Integration Guide for PCM Configurator...generic solution number 1388607 on the Infor Xtreme Support portal at . Alternatively, contact your support representative. Setup and configuration

Infor LN Integration Guide for PCM Configurator

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Publication Information

Release: Infor LN Infor LN 10.1.0 or later and PCM Configurator 8.

Publication date: March 26, 2015

Infor LN Integration Guide for PCM Configurator | 3

Contents

About this guide ................................................................................................................................... 5

Intended audience ........................................................................................................................... 5

Organization ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Related documents .......................................................................................................................... 5

Contacting Infor................................................................................................................................ 6

Chapter 1 Overview ......................................................................................................................... 7

Chapter 2 Setup and configuration ................................................................................................ 9

Prerequisites for integration ............................................................................................................. 9

Prerequisites for Infor PCM ............................................................................................................. 9

Prerequisites for Infor LN ................................................................................................................. 9

Master data setup .......................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 3 Business Processes .................................................................................................... 12

Processes with configuration ......................................................................................................... 12

Model ............................................................................................................................................. 12

Order entry ..................................................................................................................................... 14

Reconfigure .................................................................................................................................... 17

Chapter 4 Runtime usage.............................................................................................................. 18

Verifying data flow ......................................................................................................................... 18

Error handling ................................................................................................................................ 19


About this guide

This guide provides information about the integration of Infor LN with PCM Configurator, previously

known as BuyDesign Configurator, through SOAP based web services.

Intended audience This guide is intended mainly for system administrators who manage the integration between Infor

LN and PCM Configurator or who troubleshoot or trace back data between Configurator and LN.

Organization This document includes the following:

Overview of the Infor LN and the PCM Configurator integration

Installation requirements

Setup requirements for Infor LN

Setup requirements for PCM Configurator

Descriptions of the business processes within Infor LN and PCM Configurator

Troubleshooting information

Related documents You can find these documents in the product documentation section of the Infor Xtreme Support

portal, as described in "Contacting Infor" on page 6:

Infor LN Manufacturing User Guide (U9711 US)

About this guide

6 | Infor LN Integration Guide for PCM Configurator

Contacting Infor If you have questions about Infor products, go to the Infor Xtreme Support portal at

www.infor.com/inforxtreme.

If we update this document after the product release, we will post the new version on this Web site.

We recommend that you check this Web site periodically for updated documentation.

If you have comments about Infor documentation, contact [email protected].

http://www.infor.com/inforxtreme

mailto:[email protected]


Chapter 1 Overview 1

This chapter provides an overview of the integration of Infor LN and PCM Configurator.

Infor LN offers an integrated product configurator, called PCF. Many customers are using this option.

However not for all business cases configuration requirements are met by this integrated

configurator. As Infor PCM has a more powerful configurator available, the integration to this product

extends the capabilities as it is doing for several other Infor ERP products. It allows the customer to

make use of the excellent modeling and configuration capabilities of PCM configurator while

combining these with the sales order management and manufacturing capabilities of Infor LN. As

such it can be used for configured products in both Assemble to Order as well as Engineer to Order

type of environments.

Three key players, actors are involved in using the integration: the product engineer, sales manager,

and project engineer.

The product engineer maintains the products and models.

The sales manager handles the sales quotations and orders.

The project engineer deals with estimates, budgets, and warehouse requests.

For both the sales manager and the project engineer two scenarios can apply:

1 Configuration with selection of configurable item

In this scenario the sales person / project engineer has selected a specific item, model. Therefore the

model selection will have to be done automatically after starting the configurator.

2 Reconfiguration

In this scenario the sales person / project engineer continues based on work done earlier. First an

existing product variant is selected. The Configure option is used. The configuration screen will show.

The choices made previously show. One or more changes are made and the updated configuration is

stored both in the PCM configurator and in Infor LN.

Figure 1 show the supported use cases.

When the user enters an order line, and wants to configure the product (item), PCM configurator is

started. Figure 3 shows the order entry process.

Overview


In

for

LN

C

onfig

ura

tor

Start configuration

Store configuration

Sales order entry

Choose Options

Store variant structure

Exit

xml report

pre selection

Figure 1 Use cases

Figure 2 Order entry process


Chapter 2 Setup and configuration 2

Prerequisites for integration The Configurator integration is only supported in Workspace and Web UI 8.7. Note: use of Java Web

Start is not supported

Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox are supported as browsers.

