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BMEcat 2005 Format

Both BMEcat® (version 1.2) and BMEcat® 2005 are supported in STEP and use an XML-based standard for electronic data transfer by electronic catalogs. For more information about the standard, search the web.

BMEcat 2005 is an add-on component. Contact your Stibo Systems representative to activate ‘bmecat’ on your STEP system.

For more information on BMEcat (version 1.2), see the BMEcat Format documentation here.

Format Availability

BMEcat 2005 is available for selection in:

Mapping

This format requires creating a data map between STEP and the data being processed, and may also include data transformations. For details, see Data Mapping here.

BMEcat 2005 and BMEcat 1.2 are the only formats that allow access to Product Attribute Link metadata attributes, via the transformation aspect 'Closest Attribute Link Meta Data.' For details, see Aspect - Transform Outbound here.

Inbound Data

Inbound Parameters

The following parameters are displayed on the inbound wizards:

Import Manager

IIEP

Outbound Data

Exporting the BMEcat format involves supplying header data and catalog / product data via the parameters displayed on the Select Format step and during the Map Data step. Some information is required, as is indicated on the Map Data step. Although the export process can be run while mandatory fields are missing, the background process (BGP) will fail.

For details on configuration of BMEcat 2005 for ETIM data, see the BMEcat 2005 for ETIM Data Configuration topic here.

Outbound Parameters

  1. In the Sample parameter, an XML template file is loaded automatically but can be modified as required. This defines the format of the XML file to be exported.
  2. For the Allow empty tags parameter, Yes indicates that export tags with empty values are included in the output. If set to No, tags containing empty values are not included in the export.

For example, setting this parameter to Yes enables all ETIM attributes, even those without a value in STEP, to be exported. Additionally, when ETIM values exported via BMEcat are empty, they should be represented by a dash (-). For information on transforming an empty attribute value to a text string, see the Replace the whole value section in the Transformations topic of the Resource Materials online help here.

  1. For the Validate XML parameter, Yes indicates that the BMEcat 2005 export file is validated against an XSD included in STEP. When validation fails, the background process also fails, and the problem is reported in the BGP execution report. If set to No, the validation is skipped and the BGP does not fail due to differences found when comparing to the XSD.

Note: To successfully validate against the XSD, the sample file must include 'fd' option (as shown in two places in the images below).

  1. The Export data for selected contexts parameter allows you to output values for language dependent attributes, for example the ETIM Short Description, Long Description, Keyword, and Remark values, and others. Select Yes in the dropdown to display the Select Contexts link. Click the link, select the required contexts for the export from the Select Contexts dialog, and click the Select button. The selected contexts are listed in a text box. If set to No, the context set on Export Manager > Advanced step > Context parameter or set on OIEP > Configuration tab > Configuration flipper > Contexts parameter is used.
  2. For an explanation of the remaining parameters, search the web to find and refer to the 'Specification BMEcat® 2005' document. No validation is performed on the text entered or the selections made, but if Validate XML = Yes, errors will be reported in the execution report, as defined above.

Export Manager

OIEP

 

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