OPUS Integrations

Reference Link: https://www.tracelink.com/resources/tracelink-university/opus-solution-designer-foundations-presented-futurelink

Jeff Olson: I'm going to walk you guys through today, OPUS integrations. I'll do a quick introduction on myself, Jeff Olson. I've actually been at TraceLink almost 10 years. I'm two weeks away from my 10-year anniversary, so I've been through a lot.

This is far and away the coolest thing [laughs] that I've done since I've been at TraceLink. Hopefully, can show you some of those some of those cool aspects. The other thing I want to do too is tie together everything you've seen today, from the morning sessions, these afternoon sessions. You see a lot of pieces of this that really tie all those pieces together for you.

What are integrations? What we want to do with integrations is support all different supply chain processes, different orchestrations.

As you heard this morning, one of the main ways that we do that, we need to get your data into the system, and we need you to be able to interact with your partners in our Integrate Once model without needing to know their formats, they don't need to know yours. That's what we're going to cover in this session.

There's three main ways that I'm going to talk through in more detail as to how that actually works. Firstly, link actions. This one's near and dear to my heart. This might be my favorite. This is a really configurable way for you to connect to your external systems, whether they're API connections, any way you need to connect to an external system.

We're going to do a demo of this, which I think is really cool, where you'll see me actually set up a connection in about two minutes. Much along the themes of all of our other topics today where this is just quick, fast, easy for you to set up.

In the middle here with B2B messages. This is our file-based B2B messaging with lot of the standards that you may be familiar with, X12, EDIFACT, etc. These are our standard SFTP and AS2 connections.

Last but definitely not least is the MINT product UI. You saw a lot of this this morning. You saw a lot of this earlier this afternoon. This is this very simple and easy way for your partners to interact, for your company to interact.

It's another form of integration in the sense that you're working with the same business objects, you're working with the same data. It all ties it all together that way.

What ties all these things together -- again, tying a lot of the concepts together from this morning as well -- is our canonical model, and the ability to transform this data from any source, from anywhere, in any format.

I think Tereance worded it as come as you are. You don't have to do anything special. Your data comes in, gets transformed into the canonical models, and it just works. Once you're in that mode, you can do all of your UI configurations, and everything is magical.

This tries to depict what I just described. This, I think, ties a lot of the concepts together. You, as owner of a MINT application, you're over here on the left side, on your left side. The power here is all of these integration models come into your application, your OPUS, transform it into the canonical format, and then how they got there doesn't matter.

Number two on the other side, you're interacting with your partner. You might have some format here. They have some format over there. That could be a NetSuite system. That could be anything. You don't have to care. This is the power of Integrate Once on either side, being able to see that data flow.

In addition to that, you also have as another integration method which I mentioned, you have the user experience here as well. You're interacting with the same data regardless of where it came from. You can do that all from the user experience. You can do it from your external systems. It all just works.

I'm going to dive into link actions. I did say that was my favorite, so that's why it's first. [laughs] API integration. You have systems like NetSuite, MS Dynamics that you want to integrate with. All your business data is there. How do you do that?

We're going to use an example of let's say you have a NetSuite system. You have purchase orders in your NetSuite system. This is a diagram. It's a little bit of a cutout of what you saw this morning. What you see here is basically on the left side, you've got your NetSuite system. Whatever formats, however your data is in that system, up to you.

Then what you have here, this is where the link actions come in, is bringing that data into the system, bringing that data into the canonical format, transforming it. Once it's there, doesn't really matter how it got there.

When I dive in exactly into how link actions work, we're going to zoom in right here, and you're going to see how easy that is [laughs] and how simple it is just to get that connection up and running. Very easy on your side.

Then once again, this just rounds out. Let's say you're interacting with a partner. They have their own ERP system. They use SAP IDoc format. You don't care. This just goes into a little bit more detail.

What we are seeking to do with link actions is to just open up any connectivity you need to any system. Again, I'm focusing on NetSuite here just as an example, but you'll see a little bit further down when I get into the marketplace catalog, how all that's going to work. There's going to be a lot of options. I'll talk about that a little bit here as well.

