Tomerlin Knowledge Center

Epicor® Modules

Automate Service Connect, and why do you need it?

Epicor® Kinetic Service Connect is a workflow and application integrator while enforcing your business rules. Here are some ways you can use Service Connect:

• When you enter a sales order into a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, Epicor Clientele, you can create an invoice and a purchase order in Epicor® Enterprise. The invoice and purchase order use some of the sales order data, and some of the sales order data may be converted to match what the financial application expects.
• When you enter a new employee into the human resources (HR) system, you can send a request to set up a new account to the payroll application and send an email welcoming the employee to the company.
• You can create a new customer record using a spreadsheet and then run a query against the database to retrieve updated customer table data.
• When a credit hold is placed on a customer, you can email the customer’s sales account manager.
• You can regularly import external support requests into an automated customer support system.

Workflow Designer

Service Connect workflows are graphical and represent a set or sets of interconnected data. Epicor calls these data activities or workflow elements. These elements are linked together with a tool called a connector.

Integration

Service Connect is a central platform for integration and secure workflow use. For example, Service Connect can integrate your Electronic Data Interchange (“EDI”) using XML to integrate your supply change partners.

Automate Processes

The automation enables users to remove some steps in a multi-step process. This automation allows you to create people-based workflows, like email and other business workflows.

If you want to know more about Service Connect or you need it now, our IT staff, led by Jon Farley, are ready to assist you. Call us at 818-887-9162.

Service Connect Document Transformation

The most common use of Service Connect is to process a document by transforming its data for use in another application.

Two conversion types take place in Service Connect:

• Convert a document to a format Service Connect recognizes. This conversion type is explained in the Document Submission section.
• Convert a document to be used for business transactions in another application. This conversion type is explained in the Document Conversion section.

Document Submission

Three methods exist to submit documents to Service Connect:

• Use an input channel.
• Call a workflow directly from an Epicor application.
• Call a workflow exposed as a web service or through SC integration Service web service.

When you use an input channel, documents are converted to the internal message format, if they are not already in the internal layout, and then linked to a workflow. When you call a workflow directly from an Epicor application, the pre-update dataset of the calling business object is sent directly to the workflow; when you call a workflow exposed as a web service, the business object that makes the call must pass an XML document to the web service.

Document Conversion

After a document is submitted (converted to an internal message and linked to a process), Service Connect can transform the business data inside a workflow.

The workflow is the critical component of Service Connect. A workflow organizes a sequence of automatic activities or user-performed tasks to perform on a Service Connect internal message. In general, the goal of a workflow is to transform data via conversion, web services, .NET assemblies, and database operations so another application can use it. Other business activities are also supported, such as tasks and conditional flows. Every workflow has a starting point and an ending point. The starting point begins with the message sent to the workflow, and the ending point ends with a transformed message. Workflows are organized into folders called Workflow packages.