Inter-application Dependencies and Communication

Overview

Large systems typically have dependencies between them. For example, in manufacturing, an ERP system may depend on employee information and data dictionaries from a basic data system, and may need to call APIs to add employees. In Informat, you can communicate between applications through three methods:

• Data table dependencies
• Event listening
• API calls

Data Table Dependencies

Informat provides data table export functionality to implement data dependencies between applications.

Suppose System A has a user table user with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
name	Single Text	User Name
department	Department Selection	User Department

System B has an order table task with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
id	Single Text	Order Number
owner	Associated Record	Task Owner

The owner field in the task table needs to be associated with the user table. This is a typical cross-system data dependency scenario. In traditional development, System B would create an identical user table and periodically synchronize data from System A's user table. This synchronization can be based on interfaces or databases.

To implement similar functionality in Informat, you only need to set the user table in System A to allow access by other applications, then create a new data table in System B with the data source type set to From Other Application. This way, other modules in System B can access this virtual user table.

Note

Virtual table data can be added, queried, deleted, and modified like regular data tables, and you can also create views for virtual tables to view data.

Event Listening

Publishing events between applications is also a common requirement. For example, after an order is successfully placed in the Order System, it needs to notify the Production System to schedule production. In Informat, you can use the Publish Application Event step in Automation to send an event. Systems that need to listen to this event should add an event listener in the Listeners module of the application settings, selecting Events Published by Other Applications as the event type to listen for.

Note

Event publishing and listening are synchronous. If the automation program processing the event fails, the system will automatically roll back all transactions.

API Calls

Of course, you can also implement communication through inter-application API calls, which is similar to traditional development processes and will not be explained here.

Data Table Dependencies Example

Suppose Application A (testa) has a User Table user with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
name	Single Text	User Name
department	Department Selection	User Department
sex	List Selection	User Gender

Application B (testb) has a Task Table task with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
taskNo	Single Text	Task Number
description	Rich Text	Task Description
owner	Associated Record	Task Owner

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Set Other Application Access control items for the data table in Application A:

• In the designer, open the Advanced Settings of the User table and enable Allow other applications to query data from this table

  After enabling, Allow Data Deletion, Allow Data Update, and Allow Data Addition can be adjusted based on usage needs.

• Open the Advanced Settings under Global Settings in Application A, and add Application B (testb) to Allow the following applications to depend on this application

• Enter test data in the Application A user interface

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Create a dependency on Application A's user table in Application B:

• Open the Advanced Settings under Global Settings in Application B, and add Application A (test) to Dependent Applications

• Create a data table module in Application B, selecting Data Table from Other Application as the data source

• Complete the Task Table task form by adding the Task Owner field

• Complete the dependency display information for the user table in Application B

• Complete the display information for the task table in Application B

• View the data of the user table in the Application B user interface

• Create data for the task table in the Application B user interface

This completes the demonstration of the operation steps for data table dependencies within applications.

Data Table Dependencies Notes

• After creating a data table dependency module, the module identifier and data source information cannot be modified
• When data table dependencies exist, if the identifier of the dependent module in another application changes, this module will automatically synchronize the change
• When data table dependencies exist, only data is dependent. Controls for data display and form extension need to be configured separately
• When data table dependencies exist, for custom component fields in the form, the platform will automatically calculate dependency information and use the original application information to render the content of the custom component fields