JDE orchestrator recommendations, Practical example #1

A requirement came to Nexpter, which requested to reclassify Journal Entries.

This work was previously done manually. Doing it in this way, many errors are made that are directly associated with the need of human activity to carry it out. It is of public knowledge that any human task is always prone to making errors due to distractions, delays or any other accident that may occur during its development.

The requirement requested to automate the task; it consisted on obtaining the data that had not been processed from a table, and generating the corresponding accounting entries. Then, an update to the corresponding records to indicate that they were processed was needed.

Before We begin to detail the example, We will define some concepts related to Orchestrator to which will be mentioned in later sections:

• Orchestrator: automates the collection, processing, and exchange of data, leading you to the Autonomous ERP.
• Orchestration: ordered steps that establish a process to be executed within JDE EnterpriseOne. There is input, variables, output and a various configurations that allow us to get expected results.
• Service Request: atomic activities that compose each step within an Orchestration. There are different kind of activities to solve different problems, which are:

Form request: can be automatically generated by a Record a Process tool in the web interface of JDE EnterpriseOne.

Also, each action to be executed within an application of JDE EnterpriseOne can be manually configured. By choosing the option Record a Process, each action recorded during the process will be shown in Service Request.

Custom: this Service Request can modify input parameters, update databases, modify output and perform any action that can be developed in Java or Groovy language.

Data Request: its function is to retrieve a set of registers from a table or a view from the JDE EnterpriseOne database.

Connector: can be used to connect to API REST, IOT Devices, or any Orchestration generated. If the connection is with the outside, it will be necessary to configure it in Orchestrator Studio options.

Other Service Requests can be consulted on the next link:

Example to reclassify journal entries

Step 1: As it is mentioned in the introduction, we were asked to reclassify the entries generated by certain transactions. These are in a transactional file. It was necessary to generate a Data Request to obtain the raw records in a record set. Therefore, it was necessary to apply a filter.

Each selected record will be sent to step 2, which is another Orchestration.

We will call this record set SET_TO_BE_PROCESSED.

Recommendation: It's recommendable to use standard JDE EnterpriseOne tables and default views to avoid developing customized objects, which will need retrofitting if it's necessary to migrate EnterpriseOne.

Step 2: for each element of the SET_TO_BE_PROCESSED it is necessary to filter the records of the F0911 table which match. The new record set will be called SET_TO_BE_PROCESSED_2.

To execute this step it was necessary to create Customs Service Request to format the values of SET_TO_BE_PROCESSED. For example: Concatenate some numeric values and return a string with that concatenation.

Next, each record of SET_TO_BE_PROCESSED_2 will be sent to reclassify (Step 3)

Step 3: In this step, to reclassify not only was it necessary to create a P0911 application Form Request to generate two accounting entries, one of them to Credit and another one to Debit, but also the header of the application.

It's important to highlight that it was also necessary to apply format using Custom Service Request to several SETS' fields mentioned previously.

One of the classic ways to perform dynamic data entry is through a UDC. This was developed to determine the new reclassified accounting account.

Recommendation: Using JDE Enterprise One standard applications gives you validations and verifications to maintain the information without losing the integrity when we are automating process.

After reclassification of records, it was necessary to mark the records as processed.

There are several ways to get this functionality. One of them is developing customized objects that update the already mentioned records. Since customized objects are to be avoided, a JDE Orchestrator tool to connect to the database directly can be used.

The tool provided by Orchestrator gives you the possibility to connect with API REST, IOT devices, databases, etc. These connections will allow you to carry out several authorized actions. In database connections, you'll be allowed to make selections, updates, insertions and eliminations.

Advantages of Orchestrator We found

• Allows you to take full advantage of the standard functionalities of JDE EnterpriseOne, without having to incur large developments.
• Avoids generating customized objects or long working hours to get specific functionalities.
• Allows you to automatize and systematize several activities that were developed by humans. Avoiding errors and unnecessary delays.
• Allows you to be updated in real time with IOT devices and API REST available in the web.
• It has messenger service and notification functionalities to keep you updated. It can optimize your time when taking decisions or avoid errors in the business process.

Author: Jacob Matías for Nextper