Using Service Contracts Test Import Program

After the Service Contract Import functionality has been introduced, its been a rough ride to understand the interface table and identify bare minimum fields that are required to populate to import a contract successfully. To overcome that, the developer’s of Service Contract Import program built a Service Contract Import Test Program that uses a sample contract and populates required columns in interface tables that can create a replica of the original contract. This program is just a testing tool to understand the import functionality behavior.

To get more details about Service Contract Import Program you can visit following posts :-

• Intro to Service Contracts Import Program
• Service Contracts Import Scope and Limitations
• Architecture of Service Contract Import Program
• Troubleshooting Common Service Contract Import Error
• Debugging Tip for Service Contracts Import Errors

There are SIX interface tables created for this interface :-

OKS_HEADERS_INTERFACE
OKS_LINES_INTERFACE
OKS_COVERED_LEVELS_INTERFACE
OKS_USAGE_COUNTERS_INTERFACE
OKS_SALES_CREDITS_INTERFACE
OKS_NOTES_INTERFACE

Debugging Tip for Service Contracts Import Errors

Since Service Contract Import program is NEW, some times finding and fixing the issue while importing contract can be difficult.  When all other attempts fail, completing these steps might lead to a place where you can determine what is the issue. Based on that you can determine what fix is needed. This is an example for the error 'Enter a valid value for one and only one type of covered levels'. The message is intended to report that the interface entry in oks_covered_levels_interface has information for multiple covered levels.

For example, the error will occur if the interface table entry has information for a covered item and for a covered system (or party, site, etc.). This message is also displayed when no covered level information is entered.

Let's explore an example where the covered_item_id and the covered_item_name are populated in oks_covered_levels_interface, but something is wrong with that information.  How can the real error be identified?

Two of the primary programs that are used for importing contract information are defined in the files

• OKSPKIMPVALB.pls
• OKSPKIMPWRB.pls.
  

Troubleshooting Common Service Contract Import Errors

There are many errors that you may face while importing Service Contracts using Service Contracts Import Program. Few of the errors and solutions are as follows :-

• HEADER INTERFACE ERRORS

ERROR MESSAGE	PROBABLE CAUSE / SOLUTION
There are no records processed by request id 'xxxxxx' in the interface tables.	The batch_id in oks_headers_interface might be wrong OR the interface_status would be ‘E’ or some thing else, It should be NULL or 'R'.
The combination of contract number and modifier is entered for more than one record in the interface table.	Two entries exist in oks_headers_interface with the same batch_id and contract_number. The same contract_number cannot exist multiple times in the import table.
Enter a valid operating unit.	Correct the operating_unit_id in oks_headers_interface.
Enter a valid Bill To Site Usage Id. Enter a valid Ship To Site Usage Id.	Correct the bill_to_site_usage_id or ship_to_site_usage_id in oks_headers_interface.  If the values are known to be correct, verify that the customer account information is correct.
The given customer contract administrator is invalid.	Correct the customer_contract_admin_id or customer_contract_admin_name in oks_headers_interface.  The transaction is accepted if any one of the columns has valid information.

Architecture of Service Contract Import Program

High Level Process :-

• Populate interface tables. Apart from the relevant columns that contain contract information, populate a unique batch id  in the batch_id column.
• Run Service Contracts Import program with batch id, mode, number of workers, commit size as input.
• Run the program in Validate only mode .
• Review the output/log file which summarize the successful and failed records.
• Re-run the Program in Import Mode to get the data into the base tables
• Review the imported contract in the Authoring Form.
• Validate the contract by running QA Check.
• Run the Service Contracts import Purge Program to purge the Successful records.

Service Contracts Import Scope and Limitations

Scope / Possibility :-

• Bulk import all types of Service contracts (Service / Warranty and Extended Warranty / Subscription / Usage Contracts)
• Import all type of covered levels (Service / Warranty / Extended Warranty / Subscription / Usage)
• Import contracts in different status types (Entered, Canceled, Signed, Active, Expired)
• Import of Sales Person, Contract Administrator at the header level.
• Import of customer Billing contact at line level.
• Ability to associate a contract with contract group
• Import of sales credits for the contract header.
• Import of only Fully billed of Fully Unbilled contracts.
• Import of Standard coverage possible.
• Instantiation of counters for imported contracts
• Import only Intangible Subscription contracts.
• Import of header Notes is possible.

Intro to Service Contracts Import Program

Before release of EBS 12.1 there was no supported way to import contracts into the EBS Service Contracts application - there were no public APIs nor contract load programs provided.  From release 12.1 onwards the 'Service Contracts Import Program' is provided to load service contracts into the application. This note explains the program architecture and details the interface table definitions.