PDS Integration Enhancements

Summary

The Product Data Syndication (PDS) solution has been updated to include the following new features and enhancements:

Details

PDX Channel Status in Web UI

Users can now navigate directly to products in PDX (Product Data Exchange) from within the Web UI.

By adding the new 'PDS Channel Status' component, users can view all the PDX channels through which a given object's information is being sent, that object's status for all of those channels, as well as a link to that product in the relevant channel in PDX. The displayed information is contained within the PDX Data Container, which is a data container designed to hold PDX channel status values on a Node Editor screen. Provided users are also logged into the PDX system, clicking the link (the blue icon shown in the 'Channel' column in the screenshot below) takes users directly to PDX to view the product in the relevant channel. There they can make any desired changes.

Previously, users could view an object's current statuses for various PDX channels from within the Data Container Table View Editor component in the Web UI, but there was no ability to link out directly to that object in PDX. By adding links from the Web UI directly to PDX, the users' ability to smoothly transition from one tool (the Web UI) to another (PDX) to manage data is appreciably improved.

To access and use the PDX Channel Status component, a ‘pds-channel-status’ add-on component must be activated on your system in addition to the normal update procedures for 9.1. See your Stibo Systems representative for more information.

Improved PDS channel status monitoring

To provide users with more expanded PDS status information, three new attributes have been added to the PDS Status Attribute Group and PDS Status Data Container:

All of these attributes are automatically added to the PDS Status Attribute Group and made valid for the PDS Status Data Container upon installation of the PDS component. On systems that already have the PDS component, the new attributes are added upon upgrade to STEP 9.1.

Improved logging in BGP execution reports for products submitted to PDS

More information is now available to users viewing export background process execution reports for products submitted to PDS. This information helps users verify that a given export process to PDS has been executed as expected.

Details that are now available include:

Improved syndication of composite data structures (nested referenced objects)

Users of the 1WorldSync channel in PDS can now take advantage of an improved method for exporting composite data structures from STEP. A composite data structure is a structure of multi-leveled product references, metadata attributes on references, and attributes on products.

Currently is it not possible to map attributes within a composite structure in PDS. Composite attributes that should be exported to 1WorldSync, then, need to be have the right names in STEP during the export. This is done in a JSON structure containing the attribute names and the values of the attributes.

To prepare these composite structures, data setup is required in the STEP Workbench that involves configuration properties, metadata attributes, and product references. For more information on these configurations, see the Product Data Syndication section of the Data Integration documentation here.

Added support for CIC messaging

Items submitted to 1WorldSync within PDS now support CIC (Catalog Item Confirmation) status messaging. The four CIC statuses are: Received, Review, Synchronized, and Reject. In addition to being visible in PDS, these status messages also display within the PDS Data Container in the 'External Status' field.

Addition of 'initial load' indicator in PDS

Functionality has been introduced in PDS that allows channel managers to indicate whether products should be published as 'new' or 'initial load.' This way, users can indicate to the receiver if it is a brand-new product or if the receiver has already received the product via other PDS channels. This property is contained within the data standard as a required PDS attribute named 'Initial Load.'

Default transactional setting changed to 'None' in PDS IIEP

A new default value of 'None' has been set for Transactional Settings on the PDS Inbound Integration Endpoint. Previously, the default was 'Strict.' This change was made because the Strict setting could sometimes cause product information data to be lost due to one date being logged when the BGP was created, then the next request to PDS reflecting a different last update date. Now, only one request is made at the beginning, so product data is not lost.

Note: For current PDS users, this change will not be made automatically upon upgrade to 9.1. The transactional setting will have to be manually changed to None.

Default Advanced STEPXML template changed to include inherited values

The default Advanced STEPXML template, which is used within the PDS Outbound Integration Endpoint to send data from STEP to PDS, has been updated to include inherited attribute values in exports. This has been achieved by adding the tag <Values IncludeInherited="true"/> to the template.

The IncludeInherited tag existed prior to STEP 9.1, but it was not included in the export template by default.

New ability to export metadata attribute values on references

Metadata attribute values on cross references can now be exported from STEP to PDS by being included within the composite JSON structure that is sent to PDS. Previously, metadata values on references were only supported for products within the packaging hierarchy.

Improved outbound performance between STEP and PDS

For more information on all the enhancements detailed within this release note, see the Product Data Syndication section of the Data Integration documentation here.