Customer Interaction Management (CIM) applications generate material requirements to support customer return and repair processes. However, Material Requirements Planning (MRP), and purchasing and receiving processes are not executed within such front-office applications.
An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application uses its master data to convert the material reservation or purchase requisition into either a work order (make) or a purchase requisition (buy). After the material is produced or purchased and received, the ERP application moves the material to the location or expense account specified within the material reservation or purchase request.
The Purchasing collaboration object uses the generic Requisition business object to synchronize a material or stock request from a CIM application to an ERP application's purchasing documents. The collaboration facilitates the creation of a purchasing document in the destination ERP application. The collaboration can be configured to verify the existence of requisitioned items within the destination ERP application before it creates a purchasing document.
Business object | Related collaboration properties | Called collaborations |
---|---|---|
Item ItemBasic ItemOrder ItemPlanning |
ItemSync |
Notes:
This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on Purchasing. For information on standard features, ports, and configuration properties for collaboration templates, refer to the Collaboration Development Guide. For general information on creating collaboration objects, refer to the System Implementation Guide.
Figure 1 illustrates Purchasing's ports, as they are displayed in System Manager.
Figure 1. Purchasing collaboration ports
Note: To prevent the collaboration object from using a port, bind that port to the Port connector. Binding the port indicates that the port is unused without causing the collaboration object to provide additional functionality.
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
Requisition. | The destination application's connector. | Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object. The result determines the verb to use when synchronizing the Requisition. |
Retrieve. |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
Requisition. | Source application's connector or calling collaboration. | Receives the triggering business object. At the end of a synchronous call, this port also returns the triggering business object to the source application when the collaboration ends successfully. |
Create Retrieve Update Delete |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
Requisition. | The destination application's connector. |
Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration. |
Create Update Delete. |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
Requisition. | The From port of the ItemWrapper collaboration. | Sends any of the supported generic item business objects (Item, ItemBasic, ItemOrder, or ItemPlanning) to an ItemWrapper collaboration. |
Exists Sync. |
To set up Purchasing as a stand-alone collaboration object, follow these steps:
To verify or synchronize referenced items as part of the Purchasing process, create one of the following collaboration-object groups:
Verify Synchronize Required collaborations Items Purchasing, ItemWrapper Items Purchasing, ItemWrapper, ItemSync
The following procedure describes setting up Purchasing as part of a collaboration-object group:
Note: System Manager will have already bound the ItemWrapper collaboration object's From port to the Purchasing collaboration object. For item verification, go directly to step #9.
This section illustrates the process logic for this collaboration template:
Figure 2 illustrates the Purchasing collaboration's process flow.
Figure 2. Purchasing collaboration process flow
This collaboration template uses the following standard collaboration business processes:
For information on these processes, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
Figure 3 illustrates Purchasing's process for verifying or synchronizing related items.
Figure 3. Verification or synchronization of items
InterChange Server Express can roll back a transaction when any step in a transactional collaboration fails. For example, when Purchasing is a member of a collaboration-object group that participates in a transactional collaboration, its actions are one subtransactional step in a larger transaction. If any step in the collaboration-object group's business process fails, the transactional collaboration details how InterChange Server Express rolls back the processing of every collaboration in the group.
When a Purchasing collaboration object is used independently of other collaboration objects or the collaboration object's From port is bound to a source application rather than to another collaboration, its process comprises a single transactional step. In such a situation, it is not necessary to perform rollback.
To cause a collaboration object or a collaboration-object group to perform rollback requires modification of the collaboration template. To understand transaction processing in the IBM Business Integration Server Express Plus system, see the System Implementation Guide. For information on adding transaction processing to the collaboration template, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
To extend the collaboration object to handle transaction processing, complete the following steps:
This section describes the standard properties and collaboration template specific properties for this collaboration template:
This collaboration template uses the following standard configuration properties for collaboration templates:
For information on these configuration properties, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
In addition to its standard configuration properties, this collaboration template has the configuration properties described below.
Property name and explanation | Possible values | Default value |
---|---|---|
ITEM_TYPE Set to the type of generic Item whose existence must be synchronized or verified before the collaboration creates the Requisition business object. The VERIFY_SYNC_ITEM property uses the value of this property to determine the type of item to be synchronized or verified. |
Item, ItemBasic, ItemOrder, ItemPlanning | Item |
VERIFY_SYNC_ITEM Set to "sync" to cause Purchasing to synchronize related items in the destination application. Purchasing copies the ItemId from the Order business object and creates the type of generic business object specified in the ITEM_TYPE property. Purchasing sends the business object with the Sync verb to ItemWrapper. In turn, ItemWrapper retrieves values for all attributes from the source application and sends the business object with the Create verb to ItemSync. If ItemSync fails to create the related item, Purchasing handles the error as specified in its INFORMATIONAL_EXCEPTIONS property. Set to "verify" to cause Purchasing to verify related items in the destination application. Purchasing copies the ItemId from the Order business object and creates the type of generic business object specified in the ITEM_TYPE property. Purchasing sends the business object with the Exists verb to ItemWrapper. In turn, ItemWrapper retrieves the business object from the destination application. If ItemWrapper fails to retrieve a related item, Purchasing handles the error as specified in its INFORMATIONAL_EXCEPTIONS property. Set to "neither" to cause Purchasing to synchronize the triggering Order business object without first synchronizing related items or verifying existing related items in the destination application. |
neither, verify, sync |
neither |
Note: Messages that provide warnings appear at the trace destination only if the trace level has been set to 3 or higher.
To view an explanation of the messages of this collaboration template, launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file. To launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file:
To upgrade to a newer version of the collaboration template, perform the following steps: