An Epicor® White Paper

Epicor ERP 10—

Reaching Out: Connected ERP
Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................1

Services Orchestration................................................................................2

Epicor Service Connect...............................................................................2

Master Data Management.........................................................................3

Business Activity Queries............................................................................4

Electronic Data Interchange.......................................................................5

Financial Transaction Bulk Import...............................................................6

Conclusion.................................................................................................7

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Introduction
For businesses whose operations increasingly span the globe, connectivity is not an option but a
strategic imperative. One of the reasons for this is the accelerating pace of change and innovation
driving market demand. Markets are inherently dynamic, often volatile, and supply networks
that are widely dispersed and highly nuanced need to access information as it emerges, when it
emerges, accurately, anywhere. This is necessary for operational efficiency, but also for effective
collaboration, meaningful analysis, and supported decision-making.

In this fluid environment, companies are also changing more rapidly—growing organically,
acquiring new products and services, and taking on new partners (and dispensing others) to
increase the power and value of their supply chains.

What does this mean for ERP? First, it must be easily integrated with services from any source
and data in any format. It must not only support the elimination of siloed information that has
been the bane of many an organization, but also go beyond its transactional roots to empower
and connect “information workers” wherever they exist in an organization, either formally
or informally. For ERP, this means flexible integration: a move beyond permanent, formal EDI
connections to the further ability of seamless connectivity at the business level on an ad hoc basis
as well as through standardized methods.

For Epicor ERP 10, connections to other systems and data take many forms. For example, ERP 10
has nearly 1,400 services that interact with callers through over 20,000 operations. Operations
are the primary way ERP 10 conducts business, usually by conversing with the ERP 10 Client
Application, mobile devices, or browser forms. However, there are other ways to engage Epicor
ERP 10, including interfaces designed for bulk data import/export through flat structures or EDI
formats. ERP 10 also allows users to define ad hoc data views, which are convenient slices of
information that can be visualized and updated in dashboards or used as easily invoked APIs.

Many ERP customers have multiple establishments (i.e., offices, plants, warehouses) and
sometimes multiple ERP instances (Peer ERP). Epicor ERP 10 can federate these instances together
to form a single-enterprise ERP system. Federated ERP is loosely coupled, which means resource
data such as customer and part records do not require complete synchronization.

All these approaches to reaching out to other systems and data are available through Epicor
ERP 10. It has the capability to manage high throughput shipping transactions for distributors,
business workflows that automate complex interactions with partners, or even a simple data
entry form from any device. ERP 10 is designed to provide the right tool for the right task,
anywhere in an organization’s value network.

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Services Orchestration
Orchestration—a term first coined by systems integrators—means enlisting and managing
multiple systems involved in a complex business process. Most integrations can’t be accomplished
simply by “having system X call on system Y,” especially if these systems are from different
vendors or on different platforms. Usually, the data format expected by one system is not the
same format as the data emitted by the other. In many cases, the processing required depends on
the contents of the data being passed. It is also likely that completing a business operation can
require multiple round trips between systems.

Epicor Service Connect

Epicor Service Connect (ESC) is a services orchestration toolkit designed and optimized for
handling complex interactions between Epicor ERP 10 and other systems. ESC is architected
around the notion of channels that accept and emit data using various means (e.g., email,
message queues, file drop locations, or Web services). When a channel receives a message, Epicor
Service Connect invokes a workflow designed by an administrator that can transform the data,
call ERP 10 service operations, and optionally return data via another channel. Epicor Business
Process Management (BPM) directives can also invoke ESC workflows.

ESC Architecture

ESC workflows are created using the Workflow Designer Tool, where users can drag activity tiles
onto the design surface. Workflow activities execute common tasks such as evaluating data and
making decisions, transforming data from one format to another, mapping data to ERP 10 service
operations, and accessing data from a variety of sources.

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

ESC Workflow

Each arriving message kicks off an instance of the workflow bound to the message’s type and
the channel where it is received. The Service Connect Administration Console is used to track
and manage workflows, view the workflow history, and sometimes resolve problems. Workflows
and activities can also be set to execute at specific times or recurring intervals for situations that
require polling external systems for relevant changes.

Master Data Management

Managing operations for multiple companies and continuously sharing data across companies is
very challenging, especially when each company uses different item codes or customer numbers.
This is especially common for manufacturers who have acquired production sites, but have not
fully integrated their resource data.

Epicor ERP 10 Master Data Management (MDM) is a comprehensive data sharing system
specifically designed for complex data synchronization scenarios. ERP 10 supports company
partitions within each instance. External companies can also be defined, which enables the
Master Data Management capabilities to keep information between local company databases
and external companies being coordinated. MDM communicates between local and external
companies either directly at the database connection level or through Microsoft ServiceBus, which
is recommended for widely distributed ERP instances.

External
External Systems Shared Tables Translation Conflict Resolution
Companies

Epicor ERP Master Data Management Components

Shared tables define which database tables are to be synchronized between systems. Tables can
be partially shared, meaning that some table values can be locked down while other values can
be independently owned or managed within each company. For example, a customer billing
address and payment terms can be read-only for subscribing companies, but other values such as
shipping preferences can be edited.
Records also pass through a data cleansing/translation process that allows identifiers and values to
be modified to match local requirements. This feature is used to translate attributes such as terms
and commodity codes within order and part records to match the subscribing data.