With the marketplace catalog -- and Bob talked a bit about that this morning in his presentation -- the idea here is there'll be a lot of link actions in the catalog, which you'll be able to pull down if you have simple configurations or if you have standard setups. You pull it down, you're off and running. That's the demo that I'll show in a little bit. [laughs]

For the more adventurous, though, there's a more adventurous option, we also do have a way to fully configure. If you have some special configuration in your system or some way that you need to connect to that that's nonstandard, we have you covered there as well.

I'm not going to go super deep on that, but if you catch me later over the next couple of days or maybe in the Q&A section, we can get into that.

As I mentioned in the beginning here, everything, regardless of how it gets into the system, adheres to our B2B messaging model. They come in through link actions or any other integration model. They're in your canonical format. They work just like anything else, any other business data in your system.

A couple of quick hits before the demo. Just hitting on some of the key things I mentioned. You can connect very quickly. I've been teasing this demo, and I promise I'll get to it. [laughs] You connect basically to your systems with a simple configuration.

You don't need to change anything about how you do business. You don't need to change anything on your side. A lot of times, you could have, "Oh, crap. I need to go modify something in my NetSuite system so it'll work." Don't have to do that.

Everything you configure, everything you set up is within OPUS. All your configuration is there. We adapt to the formats that you have and the systems that you have.

We talked a bit earlier about the catalogs. We have a very standard catalog model across everything. You've seen this theme a few times now. Link actions are no different. You'll see this very standard model of marketplace and company.

This is where you can pull down from the community if there are other, whether they're your partners or whether it's from within TraceLink. We've created some link actions. You can browse those, pull those down, use those just like anything else.

You also have the ability to manage your company-specific catalog as well. If you have something specific within your company, you can have that in your company catalog. Excuse me. You'll be able to pass that around. You'll be able to run that through your validation process.

Lastly, which I'll be digging into on the demo here is just how simple the configuration is. It really builds upon a lot of the stuff that you've already seen. You've seen the no code UI and the simplicity of how you create and edit data. This follows much along those lines as well.

Movie time. Say you have a NetSuite system. You want to integrate with MINT to pull those purchase orders from your system right into OPUS, right into MINT. That's what you're going to see in a minute here.

Our Sally Solutions persona will be configuring the MINT solution so that you'll see basically the creation of this B2B connection in your system. You'll actually see in this demo, we create the connection, starts pulling data immediately, and you'll actually see the B2B message in the system. I'm going to talk through this as it goes.

I've intentionally kept this, it's real-time, so you can see exactly. There's no edits or anything. This is exactly how long it takes. You see all your B2B connections here. What I'm going to do in this demo here is I'm going to create a new one. This follows all of the ideas that you've just seen from the other presentations with the no code UI.

I'm going to enter all the information magically here. Yes, I'm going to be putting in client secret. If you're skilled enough to write it all down, you can connect to our NetSuite system. Please don't. [laughs]

I'm going to create this connection here. Going to add the client secret. One thing while this is happening that's pretty cool. This was mentioned a few times, but we, as a team, built this with the same tools that you just saw. All the things we build internally is with the exact same tools, the modeling, everything is exactly the same.

There we go. Sorry. It paused itself there for a second. We're able to use the same tools. You saw in Siva's demo, it's all drag and drop. We were able to create this in no time.

What I'm doing over here, I'm actually going to pull from the catalog. There's a link action here in the catalog that will connect me to pull purchase orders out of my demo NetSuite system. I've just linked that. Now you're going to see me click save. The second I save this, it starts working.

One thing I'll point out here, so you have this pulling interval. What you're going to see here is basically, we're pulling data out of your system into TraceLink. It also works the other way. You can have an outbound connection where data gets pushed. I'm not showing that in this demo, but it works much the same way that you see here.

This has started pulling my system just with that simple configuration. I'm going to jump over here to my B2B messages screen. Normally, this is where you'll see anything coming in or out over your B2B connections.

Again, I'm doing this real-time very specifically because it's about 30 to 60 seconds. You've gone from, "I don't have anything set up, I don't have a connection," to, "I have a connection. It's to my real system. I'm pulling the data out. Boom, it's getting processed."

What I don't show in this demo is you could also go over to your MINT application, and you would see it all right there as well.

Suspenseful. I'm building the suspense.

Woman: [laughs]

[laughs]

Woman: Again, I think it's really important to not cut it because I think it's just cool to see it happen that quickly. You didn't have to bring an IT team in and figure out, "Oh, how am I going to connect to this? How does this work? What do I need to do?" You pull it from the catalog, you configured it, and there it is.

