1 Understanding the Product Master Data Management Integration

This chapter provides an overview of the Oracle Application Integration Architecture (Oracle AIA) Product Master Data Management Integration (the integration).

About Oracle AIA and Oracle Communications Solutions Integrations

Oracle AIA is an Oracle Communications Solutions Integrations framework that provides pre-built integrations using standard integration patterns, business processes, orchestration logic, and common objects and services to connect Oracle applications.

Oracle Communications Solutions Integrations is a set of integration frameworks, technologies, and tools that lets you design and build integrations that connect Oracle applications to support end-to-end business processes for communications service providers across operations support systems and business support systems.

Overview of the Product Master Data Management Integration

The integration provides an industry-neutral and Oracle AIA-based enterprise data management solution that lets you centralize all product information from heterogeneous systems to create a single view.

In the integration, Oracle Product Hub acts as the product master. It provides a flexible user-defined attribute framework that lets you establish a single definition of an entity and synchronize it across multiple participating applications.

The integration supports concept-to-launch processes in which you define the metadata, items, and bills of materials (BOMs) in Oracle Product Hub and then published the information to the participating applications. The integration also supports component exclusions and overrides in the context of items, BOMs, and the Oracle Product Hub telecommunications library (a set of seeded attributes that support cross-industry applications). You use the telecommunications library to model communications-related entities such as billable products, discounts, pricing, and rules for as compatibility, upgrade and downgrade, promotions, promotion commitments and charges, and promotion based discounting.

You select participating applications when installing Oracle Product Hub and configure the integration to route the messages only to the applications affected by the data change.

The following applications and middleware components support the integration:

Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle Product Hub
Siebel CRM
Oracle E-Business Suite
Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM)
Oracle Communications Design Studio

For more information about compatible software and versions, search for Oracle Product Master Data Management on the Certifications tab of My Oracle Support.

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 lists common terminology used in this guide with a definition for each term.

Table 1-1 Terminology Used in this Guide

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 way to inherit attributes and relationships to subcategories and products belonging to those categories.
Attributes	Attributes are associated with the item catalog category and defined, along with their associated valuesets, at the same time as the item catalog category. Attributes are then inherited by the product. There are two kinds of attribute: Transaction attributes capture characteristics and properties of a transaction involving a specific instance of a product. The value is captured at run time during a business transaction such as a sales order or a quote. Static attributes capture characteristics, properties, or features of a product. The value is captured at design time when the product is defined.
Structure (BOM)	A structure or a BOM is a listing of all the subassemblies, intermediates, parts, and raw materials that make up a parent assembly, with the quantities of each subassembly required to make the assembly. A structure (BOM) is used to compose complex products out of simpler products.
Relationships	Relationships capture the relationship of one entity to another for business purposes, for example, substitute or up-sell items. You add items and BOMs as relationships to the item catalog category.
UDA	UDAs capture all the detailed information (such as cost information) about objects (items, change requests, change orders). The item catalog lets you create UDAs with validation logic by creating valuesets and associating the valuesets with UDA. UDAs can have a static or dynamic list of values or a range of values.
Valuesets	Valuesets define the possible set of values that an attribute can have. For the static attributes, you assign these values at design time. For transaction attributes, you assign these values at run time.

Table 1-2 lists some key differences in the terminology used by each application while referring to the same entity.

Table 1-2 Terminology Differences Across Applications

Entity	Oracle Product Hub	Siebel CRM	E-Business Suite	BRM	Design Studio
Bundle	Item with BOM	Customizable product	Item with BOM	N/A	N/A
Promotion	Item	Promotion	Item	N/A	N/A
Inventory location or inventory organization	Inventory organization	Inventory location	Inventory organization	N/A	N/A
Product structure	BOM	Customizable product	BOM	N/A	N/A
Business unit or operating unit	Operating unit	Business unit	Operating unit	N/A	N/A
Product	Item	Product	Item	Product	N/A
Discount	Item	Product	N/A	Discount	N/A
Product class	Item catalog category	Product class	N/A	N/A	Product class
Attribute group	Attribute group	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Static attribute	Static attribute (seeded)	Field or FCA of product	Operational attribute	Field or FCA of product	N/A
Transaction attribute	Transaction attribute	Product class attribute	N/A	N/A	Product class attribute
Valueset of static attribute	Valuesets of static attribute	List of values	N/A	N/A	N/A
Dynamic or versioned valueset	Dynamic or versioned value set	Attribute definition	N/A	N/A	Data Schema element
Customer added static UDA	Customer added static UDA	Flexible attribute	N/A	Customer added field	N/A
Structure element of item catalog category	Structure element of item catalog category	Relationship/ structure of the product class	N/A	N/A	N/A

Overview of the Business Process Flow

The integration maintains data between the applications throughout the business process flow of the product lifecycle.

