop. |
ADL |
Product deep link | ✅ | Opening a product detail page in the shop using the wholesale product number. |
AS |
Product search | ✅ | Initiating a product search in the shop by passing a search term and returning the selected products. |
LI |
Login details | ✅ | Querying which login parameters (customer number, username, password) are required by the shop. |
SV |
Interface version | ✅ | Querying the supported versions of the IDS interface. |
HLS |
Send Heating Label | ❌ | Transmission of a product list to a platform for calculating the ErP combined label for heating systems. |
The HLS action is used to transfer product lists to an external platform for calculating ErP energy labels for combined systems (heating, hot water, combi). This function requires a specialised calculation platform and falls outside the scope of the PunchOut catalogue.
IDS Connect in Gateway Mode works with all PunchCommerce plugins:
IDS Connect can also be integrated with custom shop or catalogue solutions via the PunchCommerce API.
If you haven’t already done so: install the PunchCommerce plugin in your shop system and connect it to your PunchCommerce account. Instructions can be found in the relevant plugin documentation.
Create a new customer in PunchCommerce and select IDS Connect as the protocol.
Enter the IDS Connect-specific parameters provided by your client. These include, amongst others:
You can see the exact fields directly in the configuration screen.
Field mapping allows you to assign your shop attributes (e.g. EAN, item number, short text) to the corresponding IDS-Connect fields. PunchCommerce provides sensible default values – in many cases, no adjustment is necessary here.
If a required field in your shop is left blank, the configured fallback value is automatically applied.
Use the integrated PunchOut Simulator to test the IDS Connect connection – without having to wait for your customer’s IT department. The simulator shows you which data is being transferred and whether the configuration is correct.
IDS Connect uses HTTP-POST with multipart/form-data as the encoding. The shopping basket data is transferred as an XML structure in the warenkorb parameter. The character set is specified in the XML declaration – the default is UTF-8.
PunchCommerce supports version 2.5 of the IDS interface. The supported versions can be queried using the action code SV.
The shopping basket is returned to the trades software via the HOOK URL passed when the call is made – in the same way as with the OCI interface.
OCI is the standard for SAP procurement systems, whilst cXML is used in global procurement networks such as Ariba or Coupa. IDS Connect was developed specifically for the German specialist wholesale sector and is tailored to the requirements of tradespeople’s software and industry solutions in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning (SHK) and electrical sectors.
Yes. PunchCommerce supports OCI, cXML and IDS Connect simultaneously. You can specify which protocol is used for each customer individually.
No. The existing PunchCommerce plugins support all three protocols. If your plugin is already installed, you can start using IDS Connect straight away – no additional installation is required.
