Customer Interface

Customer Interface aka RACUST is a concurrent program that is responsible for the import and update of AR customer information from open interface tables to AR Customer tables. Check out the details here ^[1].

TCA Application Programming Interface (API)

TCA API's are an integrated set of PL/SQL code designed in a highly modular fashion, that are easy to understand, maintain and extend.These are modular approach defaults and validates users who enter information, defaults information not provided by the user and calls the appropriate entity handler to perform the business related tasks.

Use of the TCA APIs allows you much more control of inserts and updates over the customer interface.

EXCEPTION AND ERROR MESSAGES

• Customer Interface (RACUST)
  When the customer interface executes, a report is generated. You can view the output by selecting the request and then choosing View Output. Here are details for all Error code ^[2].
• TCA API
  The APIs provide an extensive error-handling and error-reporting mechanism whereby all errors encountered in the different phases of API execution are reported and put on the message stack. You can refer to TCA API documentation for further details.

What are those TCA APIs

Main categories of entities covered with ability to “create” or “update”

• Parties - person, organization, group
• Locations, Party sites, party site use
• Organization contact, organization contact role
• Contact points, Contact preferences
• Relationship types, Relationships
• Classification
• Customer accounts, Account sites and site uses
• Customer account role, role responsibility Customer profile and customer profile amount

TCA API - Advantages

• These are flexible, easy to understand and modular
• API's have extensive debugging capability
• These also have extensive error handling and reporting capability
• Robust validation in all of the APIs
• A new locking mechanism based on the OBJECT_VERSION_NUMBER field, which has been included in all of the HZ entities for which the public
  APIs have been provided
• Standard signature and availability of common parameters

Are there load limitations for Customer Interface?

A performance problem have been experienced in RACUST in earlier releases when loading customer address/site use and profile information in batches of 15,000+records.

Customer Interface runs optimally for a maximum of up to 10000 customers in the interface tables, so distributing the customers to be entered into batches of a maximum of 10000 each is good practice.

When Running Customer Import RACUST these table get affected

AP_BANK_ACCOUNTS
AP_BANK_ACCOUNT_USES
AP_BANK_BRANCHES
AR_CUSTOMER_PROFILES
AR_CUSTOMER_PROFILE_AMOUNTS
RA_ADDRESSES
RA_CONTACTS
RA_CONTACTS
RA_CONTACT_PHONES_INTERFACE
RA_CUSTOMERS
RA_CUSTOMERS_INTERFACE
RA_CUSTOMER_BANKS_INTERFACE
RA_CUSTOMER_PROFILES_INTERFACE
RA_CUSTOMER_RELATIONSHIPS
RA_CUST_PAY_METHOD_INTERFACE
RA_CUST_RECEIPT_METHODS
RA_PHONES
RA_SITE_USES

In R12 , bank information is moved to other tables in that case, these table is no use.

AP_BANK_ACCOUNTS
AP_BANK_ACCOUNT_USES
AP_BANK_BRANCHES

You can check out Bank details. Here ^[3] here ^[4]

Debugging you TCA API's

Follow these steps for debugging your TCA API's

1) Set the following profile options as mentioned below from the applications :

FND: Debug Log Enabled - Yes
FND: Debug Log Module - AR
FND: Debug Log Filename <Blank>
FND: Debug Log Level - Statement
AR: Enable Debug Message Output - Yes

2) Now, execute DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO.SET_CLIENT_INFO(&org_id);

Pass your Org_id.

3) Run this query

select value from v$parameter where name='utl_file_dir';

This will return Util File Dir returned, you need to pass the same to the following script

Just make sure you have write access to /usr/tmp and also if /usr/tmp is defined as 'utl_file_dir' using the following query

4) Then aall the arp_standard.enable_file_debug ('&util_file_dir','&log_file_name'); from your script to get the debug messages

What are the criteria for Options for RACUST or API

You can decide which options should be safer if you fullfill these checklist.

• Can the data be imported / modified through RACUST (are the fields available in the interface)?
• Will the data import meet the existing validation rules in the application ?
• Will the process of the data import meet the business requirement (scheduling, quantity of records, staging of data)?
• Do you have the technical support to integrate and implement the APIs (additional PL/SQL programming)?

If customer import is not catering your 100% requirement , then you can combine with TCA API's update scripts for addressing business need. One such example is discussed here ^[5] .

Where I can get details

• For TCA APIs, Please check out the API documentation that we have on Metalink. When you log into Metalink, click on Top Tech Docs --> E-Business Suite: ERP, Financials, Trading Community-->Documentation --> Oracle Trading Community Architecture API User Notes.
• For Customer Interface, please check Oracle Receivables Users Guide, Customers -> Customer Interface chapter

Similar Post

• Dealing with “Addressee” on Customer Master ^[5]
• Deep Drive : Customer Interface in AR ^[1]
• Trading Community Architecture (TCA) 101 ^[6]
• TCA Customer setup in Oracle EBS ^[7]