BUILD INTEGRATIONS WITH ANY DMS/PLM/ERP SYSTEM USING Oracle’S INTEGRATION SDK
  In a context of fierce competition and globally distributed teams, organizations need to adopt effective solutions to securely and efficiently communicate vital information and documents. By integrating AutoVue into in-house content management solutions, DMS, PLM or ERP systems or simple file servers, organizations can provide teams, suppliers and partners with instant access to crucial documents wherever they reside and regardless of the authoring applications that were used to create them.
Oracle’s Integration SDK provides a complete and flexible framework to integrate AutoVue, Web-Version into existing in-house DMS/PLM/ERP systems. The Integration SDK package includes Java APIs, sample integration code, and documentation that serve as a basis for organizations to build their desired level of integration with their in-house systems.
INCREASE THE VALUE AND COLLABORATIVE POTENTIAL OF DMS/PLM/ERP SYSTEMS
 Companies today are taking a structured approach in storing their valuable data and documents. To achieve this, Document Management (DMS), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems are key technologies that serve as a backbone for collaborative processes, and provides a secure and efficient environment in which information can be accessed and shared.
Oracle’s Integration SDK provides organizations with a simple way to strengthen their existing content management infrastructure through the seamless integration of AutoVue Web Version’s collaborative visualization capabilities. By doing so, organizations can make the most of their IT investment by making native documents available, wherever they may reside, to the entire organization and supply chain in a secure and controlled manner.
To learn more or to obtain pricing information for Oracle’s Integration SDK, contact Oracle at +1-514-735-3219 or sales@cimmetry.com.
A simple way to increase the value of this investment is to add AutoVue’s collaborative visualization capabilities to an existing content management infrastructure. Through its seamless integration with DMS/ PLM/ERP systems, AutoVue makes available native documents, wherever they may reside, to the entire organization and supply chain in a secure and controlled manner.
Integrating AutoVue into a DMS/PLM/ERP Platform
Using Oracle’s Integration SDK, organizations’ development teams can develop their own AutoVue integrations, allowing AutoVue, Web Version, to be used in conjunction with existing DMS/PLM/ERP systems. It is then possible to easily access and view all supported document types from the DMS/PLM/ERP file vault directly in AutoVue. The integration acts like a bridge that securely conveys information from the back-end to AutoVue and vice-versa, without copying the original document on the client machine. The original document is never altered and all markups and annotations are saved back directly into the DMS/PLM/ERP repository. By doing so, an AutoVue integration provides users with a single point of access to hundreds of document types stored in the DMS/PLM/ERP repository for viewing, printing, markup and real-time collaboration.
The following section explains how an AutoVue, Web Version integration works with a browser-based DMS/PLM/ERP System, enabling the creation of a truly efficient enterprise visualization platform.
To view a document, the user browses through the DMS/PLM/ERP system to access the page containing the links leading to the required documents (1). By customizing the DMS/PLM/ERP system, it is possible to add mechanisms to the user interface allowing users to view the file in AutoVue (2).
Once the user clicks on the hyperlink, a new HTML page is generated with the AutoVue Client-Server Applet (3). Because AutoVue, Web Version is a thin-client solution, no install is required to view a document.
The generated applet contains several parameters, including (but not limited to):
- A string which uniquely defines the document to be viewed
- A URL to the AutoVue Server (from the client)
- A URL to the integration Servlet (from the AutoVue server)
- The username of the current user
- The session ID of the current user (if applicable)
The AutoVue client uses the URL to the AutoVue server to establish a connection to the server. This can be done via direct socket connection (4a) or via HTTP tunneling (4b) for external users. The client transfers all its parameters to the AutoVue server so that the document can be retrieved from the back-end and viewed.
The AutoVue server communicates with the integration Servlet, running on an application server to request various information about the document to be viewed.
Typical requests from the integration Servlet include the following:
- Name of the document
- Size of the document
- Date modified of the document
- Security check to ensure that the user session is valid and that the user is authorized to access the document
- Download of the actual document
- List of external references (XREFs) stored in the DMS that the document links to
- List of markups associated with the document in the DMS
The integration Servlet, when necessary, needs to go back to the DMS/PLM/ERP server to respond to the AutoVue server’s requests (6). This can be done directly using the DMS/PLM/ERP back-end APIs (for Java based back-ends), using Web Services (for .NET based back-ends) or other APIs.
Once the file is retrieved from the back-end, it is rendered on the AutoVue server and an intelligent and displayable data stream is delivered to the client.
Any markups that need to be saved are sent from the client to the AutoVue server, which then transfers them to the integration Servlet for check-in into the DMS repository.
Oracle’s Integration SDK provides fully documented Java classes, which make it easy to handle the requests for information between the integration Servlet and the AutoVue server.
Integrated AutoVue Capabilities
With Oracle’s Integration SDK, organizations can achieve whatever level of integration is needed and access AutoVue features and capabilities directly from existing in-house DM/PLM/ERP system. Following are some AutoVue capabilities that are available through the integration with DMS/PLM/ERP systems.
View Documents
- Securely view documents within a DMS/PLM/ERP including 2D/3D CAD, EDA, image and Office documents, as well as more complex documents such as assemblies or drawing with raster images.
Browse and Search the Repository
- Browse or search for files stored in the repository directly from AutoVue and give users access to AutoVue’s viewing, compare, overlaying, cross-probing, and digital mockups functions.
Generate Various Renditions of Documents
- Generate reliable renditions of documents using AutoVue’s rendition generation features. The generated file (TIFF, PDF, BMP, etc) is automatically saved back into the repository, therefore providing a single point of access for all documents.
Compare Documents
- When the DMS/PLM/ERP has built-in versioning functions for tracking documents, AutoVue can be used to quickly compare designs with previous revisions. Previous revisions can be accessed in a drop-down menu directly from the compare dialog.
Create Markup / Annotations / Collaboration
- Markup and annotate all supported file types and create different markup types for improved collaboration. All markups are saved back into the repository and are available for other users depending on their access level. Markups can be associated with a specific version of a document and can be migrated to new revisions.
- Master Markups are automatically loaded as a document is opened for viewing. This is useful to alert team members to new critical information about the document.
- Consolidate several Markup files (perhaps from different reviewers) into a single markup file for review.
- Flag markups as read-only at save time or dynamically assign them as read-only when opened by users who do not have permissions to modify the markups.
Print Documents
- Add powerful printing capabilities to DMS/PLM/ERP. Printing via AutoVue can be called on a single document or a group of documents directly from the DMS/PLM/ERP user interface. Perform a search and print them all at the click of a button. Documents can be printed from AutoVue as well.
- Automatically extract metadata information stored in the DMS/PLM/ERP repository, and integrate it into the documents.
 View/Download a PDF of Oracle's Integration SDK API Requirements datasheet
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