The Solution development guide describes the internal processing of the Product Information Management for Retailers solution and offers some ideas on how the solution can be customized for different purposes.
Who should read the Solution development guide
The Solution development guide is for programmers who design and implement workflows using the Product Information Management for Retailers solution and who might participate in designing customizations to this solution.Definitions and terminology
Definitions of terminology used in the guide.How the Solution development guide is organized
The Solution development guide introduces the mechanics of the solution by first presenting a sample, high-level, step-by-step workflow. This section is useful for obtaining an overall, conceptual understanding of solution processing.Processing a business object: an example NEW_ITEM workflow
The information in the following sections outlines the Product Information Management for Retailers solution workflow in detail. It describes at a high level how the solution handles a PUB_RELEASE_NEW_ITEM flow (in systems supporting the UCCnet DTD) or a Catalogue Item Notification NEW_ITEM flow (in systems supporting the UCCnet XSD).Filtering publication requests before business processing
Details the preprocessing filtering performed by a UCCnetMessageReceive collaboration object, which ensures that items contain attributes required by UCCnet, that they are from supply-side trading partners or in categories accepted by the demand-side trading partner, that duplicate items are not processed, and that items pass a set of complex filters based on the interaction of multiple attributes.Validating an item before business processing
Describes the item validation processes provided by an ItemValidation collaboration object, which include validating a Retail_Item business object against customized business policy rules and evaluating an accepted business object against a customized list of required attribute data. It also details how to use a custom missing data retrieval process to obtain required attribute data.Adding customized code to the ItemValidation collaboration template
Iinformation on how to add custom logic to the ItemValidation collaboration template.Processing business objects with cascaded GLNs
Explains how the solution handles items containing cascaded GLNs.Using a business process to review and approve an item
Describes operations related to utilizing WebSphere MQ Workflow as a custom business review/approval process. The business review/approval process is used by the demand-side trading partner to review an item to determine whether to approve it or reject it.Merging data into a complete item
Describes the operation of the an ItemCollector collaboration object, which builds a complete business object by merging partial business objects containing updated information into a complete copy of the business object retrieved from a local item store.Processing an item after the business review/approval process completes
Details how a Process_Reviewed_Item collaboration object synchronizes an item to a back-end file system and calls a UCCnetMessageSend collaboration object to send a response to UCCnet. It also suggests ways of synchronizing an item to a customized back-end application other than a file system or to multiple back-end applications.Sending responses to UCCnet
Explains how a UCCnetMessageSend collaboration object sends response messages to UCCnet based on an item's command type, status value, and the values of particular collaboration object properties.Using identifier, message, and item stores
Identifies how and why various collaboration objects persist, retrieve, update, and delete items to and from identifier, message, and item stores.Controlling e-mail
Details how various collaboration objects enable a Role_Email collaboration object to alert users of item status or if errors occur during processing. It also describes how to specify message text, subjects, and recipients in external files to eliminate updating individual collaboration objects each time one of these variables changes. Specifying changing individual or multiple message recipients and how to use substitution variables in message and subject text is also covered.Logging
Describes the special capabilities of various collaboration objects to log errors, item status, and when mail is sent.Tracing
Outlines how to trace and identify problems that might occur in the solution workflow.Handling solution processing errors
Provides troubleshooting tips that can be used to diagnose error conditions, identify where in the process flow errors might have occurred, and recover from error conditions.Handling data from other data sources
Suggestions for extending the solution to handle single data sources other than UCCnet or multiple data sources.Notices and Trademarks
Proprietary Information US Government Users Restricted Rights - Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.Trademarks and service marks
Lists the trademarks and service marks in this guide
Parent topic: Product Information Management