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Know more about Agile PLM to SAP Design to Release PIP….

Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Integration Pack for SAP ERP connects the Enterprise PLM Product Record in Oracle Agile Product Collaboration with SAP ERP. The Agile PLM Design-to-Release integration process aids in manufacturing release process in building a ‘Design Anywhere, Build Anywhere’ business environment.

The PIP was built by reusing most of the services developed for Agile PLM to Oracle EBiz PIP. The Oracle EBiz related Application Business Connector Services were replaced by the SAP Application Business Connector Services. The Enterprise Business Services implementation was modified to suit the business process relevant to SAP.

Though some of the business processes like the Engineering Change Order implementation widely differ between SAP & Oracle EBiz but still the desired functionality requirements were met without any changes on the Agile related artifacts in the PIP. This could be achieved due to the flexible Integration framework that Oracle’s Application Integration Architecture (AIA)provides.

Another important feature about this PIP is the use of standard SAP APIs - BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) & IDOC ( Intermediate Document). In total 12 APIs were utilized -11 BAPIs & an IDOC in the Agile PLM to SAP PIP.

How SAP PIP business process differs from Oracle EBiz PIP:-

a) Reserving of Item during the New Part Request Process (NPR) Process:- This synchronous process can be triggered on demand by the user in Agile. In case of SAP PIP ,this reserves a part number in SAP and the part number is returned to Agile

b) Use of Item templates: - In the Item Synchronization process, this PIP uses Item templates or Reference Material in SAP. The purpose of a reference material is to default all the mandatory values which are needed for creation of material in SAP, which might not be captured in the Agile system during item creation. This reference material need to be configured based on the Material type. In case if the item need to be created in more than one plant then a reference material needs to be maintained in each of the plants.

c) Posting of Change Order Data to SAP :- The sequence mentioned below is followed for the creation of Change Order Object in SAP:

1. The Change Order header is created first with the status ‘Inactive’ or equivalent status as configured by the user.
2. Item existence check: If the Item does not exists it is created, else the item is updated with the input received from PLM.
3. Item revision level creation & attachment of revision level to Item.
4. AML sync ( Not part of 2.4 Release)
5. BOM existence check: If the BOM does not exist, it is created else the BOM is updated accordingly. BOM is created or updated along with its corresponding Reference Designators.
6. Upon successful creation of the above objects, the Change Order status is changed to ‘Active’ else it remains as ‘Inactive’.

d) Global/Group BOM creation:- Customers would use this feature when they have the same product structure across plants. In case of SAP PIP this feature is enabled with setting the parameter GLOBAL_LEVEL_BOM = ‘True’ in the configuration file. In such case we create the BOM only at global level i.e. the integration shouldn’t be creating any BOMs in the plants. The BOM plant extension feature within SAP is used to extend the BOM to the associated plants. During BOM update, integration needs to update the BOM only at global level and SAP will internally replicate those changes across the associated plants.

Avinash C

BP - Normal, Heart Beat - Normal. Rx - Run (Diagnostic report) frequently

Diagnostic Framework part of Oracle AIA Foundation Pack provides tools that help in maintaining the system. Diagnostic Framework provides information like which BPEL processes, ESB, Schemas got customized, Which schemas got extended, what custom directories got created, integrity of the config files, whether BPEL-ESB communication is working, JMS is working, custom XPATHs are working as desired & more.

Adding Custom Diagnostic tests
Beauty of the framework is that it allows you to add your own custom diagnostic tests with ease. For instance, if we want to add DBCheck test to the AIA FP Diagnostic framework, all we need to do is

1) Create our own Java code by implementing IAIADiagnostics interface. Sample code should look like this

package oracle.apps.aia.core.diagnostics.tests;

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.HashMap;
import oracle.apps.aia.core.diagnostics.IAIADiagnostics;
import oracle.apps.aia.core.diagnostics.util.DiagnosticsUtil;
import oracle.apps.aia.core.diagnostics.util.GetPatchesApplied;
import java.sql.*;

public class DBCheck implements IAIADiagnostics{
public DBCheck() { }
public String[] run(HashMap params) {
String testResult[] = executeTest(params);
return testResult; }
public String[] runBatch(HashMap params) {
String testResult[] = executeTest(params);
return testResult; }
private String[] executeTest(HashMap params) {
[[Insert Code Here]]
String testResult[] = {result.toString(), error.toString(), resultflag};
return testResult;
}
}
2) Compile the class and place it under ORACLE_HOME\bpel\system\classes and the appropriate package folder (in this case oracle\apps\aia\core\diagnostics\tests)
3) Add the below entry to AIADiagnosticsConfig.XML under
AIA_HOME\diagnostics\config
oracle.apps.aia.core.diagnostics.tests.DBCheck
4) Create the batch script by making a copy of the existing batch files under
AIA_HOME\diagnostics\bin and making the following change
set TEST_NAME=DBCheck
5) Execute the batch script

