2 Loading Initial Data

This chapter provides an overview of initial bulk data loads and discusses how to deploy Oracle Data Integration (ODI) repository components as well as how to load initial customer data, product data, price list data, and assets data.

This chapter includes the following sections:

• Section 2.1, "Understanding Initial Bulk Data Loads"

• Section 2.2, "Prerequisites"

• Section 2.3, "Solution Assumptions and Constraints"

2.1 Understanding Initial Bulk Data Loads

The Order to Cash integration requires that the business data is always synchronized in both Oracle and Siebel databases. The Order to Cash integration enables you to:

• Initially load your business data in bulk.

• Synchronize the data that exists in both Oracle and Siebel databases after the initial load is complete.

Bulk loading of business data is a one-way process. With ODI, business data is:

1. Extracted from the Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle EBS).

2. Transformed into Siebel database-compatible structure and format.

3. Imported into Siebel Customer Relationship Management (Siebel CRM).

You can also bulk load at a later date to move large amounts of business data, for example, after a business data purchase or an acquisition made by your organization.

For more information about the steps to load initial data, see Chapter 14, "Running Initial Data Loads."

For more information about using Oracle EBS, ODI, and Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM), see the relevant product documentation.

Figure 2-1 illustrates the bulk load process.

Figure 2-1 Loading Bulk Data from Oracle EBS to Siebel CRM

2.2 Prerequisites

Find prerequisites in Chapter 13, "Reviewing Prerequisites and Data Requirements."

2.3 Solution Assumptions and Constraints

These are the assumptions and constraints for loading initial data.

1. Price lists depend on product data.

   Assets depend on customer and product data. Make sure that you run customer and product loads first.

2. You set up organizations and inventory locations for Siebel CRM and Oracle EBS manually.

3. The DVM data must be synchronized with what the participating applications use.

   You should synchronize this data before running any initial loads or initiating any incremental transactional flows.

4. The fulfillment system (Oracle EBS) may be marking the quantity very high (E+29) just to indicate very high levels, though physically this much quantity would not exist in the inventory.

   It would cause Asset initial load to fail due to ODI being unable to create a temporary table because this value exceeds the allowed limit for the target field in Siebel CRM. Therefore, before importing the data to Siebel CRM, you must set this significantly high number to a number that is more appropriate on the Siebel quantity attribute. In Siebel CRM, the maximum value that the Asset quantity field can hold is E+11.

For more information about organizations and inventory locations, see Chapter 15, "Configuring the Order to Cash Pre-Built Integration."