Overview

CIMS(Channel Integration Management System) now supports the push-based APIs as provided by the Assure Magic V2 which will allow seamless integration with push-based marketplaces as well as ERPs. CIMS is also now evolved to send outward/inward/return order related notification postings to ERP. The document aims to explain the changes in CIMS by covering all the screens affected and explaining all the new flows introduced.

Key Changes

Client Channels In CIMS

Adding a client channel pair in CIMS means mapping a Client and Channel together in CIMS. Channels in CIMS now can be of two types: 

• MARKETPLACE Any channel of type MARKETPLACE refers to a particular marketplace on which a client can expose and sell inventory.
• ERP Any channel of type ERP refers to an ERP software that a client is integrated with, which can be used to perform business interactions with ASSURE.

Every client in CIMS can have as many MARKETPLACE type channels associated with it and a maximum one channel of type ERP associated with it.

Client Channel creation in CIMS

• Enable Channels For enabling the channels, please contact the Increff’s Assure Success Team and get the Channels(ERP or MARKETPLACE) enabled.
• Select the Channel In CIMS Once enabled, all the enabled channels for a client will be populated in the Channel Id list. Select the Channel with which you want to integrate.
• Enter the credentials Once the client and channel are selected, enter the values for all the Login credentials that appear on the screen. 
• Test Credentials Once the credential keys are populated in CIMS UI, click the Test Credentials button to test the connection between CIMS and Channel. In case of any error, please verify the credentials again and try. In case of repeated error, please contact the Increff’s ASSURE Success team. 

• Submit Once the client channel pair is tested successfully, click the Submit button. Once the Submit button is clicked all the channel level jobs for the particular Client-Channel pair will be automatically created in CIMS.

Edit Client Channel In CIMS

The Edit Client Channel Screen in CIMS looks like the following:

All the Channel level attributes and Client Channel level credentials are displayed on this screen. 

Different types of actions possible:

• Edit Channel Attributes  For editing the channel attributes, please contact the Assure Success Team.
• Edit Credentials Login credentials can be updated. Once changed, it is mandatory to test the new credentials, followed which update credentials button gets enabled using which user can update the credentials.
• Enable/Disable Marketplace Jobs All the Channel Jobs associated with the Client Channel Pair can be enabled/disabled individually from this screen. 
• Change delay of the Marketplace Jobs Please contact Assure Success Team Team for this. 
• Enable/Disable Invex And Order Sync A Client Channel Pair can have multiple locations. As soon as a location is created for a client channel pair, location jobs automatically get created in CIMS. Enable/Disable Invex will just toggle the INVEX (Inventory Sync) job for the location, whereas Enable/Disable Order Sync will toggle all the other location jobs created for that location except INVEX.
• Generate External Credentials External Credentials are the set of credentials that are required while using any of INCREFF’s push-based APIs. One can generate the credentials using the Generate External Credentials button.

Channel Jobs 

Channel Jobs as the name suggests, are the jobs that get created & executed at the client channel level. All the channel jobs are created automatically in CIMS during the client channel pair creation and that too according to the channel with which the client channel mapping is being generated. As of now, channel level jobs will be created only for the ERP type channels in CIMS.

As of now, CIMS supports four different types of channel jobs:

• SALES_POSTING Sales Posting job sends the outward order completion notification to the configured ERP for the client.
• INWARDS_POSTING Inwards Posting job sends the inward order completion notifications to the configured ERP for the client.
• INWARDS_GATE_ENTRY_POSTING Inwards Gate Entry Posting job sends the gate entry close notifications to the configured ERP for the client.
• RETURNS_POSTING Returns Posting job sends the return order completion postings to the configured ERP for the clients.

As mentioned in the previous section, channel jobs can be enabled/disabled from the CIMS UI. 

Note: Please contact the Assure Success Team for getting the one-time configuration (like delays, types of jobs needed) of the channel level jobs done.

ERP Channel Mapping Screen in CIMS

ERP systems will now be able to communicate with ASSURE via CIMS. Moreover, as discussed already, every client as of now in CIMS can have only one ERP type channel mapped to it. Also, we now know that for every client channel of type ERP, channel jobs are created while client channel pair creation(discussed in previous sections of this document).

Since ERP systems are the external systems, hence they can have different naming conventions with which they recognize a marketplace. For example, An ERP may recognize a channel with channelId (say A in CIMS) with the name (B) on its end.

Moreover, it also may be required that for a particular Marketplace, events are not notified to the ERP systems. For example, An ERP (A) expects the outward order complete notifications for all the orders of a particular client belonging to channel X but not of channel Y.

So to solve the above problems, we have ERP Channel Mapping  Screen in CIMS.

On the selection of the client, all the channel mappings appear on the screen along with the name of the ERP channel of the client. Let us dive into the meaning of every column present on the screen.

• ChannelId The identifier for a channel in CIMS.
• Channel Name in ERP The name with which the ERP system recognizes the ChannelId in CIMS. This name will be populated in all the notifications sent to the ERP type channel from CIMS.
• Updates to ERP The toggle switch controls whether the updates for a particular channel needs to be sent to the ERP system or not.