Using Publish & Subscribe to Manage Your E-mails Daniel R. Miller Senior Consultant Guide Technologies, LLC dmiller@guidetechnologies.com
Agenda What is Publish and Subscribe Uses for Publish and Subscribe Publish and Subscription with Notification Defining the Subscription Defining the Notification Technical stuff
What is the Business Issue? The Infor XA ERP system is a storehouse of useful information Information is extremely dynamic, value is time dependent Some things need to be known as soon as possible Every hour of delay is costly Users are compelled to check the system frequently With Publish and Subscribe the system can do the checking
What is Publish and Subscribe? Monitoring of events that users want to know about Publish and Subscribe is completely flexible Events can be described For any Object For any attribute for the object For any transaction against the object Includes both standard and user objects No limit to the number of events that can be published
Publish and Subscribe Uses A Purchase Order is entered or changed for a specific vendor that exceeds a predetermined amount The arrival of a particular order A needed part is received A Customer Order hold is released A batch process completes, or fails
Publish and Subscribe for Quality A couple custom fields have been added to the item revision object; one that flags the item for QC inspect (yes/no) and another lists the inspection department When an item is received a subscription looks to see if its flagged for QC Inspection, and if so it looks at the department and sends an email based on that subscription. Based on the department a unique group of people are notified and the email contains information from the receipt specific to what that department needs to know.
Publish and Subscribe for CRM A list of subscriptions has been built over Activity Tasks. There is a type of task that is a lead management task As the status changes different people are notified For example, when it s closed marketing is notified This area is also used for the request of samples There is a subscription that lets the tech manager know any time a request for sample task is created.
Publish and Subscribe with Notification Create Subscription in Enterprise Integrator Allows user(s) to receive notifications as a result of certain events Can be used with any object that is extendable in Integrator Not available for objects with maintenance method of Direct SQL Can only monitor events that flow through PowerLink or System-Link or Net-Link Events started in the IBM i (green screen) cannot be monitored
Notification Message Server (NMS) NMS is a queue that constantly monitors for events Entry is added to the queue for maintenance request Providing object has subscriptions If failure occurs during the processing of the event Event is marked as failed Placed at the end of queue for another try NMS queue can be stopped and started in Link Manager
Can I Publish This? Address change Customer order shipment Delete customer order Customer invoice New payment terms code file Specific PO on customer order SA inventory transaction
Notification History Power-Link > Environment > History > Notification History Publish & Subscribe depends on Maintenance History Maintenance history must be activated for the object Status Completed Failed Resubmitted Skipped
Define the Event Power-Link > Integrator > Business Objects > Subscriptions Event triggers notification publish Enter a description When to send notification On Create On Change On Delete Narrow notification with a subset
Notification Subset Property type Before maintenance occurs After maintenance occurs Difference between before and after Percent difference between before and after Has changed
Define the Notification Multiple notifications can be defined per event Notification type E-mail Mobile (cell) phone Host program call System-Link request Date outside of range Skipped notification
E-Mail Message From - Sender name noreply@guidetechnologies.com Cc - Carbon copy, Bcc Blind Cc Use comma for multiple addresses Allow receiver(s) of the E-mail to automatically call up the specific object that triggered the E-mail Net-Link request
Builder Button Populate with variables using Button Builder E-mail addresses, subject line, body of E-mail Attribute Primary, secondary and many-to 1 relationship Special values Current environment Current language Current system Current user Notification user Reason code Reason description
E-Mail Addresses Many XA objects have E-mail addresses Over 80 objects Build a user object Build relationships to Create user Change user Other schemes can also be designed Facility User objects
Built Out From noreply To, Cc and Bcc Substituted from related object Subject and Text With substituted values
Include Net-Link Request Viewable in Web browser
E-Mail Support E-mail can be used to send notifications for events using publish and subscribe Power Architecture is used as the e-mail server MXAPLUS user id is used for authentication when e-mail is sent Power Architecture must be set up to either send or route e-mails for this feature to function This is consistent with other features that use e-mail support from within XA
NMS Polling Intervals Default wait is 1 minute if no events are available to process Time increases if there are periods of inactivity Change settings in MyConfiguration.xml QueueCheckInterval wait time in milliseconds QueueCheckConstant set to true to prevent changing of search time for inactivity xml in /Infor/AMALIBx/AMFLIBy/properties/my Another option is DEMOMODE Sets interval to 2 seconds
Summary Use Publish and Subscribe to monitor for events Publish and Subscribe is completely flexible Notification Message Server (NMS) is a queue that constantly monitors for events Define the event in Integrator > Subscriptions card Define the Notification in Integrator Use the Builder Button to substitute values Include link to Net-Link for increased functionality
Questions?