Ramesh Chandra Revuru

Developer Tools in AIA FP - Part 3

AIA Artifacts Generator

1) What is the tool?
Artifacts Generator is a utility script that would help generate much of the common code needed to create the ABC service implementation in BPEL. It would generate the artifacts as a BPEL project that can be easily opened, viewed and enhanced from the Jdeveloper studio. It generates artifacts like WSDL, transformation, project file & deployment descriptor.

2) Where to find?
The tool can be found under
AIA_HOME\Developer Tools\ AIAArtifactsGenerators

3) How to Execute?

• Open a command window and navigate to the above location
• Validate that the JDK is set to jdk 1.5 or above. If not, set the path
• Validate the ant version is 1.6 or above by executing ant -version
• Modify the build.properties file as below. Give the file for the input.xml where all the description of the bpel process is defined. In this case we have uncommented the below line
  ABCSConfig.inputXML=Requestor_SyncReqResp.xml
  Requestor_SyncReqResp.xml is available under AIA_HOME\Developer Tools\ AIAArtifactsGenerators\ AIAServiceGenerator\input Run the ant by the following script from the folder AIA_HOME\Developer Tools\ AIAArtifactsGenerators\Ant buildBPEL
• The artifacts would be generated in the output folder as given in the build.properties
  Open the JDeveloper Studio and create a new project and add the above output folder to the project source code.
  

The new bpel project generated by the above script can be opened, viewed and further enhanced and then deployed to the corresponding server

4) Post Execute Steps

• Rearrange service invocations, if necessary
• Complete the business payload transformation
• Configure the correlation properties for asynchronous application service invocation
• Create invocations for other operations when a service is called multiple times
• Alter deployment descriptor properties in the bpel.xml file
• Alter policies in the fault policy
• Alter properties in the configuration properties file snippet and add it to your properties

Binoy Gopinathan
Sierra Atlantic

Developer Tools in AIA FP 2.3 - Part 1

We wanted to emphasize on the new features and functionalities added to FP 2.3. As part of the same we would be writing a 3 part series covering new tools/features added to FP 2.3. In this part we cover XSLT Document Generator and the common pitfalls and workarounds for the same.

XLST Document Generator
1) What is the tool?
The tool helps in generating documentation relating to the mapping information in the XSL file in HTML format. The tool comes handy in creation/updating contents of design document or creating/updation of test cases. The tool provides source column, target column, DVM and Cross reference details in tabular format

2) Where to find?
The tool can be found under AIA_HOME\Developer Tools\XSLDocGen

3) How to Execute?
a) Set the environment variables by running aiaenv.sh (if not done already). aiaenv.bat can be found under "AIA_HOME\bin" folder
b) Create input folder (say D:\inDir) and place the XSL file in the folder for which you want to generate the documentation
c) Create output folder (say D:\outDir)
b) Go to "AIA_HOME\Developer Tools\XSLDocGen\bin" folder
c) Execute generateMappingDoc batch file as shown below
generateMappingDoc inputDir=D:\inDir\(name of XSL file) outputFormat=html outputDir=D:\outdir
d) The tool will generate 2 files with the extensions XML and HTML in the output directory

4) Common pitfalls
1) Batch file (generateMappingDoc) might return an error saying "AIA Home not set correctly" in which case try changing the first line of the BATCH file from
set AIA_HOME=@AIA_HOME@
to the following
set AIA_HOME=%AIA_HOME%
2) XSL file and the related files should be placed in the input directory. For instance, BillOfMaterialsListEBMToCreateBOM.xsl and BillOfMaterialsListEBMToCreateBOM_Custom.xsl should both be placed in the input directory or else you will get an error
3) Not running aiaenv batch file also will return errors

Ramesh Chandra Revuru & Srinivas Mengerthi

Thought Leadership from Sierra Atlantic on AIA

1) COLLABORATE 09 will have Sierra Atlantic present on the following topic
"Uncover design patterns in Composite Applications using Oracle AIA"
2) SCENE magazine's (UK OUG Publication) March 09 edition will carry Sierra Atlantic's article titled
"Enrich Composite Applications using AIA"

For copies of the documents, pls write to ramesh.revuru@sierraatlantic.com

Ramesh Chandra Revuru
Global Head - Integration, DW/BI & Agile