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Epicor MDM also features a conflict resolution system. Records that cannot be synchronized are
held in suspension until they are reviewed. ERP 10 shows disputed records in the appropriate
form to allow users to fix values or otherwise disposition the conflict. Once the record is saved
and re-processed, the conflict is resolved. Epicor ERP 10 multi-company and MDM features
work together to make inter-company transactions easier to complete. For example, material
transfers between warehouses belonging to different companies can automatically generate
“arms-length” sales/purchasing transactions to ensure that revenue, tax, and other governance is
correctly followed.

Business Activity Queries

Business Activity Queries (BAQ) are a foundational feature of Epicor ERP 10 that provides data-
driven integration capabilities. A BAQ is a data view definition that can be defined once and
then run safely by users and integrators. BAQs bridge between data and process security aspects
automatically. When executed, they only expose data the current user is allowed to see. ERP 10
secures all tables and columns by assigning access rights to users and groups. Further, ERP 10 has
a number of other global security partitions that are enforced by the BAQ system (e.g., company,
plant, department, and territories).

Query Definition ERP Security Value Filtering

BAQ Anatomy

Business Activity Queries can also be used to enable complex integrations. BAQ definitions
can be marked as updatable (i.e., a “UBAQ”), which means that not only will the BAQ return
queried data, but the BAQ service will accept changes to that data. Data sent to the server via an
updatable BAQ is automatically analyzed and then routed to the appropriate ERP 10 application
service or sequence of services to ensure all required validations, security, and business logic are
correctly applied. These features allow BAQs to form new data-driven APIs that can be much
easier to use than directly programming calls to ERP 10 services.

Updatable BAQs can be easily bound to dashboards to create powerful data entry forms. External
Business Activity Queries (EBAQ) can be defined for data sources beyond Epicor ERP 10. EBAQs
an be connected to any SQL Server or ODBC data source. The BAQ query designer will use
inherent metadata from the data source to help administrators create complex queries. ERP 10
allows administrators to create local metadata to document available tables and fields or link
related tables automatically. Just like a native BAQ, external BAQs can drive dashboards or be
executed as part of a BPM or Service Connect workflow.

External BAQ

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Electronic Data Interchange

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a mature and standardized system for messaging between
trading partners. ERP systems generally need to support inbound and outbound EDI messaging
as a part of demand management, planning, and order expediting processes. As ERP systems
become more automated and less dependent on data entry, EDI has become a first-class
means for ensuring that commerce management decisions that affect trading partners are
communicated in near real time.

Epicor ERP 10 includes a fully featured platform for mapping key capabilities to inbound and
outbound integration via EDI. ERP 10 provides direct support for planning schedules, purchase
orders, shipping schedules, and related change order transactions. For outbound EDI, ERP 10
can emit invoices, PO acknowledgements, and advanced shipping notices as well as manifest
messages directly from the appropriate ERP process.

Epicor ERP 10 includes a complete, bidirectional Demand Management system that allows
manually or generated transactions to pass between ERP systems and trading partners. Demand
Management handles creation, analysis, editing, and reconciliation of cumulative totals for
releases from trading partners. This system provides an efficient process to manage demand
contracts, lead-time adjustments, delivery day, and customer periodicity requirements that drive ship-
by or need-by dates.

EDI support in Epicor ERP 10

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Financial Transaction Bulk Import

Bulk processing of financial transactions is an important capability of any ERP system. The Epicor
ERP 10 Generic Integration Server (GIS) is a low-level interface specifically designed for bulk
processing of financial transactions from external sources.

GIS is an application programming interface (API) tied to the Epicor ERP 10 task scheduler. The
GIS API is a pipeline that carries imported data through the global table translation process, where
attribute types such as commercial terms, customer types, and so forth are changed as needed
to match ERP resource data, then moved into suspension tables. Next, records are validated and
ultimately copied to ERP 10 data tables. GIS calls user-defined code routines as needed along the
way; this means import processing can be extremely fast because all steps are optimized to best
match the data.

After
Translation Validation Registration
Registration

Global table Suspension data Record moved from After records are
translation validated suspension to migrated from
process/data production tables suspension to
cleansing production

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Epicor ERP 10—Reaching Out: Connected ERP

Conclusion
In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly networked commercial environment, easy integration
to other systems is as important to modern ERP systems as the business capabilities they support.
Every business has a unique set of systems and business process requirements; organizations that
participate as part of extended supply and value networks must be able to communicate them.
Epicor ERP 10 features extensibility and integration capabilities to suit virtually any programming
model or approach to reaching out to other systems:

XXERP application services are the backbone for programmatically linking Epicor ERP 10 with
any calling system or even user-created client applications. Surrounded by supporting
technologies that enhance the ability to connect systems, ERP application services,
including Epicor Service Connect, orchestrate complex workflows and long-running
conversations between multiple and disparate systems.
XXMaster Data Management links Epicor ERP systems to each other as well as to external
systems via data synchronization.
XXBusiness Activity Queries—the backbone technology for accessing ERP data—can be used
to update the system or connect to external data sources and legacy data.
XXFinally, bulk data processors for handling financial transactions by EDI and Generic
Integration Server complete the services necessary for effective integration.

Einstein once wryly noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when
we created them.” We might paraphrase this: ERP cannot solve the problems it faces today with
the same thinking used when it was first devised. That’s why Epicor ERP 10 has been built on new
thinking: to continue providing the transactional framework ERP was designed for, but also to go
further and ensure the connectivity and analytical support today’s global businesses need to grow
and prosper.

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2W Technologies, INC www.2WTech.com (312) 533.4033

Contact us for more information on Epicor Products and Services

312.533.4033 info@2wtech.com www.2Wtech.com

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