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Developer Tools

Businesses continually evolve in response to market and customer pressures. No tool is capable "out-of-the-box" of supporting all possible current and future business needs. Rather than try to do the impossible, Epicor iScala provides a very rich development environment that enables programmers and end users to quickly build whatever enhancements or changes they need within a controlled development environment. The scope of functionality developed using Epicor iScala Developer is limited only by business needs and ingenuity. Screens, reports, workflow, behaviors and standard Epicor iScala processes can all be changed using Epicor iScala Developer and the related run-time engine. Epicor iScala Developer is the development environment for both the Epicor iScala 2.2 Business and Enterprise Servers.

Typical Scenarios

The Epicor iScala 2.2 Developer may be deployed in many different ways, depending on each company's unique business needs. Below are a few scenarios that help to illustrate the power of this product.

SCENARIO 1 – EVENT DRIVEN APPROVAL PROCESS
The Purchasing Manager at a site running the Epicor iScala Business Server has noticed that several low value purchase orders are being sent each day to the same suppliers, thereby increasing the transport costs. The Manager has told the staff to hold orders below a certain value, but want to build a control check to ensure that his instructions are being carried out. The Purchasing Manager also wants to automate compliance with the internal company procedures that require a senior manager to review any high value purchase orders.

The Purchasing Manager will benefit from Epicor iScala Developer by gaining the ability to automate these new controls without involving the IT Department. In this scenario this could be implemented by creating a custom workflow in the Workflow Designer, triggered every time a purchase order is created or changed. The workflow checks the order value and applies different business rules based on the total amount. For any orders below the low order value it raises a task within Epicor iScala to alert the Manager about the low value purchase order's details. For any orders above the high value orders it sends notification, this time via email, to the senior management group for their review. In neither case is their any change to the way that the purchase clerks enter orders, so no training is required.

SCENARIO 2 – SALES ORDER & STOCK ENHANCEMENTS
The company needs to limit who can change the sales prices for some items, limit the amount sales prices can be discounted and limit who can view customer's credit limits. The Credit Controller will benefit from Epicor iScala Developer by being able to build a solution using VBA that requires users to enter a password to view and/or change credit limits. At the same time, the Product Manager can implement two additional VBA project using the same Epicor iScala Developer tools, the first project could limit who can make changes to controlled price lists, whilst the second compares every price override to a pre-set lowest price pricelist and resets any prices that are below the pre-set value

SCENARIO 3 – REMOTE SALES PROCESSING
The company has several salesmen that spend time on the road and need to be able to get access to Epicor iScala 2.2 to enter orders, adjust customer information and view stock information. Epicor iScala User Interface Designer enables the company to create forms for windows, web and portals that enable the salesmens' to perform his work from any device at any place.

SCENARIO 4 – TARGETED SECURITY
The Sales Director wants the salesmen to see the calculated cost price for a stock item but hide from view the actual cost price. This can be achieved by adjusting the security for a form, created using User Interface Designer, so that the actual cost price field is not visible to the salesmen group. Epicor iScala User Interface Designer enables the Sales Director to quickly and easily change access rights to forms or parts of forms.

Features

VISUAL BASIC FOR APPLICATIONS
Microsoft's Visual Basic for ApplicationR (VBA) is probably the most widely supported programming language in the world. It is very simple to learn, yet powerful enough to build complex industry or region specific features and can be used to add new features, automation or screens to the Epicor iScala environment.

• Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This is the core VBA development engine and includes the full embedded Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications environment including an open object model.
• UI and Application Events. The user interface (UI) and application events provide a simple yet powerful way to link the IDE to the user and core processes.
• Printing Events. The Epicor iScala Report Engine that powers reporting from Epicor iScala Servers can trigger events that can be used to automate reporting activities either before, during or after report generation.

VBA Runtime

This is the run-time environment for developer and VBA projects, used to run any VBA program developed using Epicor iScala Developer. Users who have licensed the VBA Runtime also gain access to Epicor iScala Macro recording, editing and launching tools.

• Macros. When a task is repeatedly performed in Epicor iScala this task can be automated using a macro. A macro is a series of commands and instructions grouped together as a single command to accomplish the task automatically.

Workflow Designer

Epicor iScala supports a very rich workflow environment where individual workflows can be linked to business events and can be used to run Epicor iScala business logic, or interact with users through a task manager, email etc. The Workflow Designer is the environment used to create new workflows or insert new business logic (called Managers in Epicor iScala terminology) into existing workflows. In this you can attach new managers to a workflow or create your own managers.

• XML Mapper. This is a simple XML mapping tool that can be used to create the data maps used as part of workflows to convert one XML message to another. Basic mathematical, string and logical functions are supported as is direct data look-up to convert one value to another, for example delivery codes.
• Workflow Editor. A number of standard workflows are provided with other Epicor iScala products, for example the connectivity solutions. The Workflow Editor is a limited functionality version of the Workflow Designer that enables day-to-day changes to be made to workflows such as notification addresses, condition criteria (using the Rules Assistant) and other parameters without needing a full Workflow Designer license. The XML Mapper can be used from within the Workflow Editor
• Workflow Runtime. The Workflow Euntime is the run-time environment for any new workflows or workflows that have been changed using the Workflow Designer. The Workflow Runtime is not required to run already licensed workflows that have been modified using only the Workflow Editor.

User Interface Designer

With User Interface Designer there is now a possibility to create new forms in Epicor iScala 2.2. These forms can display more or less information for different users utilizing the new security model introduced in Epicor iScala 2.2,

• Security. Each field in a form has it's own security settings where it can be specified if it is visible, read-only or allows changes. These settings can be set per user group and form. The form consists of a model and a layout where the model describes the connections to managers, help and language resources and can also include custom functions. The layout then describes where the data should be positioned and how it should be displayed.
• Model. The model describes how data is retrieved and how to store the data. The model then exposes the data as sets of items. Each item can also be extended with custom functions written in VB.Net, C# and C++.
• Layout. The layout determines how controls like textboxes, buttons, datagrids etc. are positioned on the form. The controls are then databound to the items in a model. Each layout can use one or more models. This separation makes it very simple to create forms for different ways of displaying data e.g. windows, web, mobiles and portals. And it also makes it very easy to reuse models in different forms. The forms built with User Interface Designer are leveraging the Microsoft .Net Framework.
• Windows. Forms for the windows interface can be compiled to Windows.Net forms that can be launched within the Epicor iScala 2.2 windows client.
• Web. Web forms are compiled to ASP Net web forms that can be launched within a browser window. Epicor iScala Web Deployment Server installed on the server provides all required system functionality, such as user's authentification, security, session management and other functions
• Portal. Forms for portals are compiled to ASP.Net forms and Web Parts that can be imported into Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server.

The User Interface Designer makes it simple to create forms for entering and adjusting data, listing items or just viewing data. The forms can also use queries created with Epicor iScala Query Designer to retrieve data or lists of data.

For further information, please contact us at (852) 2581 9373 or email to salesenquiry@polyasia.com.

For the product details, please refer to the official web page of Scala Business Solutions at http://www.scala.net