At the beginning of the lifecycle, the product administrator defines a common product data model using item catalog categories in Oracle Product Hub with a comprehensive definition of the products. After defining item catalog categories, the product administrator creates or updates products.

Creating or updating a product includes the following:

Defining Item catalog categories and their hierarchy
Defining attributes and their valuesets and associating them with item catalog categories. You can publish valuesets independently or at the same time as item catalog categories.
Defining basic item information such as name, product line, and description.

The information is captured in primary and user-defined attributes in Oracle Product Hub. Oracle Product Hub also supports seeded operational attributes that control the behavior of the item in various functional E-Business Suite modules, including order management and procurement.
Defining item BOM information, including the hierarchical structure of the product and its components

This structure also includes the component-level attributes and attributes that define the relationship between parent and child items in a hierarchical relationship. You can synchronize BOMs with item definitions separately from BOMs without item definitions.

After creating or updating the common set of data, the product administrator publishes the information to the participating applications through the Oracle Product Hub publication framework. The publication framework provides a user interface to publish item catalog categories to registered participating applications.After publishing the information to participating applications, the integration sends the publishing status back to Oracle Product Hub, which maintains the status for each participating application at each entity level.

Note:

When the integration publishes product classes to Design Studio, an email notification is sent to the product-to-service mapping specialist and the status is set to 'success'. The integration does not return the status back to Oracle Product Hub because the product classes are imported using a Query Product Class service from Design Studio.

Figure 1-1 illustrates the following business process flow:

An Oracle Product Hub user selects, creates, or updates BOMs, Items, Item Catalog Categories, or valuesets.
Oracle Product Hub assigns the target systems, publishes the information to the target systems, and alerts Design Studio that the item catalog categories are ready to synchronize.
Design Studio receives the notification and a user queries the product classes from Oracle Product Hub.
Oracle AIA processes the publication event and queries the target systems from Oracle Product Hub.
Oracle Product Hub provides the target systems to Oracle AIA.
Oracle AIA processes the publication message and queries domain values, product classes, products, discounts, promotions, resources, bundles, and structures.
Oracle Product Hub retrieves the requested information and sends it to Oracle AIA.
Oracle AIA synchronizes the relevant information as follows:
- Siebel CRM: Oracle AIA creates or updates attribute definitions from domain values, product classes from product classes, and product description, promotion, and pricelist information from products, discounts, promotions, resources, prices, bundles, and structures.
- E-Business Suite: Oracle AIA creates or updates product information from products, discounts, promotions, resources, bundles, and structures.
- BRM: Oracle AIA creates or updates product price and description information from products, discounts, promotions, resources, and prices.
- Design Studio: Oracle AIA provides product classes, valuesets, and attributes. The Design Studio user uses these to create product specifications, rules, actions, translations, and milestones.
The participating applications send status updates to Oracle AIA.
Oracle AIA receives the publication response and sends it to Oracle Product Hub.
Oracle Product Hub updates the publishing status and maintains the product information for all participating applications.

Figure 1-1 Business Process Flow

The figure is described in the following text.

Core Oracle AIA Components

The integration uses the following core Oracle AIA components:

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

The following directories contain the core component files:

Enterprise business object (EBO) and enterprise business message (EBM) XML schema files:

Oracle_home/comms_home/source/soainfra/apps/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents
/EnterpriseObjectLibrary/Core/EBO/
Enterprise business service WSDL files:

Oracle_home/comms_home/source/soainfra/apps/AIAMetaData/AIAComponents
/EnterpriseBusinessServiceLibrary/Core/EBO/

You can extend EBOs to add new data elements. These extensions are protected and will remain intact after a patch or an upgrade.

For more information, see the discussion of understanding extensibility in Oracle Fusion Middleware Concepts and Technologies Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack.

Integration Services

The integration includes the following integration services:

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

ItemEBSV2

ItemEBSV2 is a mediator routing service. It is used to route the SyncItemEBM received from Product Hub to the participating applications. This service exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with an item EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncItemList operation.

The SyncItemList operation invokes the SyncItemListEbizProvABCSImpl and SyncProductSiebelProvABCSImpl services.

ItemResponseEBSV2

ItemResponseEBSV2 is a routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with an item EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncItemListResponse operation.

