Equipment and Functional Location Adapters

About the Equipment and Functional Location Adapters

The Equipment Adapter lets you extract Equipment items from your SAP system into your APM system. When you do so, for each SAP Equipment item that meets the criteria defined in the extraction Job, a corresponding Equipment record is created in the APM database.

Likewise, the Functional Location Adapter lets you extract Functional Locations from your SAP system into your APM system. When you do so, for each Functional Location that meets the criteria defined in the extraction Job, a corresponding Functional Location record is created in the APM database.

Because the SAP system allows you to define a hierarchy in which Functional Locations are related to other Functional Locations, and because Equipment items are also related to Functional Locations, when you run either the Equipment Adapter or the Functional Location Adapter, the SAP hierarchy is maintained. In some cases, to maintain the hierarchy, placeholder records are created in the APM database to represent the SAP relationships.

For example, suppose that the SAP system contains the following Functional Locations and Equipment items, where the Functional Locations are shaded red, and the Equipment items are shaded green.

In this case, if you were to run the Functional Location Adapter, the following Functional Location records would be created automatically in the APM database:

FL-101
FL-101-A
FL-101-A-01

Then, if you were to run the Equipment Adapter, the following Equipment record would be created automatically in the APM database:

Equipment-1

This Equipment record would be linked automatically to the Functional Location record for FL-101-A-01.

Suppose, however, that using the same SAP data structure example, you decide to run the Equipment Adapter before running the Functional Location Adapter. In this case, when running the Equipment Adapter, the Equipment record Equipment-1 would be created automatically to represent that SAP Equipment item. In addition, the following placeholder Functional Location record would also be automatically created to represent the SAP Functional Location that is directly associated with the Equipment:

FL-101-A-01

The Equipment record would be automatically linked to the Functional Location record FL-101-A-01. This placeholder record would contain a value only in the Functional Location key fields. You would need to run the Functional Location Adapter to populate the remaining fields in the placeholder Functional Location record.

About the Technical Characteristics Adapter

Note: You can run the Technical Characteristics Adapters successfully only if the SAP Technical Characteristics license is active.

In SAP, you can assign specific characteristics to Equipment and Functional Locations. Each characteristic belongs to a Classification, and each Classification belongs to a Class Type. For example, the Class Type Equipment Class might contain the classification Storage Tanks, which might contain the Characteristics Diameter and Wall Thickness, as illustrated in the following image:

When you extract Equipment and Functional Locations from SAP into the APM system, their corresponding Characteristics will not be extracted into the Equipment and Functional Location records that are created during the extraction process. If you want to extract their corresponding Characteristics, you will need to run the Technical Characteristics Adapter. When you run these adapters, Technical Characteristic records are created to store the Characteristics that have been configured to be extracted, and these records are linked automatically to the appropriate Equipment and Functional Location records.

Note: When Technical Characteristic classifications are updated in APM, they will override any changes made to the classifications parameter in the context file.

Numeric Value Format

The format in which numbers are displayed in APM is determined by the SAP user that is used to extract the SAP data. For example, if the SAP user is configured to display the value one thousand one hundred and one-tenth as 1.100,1. The value in APM will be displayed in the same format.

Multiple Objects Allowed

The Technical Characteristic Adapter can transfer Equipment and Functional Locations configured for multiple objects allowed. This functionality is enabled by EQUIPMENT_CLASS context parameter in the context file.

Equipment and Functional Locations are configured for multiple objects in SAP, as shown in the following image.

This indicator tells you whether several different types of object can be classified in classes of this class type. This allows you to classify objects that are logically related to each other in the same class.

APM Actions and Results

In APM, you can configure which Characteristics you want to extract from SAP. When you do so, various actions that you perform in the APM system and the SAP system cause specific results, as seen in the following table.


Action	Result	Notes
Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in a CMMS Characteristic record.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the characteristic is extracted.	During the extraction process, a corresponding Technical Characteristic record is created.
Clear the Extract From CMMS System check box in a CMMS Characteristic record.	If a Technical Characteristic record has been created using this CMMS Characteristic record, it is not deleted automatically when you delete the CMMS Characteristic record. Instead, the next time that the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the corresponding Technical Characteristic record is deleted.	To begin extracting the characteristic again, you will need to select the Extract From CMMS System check box.
Delete a CMMS Characteristic record.	If a Technical Characteristic record has been created using this CMMS Characteristic record, it is not deleted automatically when you delete the CMMS Characteristic record. Instead, the next time that the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the corresponding Technical Characteristic record is deleted. In addition, until the CMMS Characteristic record is recreated and flagged for extraction, beginning with the next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the characteristic is no longer extracted.	To begin extracting the characteristic again, you will need to: Refresh the APM system to reflect the current SAP characteristics, which will cause the CMMS Characteristic record to be recreated. Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in that CMMS Characteristic record.
Delete a CMMS Classification record.	All CMMS Characteristic records that were linked to the CMMS Classification record are deleted automatically. If a Technical Characteristic record has been created using this CMMS Classification record, it is not deleted automatically when you delete the CMMS Classification record. Instead, the next time that the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the corresponding Technical Characteristic records are deleted automatically. In addition, until the CMMS Classification record is recreated and flagged for extraction, beginning with the next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, characteristics belonging to that classification are no longer extracted.	To begin extracting characteristics belonging to this classification again, you will need to: Refresh the APM system to reflect the current SAP classifications, which will cause the CMMS Classification record to be recreated automatically. Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in the CMMS Classification record. Refresh the APM system to reflect the current SAP characteristics, which will cause the CMMS Characteristic records that were previously deleted to be recreated automatically. Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in the appropriate CMMS Characteristic records.
Delete a CMMS Classification Type record.	All CMMS Classification and CMMS Characteristic records that were linked (directly or indirectly) to the CMMS Classification Type record are deleted automatically. If a Technical Characteristic record has been created using this CMMS Classification Type record, it is not deleted automatically when you delete the CMMS Classification Type record. Instead, the next time that the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the Technical Characteristic record is deleted automatically. In addition, until the CMMS Classification Type record is recreated and its CMMS Classification and CMMS Characteristic records are flagged for extraction, beginning with the next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, no characteristics are extracted.	To begin extracting characteristics again, you will need to: Recreate the CMMS Classification Type record. Refresh the APM system to reflect the current SAP classifications and characteristics, which will cause CMMS Classification records to be recreated. Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in the desired CMMS Classification records. Refresh the APM system to reflect the current SAP classifications and characteristics, which will cause CMMS Classification records to be recreated. Select the Extract From CMMS System check box in that CMMS Characteristic record.

SAP Actions and Results


Action	Result
Specify a value for a characteristic that is configured to be extracted.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, a Technical Characteristic record is created and linked to the corresponding Equipment or Functional Location record.
Remove a value for a characteristic that is configured to be extracted.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the corresponding Technical Characteristic record is updated by removing the value from the Value field.
Assign a new classification to an Equipment or Functional Location, and specify values for the characteristics belonging to that class.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, Technical Characteristic records representing the new characteristic values are created and linked to the corresponding Equipment or Functional Location record.
Remove the assignment of a classification from an Equipment or Functional Location record.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run or you refresh the APM system to reflect current SAP characteristics, the corresponding Technical Characteristic record is deleted.
Delete a characteristic from a classification.	The next time the Technical Characteristics Adapter is run, the corresponding Technical Characteristic record is deleted.