ERP — Oracle, Workday, NetSuite, Dynamics 365

Oracle Fusion / Cloud ERP

What it is

Oracle's cloud ERP. Built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure; modern REST APIs. Common at customers who modernized off Oracle EBS (legacy on-prem Oracle ERP) over the last 5–10 years.

Who owns it

Finance IT team. Smaller and less customization-heavy than SAP teams, typically.

How to integrate

REST APIs at /fscmRestApi/resources/.... Documentation is reasonable. SOAP web services are still available for legacy reasons.

import httpx

resp = httpx.get(
    "https://oracle-cloud.example.com/fscmRestApi/resources/11.13.18.05/suppliers",
    params={"limit": 100, "q": "BusinessUnit=US01"},
    auth=(user, password),
)
suppliers = resp.json()["items"]

Auth patterns

OAuth2 client-credentials; Basic auth still supported for legacy integrations.

Gotchas

• Custom flexfields. Per-customer descriptive flexfields (DFF) and key flexfields (KFF). Schema varies.
• OIC (Oracle Integration Cloud) is the customer's preferred integration platform if they've adopted it. Often the right place to land vs direct API.
• Business unit hierarchy. Oracle's multi-org structure means data filters by BU. Don't assume one query returns enterprise-wide data.
• Region-specific tenants. Multi-tenant Oracle Cloud often has separate URLs per region. Per-deployment configuration.

Workday Financials

What it is

Workday started in HCM (Human Capital Management) and extended into Financials. Most customers run Workday HCM; the Financials add-on is more common in mid-market and growing enterprises.

Who owns it

Workday Administrator team — typically Finance or IT. Closer-knit team than SAP/Oracle equivalents; more responsive.

How to integrate

SOAP web services dominate. REST APIs are newer and growing. The customer's Workday team usually has a defined integration pattern (Studio integration, EIB extracts) they want you to follow.

from zeep import Client

client = Client("https://wd5-impl-services1.workday.com/ccx/service/customer/Resource_Management/v42.0?wsdl")
result = client.service.Get_Suppliers(
    Request_Criteria={"Workday_Authentication": {"username": user, "password": password}},
    Response_Filter={"Count": 100},
)

Auth patterns

OAuth2 for modern integrations; Workday's own Integration System User (ISU) accounts.

Gotchas

• SOAP verbosity. Workday SOAP responses are deeply nested. Plan for transformation overhead.
• Workday vocabulary. They have their own terminology — "Worker" vs "Employee," "Supplier" with specific subtypes. Get the customer's mapping doc.
• Long-running integrations. Workday Studio integrations are complex builds. The customer's team usually owns them.
• Calculated fields. Custom report writers can produce values not directly in the API. Customer-specific.

NetSuite

What it is

Oracle's mid-market ERP (Oracle acquired NetSuite in 2016). Common in growing companies and PE portfolio companies. Significantly more customer-side customization than other clouds.

Who owns it

Smaller teams. Often a NetSuite Administrator (one person or a few) plus an external consultant. Less bureaucratic than SAP / Oracle Cloud.

How to integrate

• SuiteTalk REST/SOAP: the integration API. REST is modern; SOAP is legacy but still used.
• SuiteScript: server-side JavaScript that customers run inside NetSuite. Sometimes you need to coordinate with their SuiteScript developers.
• RESTlets: customer-side endpoints they expose to you. Common for custom integrations.

Auth patterns

Token-Based Authentication (TBA) is the modern default; OAuth2 for newer integrations. Username/password is deprecated.

Gotchas

• Custom record types per customer. Customers create their own object types. Your generic NetSuite integration won't know about them until told.
• Governance limits. NetSuite throttles API calls aggressively (usage points). High-volume integrations need careful pacing.
• Sandbox sync. Sandboxes often diverge from production. Don't trust sandbox tests to predict production behavior on custom code.
• Custom fields on standard records. Even the supplier (Vendor) record has customer-added fields. Always look at their specific schema.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Finance, Business Central, Supply Chain)

What it is

Microsoft's ERP suite. Multiple products under the Dynamics 365 umbrella — Finance & Operations (enterprise), Business Central (mid-market), Supply Chain Management. Common in Microsoft-shop enterprises and Microsoft-partner industries.

Who owns it

Customer's Dynamics admin team — often closer to the Microsoft platform team (Power Platform, Azure) than to traditional ERP teams.

How to integrate

• OData REST APIs: native to Dynamics, well-documented.
• Common Data Service / Dataverse: the underlying data layer; queryable via Web API.
• Power Automate flows: customer's preferred way to wire integrations. Sometimes the right place to integrate is Power Automate calling your platform.
• Custom Power Apps / Power Platform: customers extend Dynamics through Power Platform; integrations sometimes target Power Platform endpoints.

Auth patterns

Azure AD / Entra ID — OAuth2 with Microsoft identity. The customer's Entra tenant is the IdP.

Gotchas

• Customizations via Power Platform. Customers extend Dynamics heavily through Power Platform — custom tables, custom fields, business process flows. Your integration needs to account for their specific shape.
• Multiple environments. Customers often have multiple Dataverse environments (dev / test / prod). Per-environment connection.
• Entra tenant complexity. Cross-tenant auth (your tenant vs theirs) requires careful Application Registration setup.

Which one will you meet

Rough heuristic at large enterprises:

• SAP: most likely at Fortune 500, especially industrials, manufacturing, energy, pharma. Customer often has been on SAP for decades.
• Oracle: common at consumer goods, retail, healthcare, banking. Customer modernized from legacy Oracle EBS.
• Workday: growing rapidly in tech-forward enterprises, especially professional services and tech companies. Often Workday HCM first, Financials later.
• NetSuite: mid-market growing companies, PE portfolio companies, multi-entity small-and-medium businesses.
• Dynamics 365: Microsoft-shop enterprises, government, certain industries. More common in EU than US.

For each new customer: ask the data lead in discovery. Don't assume.