Hello,
I’ve read a couple posts, mostly about version 9, on how you cannot schedule BPMs. Instead you link them to something like the exporting of a BAQ or to a Sys agent process that can be scheduled and link your BPM to that BO/Method. I was wondering if in version 10 this has been changed. Or if there is an easier / more straight forward way to address this than having to tie the BPM to an event not actually related to the BPM.
Thanks
My issue is I want to send a confirmation email when a customers shipment ships. However the tracking number, which I would like to include in the email, isn’t generated until after the customer shipment entry process is completed. Then the FedEx/UPS programs generate the tracking number and updates the customer shipment record. This is for some, not all, shipments. So my initial thought is to batch the emails and at a certain point in time in the day, essentially a time when all the shipments would be processed, a BPM would then send emails based on all the packs shipped that day.
How does UPS / FedEx update the shipment record? Are you using Insight or Agile Ship…? or is this some external integration / direct DB update deal?
Why not use a data directive to fire off the email after the tracking number is not blank?
Joshua Giese
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Correct Jose, this is some type of external integration. The gist is the customer shipment entry information is imported into FedEx/UPS shipping program, the tracking number is generated at this point, then passed back to the shipment to be saved in Epicor. This won’t be installed for a couple weeks, so I haven’t gotten a chance to take a look at it yet and see how it works precisely.
Josh: I like this idea a lot, I’m going to look into this further Thanks for the idea!
The “writing back to epicor” is where the key lies. If its a SQL Write no Data Directive or BPM will be triggered.
I see direct db write and hair always stands up on my neck. This particular write to sql may be ‘safe’ but a sizable portion of ERP 10 data is cached in memory. If you write to the db then the app server has no clue about the changes and interesting side effect occur.
Probably not something in this scenario but it’s a knee jerk reaction I always have when people do db direct access 
I hear you @Bart_Elia, I simply REFUSE to write into Epicor without going through the BO’s, that’s not a can of worms I want to get into.
I know that UPS WorldShip will send an email on your behalf if you give it the email address during the shipment. Pretty sure that the FedEx system will too. Just another path to consider.
In the Vantage 8 world before an Epicor owned solution, we wrote a record at shipment entry via BPM to a SQL database with all of the Epicor shipping information and then used the ODBC interface within Worldship to ship the product. We still had to barcode the shipment ID back into Epicor and click save. So, not perfect but it did do the email.
Mark W.
