Externally managed BO definitions
For synchronization of data that is exchanged with the given external system, various business objects might require additional configuration. There are three purposes to creating externally managed business object definitions:
• Consuming BOs (consume data from the external system)
• Providing BOs (provide data to the external system)
• Picklist or referred BOs that are required to create a mapping while consuming or providing
General
• Externally managed BO definitions is changed from a flat structure to a hierarchical tree structure supporting up to three levels.
• All existing Externally managed BO definitions with a version lower than L120 will be upgraded to this hierarchical structure.
• The Parent level field on Externally managed BO definitions is read-only across all three levels.
• If a parent Externally managed BO definition has already been added, and you want to create a child Externally Managed BO definition, you can only select BOs from the parent-level hierarchy.
 | Existing Externally managed BO definitions are not visible in the hierarchy view. |
• If the BO has already been created, and its child or parent BOs exist in the Externally managed BO definitions, users will receive a warning message when trying to create a new Externally managed BO definition using the same hierarchy. Users can then choose to proceed or cancel.
• Users can now add the same field mappings (External Code – No Mapping and External Code – Code Mapping) for different directions of the Business Object (BO) without encountering a validation error.
Previously, when adding Contracts Inbound and Contracts Outbound with the No Mapping type, and then attempting to add them again with the Code Mapping type, the system incorrectly displayed a validation error message. The same applied in reverse.
Inbound/Outbound
• Inbound
If the direction is Inbound, the system is consuming data. This means that:
◦ a value in Planon (the Business object system code field in External BO code mapping) can be mapped to multiple values in the external system (the External code field).
◦ multiple values in Planon cannot be mapped to the same value in the external system.
• Outbound
If the direction is Outbound, the system is posting data. This means that:
◦ multiple values in Planon (the Business object system code field) can be mapped to one code in the external system (the External code field).
◦ multiple external system values cannot be mapped to the same value in Planon.
• Unspecified
When the External BO definition has no direction set, only one Planon code can be mapped to one external code.
Fields
Field | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Code | Specify a code to identify the externally managed BO external system. This is an alphanumeric field. | ||
External code | The unique ID that identifies business object types in both the current system and the external system.
| ||
Parent level | A reference to the parent. Example Lease contract has a parent, which is Base contract. Lease contract has a child, which is UDBO Lease contract. | ||
External system | A reference to the external system for which the data is mapped. | ||
BO Definition | A reference to the linked business object definition. This identifies the business object definition in the current instance. Any business object definition is allowed. | ||
Direction | Specifies the data flow between Planon and the external system. • Inbound: Data received by Planon from the external system • Outbound: Data sent from Planon to the external system The Direction field is part of the unique key that identifies each external BO definition, in combination with the External system and Business object definition fields. | ||
Owner owns all instances? | A Yes/No field that specifies if there is a single owner for all instances. By default, it is set to Yes. If Yes, it means this external system should create, update and delete all instances of this business object in Planon. Users can no longer create their own instances. This field is read-only if the Direction field is Outbound. | ||
Owned by external system? | A Yes/No field that specifies if the BO is owned or not by external system. If the business object is owned by the external system, by default this business object will be read-only, unless the owner allows updates. This field is read-only if the Direction field is Outbound. | ||
Owner allows updates? | A Yes/No field that specifies if the BO owner allows for updates. This field is read-only if the Direction field is Outbound. | ||
Prevent deletion if externally linked? | A Yes/No field that will allow or prevent the deletion if an external link is existing. |