Importing a business object containing life cycles
If you want to import a business object, for example a contract, including all the historic changes made to this contract in the past, you can import it including its life cycles.
If you want to import contract life cycles, the reference date on the Documents level should be empty.
If you import a contract with life cycles, the Planon calculation start date (PlanonBeginDate - the date from which the contract is managed in Planon) is set to the value specified in the import file, if specified. If, for a new contract, this field is still empty (also no default is configured) it is set to the start date of the contract (value of the Start date (BeginDate) field ). The Date effective (ActualBeginDate) will get the value of the Start date (BeginDate) if it is not set in the import file.
Import file: Namespace
When the import file contains the Enterprise Talk life cycle namespace, the life cycles with their life cycle dates as specified in the Enterprise Talk namespace are imported. Including the namespace to the <businessobjects> tag indicates for Planon that the import file contains life cycles:
<businessobjects xmlns:talk='http://www.planonsoftware.com/V1/EnterpriseTalk'>
Import file: life cycle tags
Contract fields whose changes are saved over time are called life cycle aware fields. In the import file, these fields should be put in special tags within the tag that encloses the main business object. For example:
<Contract>
<Code>1</Code>
<Name>Contract1</Name>
<talk:lifecycle>
<BeginDate>2015-09-01</BeginDate>
<OfferingContractPartyRef>0012</OfferingContractPartyRef>
</talk:lifecycle>
<Contract>
<Code>1</Code>
<Name>Contract1</Name>
<talk:lifecycle>
<BeginDate>2015-09-01</BeginDate>
<OfferingContractPartyRef>0012</OfferingContractPartyRef>
</talk:lifecycle>
<Contract>
This indicates that from September 1st 2015 the offering contract party is 0012.
Note that if:
• life cycle aware fields are used outside the lifecycle tags, an error is given.
• life cycle unaware fields (such as Code) are used within the life cycle tags, a warning will be logged but they will be imported.
 | • You must specify a BeginDate for each life cycle in the import file and also map it to the BeginDate field in the field mapping in the Enterprise Talk Definition details. • When life cycle aware BOs are imported and no reference date set in the Talk document, the BeginDate should be available in all life cycle aware BOs (in a separate life cycle tag), even when the BO is only needed for reference and there is only one life cycle. • It is not to be possible to set a life cycle aware field to part of search key. |
In addition, the Suppress life cycles during in preparation status business object setting in Field definer is applied when importing contracts with Enterprise Talk. Consequently, if you want to import a new contract with history, make sure this setting is set to No.
The import example displays an import file containing life cycles in a contract.