The QAD MFG/PRO data handler is a data-conversion module whose primary roles are to convert business objects into MFG/PRO formats and vice versa. For an overview of these formats, see Data formats. This chapter describes how the data handler processes messages from one format to another as well as metadata requirements.
Event Processing As shown in Figure 13,, the QAD MFG/PRO data handler has a mapping engine that converts a triplet message to an XML QDoc, which is QAD's proprietary XML format. The connector's XML data handler is then invoked to convert the QDoc to the corresponding business object (BO). If the event message arrives in XML format, then the connector skips the triplet-to-QDoc process and passes the message to the XML data handler for conversion to an event BO. (The business object is generated from QDoc schema during design time; for further information, see Overview of generating business object definitions for event processing.) Applying the values of operation tags in the QDoc, the data handler sets the verb at the business-object level as well as for any child BOs.
Metadata helps guide the format conversions:
Figure 13. QAD MFG/PRO data
handler processing
Request Processing In the other direction, the XML data handler component converts the request business object of a TLO into a QDoc XML message which is then wrapped in a SOAP 1.2 envelope. The request BO must have a header attribute of type BIA_QdocHeaderBOeB2 and a Body attribute that is request specific. The protocol handler then passes the QDoc to the QXtend web service.
When it receives a reply QDoc, the connector calls the XML data handler to create a response business object and to extract the SOAP envelope. Like the request BO, the response BO has a header of type BIA_QdocHeaderBOeB2 and a Body attribute. If a fault QDoc message is returned, the connector calls the data handler to convert it to a BIA_FaultBO. For Fault messages, the QDoc header is discarded.
Metadata guides the request processing conversions, as discussed in Configuring the QAD MFG/PRO data handler.