The UIG functionality is designed to complement and enhance the interface between the Infor CPQ Configurator and the Infor XA ERP system. Going beyond the “vanilla” interface between CPQ and XA, the core functionality of the UIG replaces configured line items on XA Customer Orders and Quotes with line items containing a unique non-configured item revision.
XA System Requirements for the UIG Application:
- Customer Service Management (CSM)
- Enterprise Product Data Management (EPDM)
- Materials Management (MM)
- Integrator (Enterprise Integrator preferred)
- System-Link
- Interface to Infor CPQ
A Guided Tour of the UIG Application
As mentioned previously, the fourteen UIG business objects provide four general areas of functionality: UIG application configuration, CPQ interface configuration, UIG runtime control and UIG detailed logging. Each of these four functional areas will be discussed further, with supporting screen captures included to help illustrate the functionality.
UIG Application Configuration – The UIG is a very flexible and customizable application. Customizable options exist at the application level to provide the UIG’s behind-the-scenes System-Link processing with all the setup information that XA System-Link requires. Also at the application level is a very important setting which controls the mode in which the UIG is run.
The Application-Level Control file allows the application to be run in one of two modes:
- Automatic (“End Order”) Mode
The application can be set to run automatically in the “End Order” user exit mode, whenever a Customer Order or Quote is created or maintained. As long as the Customer Order or Quote contains at least one Configured line item, and the “End Order Processing” option has been checked.
- IDF Level 2 “User Action” Mode
The application can be set to require users to select a “Mass Action” option from a custom “User” menu after the order has been created or updated. This menu option exists on the “Line Items” list view screen showing the line items for a Customer Order or Quote, and on the card file screen showing the details for a Customer Order or Quote line item.
*This “IDF Level 2 User Action” mode is always available if needed.
The following screen capture illustrates typical values of the UIG application-level control file:
Other UIG application configuration business objects exist to allow for flexible configuration at the XA Site level and the XA Product level. Since templates possess the ability to store a lot of business logic, being able to specify these templates makes the UIG application very flexible and very customizable.
The following screen capture illustrates the options available at the Site level (with options also available at the XA Product (configurable item) level). Including the ability to specify the names of a specific create templates and specific copy templates:
The last main UIG application configuration busines object exists at the User level. This business object controls which of the two modes the UIG runs in for a particular user id (i.e. either Automatic (“End Order”) mode, or IDF Level 2 “User Action” mode). Along with specifying which job queue is associated with a user id for any necessary UIG-related batch-mode processing.
CPQ Interface Configuration – Two UIG business objects exist that have the ability to utilize any custom values passed from the CPQ Configurator to the IBM System i interface tables. Such custom values can either be global constant values that apply to all configured end items or all configured sub-assemblies; or they can be variable values that differ for each unique configuration.
Utilizing these constant values and variable values really opens up and extends the CPQ-to-XA interface, as it allows any data necessary for a particular enterprise to be generated by the CPQ rule sets and passed to the UIG. The following screen capture shows sample data for the UIG “Unique Item Constant Values” business object:
UIG Runtime Control – The one UIG runtime control business object is the “Unique Item Locks File”. This business object provides a quick and easy way for a user to remove a UIG lock placed on a customer order or quote by the UIG. Typically, such locks are never seen, but they can show up during the early implementation and testing phases when certain CPQ, XA and UIG integration issues still need to be discussed and ironed out.
UIG Detailed Logging – The UIG provides five business objects that log all the UIG’s activity. The main UIG log is contained in the “Unique Items Log File” business object. This log file contains one record for every configured customer order or quote line item that was processed by the UIG in an attempt to convert that line item to a new line item containing a unique item revision. If any of the UIG System-Link processing for that line item does not succeed, the errors are fetched from the XA System-Link responses and prominently displayed. Otherwise, the fact that all the System-Link processing was completed successfully is logged and displayed. A sample of this log file is shown below:
The data for every specific System-Link transaction performed by the UIG can be found in the “Unique Item Txns Log File” business object. And each record in this business object ties to a set of related records in the “Sys-Link Requests History Log” and the “Sys-Link Responses History Log” business objects. These two System-Link logging files contain the actual XML supplied by the UIG for each System-Link Request, along with the XML response received from XA System-Link for each request.
These two System-Link XML logging files provide information for troubleshooting and analysis that is as granular as it possibly can be. Any issues encountered by XA System-Link for any of the steps in the UIG processing will be captured in these two files. Below is a sample of the XML that can be seen in the “Sys-Link Response History Log” (notice that in this sample XML all processing was successful):
If a lot of customer order or quote configured line items are processed by the UIG, these log files can grow to very large sizes. In order to prevent any possible disk space issues, functionality to periodically purge old records from these UIG log files and reclaim the deleted records has been provided within the UIG. This record purging can be initiated from the UIG business objects via the supplied “Host Job” options. Or the underlying programs can be set up in the system job scheduler to run on predetermined days at predetermined times.