That's how quick you can just be up and running with link actions. It gets a lot deeper. Like I said, we can get into that in the questions later or anytime during the conference while I'm around. You can go a lot deeper. You can really configure this to do any system connections that you need to, and it all just works.

That's link actions. Now I want to talk a bit about transform. This is what ties a lot of these concepts together. You've got your own formats, your own way of doing business, so does your partner. This is really, again, what ties all those things together.

There's a few key points here that I'm going to touch on because I think it's important to see a lot of the through lines that you've seen through these other presentations that you've seen today. Infinite flexibility. These transforms pretty much can do anything you need them to do.

The canonical data model, as we've talked about quite a bit today, gives you that single interoperable representation of your business use case. This handy diagram, of course, that you've seen a few times now, that's really TraceLink doing that transformation, getting into the canonical, and then you're in business.

We talked about the catalog, and, again same through line here. With the marketplace catalog, common transforms, of which there are a lot. [laughs] You'll have access to them. You go to the marketplace, pull down what you need, quick configuration, and you're done.

We also do have, for the more adventurous, you can write your own, you can add them to the catalog, you can promote them for others to use, like your partners.

For your specific needs of your organization, we have company catalogs. You can manage your own transforms there, your business processes using the power of workflow to get them from a draft state, tested, validated, and boom, you're using them in production.

The quick hits here. You're able to basically transform any data type into the canonic format. One thing I didn't touch on too much in the last slide is this is also what allows you that flexibility in the user experience. You're able to configure what fields you want, how the look is, how the feel is. This is all tied in as well with the transforms.

I mentioned as well the catalogs, so marketplace catalog, company catalog. Try to keep a lot of consistency with how you can interact with the system. Give you a lot of options to be able to pull that data in, configure it without having to do a lot of work on your end. It's very simple.

On the configuration side, very similarly, you can configure these to do standard data transformations normally through B2B processes, but there are other use cases as well where you can use transforms to do any number of things. Maybe you want to export data or something like that.

Last but not least, of course, is our MINT UI. It all just works together as one seamless interaction, regardless of how the data got there. You've seen link actions. You've seen the other integration models. You've seen how things get transformed. It really doesn't matter how the data gets there.

It can be pulled out and displayed on the UI, just like anything else. Once again, what I show here end-to-end is I'm in here in my MINT UI. I'm creating purchase order acknowledgement in this case under the covers. You don't have to see this this part. Under the covers, transformation engine kicks in. Boom, it's in your canonical format.

Let's say you're sending that to your partner. Their format, doesn't matter. In this case, it's SAPI doc. You don't have to worry about that. That's all handled as part of the Integrate Once model.

One thing I wanted to show here is also in your MINT user experience. This is something you haven't seen in the other presentations in detail yet, shot a little bit this morning. All of your B2B messages, everything lives in your MINT user experience as well.

It doesn't matter how it got there. It's all there. You can see it all. One of these could be through a link action, one could be through SFTP, doesn't matter. One could have been created through the user experience. They all come together. It's one unified experience. You can see everything there.

Once again, as you've seen earlier, this works in the same way as all of the other multi-enterprise applications where you've got your process networks. You can slice and dice how you need to right there.

We'll tie it all together here. I think big number one here is just the flexibility of the integrations, and especially with link action. I think with link actions, that really put us over the top to be able to say, you can connect to anything. Any system. Anything you need to.

In addition to your standard, your file-based integrations, and the MINT UI, which is huge. Now with the configurability of the UI, you can tailor it to do anything you need to.

Real-time API integration. Again, with link actions, you're pulling data in real-time. You can be pushing data in real-time. It's all under the covers of your normal business process, how you interact with the system, whether it's through the UI or however you interact.

Transforms really give you that consistent data exchange. Whether it's your data coming into the system and transforming into the canonic format or for your partner, it all works the same. It's all very standardized.

This is related, of course, the adaptable integration. You tie all these pieces together and it gives you infinite options. You can take any data format, transform it in any which way, and boom, you've got integration.

Then we have the catalog management. This follows, where do I start? Start with the catalog. I have this data format. Maybe it's pretty standard.

[background music]

Jeff: There's probably a link action, and there's probably a transform already in the marketplace. You can just pull those in, configure them, two minutes, good to go.