Capturing Feilds | MDM Workflow

[Former Member]

Hi Folks ,

I understand that MDM workflow can be integrated in UWL (Enterprise Portal) . There is a requirement in my current project which involves workflow and we are trying to deliver it through EP-MDM integration . The details are as follows ...

- In an update request in material repository a workflow triggers .

- The workflow should capture the name of the field .

- The workflow should capture the initial value of the field .

- The workflow should capture the changed value of the field .

- The notification mail that is send out as a result of the approval process should contain all of the above so that the user knows which feild changed , what was the initial value and what is it changed to .

I am wondering if there is a MDM Java API for workflow which would make my life easier . Could you please help me out with the same .

Thanks !

Regards

Deepak Singh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

hi Deepak

In an update request in material repository a workflow triggers .

Make the workflow trigger action as Update record.each time you change record it triggers that workflow

The workflow should capture the name of the field .

Make the field as display field and use %record% in notify step. It will show all display fields of record in Notification mail

The workflow should capture the initial value of the field .

The workflow should capture the changed value of the field .

Using std UWL not possible may be.You can go for GP or Custom portals for maintaining the History LOG.

hope this heped.

regards-

Ravi

[Former Member]

With the notification step of the workflow you can send emails to a user or group of users containing information about the records inside. In the step you can include "variables" such as %JobName%, %JobId%, or %Records%. The complete list can be found on page 229 of the MDM Data Manager reference guide.

The tricky part is displaying unique attributes about a record inside the UWL. When you configure the MDM workflow process steps you give each step a description. The description is what shows up in the task list in MDM. When you are using the UWL connector, it basically pulls the same information as is shown in the MDM workflow task list. It does NOT show anything that tells you what record is inside the task. So when a user logs into EP and goes to his UWL, he'll see a list of workflow tasks to complete, but he won't know what is what until he opens the task. This is a huge pain for a lot of clients, so many people have chosen to go with a guided procedure approach. Additionally, you could explore building a custom UWL connector:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/405729e9-314f-2a10-eab6-fcebe6fe...

[Former Member]

Thanks Guys for the responses . I am wondering if there is a way in MDM workflow itself to capture which field in the record changed . The need is generated from the situation where a single record may have a lot of fields and there has to be a way for the user to find out what changed, to approve it .The volume of such approval requests is so huge in a day , that we are hard pressed to provide them a solution where he would be able to indetify the changed field immediately at the first look somehow , and not only that, but should know the value changed from 'X' to 'Y' to facilitate a smooth and quick approval process . What can we do ? What do you guys suggest ?

Regards

Deepak Singh

[Former Member]

This is very tough, I'm not sure if there is a way to do this with "out of the box" functionality. You may be able to develop a custom program that checks the change tracking database and looks up the jobId and finds out what changed, but it would be difficult to develop. However, you could create time stamp fields for your real important attributes, so at least the user in the workflow could easily identify if an important attribute has changed recently.

[Former Member]

Hey , there is a change tracking UI available as an iview in the portal . It tracks the field level changes adn shows both the new and the old values . Is there an API which can pull data from there and display data outside ? If there is one probably the same can be used to customized to standard UWL connecter . What do you guys think ?

Regards

Deepak Singh

[Former Member]

Hi Deepak,

Were you able to figure out a solution on how the update history could be maintained and viewed in portal?

There is one solution of offering 'Compare with Original Record' functionality in ResultSet IView but that still does not solve the problem as MDM updates the records before attaching them to the checkout workflow.

Regards,

Paritosh.