Export - Send Data back to Supplier Exchange

Introduction

This document is intended for consultants which want additional information about specific configurations of regarding the Supplier Exchange purpose. The reader should be familiar with the export and its capabilities and functions.

This document contains more technical details which are useful for a deeper understanding of export supplier exchange templates.

What is the Supplier Exchange Feature?

As a PIM User I want to select items from a catalog in the PIM system, add a comment, and directly send it to the time line of a Supplier User in Heiler Exchange so that I can update the supplier about the data in the PIM system and request further information on specific items.
This feature strengthens the capabilities in sending data from PIM Core to HSX. It is a handy and fast way to directly interact with suppliers or request data from within the PIM Rich Client environment. The PIM user is able to perform quality checks on the data in order to directly select a subset of items that needs to be reviewed by the corresponding supplier.

The Supplier Exchange purpose defines export format templates which are available on the context menu of the item explorer. You can also run an export format template directly.
If you choose Supplier Exchange purpose within an export template the export post step “Send to Supplier Exchange” will be automatically added if it’s not already there.
In case a user removes the post processing export step manually during maintenance of the template an error will be written in the template journal when saving or validating the template.

The executed Supplier Exchange exports can be found in the "Export operations (Supplier Exchange)" of the process overview.

By default this feature is deactivated, so you won't see it on the GUI.

Preconditions

The "Send to Supplier Exchange" context menu is offered in all activated entities of the repository (find more details on how to configure the repository in the documentation of the repository).
Via right click on one, or on a selection of objects the context menu displays all available Supplier Exchange export templates for this type of selected objects. For this you need the “Send items to Supplier Exchange” action right.

The Supplier Exchange export templates are specialized templates:

  • Purpose
    If you want to use an export template as Supplier Exchange template you have to set the purpose value to "Available for Supplier Exchange". These templates are still available for normal exports and quality checks.

  • Data Source
    The data source specifies the object type a Supplier Exchange export template is available for. It have to be a kind of a object list. The optional "Assortment" parameter have to be editable. This parameter will get filled by the selection.

Currently, there's a bug regarding item assortment parameters. You have to mark the mandatory "Catalog" parameter as editable if you want to use the optional "Assortment" parameter. Otherwise Supplier Exchange generation aborts with an exception.

How can I see that the Supplier Exchange export template is valid?

The Supplier Exchange template is valid if:

  • it has no errors

  • it is classified as Supplier Exchange export template

  • a data source is set

Recommended variable data types for the post export step "Send to Supplier Exchange"

The "Send to Supplier Exchange" post step has a supplier and message parameter.
As supplier parameter is the variable data type "Supplier (without main supplier)" recommended. By using this variable, the dynamic detected main supplier is not visible in the suggestion list of the suppliers.
For the message parameter use a variable with data type "Text". This data type is used for long text with line breaks.

How to enable Supplier Exchange

hsx.properties
hsx.enabled = true

How to disable Supplier Exchange

hsx.properties
hsx.enabled = false

Repository:
Remove the HSX enum for Export Templates Purpose

Repository.repository
<entry label="%enum.ExportTemplate.Purposes.entry.hsx" external-code="HSX" key="HSX"/>

Other:
Remove export.hsx plugins or modify the export hsx ui plugin.

com.heiler.ppm.export.hsx.ui
<extension
point="com.heiler.ppm.job.ui.ServerJobType">
<ServerJobType
description="%extpoint.serverjobtype.supplierexchangeexport.description"
icon="icons/SupplierExchange.gif"
identifier="SupplierExchangeExport"
jobGroupIdentifier="Export"
localizer="com.heiler.ppm.export.ui.job.ExportJobInternationalization"
name="%extpoint.serverjobtype.supplierexchangeexport.name"
primaryJobInfoName="%extpoint.serverjobtype.supplierexchangeexport.primaryjobinfo.name"
secondaryJobInfoName="%extpoint.serverjobtype.supplierexchangeexport.secondaryjobinfo.name"
visible="true">
</ServerJobType>
</extension>

You need to set visible = "false"

Customization

plugin-customization.ini

You can change the function of supplier catalog of the export step and the availability of the context menu in the mastercatalog. (This will only take affect on the context menu)

plugin_customization.ini
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# HSX Export CORE Settings
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# If true, the export step ignores the relation of supplier and catalog/assortment when sending the export file to HSX.
# This is necessary, if the user shall be allowed to send data of one supplier to a different one's timeline.
# com.heiler.ppm.export.hsx.core/hsx.export.ignore.supplier.catalog.relation=true
#
# If true, the export step allows the sending of items from the Master Catalog to Supplier Exchange.
# com.heiler.ppm.export.hsx.core/hsx.export.allow.mastercatalog.export=true

The addressee field of the hsx post step will be always visible if you run the export over the context menu.

Some infos if the hsx.export.ignore.supplier.catalog.relation was set to false:The field addressee of the export dialog will be shown as readonly when the selection was on a supplier catalog items.
Configured supplier addressee in the "Send to Supplier Exchange" export post step will be always overwriten within a supplier catalog.

Repository

The Export Purpose property of entities is used for activate or deactivate the context menu. For enabling/disabling the "Send to Supplier Exchange" context menu, you have to add/subtract the available for export from selection menu bit flag.

By default it's only available for the entity Item.

For further information about how to configure the export purpose in the repository read the documentation of the repository.

Database change

The kind of data source used by a specific Supplier Exchange export template is saved in the table "GenericData" column "EntityIdentifier2".

If the value of this column is NULL there's no data source selected and the template won't get shown in any "Send to Supplier Exchange" context menu.

How to change supplier exchange job life time

Supplier Exchange export job in the process overview will get deleted after 5days by default.
If you want to change this, you have to modify the ServerJobTypes extension point in the com.heiler.ppm.export.hsx.server

com.heiler.ppm.export.hsx.ui
<extension
point="com.heiler.ppm.job.server.ServerJobTypes">
<ServerJobType
identifier="SupplierExchangeExport"
jobGroupIdentifier="Export"
lifeTime="5"
newJobEntryForNextExecution="false"
serverJobRunnable="com.heiler.ppm.export.server.job.ExportJob"
systemJob="false"
userSpecific="false">
</ServerJobType>
</extension>

To keep the supplier exchange jobs less or longer alive you need to change the lifeTime property.