Interfacing using Talend Open Studio for Data Integration

An easy and recommended approach, when building interfaces between ROB-EX and external systems like ERP, is to use an ETL tool (Exctract, Transform, Load). Using a tool reduces the learning curve required, enabling non-developers to create even complex interfaces.

There are several different tools on the market. We have internally in ROB-EX experience with using the Talend Open Studio for Data Integration. We have created the ROB-EX XML datamodel as meta data which you can import into Talend. This way you will get a head start on easily building interfaces between ROB-EX and virtually any system out there.

To get started using Talend, please follow this series of movies.

*The demo jobs and the “File xml” metadata used in these movies are available for download from this link: RobexDemoAllTalendImport.zip. To use the downloaded zip file do the following
1. Open Talend Open Studio and right click on the folder “Job Designs” in the left side “Repository”
2. Select “Import items” and select the downloaded zip-file in “Select archive file”
3. Possibly select “Overwrite existing items” if you see stuff in “Errors and Warnings”
4. Put a checkmark in the top most tree item “Robex_interfaces”. All tree nodes should now be selected
5. Click “Finish”

*The CSV input files etc. used in the demo are available for download from this link: RobexDemoAllTalendImport_Data.zip. To use the data so you are able to run the jobs imported with the above zip file do the following
1. Unzip “RobexDemoAllTalendImport_Data.zip” to e.g. your Desktop in a folder called “Talend”
2. In Talend navigate to “Contexts->robex_demo” in the left side “Repository” tree
3. Double click on the “robex_demo” context node and click “Next”
4. Edit the “Default” and “dev” value for the “ROOT_DIR” context variable, so it matches the directory where you unzipped the data. E.g. "c:\users\myuser\desktop\Talend"
5. Click Finish
6. You should now be able to open any of the “robex_demo” job designs and immediately run them

Video 1: Intro and getting started

The first movie in this series explaining and demonstrating best practice on how to get started building interfaces between ERP and the ROB-EX Scheduler, using the Talend Open Studio ETL tool. Covers how to download, install and getting started. Also explains how to import the ROB-EX metadata (the columns of the different ROB-EX entities like resource, production order, etc.)

Video 2: Importing resources + executing Talend jobs from ROB-EX Macro

The second movie in this series. A hands on tutorial how to read resource data from a CSV file and convert it to valid ROB-EX XML. The example also covers how to automate the execution of the Talend job from a ROB-EX client. I.e. how to compile, and use the Talend job within a ROB-EX macro.

*Some modifications has been made to the ErrorFileToLogMessage.groovy being used in this video. An updated version of the groovy file is available here: ErrorFileToLogMessage.zip

*Some additional tricks about executing Talend jobs from ROB-EX macros are now documented in separate chapters Running a Talend Job from a ROB-EX Macro and Using relative file paths with Talend.

Video 3: Importing master materials and inventory

The third movie in this series. A hands on tutorial how to import material master and material inventory (opening stock) information from a single CSV file – while generating two different XML output files. I.e. how to use the tMap component to produce two different outputs from a single input.

Also shows how to use the tFileList component to iterate on a file pattern.

Video 4: Importing purchase orders

Read purchase orders from a CSV file and output to ROB-EX XML.
Demonstrates error handling between Talend and ROB-EX using the tLogCatcher component.

Video 5: Importing orders and BOM

A full example demonstrating how to read production orders, operations and production order BOM from CSV into ROB-EX Scheduler XML.
During this we also demonstrate more advanced tMap features like “lookups” and using he Var” intermediate variables.
Finally this movie also demonstrate how to create multiple sub-jobs.