I didn’t find anything in search, so apologies if this has been asked already in a similar way and I simply missed it.
We are in the tail end of implementing AP Automation and there’s a look up that I assumed would be easy but was informed by our consultant that the out-of-box datalinks don’t include it.
Our business case is that we would like the AP workflow to review the Receipt Line from Epicor and if the RcvDtl.InspectionReq checkbox is TRUE AND the RcvDtl.InspectionPending checkbox is TRUE to not process the invoice and to wait until InspectionPending is FALSE. I was told it’s not possible to update the existing DataLinks so we would need to create our own to do this.
Has anyone else run into something similar before where they wanted to have a workflow look at a data point that wasn’t in the standard integration? How did you get around this? Is there documentation on how to connect to the Epicor APIs so that data can be used in a workflow?
During my initial poking around, it seemed like it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as I hoped but I hope I’m wrong. Thanks for the help!
Making your own datalinks is super easy. On the Admin tab → Datalinks tab. You create a Datalink connection to your ‘data’ then create a DataLink. I’ve got dozens of datalinks to my Kinetic DB and I look stuff up all the time in my workflows.
Given that, altering a step in the workflow to test the values for Inspection Required and then pausing the workflow should be quite easy.
Like Mike said and your consultant as well, you’ll have to make your own datalink and then add this to your workflow step and action and then branch off properly given the result of your datalink (whether it’s in inspection or not)…
So yes, it is possible to do what you are asking, you just have to make it happen or ask someone from professional services.
But Mike has taught me and so have others (@gpayne) that if you REALLY want to get the most out of docstar you really need to own it. And that means a lot of work trying to understand the program… I’m sure Mike will admit he is STILL learning more about the system, but he’s putting in the work.
Alternatively, you could partner with some strong consultant to do the work and own it. In that way you’d still “own” the system, just not personally (cause we all can’t be masters at everything).
Either way @MikeGross and @gpayne and hopefully myself (in the near-ish future) can help you.
Epicor and Docstar have come so far with their documentation and while it’s still tricky and difficult, it’s a little easier to learn it. SO MUCH better than when they first bought and started selling docstar.
@elfrykman You may not have to make a new data link even though it is easy. It is possible that you can write a bpm to send the data back in an unused field. I do this in SOA.
I have to get my AP V2 going and I will probably want something like this also, so I will look later today.
That would be interesting. I’ll have to do a review of the fields in the current DataLink and see if there’s one I can pirate. I generally try to steer away from doing this unless it’s clear that field won’t ever be used, but maybe I can get lucky here.
Thanks for the confirmation. I assumed this would be the case, so it’s nice to hear someone else say it.
What was a little surprising to me was needing to write out the SQL statement for the DataLink. I guess I’ve been so conditioned with widgets and other GUI’s that do this stuff for me in Epicor products that I was expecting something similar here. Lucky for me, we have someone on staff who’s a high level SQL guy that I can lean on.
Based on what I was seeing in the workflow, I’m not concerned at all in getting this part added in. That part seems very straightforward.
My plan is for us to own as much as possible going forward. I had hope this could be an easy add from our consultant until I heard that field wasn’t in the standard dataset and couldn’t be added to it. Any larger changes going forward will either be done by me or someone on my team.
The real trick is going to be balancing the workload and prioritizing correctly. Since this is new territory for me, I worry about the amount of time I have to invest to get it working. Maybe I can add a larger team to my christmas list.
Yes, you can - if you can get to the latest version where it is simply another option for the integration connection. The ability to use REST opens the door to a myriad of opportunities in your workflow. You could check information on the web - get fields translated to different language using Google Translate, cross reference data with your suppliers/customers - and then bring all the data back into Epicor.
@elfrykman Sometimes you have to teach the DS consultants the Epicor side of things. They are owned by Epicor now, but also will hook to any any ERP, transportation, hospital, etc system. I added some simple Epicor centric things to my SOA IDC and the consultant told me he took them back to the office for review.
I installed AP v2 tonight and have the out of the box IDC and workflow running. I ran a recording which is the DS trace and it looks like the best place to reroute the flow is at the Match step. That is the first place that has both a PO and an packslip that you could use to lookup a RcvDtl record. If the record is found then the branch would be back to No Solution - Wait for receipts since this workflow is an eternal loop waiting for its invoice to show up.
I’m eager to hear what @gpayne has to say about the new workflows. I’ve not downloaded them yet because of an error I’m getting about a field that ‘already exists’ even though I told it to overwrite… Open ticket with Epicor and all that.
As for V1/V2 and the API - as I understand it right now, the V2 workflows still use the V1 of the API. Changes are forthcoming but you can’t disable the V1 API just yet. Someone else may have more up to date info on that.
The new workflows still use the Epicor packaged Integration files - so they’ve been updated for the newer/altered API calls to Kinetic, but they are still separate and un-editable as far as I know. If you want to use API calls in your workflow, you need to build your own datalink connector with the newly integrated/free option that appeared in the last version update.
I’ve just gone through the pain of adopting the v2 workflows. Some of the processing is quite different to v1, and you certainly cannot just swap out the datalink name for a new one…!
In the newer version relased in October, the option is in the screen for Integrations. You click New, then select the V2 right below it, check the Replace Existing checkbox and click Import.
** THIS WILL OVERWRITE YOUR CURRENT STUFF, so make sure you are in test/Dev when you do this and are completely prepared for the uphill battle @gpayne and @markdamen have indicated.
