Skip to content

Integration Designer

IMan comes with several sample integrations. They show you how to build an IMan integration and demonstrate some of the product's features.

This section is a short introduction to working with the designer.

Where the step-by-step walk-throughs are

For a fuller description, see the IMan User Guide. For a step-by-step walk-through, see the training guide for your application.

Opening the Designer

  1. Select Design from the menu down the left of the screen.

  2. The Options tab opens first. Select one of the sample integrations from the drop-down, then press the pencil button beside the Integration Id box to load it.

    The pencil button is titled Load Integration. It is disabled when the integration you chose is already open. The Editing label under the drop-down names the open integration.

The Options tab of the Design screen: an empty Integration Id box on the left with pencil, delete and upload buttons beneath it, and on the right a drop-down showing SAMACCIMP - Sample Sage300 O/E Order Import above the label Editing "SAMACCARINV"

  1. Open the Transform Setup tab to show the graphical design interface.

  2. The transform palette runs down the left-hand side, in five groups: Transforms, Readers, Connectors, Writers and Tasks. To add a node to an integration, drag its icon onto the design surface.

  3. The right-hand side is the design surface. You build and maintain the integration here, and define the relationships between its transforms.

The Transform Setup tab: the transform palette open at the Transforms group on the left, with Readers, Connectors, Writers and Tasks collapsed beneath it, and on the right the sample order import drawn as an Excel reader feeding a hierarchise, a map, two Sage 300 connectors and a CSV writer

Opening the Transform Setup Screen

  1. The first node in an integration is typically a reader, or data source. Double-click the node to open its setup screen, where you define the node's settings. The setup screen opens as a new tab, named after the transform.

  2. Each transform setup screen is divided into two panes:

    • The left-hand pane holds the transform's settings, on the tabs across its top. For the reader below, the tabs are Setup, Field Mapping and Audit. The tabs vary with the type of transform.
    • The right-hand pane previews the transform's results. It also shows the Trace and Audit for the same run.

An Excel reader's setup screen: the Setup tab on the left showing Transform Id, Source with the file system, path and file name, and Options with worksheet and header rows; the Preview tab on the right listing seven order rows read from the file; Refresh and Close at the foot of the settings pane

  1. Press Refresh to build the preview on the right. Refresh runs the transform against its data and takes a few seconds.

A transform setup screen has no Save of its own

A transform setup screen has no Save of its own. Close applies your changes to the integration held in memory. The integration's own Save button, beneath the design surface, then saves the integration.

Connecting Transforms

You connect transforms with the connector object, at the foot of the Transforms palette.

The connector is an arrow. Its head points in the direction the data flows.

Two nodes on the design surface, an Excel reader and a hierarchise, joined by a connector whose arrow head points at the hierarchise