Prerequisites for Infor PCM The following PCM components are required for the integration of PCM Configurator with Infor LN:

Configurator 8.0 or later, which is available from the Infor Download Center.

Prerequisites for Infor LN The following Infor LN components are required for the integration of PCM Configurator with Infor

LN:

Infor LN 10.1.0 (FP7) or later.

License for Product ID 7056, which is for the Infor LN Adapter.

Enterprise Server 8.7 or later.

Connector for web services (through Infor Enterprise Server Extensions).

For the latest installation and configuration information about Infor LN and Channel Sales, see the

generic solution number 1388607 on the Infor Xtreme Support portal at www.inforxtreme.com.

Alternatively, contact your support representative.

http://www.inforxtreme.com/

Setup and configuration


Master data setup Supply or verify this information:

Implemented Software Components

Advanced Configurator Profiles

Advanced Configurator User Profiles

Advanced Configurator Settings

To be able to use the Configurator from Infor LN:

1 Ensure that the integration is switched on by the Advanced Configurator Integration

parameter in the Implemented Software Components (tccom0500m000) session. Note: The

Product Configurator (PCF) module parameter needs to be checked to be able to switch on the

integration parameter.

2 Specify the PCM Profiles to be used in the Advanced Configurator Profiles (tipcf0120m000)

session.

3 Link the profiles to the users (sales manager / product engineer / project engineer). This is done

in the Advanced Configurator User Profiles (tipcf0125m000) session.

Figure 3 Item settings

Setup and configuration


4 Define the items to be configured by PCM and set the parameters needed for the connection

with PCM such as URL, name and namespace. See Figure 3. Within the Advanced

Configurator Settings (tipcf0110m000) session 3 levels are available:

a Item

b Item group

c All items, by leaving both item and item group empty. This can be used either to have all

configurable items handled by PCM, or to define global settings and add additional settings

for an item (or group) to overrule.

The PCM Simulator can be used to find the values for fields Instance Name, Application Name and Namespace.

5 In Configurator, manually create the data that was not synchronized. The data that you create

must match the data in Infor LN. Create data for the following:

The PCM Ruleset code needs to match Generic Item in LN. Use Item from Configurable Item

- Structure (tipcf3100m100) session. See also the session help for more information.

In case of multilevel models, rulesets are needed for sub levels also.

Generic Bill of Material, Routing and related Constraints have to be defined in LN. These are

not synchronized with PCM.

Unit. Use ISO code from Units (tcmcs0101m000) session; otherwise, use unit code.

Currency. Use ISO code from Currencies (tcmcs0102m000) session.

6 Features and options are synchronized.

Features and options need to be set up in PCM only as Component Attributes and Options,

and are synchronized per configuration. One can define these in LN too; note that feature

and options codes need to be identical, and can hold 15 characters only.

The attributes in PCM needs to have a default value, to avoid error messages on empty

options.

At model time constraints will be defined in LN. When features and options are not present in

LN, no zoom option is available to select a feature or option. These have to be entered

manually.

The sessions of step 2 till 4 can be found in menu ‘Manufacturing / Product Configuration /

Advanced Configurator’.

Business Processes


Chapter 3 Business Processes 3

This chapter describes the business processes included in the integration.

The integration is part of a hybrid solution: both the internal PCF configurator and the PCM

configurator can be used next to each other in one LN company. This facilitates a transition period

where gradually more and more models are moved from the PCF Configurator to PCM.

Processes with configuration Configuration usually is done for a demand order, which can be a Sales Order or Quotation, or a

Project (TP). However, in Infor LN, one can also start configuration from scratch to design a kind of

standard configuration.

Relevant sessions that allow launching a configuration are:

Sales Quotation lines (tdsls1501m000)

Sales Order lines (tdsls4101m000)

Estimate Lines (tpest1100m000)

Element Budget (Material) lines (tpptc1110s000)

Activity Budget (Material) lines (tpptc2110s000)

Planned PRP Warehouse Order lines (tppss6115s000)

Product Variants (tipcf5501m000/tipcf5101s000)

Product Variants (tiapl3500m000/tiapl3100s000)

Generate (Project) Structure from Product Variant (tipcs2220m000).

Model The model is defined in PCM, with rulesets and component attributes. These attributes – the options

and features - don’t need all to be set up on beforehand in LN, as these will be synchronized run

time.

