This chapter includes the following:
Overview
Creating Subscribers
Validating Subscribers
Enabling and Disabling Subscribers
Deleting Subscribers
After you configure events, filters, destinations, roles, and criteria, you can create subscribers to publish data automatically when all of the subscriber requirements are met. A subscriber is associated with only one event and criteria, but can contain multiple destinations, filters, and roles. These are managed from the Subscribers node.
Agile PLM provides an example scheduled subscriber and an example workflow subscriber. The example subscribers incorporate the other ACS example settings as a template you can use when creating a subscriber to match your company's requirements.
To create a subscriber:
Under System Settings > Agile Content Service, double-click Subscribers. The Subscribers window appears.
Click the New button. The Create Subscriber dialog box appears.
Type a name and a description of the subscriber in the Name and Description fields.
Select the subclass from the Subclass list.
This is the ATO subclass that ACS generates when an event that matches all the properties of this subscriber occurs.
Select the Default ATOs workflow from the Workflow list.
For more information about workflows, refer to Getting Started with Agile PLM.
Select ATO Number from the AutoNumber list to select an autonumber source for the selected subclass.
The default autonumber source is ATO Number. For more information about autonumbers, refer to Agile PLM Administrator Guide. Because ATOs are processed automatically, an autonumber source is required.
Select the object that you want to process by selecting available criteria from the Criteria list. For more information about criteria and how to create new criteria, refer to Agile PLM Administrator Guide.
Note: If you are creating a scheduled event subscriber, be sure to define your criteria as specifically as possible, to avoid receiving unwanted data in your transfer order. For example, ”All Change Orders released after 8/18/2008” returns a specific group of change orders, unlike ”All Change Orders” which returns every change order in your system. |
Select the event specific to this subscriber from the Event list.
Click OK. The window of the new subscriber appears.
Select Yes or No from the Include Modified Objects drop-down list. (Scheduled Subscribers only)
If yes, new and modified objects since the last processing of the subscriber are published. If no, only objects that have been created since the initial processing of the subscriber and meet the Criteria specified by the subscriber are published.
Note: ATOs created from scheduled events will be limited to 100 objects on the Selected Content tab. For example, if there are 500 objects that meet the given criteria, then five ATOs are created, which allows ACS to process transfer orders in manageable amounts while still achieving the desired results. |
Click the Subscriber Details tab to add destinations, filters, and roles, and to select the transfer file format.
Click the Detail+ button to display the Subscriber Detail dialog box.
Click the Down Arrow to select values for the Destinations, Filters, and Roles fields from the lists of options available for this subscriber. Roles are applied to further fine-tune or define the data extraction. For more information about roles, refer to Agile PLM Administrator Guide.
Select the file Type of the transfer file, PDX or aXML, from the Data Format drop-down list.
Product Definition Exchange (PDX) packages contain product content, such as item or change details, plus BOM data, manufacturer information, drawings, and other attached files. PDX packages are based on an industry-standard format for encoding structured data in an XML format. This standard provides an application-independent way to describe product content. PDX does not support all the object types supported by ACS.
The Agile Extensible Markup Language (aXML) format is an XML representation of Agile PLM's business schema. aXML contains all product content managed in Agile PLM including items, change details, manufacturer information, problem reports, cost, drawings, and other files. aXML does support all object types supported by ACS. An aXML file is a ZIP file, which includes the XML representation of the Agile PLM content and the associated attachments.
Select the language to use from the Language drop-down list.
The language setting does not affect or translate data in the transfer file; it does determine which language is used to label object attributes, for example, field and column names.
Select a site to use from the Site drop-down list.
The site setting further defines the data extraction. For example, if you select the Hong Kong site, only BOM information visible for the Hong Kong site will be extracted.
Click Save.
The destination detail is displayed in a row on the Subscriber Details tab.
Note: For each detail row that you want to add, click the Detail+ button to display the Subscriber Detail dialog box and then follow the instructions in step 13 through step 17 above. |
After you have created your subscriber, you should review the settings to ensure a successful transfer. Review at least the following settings:
Destination - Make sure this setting points to the correct location and the connection has been verified. Make sure that the appropriate personnel are designated for notification.
Event - If it is a scheduled event, make sure the proper schedule is set. If it is a workflow event, make sure it is set to the proper workflow and status.
Filter - Make sure there is a filter for each object you want to transfer.
Roles - Make sure the correct fields are being extracted.
If the criteria, events, and filters are not well defined for a subscriber, ACS may not trigger the ATO or you may not receive the expected results in the ATO.
When a subscriber is created, it is disabled by default. This allows all fields of the subscriber to be changed before it is used. You must enable a subscriber before it is recognized by the ACS.
When a subscriber is enabled, you cannot edit its subscriber details and you cannot edit any of its referenced destinations, events, or filters. If any of these settings require changes, you must disable the subscriber.
To enable or disable a Subscriber:
Under System Settings > Agile Content Service, double-click Subscribers. The Subscribers window appears.
Select the subscriber you want to enable or disable.
Click the Enable or Disable button to enable or disable the Subscriber.
Subscribers can be deleted only if they are disabled and not currently assigned to any transfer order objects.
To enable a Subscriber:
Under System Settings > Agile Content Service, double-click Subscribers. The Subscribers window appears.
Select the subscriber you want to delete.
Click the Delete button.