1 Understanding the Oracle Product Master Data Management Integration

This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Product Master Data Management (MDM) Integration.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Section 1.2, "Process Flows"
Section 1.3, "Core AIA Components"
Section 1.4, "Integration Services"

1.1 Overview

The Product MDM integration provides industry-neutral and application integration architecture (AIA) based enterprise-data-management solution that enables customers to centralize all product information from heterogeneous systems to create a single view of product information. This product-mastering solution harnesses the power and the flexibility of the best-in-class front-office and back-office applications.

Oracle Product Hub (OPH) (previously Product Information Management [PIM]) provides a flexible user-defined attribute (UDA) framework that enables information to be modeled in a number of ways so that a single definition of an entity can be established and subsequently propagated across multiple participating applications.

The Product MDM integration supports concept-to-launch processes in which the metadata, items, and bill of materials (BOM) are defined in Oracle Product Hub and then published to the registered target applications. The Product MDM integration also supports component exclusions and overrides in the context of items and BOMs, and the telecommunications library (a set of seeded attributes in OPH to support cross-industry application entities). Use the telecommunications library to model communications-related entities such as billable products, discounts, pricing, rules such as compatibility, upgrade and downgrade, promotions, promotion commitments and charges, promotion based discounting, and so on.

Customers can select one or more participating applications when installing OPH. In addition, the Product MDM integration can be configured to route the messages to only the intended applications, which eliminates the need for publishing the entire payload to applications that are not affected by the data change. The integration sends the publishing status back to the Oracle Product Hub, which is maintained for each target application at the entity level.

The details about the integration flows from Oracle Product Hub to the integration options are described in Chapter 2: Oracle Product Master Data Management Integration Base Pack.

Similarly, the integration flows from the Oracle Product Hub to an integration option along with the services and interfaces involved are described in:

Chapter 3, "Oracle Product Master Data Management Integration Option for Siebel CRM".

Chapter 4, "Oracle Product Master Data Management Integration Option for Oracle E-Business Suite".

Chapter 5, "Oracle Product Master Data Management Integration Option for Oracle Communications BRM".

The application and middleware components supported by Product MDM integration are:

Oracle Fusion Middleware.
AIA Foundation Pack.
Oracle Product Hub.
Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Oracle E-Business Suite.
Oracle BRM.

For more information about required software, versions, patches, and installing the participating applications (integration options) download the latest version of the Oracle Application Integration Architecture Installation and Upgrade Guide for Pre-Built Integrations available on Oracle Technology Network. This guide is continually updated.

1.1.1 Terminology

This section contains the common terminology used in this guide and some key differences in the terminology across the participating applications.

Table 1-1 Terminology

Term	Definition
Item catalog category	Item catalog categories provide a logical classification of items that have similar characteristics. Item catalog categories support hierarchies that provide a mechanism to inherit attributes and relationships to subcategories and products belonging to categories.
Transaction attributes	These attributes are associated with the item catalog category. The attribute definition and associated valuesets (domain, values) for the attributes are defined at the time of definition of the item catalog category. The attributes are then inherited by the product. The value of the attribute in the product is captured at run time during a business transaction such as a sales order or a quote. These kinds of attributes capture characteristics and properties of a transaction involving a specific instance of a product.
Static attributes	These attributes are associated with the item catalog category. The attribute definition and associated valuesets (domain, values) for the attributes are defined at the time of definition of the item catalog category. The attributes are then inherited by the product. The value of the attribute in the product is captured at design time or when the product is being defined. These attributes capture characteristics, properties, or features of a product.
Structure	A structure or a bill of material (BOM) is a listing of all the subassemblies, intermediates, parts, and raw materials that make up the parent assembly, showing the quantities of each subassembly required to make the assembly. A structure (BOM) is used to compose complex products out of simpler products.
Relationships	A relationship captures the relationship of one entity to another for business purposes, for example, substitute items, up-sell, cross-sell, and so on. The items and BOMs are added as relationships to the item catalog category (ICC).
User-defined attributes	User-defined attributes capture all the detailed information (such as cost information) about an object (items, change requests, or change orders). The item catalog enables you to create user-defined attributes with validation logic to support the needs of your organization. To do so, create valuesets and associate the valuesets with user-defined attributes. Attributes can have a static or dynamic list of values or a range of values.
Valuesets	Valuesets define the possible set of values that can be assigned for an attribute. For the UDA, the values are assigned at design time and for transaction attributes the values are assigned at run time

For more information about the terminology used in this guide, see the product documentation for the relevant participating application.

