Designing Your External System Feature Configuration

For each external system, you must define a feature configuration with a feature type of FA Integration.

Note that it is also possible for you to define multiple entries in the feature configuration table for a single external system. You would do this if your external system may be configured in multiples ways for different dispatch groups. For example, maybe your service territory includes urban areas and rural areas. Perhaps your rules for scheduling appointments differ based on the location of the premise. You could define two separate feature configurations and define the appropriate appointment options for each one. When defining your dispatch groups, be sure to define separate dispatch groups based on the operations area and link the appropriate feature configuration accordingly.

If you define multiple feature configurations, consider whether they should all reference the same service provider. One consideration is whether or not the method of communication with the external system is the same for all feature configurations.

Configure the options for your external system interaction.

Note:

Your implementation may define additional options types. You do this by add new lookup values to the lookup field WFM_OPT_TYP_FLG.


Option	Description
Account Rel. Type - Company Contact	Identify the account relationship type used to define a company's contact person.
Allow Forced Appointments	Use this option to indicate if forced appointments are supported. Possible values are Y and N.
Allow Manual Appointment	Use this option to indicate if a user is allowed to manually set up an appointment. Possible values are Y and N.
Allow Manual Appointment Cancellation	Use this option to indicate if a user is allowed to manually cancel an appointment. Possible values are Y and N.
Allow Multiple Reservations	Use this option to indicate if booking appointments for multiple field activities is allowed. Possible values are Y and N.
Allow Narrowing Of Appointment Window	Use this option to indicate if the user is allowed to further narrow down a selected appointment window. Possible values are Y and N.
Appointment Forced Characteristic Type	When an appointment reservation is forced, a characteristic of this type is added to the field activity. Note that the field activity's FA type must also define this as a valid characteristic type.
Appointment Java Class Interface	This is the java class implementation used to interface with the external system to support real time appointment interaction.
Default Days of Available Appointment	This option is used to determine the end date of the search period when choosing a dispatch group on the appointment page.
Hi-Low Review	Use this option to indicate if meter reads coming from the external system should be reviewed for Hi-Low failures and trended. Possible values are Y and N.
Intermediate Status to Prevent FA Cancel	This option is used to identify FA Intermediate Status values that should prevent the system from automatically canceling a Field Activity. The value entered here should correspond to a valid lookup value for the field FA_INT_STATUS_FLG.
Intermediate Status to Prevent FA Type Change	This option is used to identify FA Intermediate Status values that should prevent users from changing the FA Type. The value entered here should correspond to a valid lookup value for the field FA_INT_STATUS_FLG.
Intermediate Status to Skip Message	This option is used to identify FA Intermediate Status value used when a Field Activity is created by an external system or when other information for a field activity is updated by an external system. The base FA integration algorithm uses this information to ensure that messages sent to the external system to highlight new field activities or changes to field activities are only triggered when additions / changes are initiated in our system. The value entered here should correspond to a valid lookup value for the field FA_INT_STATUS_FLG.
Message ID Database Sequence Name	The name of the database sequence to be used to get the next unique message ID for this external system. This is used to facilitate an asynchronous response to the message. If you interface with more than one external system, you may choose to use the same sequence name for all external systems or to define a separate sequence name for each external system. If you choose to define multiple feature configuration records for the same service provider, be sure that each feature configuration references the same sequence name because generated message IDs must be unique for the service provider. The base product provides the database sequence CI_WFM_MSGID_SEQ, which may be referenced here.
No Address Premise Type	Indicate the premise type used to identify a premise that is used for field activities that are not related to a specific premise.
Phone Number Characteristic Type	Indicate the characteristic type used to identify an override phone number on the field activity.
Phone Type - Business	Indicate the phone type used to identify a business phone number.
Phone Type - Fax	Indicate the phone type used to identify a fax number.
Phone Type - Home	Indicate the phone type used to identify a home phone number.
Plant Source	Some external systems require a reference to a Plant in our system. There are several options for where an implementation may define this value. This option is used to identify where the Plant is defined. - enter FECO if the plant field is defined in Feature Configuration - enter OPAR if the plant field is defined in the SP Operations Area - enter SPCH if the plant field is defined in the SP Characteristic
Plant Value	If the Plant Source is FECO enter the value of the Plant. If the Plant Source is OPAR enter the field service class used to identify the plant value on the SP operations area. If the Plant Source is SPCH enter the characteristic type used to identify the plant value on SP characteristic. Only one option value may be defined for a given feature configuration.
Reservation Characteristic Type	When an appointment is successfully booked for the field activity, the external system often assigns a unique reservation number to the appointment. This reservation number is linked to the field activity as a characteristic using this characteristic type. Note that the field activity's FA type must also define this as a valid characteristic type.
Service Provider	This is the service provider defined for your external system.
To Do Type for FA Response	Indicate the To Do type to use to create a To Do entry. The system supplies the To Do type TD-FARSP that may be plugged-in here. The program populates the To Do Entry with the sort keys, drill keys and message parameters as shown in this base package To Do. If you want to create your own To Do Type, you must set up the values to match those in the base To Do Type.
User Defined Criteria Field	This is used on the appointment page to add specific appointment selection criteria. The value of this option should reference a Field defined in the system metadata. The appointment page allows up to 10 user defined criteria fields.
User Defined Result Field	This is used on the appointment page to add specific appointment selection result information. The value of this option should reference a Field defined in the system metadata. The appointment page allows up to 10 user defined result fields.

For each message that may be received from an external system, map the external system message to an internal system message. Refer to Feature Configuration - Messages for more information.