>This is a general question... or more precisely a request for thoughts and ideas on how to handle a request being presented to me by a client. There are tons of details involved, but for this posting I will try to summarize the current environment and request briefly, as I am just curious as to how some of you would handle this.
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>[Existing environment] We're talking about an existing application running under Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2, on a Windows network. The data is stored in VFP tables belonging to a DBC, and accessed (usually) via views found in other DBCs. The application was developed using the Visual FoxExpress framework. All users are centrally located, and there is (ahhhh... was) no need for access to the application nor its data from outside the confines of the central location.
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>The application performs many different functions, but the one germane to this discussion is order entry. Customers call staff members at the location and provide information over the phone that is used by the staff to construct and enter orders via the application.
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>[New request] One of the larger customers has voiced a desire to have their system--which contains the required order information--linked to my client's system to eliminate the need for the phone call. The thought would be the customer's staff would enter the order into their system, and via the magic of technology my client's system would be updated to reflect the order. It should be noted that the information transmitted contains sensitive data and therefore proper steps must be taken to ensure confidentiality.
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>Although this customer is very important to my client, the volume of transactions is quite small (perhaps five to ten per day at most), and my client is certainly not looking to build a huge process around this as the company is a relatively small business. In fact, my client has very good arguments why the phone conversations are important to ensure proper ordering, and would actually prefer to continue taking order over the phone. That said, they do want to make their biggest customer happy and therefore want to provide some mechanism for this (again, keeping the complexity and cost DOWN).
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>Web services some to mind, and as my client does have a website, perhaps using a relatively "low tech" secured FTP upload/download solution would make everyone happy. I'm wondering what some of you might be thinking as possibilities. Feel free to ask for additional information, as I have intentionally tried not to bore everyone to death (too late, right?).
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>TIA

The way you've described this implies that a purchase order will somehow be generated and transmitted automatically by the customers existing system - i.e. they won't (for example) expect to log on to a web page provided by your client in order to do this?
If that is the case then how your client receives the order will be pretty much dictated by the process already in use by this buyer.

If that's not the case (i.e. your client can dictate the process to be used) then a wide swathe of options are open.
But in my experience that's a rare scenario - any buyer who wants to automate their ordering service is going to want a single standard - not a different process for each supplier.

So can you first clarify how the buyer expects this to work?