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doc/development/api/datasync.rst

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+.. highlight:: python
+   :linenothreshold: 5
+
+Data sync providers
+===================
+
+Pretix provides connectivity to many external services through plugins. A common requirement
+is unidirectionally sending (order, customer, ticket, ...) data into external systems.
+The transfer is usually triggered by signals provided by pretix core (e.g. order_created),
+but performed asynchronously.
+
+Such plugins should use the :class:`OutboundSyncProvider` API to utilize the queueing, retry and mapping mechanisms as well as the user interface for configuration and monitoring.
+
+An :class:`OutboundSyncProvider` for registering event participants in a mailing list could start
+like this, for example:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    class MyListSyncProvider(OutboundSyncProvider):
+        identifier = "my_list"
+        # ...
+
+
+
+The plugin must register listeners in `signals.py` for all signals that should to trigger a sync and
+within it has to call `MyListSyncProvider.enqueue_order` to enqueue the order for synchronization:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    @receiver(order_placed, dispatch_uid="mylist_order_placed")
+    def on_order_placed(sender, order, **kwargs):
+        MyListSyncProvider.enqueue_order(order, "order_placed")
+
+
+
+
+Furthermore, most of these plugins need to transfer data from some pretix objects (e.g. orders)
+into an external systems' data structures. Sometimes, there is only one reasonable way or the
+plugin author makes an opinionated decision what information from which objects should be
+transferred into which data structures in the external system.
+
+Otherwise, you can use a `PropertyMappingFormSet` to let the user set up a mapping from pretix model fields
+to external data fields. You could store the mapping information either in the Event settings, or in a separate
+data model. Your implementation of OutboundSyncProvider.mappings needs to provide a list of Mappings, with at least
+the properties defined in :class:`pretix.base.datasync.datasync.StaticMapping`.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    # class MyListSyncProvider, contd.
+        def mappings(self):
+            return [
+                StaticMapping(1, 'Order', 'Contact', 'email', 'email',
+                              self.event.settings.mylist_order_mapping))
+            ]
+
+
+Currently, we support Orders and OrderPositions as data sources, with the data fields defined in
+:func:`pretix.base.datasync.sourcefields.get_data_fields`.
+
+
+