Interfaces in Oracle Applications

What are Interfaces and why there are required ?

•  Interfaces are used in Oracle Applications to integrate external systems and Data Conversion.

• The interfaces are mainly used to either transfer data from Oracle Applications to a flat file or data from legacy system to Oracle Applications.
• Used extensively at the time of Data Conversion from legacy/ old systems to a fresh implementation of Oracle Applications.

             Legacy Syetem --> Interface--> Oracle Application

Importance of data conversion/migration and interfaces within any ERP implementation project can't be ignored. Since ERP mostly deals with data which finally leads into Information , thus it is equally important to understand the aspect how "data" is important in any ERP system specially in implementation phase.

 When the Data Conversation or Data Migration Required ??

Below 3 situation where it required the data conversation or data migration.

1. When an organization have a leagcy system and now they want to implement the ERP modules(Oracle Applications).
2.Another situation is that already the company is using the ERP solutions and client decided to upgrade the application and because of that there are some table structure also got changed and at that moment we need data conversation.


What is Data conversation and Data Migration

Data Conversation---> Can be defined as a process of converting data from one structural form to another to suit the requirements of the system to which it is migrated.

Data Migration ------>  Process to move the data from the old system to new system.Usually very large.

Interface Concepts

Open Interface Logic

• First the data from the source application is loaded into a database table (called Interface table).
• Then the provided validation program logic validates the records whether they are correct or not .
• If the validation fails, the errors are transferred into another table (called Error Table).
• If the validation succeeds, the correct records are transferred through a process into the destination application table.

Why conversion/Migration is more important in ERP?

Before Go-Live in the production environment the required master data, the open transaction data and the historical transaction data need to be imported from the old legacy applications to Oracle Applications. Since data structure and data design in legacy systems are different from those of Oracle Applications, data need to be messaged/ converted satisfying the business rules to suite the Oracle requirement.
What Is An Interface then

• These are programs for connection between Two Systems In Order To Synchronize the Data.
• They can be Manual, Batch or Real-Time.
• Used Repeatedly and Should Therefore Be Designed and Constructed In the Most Efficient Manner Possible.
• These can Be Triggered by an Event (Such As Running A Concurrent Program) Or It Can Be Scheduled To Run At A Certain Time.

Interface Type
You have learned how interface is differ from Conversion/Migration. Now lets take few types of interfaces:
Normally in any system , there are two kinds of interface as:

Inbound Interfaces

• An inbound interface receives data from one system (legacy) and inserts into Oracle open interface tables.

Legacy System is nothing bu the other applications used by SAP,JAVA,Mainframe etc.

Example:
 In implementation project we can implement forms and report so that users can enter the data after implementation but the previous data will be available in the legacy system we need to bring that data in to Oracle Applications with validations.

Usage:  SQL*Loader, .txt, .ctl, .dis, .bad, .log

• A typical inbound interface would follow these steps:
  1. Extract data from legacy system into a flat file.
  2. Use SQL*Loader or equivalent tool to upload information into a temporary table.
  3. Write a PL/SQL program to take data from the temp table and insert into the Open Interface Tables.

Outbound Interfaces
o An outbound interface takes data from Oracle tables and inserts it into an external system (via tables or flat file).

Example:
Client is using to applications one is for financial and another one is for manufacturing, we have to transfer manufacture data in to financial applications, so that we can generate the Invoices in financial applications.

o A typical outbound interface would follow these steps:
- Write a PL/SQL program to extract data from Oracle base tables into a flat file.
- Use a custom program to read that data and post it into the legacy system

Do we have some other standard way to do interface?

• Open Interface is a table based interface registered as a concurrent program
  • process records in batches.
  • spawned(Pro-C) or PL/SQL based programs.

Please read below links for more information. My Contents are copied from these blogs only.

http://www.oracleerpappsguide.com/2011/04/interfaces-in-oracle-application.html

http://www.oracleappshub.com/conversion/data-conversionmigration-and-interface-why-important/