Want to integrate 'Performance Appraisal' with Oracle HR
We have a "Performance Appraisal" Notes application that we would like to
integrate with Oracle HR to pass various fields from Notes to Oracle HR
once the appraisal has been approved. Currently, the integration is being
done manually. We want the HR clerk to be able to hit a button to update Oracle. I'm going to be utilizing 2 Oracle API's for this integration to take place.
One is an update of an existing record in Oracle. I'm assuming that I can
utilize an "Update" event based on a flag and used as a filter, so that the
update to Oracle doesn't take place every time the Notes document is saved.
The second update is actually calling an API to create a row in an Oracle
table. I was thinking I would actually have to create a new document with
a different form and inherit the fields that I want to get to Oracle. Then,
would I have to create an activity that monitors the "creation" of this second document? Is this the best way to accomplish this?
You did not give many details about the techinical approach, but I
agree that your approach sounds reasonable. Based on your reference to
"Update" and "Create" I will guess that you are planning to use DECS. You
should take a careful look at the process used within Oracle HR to perform
the tasks you've mentioned. While Lotus provides a Connector for Oracle
Apps, that Connector works with Financials only. To integrate with the HR
module you will have to use one of the Oracle Connectors, either for O7
or O8. Typically, ERP packages, like Oracle Apps, invoke a large amount of
business logic for even the simplest tasks. If you must work directly
against the underlying data table, be sure you adhere to the rules of the
application. If you break or even bend any of these rules they might come
back and bite you with bad data.
This was first published in July 2002