CustomerCreditManager Collaboration Template

The CustomerCreditManager collaboration sends customer-specific credit account balance data from an application that owns and maintains credit account information, such as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, to a Customer Interaction Management (CIM) or similar application.

CustomerCreditManager uses the generic CustomerCreditStatus business object, which can contain data that shows the amount of unused credit a customer has available. The collaboration can process credit information at either the SoldTo or BillTo level.

Through the use of the generic CustomerCreditStatusAging child business object, for some applications the collaboration can capture snapshot information that shows a customer's past-due credit balance for different time periods.

The collaboration is designed to facilitate credit data transfer from ERP to CIM applications in two types of situations:

Assumptions

The design of the collaboration template makes the following assumptions:

Collaboration object setup

This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on CustomerCreditManager. For information on standard features, ports, and configuration properties for collaboration templates, see the Collaboration Development Guide. For general information on creating collaboration objects, see the System Implementation Guide.

Port information

Figure 1 illustrates CustomerCreditManager's ports as they are displayed in System Manager. The tables that follow the figure provide information about each port.

Figure 1. CustomerCreditManager 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.

Port name: DestinationAppRetrieve
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CustomerCreditStatus 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 CustomerCreditStatus.

Retrieve


Port name: From
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CustomerCreditStatus 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


Port name: To
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CustomerCreditStatus The destination application's connector

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration.

Create Update Delete

Setting up the collaboration object

CustomerCreditManager is designed to be used as a stand-alone collaboration. To set up CustomerCreditManager as a stand-alone collaboration object, follow these steps:

  1. Create the CustomerCreditManager collaboration object.
  2. Bind each of the collaboration object's ports as described in Port information.
  3. Set the Configuration properties for CustomerCreditManager.
 

Collaboration template processes

This section illustrates the process logic for this collaboration template:

Overall process logic

Figure 2 illustrates CustomerCreditManager's process logic.

Figure 2. CustomerCreditManager collaboration process logic

Inherited process logic

This collaboration template uses the following standard collaboration business processes:

For information on these processes, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

Compensation processing

InterChange Server Express Plus rolls back a transaction when any step in a transactional collaboration fails. For example, when CustomerCreditManager is a member of a collaboration-object group that participates in a transactional collaboration, its actions are one subtransactional step of a larger transaction. If any step in the collaboration-object group's business process fails, the transactional collaboration details how InterChange Server Express Plus rolls back the processing of every collaboration in the group.

When a CustomerCreditManager 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. For information about these processes, see the System Implementation Guide. For information about 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:

  1. Add this capability to the collaboration template and to every other collaboration template in the collaboration-object group.
  2. Set the minimum transaction level of the collaboration object and all members of the collaboration-object group to a value higher than None. If a failure occurs in any subtransaction step, settings of Minimal Effort or higher cause this collaboration object and other collaboration objects in the group to execute compensation for Create, Update, and Delete operations performed on all business objects.
  3. Set the USE_RETRIEVE property of the collaboration object and all other members of the collaboration-object group to "true". Forcing the collaboration objects to retrieve values before changing them allows the collaboration objects to restore the original values in an Update or Delete process.

Configuration properties

Note: CustomerCreditManager does not have unique configuration properties. All of its properties are standard.Standard properties

This collaboration template uses the following standard configuration properties for collaboration templates:

For information on these configuration properties, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

Collaboration messages

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:

  1. In the Start menu, click Programs > IBM WebSphere Business Integration Express > Toolset Express > Administrative > Log Viewer.
  2. In the File menu, click Open.
  3. Use the Look In field to change the current folder to ProductDir\collaborations\messages, and then select the message file for this collaboration template.

Upgrade information

Upgrade process

To upgrade to a newer version of the collaboration template, perform the following steps:

  1. Stop the CustomerCreditManager version x.x.x collaboration.
  2. Back up the repository. For information about backing up the repository, see the System Implementation Guide.
  3. If you have customized the collaboration template:
  4. Install the new CustomerCreditManager collaboration template.
  5. Add your customizations to the new collaboration template.
  6. Create the new collaboration object, binding it to the appropriate connectors. For more information, see Collaboration setup.
  7. Run and test the new collaboration object.
  8. Make changes to the collaboration object based on any problems found during testing.

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