How to use IBM App Connect with IBM Sterling Order Management System

IBM Sterling Order Management System is an order fulfillment software that manages and optimizes processes across channels and fulfillment centers in real-time.

Restriction:

Using App Connect to connect to IBM Sterling Order Management System is not supported on the following platforms:
- Linux® on Z
- Linux on Power®
The IBM Sterling Order Management System connector supports only the Standard Authentication mechanism.

Supported product and API versions

To find out which product and API versions this connector supports, see Detailed System Requirements on the IBM Support page.

What to consider first

App Connect supports connecting to an IBM Sterling Order Management System account by using either the REST API or IBM MQ server. You can log in to your IBM Sterling OMS account by selecting one of these options.

REST API

IBM Sterling Order Management System enables communication by using REST APIs. This communication is synchronous with your Sterling OMS instance and the following points apply.

You have access to App Connect actions only
Create, read, update, and delete operations are available

IBM MQ

IBM Sterling Order Management System enables communication by using IBM MQ queues. This communication is asynchronous and the following points apply.

You have access to App Connect events and actions
Events and actions are labeled (async)
Create, update, and delete operations are available
All fields are set as optional except for the Queue name field. The queue name is required to post a message on the queue.

Connecting to IBM Sterling Order Management System

Complete the connection fields that you see in the App Connect Designer Connect > Applications and APIs page (previously the Catalog page) or flow editor. If necessary, work with your IBM Sterling Order Management System administrator to obtain these values.

To connect to IBM Sterling Order Management System by using the REST API, provide the following connection details.

Endpoint URL: Specify the URL of the IBM Order Management System REST webservice. This field is mandatory.
Login ID: Specify the email address of the registered IBM Order Management System account. This field is mandatory.
Password: Specify the password for the IBM Order Management System account. This field is mandatory.
Certificate: Specify the client certificate content in Base64-encoded (PEM) format. The certificate and key are generated from the personal certificate that is obtained during the Order Management System account creation. This field is mandatory.
Key: Specify the client certificate key in Base64-encoded (PEM) format. The certificate and key are generated from the personal certificate that is obtained during the Order Management System account creation. This field is mandatory.

To obtain connection values for IBM Sterling Order Management System and to connect to IBM App Connect, complete the following steps.

Enter the Endpoint URL. For more information, see Order Management APIs or Services.
Enter your Login ID and Password. For more information, see IBMid authentication for Sterling Order Management.
Enter the Certificate and Key. For more information, see Generating client certificates.
To convert the P12 certificate that is provided by the OMS team to PEM format, use one of the following two methods.
To use an online SSL converter, complete the following steps.
1. Open the https://www.leaderssl.com/tools/ssl_converter website.
2. Upload the CRT file by clicking Choose file next to the Select the file to convert field.
3. For Certificate Type, select Standard PEM.
4. For The new extension of the certificate, select DER/Binary.
5. To convert and download the certificate file, click Convert.
To use the openssl command line utility, complete the following steps.
1. Open the openssl command line utility that is installed in your system.
2. Run following command to convert a certificate from CRT to PEM format.
```
openssl pkcs12 -in certificateName.p12 -out certificateName.crt.pem -clcerts -nokeys
openssl pkcs12 -in certificateName.p12 -out certificateName.key.pem -nocerts -nodes
```
  This command contains the following values.
  - certificateName.p12 is the name of your certificate along with the .p12 extension that is provided as an input to OpenSSL.
  - certificateName.crt.pem is the certificate file name with the crt.pem extension.
  - certificateName.key.pem is the key file name with the key.pem extension.
Replace the next line characters (hidden characters) in the certificate.
1. Open the certificate file in a text editor. The following example shows a certificate file.
2. Enable the show hidden characters feature in your text editor.
3. Replace all the next line characters (hidden characters) with \n. For example, use the Replace function in your text editor to replace LF by \n.
  $Example of a certificate file with hidden characters replaced by \n$
4. Add \n at the end of the certificate.
  $Example of a certificate file with \n added at the end$
  Use this certificate as an input when you connect to IBM Sterling Order Management System.
Replace the next line characters (hidden characters) in the key by following the instructions in Step 5.

To connect to IBM Sterling Order Management System by using the IBM MQ, provide the following connection details.

IBM MQ server: Specify the queue manager hostname and listener port in the format <hostname>:<port>. This field is mandatory.
Queue manager name: Specify the name of the queue manager. This field is mandatory.
Channel name: Specify the server-connection channel definition for the queue manager. This field is mandatory.
Cipher specification: Select a cipher specification or use the default value of ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 to enable the standard TLS for a cloud deployment. For a TCP connection, don't enter a value in this field. The default value is ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256.
Passphrase: Specify the passphrase that is associated with the IBM Order Management System certificate. This field is optional.
Certificate label: Specify the client certificate label. This field is mandatory.
Certificate: Specify the client certificate content in Base64-encoded (PEM) format. The certificate and key are generated from the personal certificate, which is created during the Order Management System account creation. This field is mandatory.
Key: Specify the client certificate key in Base64-encoded (PEM) format. The certificate and key are generated from the personal certificate, which is created during the Order Management System account creation. This field is mandatory.

To connect to an IBM Sterling Order Management System endpoint from the App Connect Designer Applications and APIs page for the first time, expand IBM Sterling Order Management System, then click Connect. For more information, see Managing accounts.

Tip:

Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Applications and APIs page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.

General considerations

Before you use App Connect Designer with IBM Sterling Order Management System, take note of the following considerations:

(General consideration) You can see lists of the trigger events and actions that are available on the Applications and APIs page of the App Connect Designer.
For some applications, the events and actions depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.
(General consideration) If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.

Events and actions

IBM Sterling Order Management System events

These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.

Orders

Orderline back order
Cancelled order
Released order
New order
Updated order

Release orders

New or updated release order

Shipments

New shipment

IBM Sterling Order Management System actions

Your flow completes these actions on this application.

Catalog items

Create catalog item
Create or update catalog item (async)
Retrieve catalog items
Delete catalog item (async)

Customers

Create customer
Create or update customer (async)
Retrieve customers
Delete customer (async)
Update customer
Delete customer

Orders

Create order
Create order (async)
Retrieve orders
Update order (async)
Update order
Delete order (async)
Delete order

Organizations

Create organization
Create or update organization (async)
Retrieve organizations
Delete organization (async)
Update organization
Delete organization

Shipments

Update or create shipment
Create shipment (async)
Retrieve shipments
Update shipment (async)
Delete shipment (async)

Examples

Dashboard tile for a template that uses IBM Sterling Order Management System

Use templates to quickly create flows for IBM Sterling Order Management System

Learn how to use App Connect templates to quickly create flows that complete actions in IBM Sterling Order Management System. For example, go to the Discover page and search for IBM Sterling Order Management System.

Learn more

Use IBM App Connect to build flows that integrate with IBM Sterling Order Management System.

Read the blog in the IBM Community to learn how to create orders in IBM Sterling Order Management System for orders created in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales. Click Read the blog to go to the blog.

Read the blog