copyright © 2012. infor. all rights reserved. _ replacing offline... · html, rpg, c#, visual...

2Copyright © 2012. Infor. All Rights Reserved. www.infor.comCopyright © 2012. Infor. All Rights Reserved. www.infor.com 2

SYSiC-2793: Infor XA -Replacing Offline Loads with System Link

Randy Kenney, Senior Consultant, Guide Technologies LLC


• Ferno: Dave Barrett – Senior RPG Programmer/Analyst

• Ferno: Bob Klein – Senior RPG Programmer/Analyst

• Guide Technologies: Kevin Fox – Consulting Manager

Real Credits Go To


System Link Overview / Concepts


• System Link can be thought of as a virtual real-time offline batch process (oxymoron)

• Can be used to replace standard updating / processing (not just Offline Loads)

• Exact same edits and business logic as if an end-user was hand keying the data via Power Link or Net Link

• All XA security rules enforced

System Link Overview


• System Link is a bridge between outside systems and XA

• The term outside system could mean one or more of any number of programs and platforms, including:

• A web page

• An RPG program

• A Java program on a System i or an auxiliary machine

• MS Office, MS Office365, Google Docs, etc

• Other ERP systems on other platforms

• In other words, what system CAN’T be integrated with XA?

What is System Link?


What is System Link?System Link is a bridge

between :

Outside systemsA web page

An RPG program

A Java program on a System i or an auxiliary machine

MS Office, MS Office365, Google Docs, etc

Other ERP systems on other platforms

and XA

Device and Language Independent


• A “Bridge” is more than database to database

• System Link integration provides:

• System Security

• XA Security Rules are enforced

• No ODBC connections

• Class and Methods

• Data Definitions

• Transaction Rules

• Error Handling

• XA edit rules are enforced

What is System Link?


• Access to Information

• Security

• Provide access without having to redefine security or bypass security

• Internet

• Provide easy access to many different users

• Customers, Vendors, Sales, Employees…..

• Different Devices

• Internet Browsers (IE, FireFox, Chrome, Opera, Safari….)

• Upgrades and Maintenance

• Need to upgrade XA to take advantage of a new feature? Do it without requiring rewrites. Release transparency.

Why System Link?


• The calling program can be any program that can generate and receive XML (eXtensible Markup Language)

• Web Page (HTML)

• Java Programs

• Widgets (Adobe Air), Gadgets (Google)…..

• RPG programs

• non-INFOR ERP Systems

• Custom In-House developed systems

• Non-ERP systems

• Product Life Cycle, Supply Chain, Human Resources….

Standards


System Link is therefore independent of

Language

HTML, RPG, C#, Visual Basic, PHP, JAVA…

System

iSeries, Windows, Linux, Unix…..

Infrastructure

LAN, WAN, Internet, Messaging Service

Devices

Green Screen

PCs / Laptops

Servers

iPhones / iPads

Androids

Blackberrys….

Independence


Title Only Slide

Copyright © 2010 Infor. All rights reserved. 12


System Link: Communications Methods

System Link

LPI

Web ServerWeb Services

(SOAP / WSDL 1.1)

MQ System

RPG

Java

HTML

LPI

MQI

JMS

System Link

MQ Adapter

.NET



System Link

LPI


(SOAP / WSDL 1.1)

MQ System

RPG

Java

HTML

LPI

MQI

JMS

System Link

MQ Adapter

.NET



15

System Link

LPI


(SOAP / WSDL 1.1)

MQ System

RPG

Java

HTML

LPI

MQI

JMS

System Link

MQ Adapter

.NET

Power LinkNet Link

INFOR

XA

ERP

XA Communications Layer



System LinkPower LinkNet Link

INFOR

XA

ERP

XA Communications Layer

INFOR

XA

ERP

Web Server

Servlet Engine

System Link Servlet Net Link

Servlet


XA Web Server – Results in HTML

Access System Link via built in Web Server

http://myiseries.mydomain.com:36001/SystemLink/Simulator.html


• Consistent validation logic

• Maintenance history

• Can use all custom edits (user exits)

• Can use all custom extension files

• Can be executed 1 event at a time for virtual real-time processing vs. end of day batch processing

• XA Security rules enforced

• Release transparency

System Link vs. Offline Loads

• Slower processing

• If using Excel need to be version conscious when upgrades come out (i.e. each new MS release needs to be analyzed for compatibility) Example: Excel 2003 vs. 2007

• Harder to conceptualize from an RPG background

• Not a lot of useful examples / documentation

• Can’t pre-pass all edits before committing any updates – until R9

Pros Cons


Customer Examples:Ferno-Washington, Inc.