The SyncItemListResponse operation sends the response message from the SyncProductListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncItemListEbizProvABCSImpl services to the SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl service.

BillOfMaterialsEBS

BillOfMaterialsEBS is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a BillOfMaterials EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncBillOfMaterialsList operation.

The SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl service invokes this operation. BillOfMaterialsEBS calls the SyncBillOfMaterialsListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncBillOfMaterialsListEbizProvABCSImpl services, along with other participating applications provider services.

This service synchronizes the product structure into Siebel CRM and E-Business Suite. It assumes that the components that are part of the product structure have already been synchronized to Siebel CRM and E-Business Suite as part of the item synchronization flow.

BillOfMaterialsReponseEBS

BillOfMaterialsResponseEBS is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a BillOfMaterials EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncBillOfMaterialsListResponse operation.

The SyncBillOfMaterialsListResponse operation sends the response message from the SyncBillOfMaterialsListSiebelProvABCSImpl and SyncBillOfMaterialsListEbizProvABCSImpl services, along with other participating applications provider services, to the SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl service.

PriceListEBSV2

PriceListEBSV2 is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a price list EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncPriceListList operation.

The SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl service invokes this operation. PriceListEBSV2 has routing rules for the participating applications. For Siebel CRM, PriceListEBSV2 sends the message to the CommunicationsPricelistEBSV2 and SyncPriceListList services to synchronize billing price lists to Siebel CRM.

You must set the RECEIVE_PRICELIST_FLAG in the ENTITY_TO_TARGET_APPLICATION domain value map (DVM) for all applications that receive price lists. See "Working with Domain Value Maps" for more information about this DVM.

PriceListResponseEBSV2

PriceListResponseEBSV2 is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a price list EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncPriceListListResponse operation.

The SyncPriceListListResponse operation sends the response message from the CommunicationsPricelistEBSV2 service to the SyncItemListPIMReqABCSImpl service.

SpecificationValueSetEBS

SpecificationValueSetEBS is a lightweight mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a Specification ValueSet EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncSpecificationValueSetList operation.

The SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl and SyncSpecificationValueSetListPIMReqABCSImpl services invoke this operation to synchronize valuesets. The routing rule in the operation sends the valueset message to the SyncSpecificationValueSetListSiebelProvABCSImpl service for Siebel CRM.

SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS

SpecificationValueSetResponseEBS is a lightweight Mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a SpecificationValueSet EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncSpecificationValueSetListResponse operation.

The SyncSpecificationValueSetListResponse operation sends the response message to the SyncSpecificationValueSetListPIMReqABCSImpl or SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl service, depending on which invoked the message.

ClassificationSchemeEBS

ClassificationSchemeEBS implements the SyncClassificationSchemeList operation.

The SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl service invokes this operation to synchronize item catalog categories from Oracle Product Hub. The routing rule in the operation sends the valueset message to the SyncClassificationSchemeListSiebelProvABCSImpl service for Siebel CRM.

ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS

ClassificationSchemeResponseEBS exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a ClassificationResponse EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncClassificationListResponse operation.

The SyncClassificationListResponse operation sends the response message to the SyncItemCatalogCategoryPIMReqABCSImpl service.

CommunicationsPriceListEBSV2

CommunicationsPriceListEBSV2 is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications price list EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncPriceListList operation.

The PricelistEBSV2 service invokes this operation, which sends the request to the ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl service for price lists that need to be synchronized to Siebel CRM.

For more information about Communications-specific services or flows, see the Oracle AIA Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack Implementation Guide and Oracle AIA Agent Assisted Billing Care Integration Pack Implementation Guide.

CommunicationsPriceListResponseEBSV2

CommunicationsPriceListResponseEBSV2 is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications price list EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncPriceListListResponse operation, which sends the response to the PricelistEBSResponseEBSV2 service

CommunicationsItemCompositionEBSV1

CommunicationsItemCompositionEBSV1 performs item-related actions such as creating, updating, and synchronizing items. It invokes a provider service based on routing rules. In this integration, this service implements the SyncItemCompositionList operation.

The ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl invokes this operation, which sends the request to the SyncItemCompositionListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl service for Siebel CRM.

CommunicationsItemCompositionResponseEBSV1

CommunicationsItemCompositionResponseEBSV1 is a mediator routing service. It exposes all of the enterprise operations that can be performed with a communications price list EBO. In this integration, it implements the SyncItemCompositionListResponse operation, which sends the response to the ProductOptimizedSyncPriceListListSiebelCommsProvABCSImpl service.