This table lists some key differences in the terminology used by each application while referring to the same entity:

Table 1-2 Terminology Used by Participating Applications

Entity	OPH	Siebel CRM	Oracle E-Business Suite	Oracle BRM
Bundles	Item with BOM	Customizable product	Item with BOM	N/A
Promotions	Item	Promotion	Item	N/A
Inventory location or inventory organization	Inventory organization	Inventory location	Inventory organization	NA
Product structure	BOM	Customizable product	BOM	NA
Business unit or operating unit	Operating unit	Business unit	Operating unit	NA
Product	Item	Product	Item	Product
Discount	Item	Product	NA	Discount
Product class	Item catalog category	Product class	NA	NA
Attribute groups	Attribute groups	NA	NA	NA
Static attributes	Static attributes (seeded)	Fields or first class attributes of product	Operational attributes	Fields or first class attributes of product
Transaction attributes	Transaction attributes	Attributes of product class	NA	NA
Valueset of static attributes	Valuesets of static attributes	List of values	NA	NA
Dynamic or versioned valuesets	Valuesets (dynamic or versioned value sets)	Attribute definitions	NA	NA
Customer added static UDA	Customer added static UDA	Flexible attributes	NA	Customer added fields
Structure elements of ICC	Structure elements of the ICC	Relationships/structure of the product class	NA	NA

1.2 Process Flows

This diagram illustrates the business process flow between the Oracle Product Hub and one or more participating applications, as applicable.

Figure 1-1 Business process flow

These are the business-process-related tasks that provide a contextual framework for the solution:

The product administrator defines a common product data model using item catalog category (ICC) in Oracle Product Hub with a comprehensive definition of the products. Once the ICC is defined, the product administrator creates or updates new product definitions through the life cycle of the product from concept to launch and then on to obsolescence.

The valuesets can be published independently or during the ICC publish from the Oracle Product Hub publication framework.

The publication framework provides a user interface to publish item catalog categories to one or more downstream participating applications. The downstream applications must be registered within publication framework.
The launching of a new product and its maintenance includes:

Item catalog definition and hierarchy ICC (Siebel product classes).

Attribute definitions and their association with ICC and attribute metadata that may include the attribute's valueset or any other data of the attribute.

Basic item information such as name, product line, description, and so on.

This information is captured in primary and user-defined attributes in Oracle Product Hub. In addition, Oracle Product Hub supports seeded operational attributes that control the behavior of the item in various functional Oracle E-Business Suite modules such as Order Management and Procurement. The operational attributes are part of the definition of the item and are intended for consumption by Oracle E-Business Suite.

Item bill of material (BOM) information (hierarchical structure of the product with components).

This structure also includes the component-level attributes and attributes with regard to the relationship between parent and child items in a hierarchical relationship. You may want to have BOM synchronization with item definitions and a separate BOM synchronization process without item definitions that may be needed in certain cases.
After creating or updating the common set of data, the product administrator publishes the information to the participating applications. The publish mechanism is triggered through the publication framework provided by Oracle Product Hub. The integration sends the publishing status back to the Oracle Product Hub. The status is maintained for each target application spoke at each entity level.

For more information about the concepts and terms related to Oracle Product Hub, see the Oracle Product Hub Implementation Guide.

1.3 Core AIA Components

The core application integration architecture (AIA) components used by the integration are:

ItemEBO
SyncItemListEBM
SyncItemListResponseEBM
BillOfMaterialsEBO
SyncBillOfMaterialsListEBM
SyncBillOfMaterialsListResponseEBM
PriceListEBO
SyncPriceListEBM
SyncPriceListResponseEBM
SpecificationValueSetEBO
SyncSpecificationValueSetListEBM
SyncSpecificationValueSetListResponseEBM
ClassificationSchemeEBO
SyncClassificationSchemeListEBM
SyncClassificationSchemeListResponseEBM
Communications/PriceListEBO
Communications/ItemCompositionEBO
SyncItemCompositionListEBM
SyncItemCompositionListResponseEBM

The core EBO and EBM XSD files can be located by EBO within the $AIA_HOME/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents/EnterpriseObjectLibrary/Core/EBO/ parent folder.

The core EBS WSDL files can be located by EBO within the $AIA_HOME/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents/EnterpriseBusinessServiceLibrary/Core/EBO/ parent folder.

For detailed documentation of individual EBOs and EBMs, click the AIA Reference Doc link on EBO and EBM detail pages in the Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER).

For more information about using the OER and configuring it to provide the AIA Reference Doc link, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Configuring and Using Oracle Enterprise Repository as the Oracle AIA SOA Repository."

EBOs can be extended, for instance, to add new data elements. These extensions are protected and will remain intact after a patch or an upgrade.

For more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Concepts and Technologies Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Understanding Extensibility."

1.4 Integration Services

These are the AIA integration services delivered with this integration:

ItemEBSV2
ItemResponseEBSV2
BillOfMaterialsEBS
BillOfMaterialsReponseEBS
PriceListEBSV2
PriceListResponseEBSV2
SpecificationValueSetEBS
SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS
ClassificationSchemeEBS
ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS
CommunicationsPriceListEBSV2
CommunicationsPriceListResponseEBSV2
CommunicationsItemCompositionEBSV1
CommunicationsItemCompositionResponseEBSV1

For more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Configuring and Using Oracle Enterprise Repository as the Oracle AIA SOA Repository."

1.4.1 ItemEBSV2

ItemEBSV2 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with an item enterprise business object. The EBS is used to route the SyncItemEBM received from OPH to the various participating applications.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncItemList operation. The SyncItemList operation on ItemEBS invokes SyncItemListEbizProvABCSImpl and SyncProductSiebelProvABCSImpl.