• Purpose: Allows customer service to generate a purchase order from information entered in a green screen COM customer order. This eliminated the manual entry of a drop ship PO.

• User can select what items get drop shipped, override vendors and select whether the PO will be drop ship to a customer or shipped back to Ferno for consolidation. The PO generation gets submitted to batch at the end of a customer order if the order isn’t on hold. An Audit log is emailed to the user. The audit log will identify whether the PO creation is successful and display any errors or warning that were either identified by our custom program or returned back from system link.

#1: Auto-PO Creation from Sales Order using RPG

UMBCOH2RGreen Screen

COM User Exit

End Customer Order

PODROPCSubmits job to batch

PODROPBuild POMAST & POITEM

D/S, process XML response,

Print audit log, and update

audit files

USRCRTPOCreate PO Header and

PO Item XML from

POMAST & POITEM

D/S

PSVPSR1RProcess system link

request

PODROPUMDetermines PO unit of

measure

POHDRPuts PO on hold

POCMTGenerates PO

comments

POCONTRDetermines contract#

for item


• Using Deployment Profiles and Web Services from eIntegrator

• Visual Studio 2010 and Excel 2007/10

• XA login from Excel

#2: Price Book Create/Update from MS Excel 2007/10


• Excel –> flat file –> Apache/RPG edits –> System Link –> EPDM

• Can’t pre-pass all edits before any updates made

• At R9 there is a Group ID to do all edits before any updates, BUT in this case we needed to write some records before other edits could be done!

#3: Engineering Change Updates in EPDM using RPG and Excel


• We have a green screen project management system. In EPDM we needed to be able to link changes back to the project number.

• Created a system link XML to create/update the IDF Maintenance Reason table with our project number.

• Green screen input to Powerlink output.

#4: Create Maintenance Reasons from Project Mgmt System using RPG


• Each year we re-create a new budget simulation site from production site using standard copy site in IDF, copying all item revisions, bills and routings

• On-demand processing to update This Level cost in Budget site repeatedly

• Run cost rolls due to changing vendor costing and internal costs for simulation until ready for year-end upload

• Year-end Processing after budgets finalized

• Using RPG to generate system link XML we update both the Item Revision cost as well as the Facility Master tables

• Benefits were Maintenance history reflects changes

• Updating more than 27,000 records; it is important to use session handlers to keep sessions open

#5: Update Costing from a Budget / Finance site (PL to PL) using RPG


What Would Be REALLY Useful??


Templates for each Offline Load in RPG, Visual Studio, and Java

• Site Master

• Item Enterprise

• Item Revision

• Item Process

• Item Master

• Item Balance

• Facility Master

• Product Structure

• Routing

• G/L Master

• G/L Journal Transactions

• A/P Invoices & Credit Memos

• A/R Invoices

• A/R Open Detail

• Employee Master

• Employee Misc Deduction

• Employee State/County/Local

• Others…

• Vendor Master

• Purchase Orders

• Contract Price

• Customer Master

• COM Orders

• Ship-to Master

• Customer Sales

• Item Sales

• Sales Rep Sales


Tell us when Offline Loads will be taken away with plenty of advance notice• Infor started this already with COM offline loads in 9.0 (Price Books)

• System Link can be used to replace offline loads, but also in many other ways as the examples have shown

• With templates you could really take advantage of System Link using whatever programming skills you have available (RPG, Java, VS,…)


Additional Resources• System Link Toolkit is available to help RPG programmers generate

XML without needing to know XML at all

• Guide Technologies is developing the offline load templates now and will be part of the SLTK, you can contact me if interested

• The full source code files and notes for examples 1&2 can be downloaded for those interested at: http://www.guidetechnologies.com/2013/04/19/downloads-for-randy-kenney-presentation/

http://www.guidetechnologies.com/2013/04/19/downloads-for-randy-kenney-presentation/


Thank You!! Any Questions?

copyright © 2012. infor. all rights reserved. _ replacing offline... · html, rpg, c#, visual...

Documents