Tech Tuesday – SmartConnect Key Fields and Grouping
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
One of the most important steps to setting up an integration in SmartConnect is ensuring that the correct key fields are set and the proper grouping is done.
Key fields needs to be added in on every map when setting up the data source, these fields are used by SmartConnect to break up the data into different records that it sends through to eConnect. SmartConnect does not look at the original source to determine the keys – it only cares about what is setup in the key fields section.
An example below shows how we broke up a GL Entry map into different records. There wasn’t a journal number in the source, so the batch ID and GL Reference were the fields used to break up the data. This setup will cause every unique combination of batch ID and reference to create a separate document/record that is sent through to eConnect.
Key fields needs to be added in on every map when setting up the data source, these fields are used by SmartConnect to break up the data into different records that it sends through to eConnect. SmartConnect does not look at the original source to determine the keys – it only cares about what is setup in the key fields section.
An example below shows how we broke up a GL Entry map into different records. There wasn’t a journal number in the source, so the batch ID and GL Reference were the fields used to break up the data. This setup will cause every unique combination of batch ID and reference to create a separate document/record that is sent through to eConnect.
An easy way to test whether the grouping and key fields are setup correctly is to change the destination to GP – File and run the map. The map will then create one xml file per record – which is determined based on the key fields. If one of those files are opened up, there should be one occurrence of the header node and possibly multiple entries for the line nodes in the record.
Chris Hanson
Senior Technical Consultant
