Hello,
Are there any examples of Service Connect workflows available online somewhere? I’m specifically looking for something that imports orders or purchase orders, but anything would be nice to review at this point. Thanks.
bb
We have a service connect for importing quotes, but not orders. It’s very similar process, just different business objects and some different fields. I’m in no way involved or associated with Epicor, but I have to say that Service Connect is an extremely low-level, complicated tool to use, and one that provides very little opinion about how it should be used to interact with Epicor. So, I think if you want to use it in earnest, you are probably going to want to get some training / help from Epicor Pro Services / Consultants. That is what gave us our in-house expertise, and they basically got us going with our first few service connects.
Again, not a sales pitch, just trying to be realistic - even if I gave you our service connect workflow for quotes, it’d be the equivalent of handing you a Greek manuscript and saying “here, study this, and you’ll know how to write your own Greek.” (which, I know, is kind of different than most code/APIs, where studying examples can go a long way toward proficiency).
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While I agree with your assessment of Service Connect, I actually have taken the two courses and have done rudimentary and by comparison simple workflows to date. I could figure out a Sales Order import workflow on my own, but it would take a large block of time that I don’t have the luxury of at this point. We are in the middle of a Vantage 8 to Epicor 10 conversion, with a go-live date of April 1. So I’m hoping that I can use an existing workflow at the least as a template, which would save me an immeasurable amount of time.
If you would be willing to forward me a copy of your quotes workflow, I would be most appreciative.
I don’t know of any sample Service Connect workflows out there but you could start (and usually always the best way to start creating a workflow anyways) by Enabling Trace Logging on a specific user and then have that user enter a simple Sales Order or PO in Epicor.
(I never remember if I want to Write Full DataSet or Track Changes Only - you might have to test those options, I think I usually Write Full DataSet and delete the unnecessary Methods or .NET calls)
Then (be sure to turn OFF tracing for that user right away otherwise the file will keep growing with each task the user performs in Epicor!) save the resulting TraceData as an XML file and import it into Service Connect Workflow Designer using the Tools - Epicor Log Converter and viola! You at least can get an idea of what a simple Order Entry workflow would look like based on the Methods/.Net calls that happen behind the scenes.
Of course this is just a shell of a workflow and there is a LOT more work after that, adding schemas, linking, clean-up, error-checking, etc. that you should do and much of that would have to be done anyways, even if you had a sample workflow, to cater to your specific environment.
We were taught Service Connect many, many moons ago from an Epicor consultant, and I’ve attended several more trainings at Insights. We have an Order Entry SC workflow for one of our customers that we use daily and it creates 40-50 Orders for us and many of those orders are Configured parts. We receive a very specific pre-formatted Excel file from our Customer in our Inbox every day and we “plop” it into the Listening File and Service Connect gobbles it up and spits out a Confirmation email! You are welcome to see our SO Entry workflow but I’m nervous that I might not be the best one to show you how to use Service Connect in the most efficient way possibly…heh. 
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Sure, I think that makes sense then Bryan. Okay, is there some way to private message or determine your email address on this site? If there is, I’m not seeing it.
Yeah, I looked as well, no easy way for a private communique. My email address is bbussey-AT-virainsight-DOT-com.
There are some examples in the ESC guide. What sort of format is the source data in?
Training is always useful, but, not much help if you start doing anything that is really outside the square, unless you have a really good consultant/trainer.
Trial an error, whilst a slow process, gives you a lot of exposure, an that’s what you need with ESC.
As Heather Marie mentioned the log converter is really useful, for a start.
The other option you have with importing orders and PO’s is using DMT, but the data needs to be in a specific format and encoded to with the correct field identify. It may be possible to use SSIS to transform the input file into the correct DMT format and then have DMT automatically import, a bit clunky, but dooable.
I guess where ESC wins out is the miriad of error handling and notifications that you can setup, along with the document tracking. I do like the task manager, although we have never really had much need to use it at the moment.
If you were wanting import a proforma document and create a Order from a PO, then I believe this is dooable with APM, it requires a bit of configuration to do this including mapping each document from each customer source and linking it to their customer id. You should be able to add an approval process around this. If anyone has any recent APM experience then please correct me if I am wrong.
Hope the information helps, Happy to provide ESC examples where I can.
I agree with Bryan a repository of good examples would make everyone’s life a bit easier.
Adam,
Click your avatar in the top right and you should see an envelope icon. The tool tip for this says messages. Clicking on it should give you what you want.
HI Heather,
We’re working on a workflow to process multiple PO with multiple PO Lines, but we don’t know how to implement it, especially the PO Lines.
We’re no experts in Service Connect. Would you please share your SO Entry workflow with us? It will be very much appreciated.
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Without digging up a workflow, take a look at the How To’s in the online help in the administration console. Look at Creating Cycled Workflows.
here is an example of a fairly basic Order Entry work flow, takes in an excel file (or build your own input channel) looks for an open order (same shipto) adds the line to that order (up to 30 lines per order) or creates a new order if one does not exist for that shipto. This obviously isn’t how everyone handles orders as that varies based on your own business model, but it shows how to take in orders for multiple lines etc…OrderEntry.zip (6.6 MB)
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