Business Processes


The Generic BOM and Routing do need to be set up in LN, together with constraints that relate to

the manufacturing configuration. Constraints that relate to options, to handle option dependencies,

don’t need to be defined in LN anymore as these should be modeled in PCM.

The LN Generic BOM needs to match the Ruleset in PCM. See the example below:

Ruleset BikeXL has 2 components Handlebar en BikeLight.

These components are rulesets ‘ERP LN.Handlebar’ and ‘ERP LN.Bike Light’ in PCM.

And the components are defined in the Generic BOM in LN.

Figure 4 PCM model

Figure 5 Infor LN Generic Bill of Material

Business Processes


Starting the configuration without a preselected configurable item is not supported. The item is used

to find the corresponding model.

Note that the integration supports Assembly as well as Shop Floor items.

Order entry This section describes the configuration process for a sales order. The other processes mentioned

above (Processes with configuration) behave similarly.

Sales Order

When a configurable item is entered on a sales order line, the question Configure product variant

now? pops up. The system detects whether the internal PCF configurator or the PCM configurator

should be started – via the Advanced Configurator Settings (tipcf0125m000). In case PCM is

responsible for the item, the profile is shown.

This profile is taken from user or item settings, but can be changed before the configurator is started.

Start Configuration

If the user chooses to configure now, and PCM is responsible for the item, the PCM Configurator will be started. The configurator will start in a new tab within Workspace. See Figure 7 and Figure 8.

Note: the Continue button is present as long as options have to be chosen.

Figure 6 Configuration dialog

Business Processes


Figure 8 Next options for the configuration

Figure 7 Configuration start screen

Business Processes


Close Configuration

When options are done, the Continue turns into a Finish button. One can leave the configurator via Finish or Cancel.

Figure 9 Finalizing the configuration

After configuration is done, a closing screen shows up.

Figure 10 Closing window

Business Processes


Sales Order

Now the sales order line shows a product variant. The variant is created with the options and features and sales price. In case features were not linked to the item yet in Product Features by Configurable Item (tipcf1101m000), these will be added automatically. The PCM sales price depends on the chosen options, and it stored on sales order and product variant.

The same is done when features were not present at all in the Product Features (tipcf0150m000) session.

Generate Structure

The next step in the process, Generate (Project PCS) Structure (tdsls4244m000) works the same

as it does for variants created by the internal configurator.

Reconfigure After configuration is done, it still can be changed. For a sales order with a variant, or from the

Product Variant (tipcf5501m000) session itself, one can choose the Configure option to do the

change the configuration in PCM. The chosen options are shown and can be changed.

When the Configurator is closed, the product variant and the list of options are updated in Infor LN.

Runtime usage


Chapter 4 Runtime usage 4

This chapter provides information you use to verify and troubleshoot the integration.

Verifying data flow When configuration is done, and product variant is created, one can check whether this is done by

PCM or the internal configurator. The Product Variant (tipcf5501m000) session will show the

Advanced Configurator Variant indicator with an additional Advanced Configurator Status.

The status can have values:

Initial

Success

Partial Save

Error.

Figure 11 Product Variant Status

Runtime usage


Error handling Following typical errors can show up in the configuration process:

PCM Configurator can’t be started and SOAP Error is give.

Possible reason: Server is not running.

Configurator can’t be started; error message Cannot find configuration file pops up.

Reason: wrong URL is defined in LN.

The profile as specified in LN doesn’t exist in PCM.

Runtime usage


The configuration is not valid. When not all options are set, Infor LN will give a warning that

values are missing. The product variant will have the Product Variant Valid indicator cleared.

Runtime usage


This can happen with options that were not applicable and were suppressed. It can be resolved by defining default values for the PCM component attributes.

7 Subassembly item description is missing. After configuration is done, the Production Variant

Option Set session (tipcf5510m000) shows asterisks instead the item description.

Reason: The Generic Bill of Material is not defined in LN yet (session tipcf3100m100).

8 Options are not valid on the configuration date. This happens when a model is changed after a

configuration is done, at the reconfiguration. The new feature or option has a date beyond the

configuration date, which is not accepted by LN.

Resolution: set the effective date of the feature earlier than the configuration date.

Documents

Integration Guide for PCM Configurator...generic solution number 1388607 on the Infor Xtreme Support portal at . Alternatively, contact your support representative. Setup and configuration