MII Alert Framework Pros and Cons

[laxman_molugu]

Hi Guys,

We are trying to understand the Alert Framework.., at the beginning I got excited to use it, but the more I understand I started feeling its not so flexible because of its tied with Roles and Users, the problem is we have several groups own the MII solution like Integration team, reporting team,  ECC team, MES/CAMS and Site Support. I realized that using SendMail action Block is simple, straightforward and flexible to supply the email Ids as parameters instead of roles/users. Not sure what SAP really recommends, or I want to know what other are doing regards to alerts. I am looking for any references with Pros and  Cons. We have CAMS-INT module running on MII which was delivered and maintained by SAP but interestingly they did not use Alert Framework, instead they used Persistent variables to pass the email Ids at the configuration level.

I need your help with your references if you don't use it - why not used and if used - what are the advantages over SendMail Action Block.

really appreciated your input.

Thanks,

Laxman

[former_member185280 · Accepted solution]

I think CAMS-INT was developed before the Alert Framework existed. For whatever reason it doesn't look like SAP has been willing to make any updates to CAMS-INT to leverage the functionality that has been added to MII since CAMS-INT was first developed.

From a shop floor execution perspective, which is MII's main focus, having a lightweight notification infrastructure can provide a lot of value. There are a lot of things going on that may not be worth escalating or implementing in a higher level ERP system like SAP etc.

I think the main Pro to the Alert Framework is that it gives a structure and some manageability to how Alerts are handled, both in a technical and business process sense. You get a standard way to implement an Alert from a code/technical perspective and a built in way to persist and manage the Alerts for the consumer. Also the Alerts are also exposed via services to query and integrate within your own UI or another system.

The alternative may be random send mail action blocks and whatever custom solution/method you implement to manage these events.

Knowing what I know about your situation I would probably recommend not leveraging the built in email functionality of the Alert framework at all. I would simply use some roles to segregate Alerts at a team level.  Then use some custom transactions and the 'Delivery Transaction' functionality to implement your own email logic.

Regards,
Christian