Synchronization of Build, Produce and Inspect with SAP Business One - Prerequisites and data consistency rules

When starting the synchronization between Cloud Apps and your ERP system, some prerequisites are checked, and the synchronization only starts if all prerequisites are met. The prerequisites and data consistency rules listed below are in place both for first (initial) synchronization and continuous (ongoing) synchronization.

1. Enable transaction notifications in SAP Business One

In order for synchronization to work, make sure you have transaction notifications enabled in SAP Business One under Administration > System initialization > General settings > Services as showed in the screenshot below.

2. Enable SAP Business One object IDs for Post Transaction Notification

Cloud Apps applications use the SAP Business One Post Transaction Notification procedure for the continuous synchronization. When data is modified in SAP Business One, the Post Transaction Notification procedure will generate “events” that Cloud Apps will poll and process.

In SAP Business One, it is possible to disable the Post Transaction Notification on an object ID basis. However, doing so for objects that are required for Cloud Apps will prevent the continuous synchronization from working.

When logging in and entering a database, Cloud Apps checks if any required object ID is disabled for the Post Transaction Notification. If any is found, a warning is displayed, but the user can continue working.

Note, however, that a disabled object ID can have a big impact on the data consistency, and although users are still able to use the application, such an issue should be solved as soon as possible.

Every Cloud Apps application requires certain object IDs to be enabled for the Post Transaction Notification. During the first synchronization, every application will check if the object IDs it needs are enabled for the Post Transaction Notification, and will block the synchronization if any required object ID is disabled.

In the SAP Business One database, the CTNS table contains instructions that can disable the Post Transaction Notification for selected object ID’s.

For detailed information about the CTNS table, read this SAP Note.

On details of enabling an object ID for Post Transaction Notification, see How to enable an object ID for Post Transaction Notification.

The following table lists the required object IDs by Cloud Apps:

3. Data consistency rules

Build

• If a bill of material relies on an inactive item, resource or customer, it is not synchronized to Build and the synchronization is not complete. Make sure that you set the given item, resource or customer to active status.
• To ensure data integrity, bills of materials are not synchronized to Build if they contain a resource that has no time unit.

Produce

• If a production order relies on an inactive item, resource or customer, it is not synchronized to Produce and the synchronization is not complete. Make sure that you set the given item, resource or customer to Active status.
• To ensure data integrity, production orders are not synchronized to Produce if they contain a resource that has its Unit of Measure Text field empty and/or its Time per Resource Units parameter set to <0:00:00> in SAP Business One.
• Produce processes production orders by operations, which are the equivalents of the route stages specified in the production orders in SAP Business One. Therefore, to get a production order processed in Produce / Manager or Produce / Operator, it is mandatory to specify at least one route stage in it in SAP Business One.
• It is not recommended to change or delete a route stage in a production order in SAP Business One after the production order has been released. However, if this is necessary, and transactions have already been entered (i.e. materials and/or resource time have been issued for a route stage=operation), the best practice is to close the production order and create a new one. Transactions are not lost, as they can be viewed in the production order in SAP Business One.
• Before deactivating an item, make sure that all production orders containing it are completed and closed. As closed production orders are not synchronized from SAP Business One to Cloud Apps, deactivating an item that is used in a closed production order will lead to inconsistency, and extra synchronization will be required to correct the issue.