Extending Product Master capabilities

You can extend the "out-of-the-box" capabilities of IBM® Product Master with custom business rules, validations, and integration capabilities. Product Master supports creating extensions with three program languages.

To extend the PIM solution, you can use Script, Java™, or REST API. You can use a mixture of Script and Java so that you can migrate to Java from Script over time.

Java

The IBM Product Master Java application programming interface (API) provides a full featured set of Java interfaces and a set of utility classes and methods so that you can extend Product Master.
The Product Master Java API provides these advantages for extending an Product Master solution:
  • An easier learning curve for Java programmers.
  • The ability to write object-oriented code.
  • The ability to call existing Java utilities and applications directly in your Java code.
  • Support for extending Product Master with a nonproprietary programming language, which makes it easier to find coding help or references.

You can use any existing Java IDE (integrated development environments) such as RSA (Rational® Software Architect) to develop Product Master Java extensions. Product Master support for application-server-based web services is provided only in the Java API.

Script

The IBM Product Master Scripting application programming interface (API) provides a full featured set of capabilities to extend the Product Master solution.

REST API

The IBM Product Master, provides REST API layer to access the database data for constructing the dashboards and other purposes. Using these REST API commands requires the same permissions as using the web interface. These REST APIs are available so that you can retrieve the data outside of the web interface. For more information, see REST API documentation section in the REST APIs definitions.