For more information about this EBS, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Designing and Developing Enterprise Business Services" and Oracle Fusion Middleware Concepts and Technologies Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Understanding Enterprise Business Services."

1.4.2 ItemResponseEBSV2

ItemResponseEBSV2 is implemented as a routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with an item enterprise business object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncItemListResponse operation. The SyncItemListResponse operation on ItemResponseEBS transfers the response message from SyncProductListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncItemListEbizProvABCSImpl to SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl.

1.4.3 BillOfMaterialsEBS

BillOfMaterialsEBS is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a BillOfMaterials enterprise business object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncBillOfMaterialsList operation. The SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl invokes the SyncBillOfMaterials operation on the BillOfMaterialEBS. TheBillOfMaterialsEBS calls SyncBillOfMaterialsListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncBillOfMaterialsListEbizProvABCSImpl (and other participating applications provider services).

This service synchronizes the product structure into the Siebel CRM and Oracle E-Business Suite systems. The assumption is that the components that are part of the product structure are already synchronized into Siebel CRM and Oracle E-Business Suite as part of the item synchronization flow.

1.4.4 BillOfMaterialsReponseEBS

BillOfMaterialsResponseEBS is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a BillOfMaterials enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncBillOfMaterialsListResponse operation. The SyncBillOfMaterialsListResponse operation on BillOfMaterialsResponseEBS transfers the response message from SyncBillOfMaterialsListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncBillOfMaterialsListEbizProvABCSImpl (and other participating applications provider services) to SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl.

1.4.5 PriceListEBSV2

PriceListEBSV2 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a price list enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncPriceListList operation. The SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl invokes the SyncPriceListList operation on the PriceListEBSV2. The PriceListEBSV2 has routing rules for the various systems. For Siebel, the message is routed to the CommunicationsPricelistEBSV2 and SyncPriceListList for handling the synchronization of billing pricelists to Siebel.

1.4.6 PriceListResponseEBSV2

PriceListResponseEBSV2 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a price list enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncPriceListListResponse operation. The SyncPriceListListResponse operation on PriceListResponseEBSV2 transfers the response message from CommunicationsPricelistEBSV2 to the SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl.

1.4.7 SpecificationValueSetEBS

SpecificationValueSetEBS is implemented as a lightweight Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a SpecificationValueSet enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncSpecificationValueSetList operation. The SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl and SyncSpecificationValueSetListPIMReqABCSImpl invoke the SyncSpecificationValueSetList operation on the SpecificationValueSetEBS to synchronize valuesets. The routing rule in the operation routes to the Siebel provider for valueset SyncSpecificationValueSetListSiebelProvABCSImpl.

1.4.8 SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS

SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS is implemented as a lightweight Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a SpecificationValueSet enterprise business object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncSpecificationValueSetListResponse operation. The SyncSpecificationValueSetListResponse operation on SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS transfers the response message to the SyncSpecificationValueSetListPIMReqABCSImpl or SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl, depending on which invokes the message.

1.4.9 ClassificationSchemeEBS

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncClassificationSchemeList operation. The SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl service invokes the SyncClassificationSchemeList operation on the ClassificationSchemeEBS to synchronize ICCs from OPH. The routing rule in the operation routes to the Siebel provider for valueset SyncClassificationSchemeListSiebelProvABCSImpl.

1.4.10 ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS

ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS exposes all of the enterprise operations that could be performed with a ClassificationResponse enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncClassificationListResponse operation. The SyncClassificationListResponse operation on ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS transfers the response message to SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl.

1.4.11 CommunicationsPriceListEBSV2

CommunicationsPriceListEBSV2 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications pricelist enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncPriceListList operation. The PricelistEBSV2 invokes this operation, and it transfers the request to ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl for billing pricelists that need to be synchronized to Siebel.

For more information about Communications-specific services or flows, see the Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack for Siebel CRM, Oracle Communications Order and Service Management, and Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Implementation Guide, or the Siebel CRM Integration Pack for Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management: Agent Assisted Billing Care Implementation Guide.

1.4.12 CommunicationsPriceListResponseEBSV2

CommunicationsPriceListResponseEBSV2 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications pricelist enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncPriceListListResponse operation. It transfers the response to PricelistEBSResponseEBSV2.

1.4.13 CommunicationsItemCompositionEBSV1

CommunicationsItemCompositionEBSV1 performs the entire item/product-related actions such as create product/item, update product/item, and synchronize product/item. Based on the routing rules set up, it invokes a provider application business connector service (ABCS).

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncItemCompositionList operation. The ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl invokes this operation, and it transfers the request to SyncItemCompositionListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl for Siebel.

1.4.14 CommunicationsItemCompositionResponseEBSV1

CommunicationsItemCompositionResponseEBSV1 is implemented as a Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications pricelist enterprise-business-object.

In the Oracle Product Hub integration, this service implements the SyncItemCompositionListResponse operation. It transfers the response to ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl.