RosettaNet (e-standard) Implementation Using SoftwareAG webMethods

What Is RosettaNet?

RosettaNet is a consortium of information technology, electronic components, telecommunications, semiconductors, and logistic companies to define and implement industry-wide, open e-business process standards. These RosettaNet standards globally serve as a common language for conducting e-business and streamlining the processes between supply chain partners. RosettaNet standards span across domains like Electronic Components and Semiconductor Manufacturing in their end-to-end supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, resellers, shippers, and end-users.

RosettaNet established these standards by creating and maintaining the Partner Interface Processes (PIPs).

RosettaNet PIPs

RosettaNet PIPs are categorized by high-level business functions (as Cluster) and subfunction (as a segment). Clusters and Segments organize business messages into recognizable categories, as shown in the table below:

Further, each segment includes many specific message PIPs such as 3A4 (Manage Purchase Order) in the below example:

Cluster 3: Order Management

• Segment A: Quote and Order Entry
  • PIP 3A1: Request Quote
  • PIP 3A2: Request Price and Availability
  • PIP 3A3: Request Shopping Cart Transfer
  • PIP 3A4: Manage Purchase Order
  • PIP 3A5: Query Order Status
  • PIP 3A6: Distribute Order Status

To implement these standards and exchange these standard business documents across the partners, SoftwareAG webMethods have an out of the box solution: RosettaNet Module.

RosettaNet Module in webMethods

webMethods RosettaNet module is based on the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF) and enables us to implement PIPs and exchange RosettaNet documents with the partners. This module runs on top of the webMethods Integration Server platform as a package and integrates with other products in the webMethods product suite.

The below diagram shows high-level components in the implementation of RosettaNet: exchange of RosettaNet standard messages between two enterprises (partners).

Steps for the implementation

Setup:

1. Download the Standard – Download the specification of the standard, and the steps to implement. These details are maintained and made available by the RosettaNet group of GS1 US. To download the PIP, visit this location (GS1 website) and select the required PIP.

This PIP standard is downloaded as a zip file comprising of three types of files:

• HTML documents – These are message-guideline documents that specify the element-level descriptions and constraints.
• DTD files – These files define the service-content structure of the message to be exchanged and enumerations (if any).
• MS Word document – This file is the detailed specification of how this PIP can be implemented.

2. Building the PIP into webMethods – webMethods RosettaNet module has a PIP builder that enables the webMethods specific assets for implementing the PIP on the lines of RosettaNet standard specifications.

The specification document (MS Word document) and DTD files are the key requirements for this step.

In addition to those two files, we also need an XML schema file used to build the PIP in webMethods. This file has the list of enumerations for the fields, which are key in building the common PIPs. RosettaNet module by webMethods has already provided this file in the location – <Installation>/IntegrationServer\instances\default\packages\WmPIPTools\import\ rosettanet_v2_1_webm.xml

We carry out the following steps after navigating to the RosettaNet module page by selecting “RosettaNet” under Adapters.

Step 1. Import the schema using the “Schema Management,” select the above schema XML file in the dropdown (it’s listed here, as it’s present in the import folder)

Step 2. In the PIP Builder, we have to fill in the details of the PIP (to be built). The specification file (MS Word document) is really helpful in filling up these fields. 

You can click on the (?) for help on which values need to be filled in this field, a popup (as shown below) is displayed with the details on where to find these values in the specification file.

If a PIP is a two-action PIP (like 3A4) where you have the request and responses in addition to the acknowledgments, then we select “True” for “Has Response Document,” and then we have to provide the Response Action and Response DTD.

In this step, we would be able to preview the PIP contents before creating them.

Step 3. Build the PIP, this would create the webMethods assets required for the implementation of this PIP.

• Integration Server document types, IS document types define the format of RosettaNet documents used by a PIP. RosettaNet Module uses IS document types to validate the structure of the RosettaNet documents.
• TN XML document types in the Trading Networks database. When a RosettaNet Module receives a RosettaNet document, the module uses TN document types to identify the document type.
• Trading Partner Agreements Trading Partner Agreements (TPAs) in the Trading Networks database.

Here’s a legend for the types of PIP contents that would be created on a successful build.

3. Importing the Process Model – Using the designer IDE, import the process model (one-action or two-action based on the PIP) from the templates provided by the RosettaNet module under the path: <Installation>/IntegrationServer\instances\default\packages\WmRosettaNet\ProcessModel

For example, for the below type of PIP implementation, we have to use the two-action process model in webMethods.

The two-action process model template looks as below:

Receive step(s) of the Business process model would be subscribing to the TN document created as part of the PIP build.

4. Partner Sends Object File – The partner sends the RosettaNet Object file (sample mentioned below) to the RosettaNet receive service exposed from the Enterprise webMethods suite.

5. Inbound Mappings – On successfully receiving the request, we do the inbound mappings that translate the PIP document (sent by Partner) into the internal document (or canonical) of our enterprise. And, this internal document is sent to the backend system.

Steps 6, 7, and 8 are carried out only for a two-action implementation (where we have to send a response document for each request).

Conclusion

Exchange of B2B transactions over RosettaNet is easily achieved with the use of webMethods RosettaNet module since this module is built to integrate directly with the webMethods B2B component – Trading Networks making the transactional analysis of the RosettaNet integrations readily available. The RosettaNet message handshake is carried over as a business process model, thereby providing in-depth visibility in the process of B2B message exchanging. The steps discussed above in this blog will guide you through the implementation and exchange of RosettaNet standards for B2B messages across partners.