Instead I'm going to talk about a few hypothetical cases...
Case 1 - incoming orders
Let's suppose you work in a business that provides some form of product. Some of your buyers send through orders via email. Usually the email has an attachment. It could be an Excel spreadsheet, a CSV file or some other format. You need to get this information into your company's ERP or in-house application - henceforth let's just call it ERP for simplicity's sake. Perhaps you have set up an special email address to which your clients can email their orders - let's call it orders@mycompany.com
So it's somebody's job to periodically check this Inbox to see if there are orders to be processed. If there is an email, then the attachment is saved. Then you edit the attachment into a specific form that will allow it to be loaded into your ERP for processing. You need to check that the load process worked OK and maybe you have to send an email back to your client to advise them that their orders were accepted and perhaps even give them tracking information.
There's a lot that could go wrong. But the main problem is that we are relying on a person to manually tend to the whole process of getting the data into shape, loading it, checking the result and communicating back to the client.
There are 2 major processes involved here - the automation of multiple manual steps and the integration into your company's ERP.
Let's deal with the automation side of things first.
In Case 1 we need to first handle how the data gets to our company. At a high level, we call this Transportation - how the data is moved. We see that email is the method of transportation, or more technically it is SMTP & POP.
Next we have to consider the data "payload". And there are 2 aspects to this:
- What file type is being used, and
- What data format is being used
In Case 1, let's assume it is a simple text file using CSV data formatting.
So we need to create a process that reads emails coming into a specific Inbox, then detach the file for further processing.
However, it is unlikely that the incoming format is exactly what we need in order to load into our ERP. So we need to munge it into shape. Quite often this is a very manual process and prone to errors. We need to map the incoming data elements to the format required by our ERP. This involves the Transformation of the data. It is also where the Integration part of this blog's heading comes into play. In a Transformation process we are concerned about getting the data into the right shape and moving it to the right data element on the receiving side. Now this too may vary just as the incoming data varied. We could be loading it into a flat file that is read by a loader program. Or we could be directly updating an Incoming Orders table in our ERP, where it will be processed by an existing mechanism.
In some cases we may need to create the flat file, and then invoke the loader program as a subsequent step.
As you can see from Case 1, we have a few steps that need to work together, much like the separate musicians in a band - so we call this Orchestration - ensuring that the process steps work together in a flow that produces the desired outcome.
And to control the creation of these Processing Sequences and who can access them, we need the management layer - or Administration
In some cases we may need to create the flat file, and then invoke the loader program as a subsequent step.
As you can see from Case 1, we have a few steps that need to work together, much like the separate musicians in a band - so we call this Orchestration - ensuring that the process steps work together in a flow that produces the desired outcome.
And to control the creation of these Processing Sequences and who can access them, we need the management layer - or Administration
Case 2 - Outgoing Notifications
In much the same way as we handled Incoming Orders, we will handle Outgoing Notifications. We need to create a Processing Sequence that handles transportation, transformation and orchestration. Our ERP may have finished processing some orders and we want to notify the client of the outcome. The client expects us to FTP an Excel file to a specific folder. Our ERP creates the XML files in specific client folders - each client has its own folder. The process will watch for files being created in this folder. When a file is detected, it is transferred to the client's remote folder via an FTP connection. We may have agreed to convert the XML into an Excel spreadsheet for this specific client. After successfully moving the file, we move it to an Archive folder for this client and we send the client an email advising them that a file has been FTP'd to them, along with any other pertinent data.Case 3 - Application to Application Integration
In our last case, let's look at intra-company process flows. Quite often a company will end up with multiple applications running on different platforms. Some will be older, perhaps authored in-house, but comprising the very core of the company's systems. New applications may be acquired - sometimes through acquisition. Rarely do these applications work together without some form of integration. What we need is something that can handle both older methods of exchanging data (like file transfer) with newer methods such as web services - both SOAP and RESTful.However, your business processing sequence will still need to have the same building blocks - handle the transportation method from one application, transform the data (for the receiving application), transport it into the receiving application and then kick off the processing.
Summary
To wrap it up, you want a solution that a business analyst can use to define your business process flows - think of it as workflow for applications. You don't want to be writing bespoke programs that provide point solutions, as these will just add to your maintenance overhead. You want a centralised, secure, code-free solution that handles multiple platforms, data formats, transportation methods in a secure, repeatable fashion.If this sounds like something your company needs, then I suggest you have a look at LANSA Composer and automate your manual processes.
