Understanding the concept
Link offers much flexibility regarding how to configure the error handling when certain errors arisewho should receive information about which errors. With careful planning you can ensure that the right people are always notified about the errors.
You can specify on a high level, which stakeholder should be notified if an error has occurred. However, should scenarios exist, where different stakeholders should be notified about errors related to specific document types (Order, Order response, Despatch Advice, Purchase Invoice, Sales Invoice etc.) or should be notified about very specific errors, then Link also supports these scenarios.
, that they are responsible for remedying.
A Link Stakeholder is basically just a name associated with one or several e-mail addresses (this is described later). Note that Link Stakeholders should not be confused with Link users or Link user groups - these are completely separate entities.
New Link customers often start out with just one default stakeholder i.e. one e-mail address used to receive all notifications. As their Link solutions expands, it is recommendable to consider if certain error-scenarios could be designated to specific stakeholders.
In general, we recommend to associate mail distributions lists to Stakeholders and not use person-specific e-mails. This is to ensure that you have solid error-handling procedures that are not depending on single individuals.
The error-handling setup can distribute the error-mails to Stakeholders based on the error category and/or error code, but it can also be based on the document type in play - or combinations of the two.
To give an example: A Link customer could create four different stakeholders set up like this:
Stakeholder name | Description | |
Sales department | Handles errors related to sales documents | |
Purchase department | Handles errors related to purchase documents | |
Developers | Handles errors with difficult error codes | |
Support | Handles all other error scenarios |
Setting up Stakeholders
To manage stakeholders in Link you must access click “Settings” in the Settings main menu and choose “User groups”“Stakeholders”.
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Locate the Stakeholders label and click the ‘+’ sign.
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Type in a Name, Description and an Email and save the changes.
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A stakeholder group has been created and it can be used for configuring error handling, which will be described in the following.
Error handling
The configuration of error handling is done under “Settings” - “Error Handling”.
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You will then see a list of predefined error categories. Each category can be opened by clicking the arrow next to the category label.
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As an example under “Category: DeveloperErrors” there has been set a “Category default” to stakeholder “BIZbrains Support”. BIZbrains Support will be the receiver of the error notification e-mail related to all developer related errors. All the various developer errors are listed below the “Category: DeveloperErrors” and could e.g., be the error “14001 BizTalk tried to use a map that was not installed.”. That error message would appear in the e-mail to the stakeholder.
If you click Edit at the right on the line you will see how the Error notification is set up.
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Here you can also differ the stakeholder for each available Document Type (Sales Order, Purchase Invoice, Sales Invoice, Despatch Advice etc).d
Back at the overview for Error Handling you can chose only to state a stakeholder in the “Default” and not for the individual underlying Error Types, or you can indicate specific stakeholders for specific errors (other than the stakeholder stated as the Default one). You simply locate the row that contains the error in question and select the “Edit” option for that row.
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Specify who the stakeholder is for that particular error code:
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Customised error codes
(Demo in webinar Link for Developers chapter 6 - Error codes)
With the right user rights Link allows you to setup error codes that fits your organisation.
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You will now be presented with a list of Stakeholders in a data grid. You can read the Using data grids general article to learn about how to work with this.
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You can now edit a Stakeholder by clicking “Edit” on the corresponding row or create a new one by clicking the '+' sign.
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Here you can give the Stakeholder a name, description and associate e-mail information.
The four different types of e-mail information will be described below.
This the the standard e-mail address of the Stakeholder. E-mails for this Stakeholder will always be sent to this address.
Email Urgent
If this field is filled out with an e-mail address and the “Is urgent” option is selected when Setting up error-handling rules, another e-mail will be sent out to this address.
Often, Link customers choose to associate an SMS-gateway with this e-mail, the purpose being that urgent notifications are read as fast as possible.
Email Cc
If this field is filled out with an e-mail address, this will be included as ‘cc’ receiver on the mail sent to the standard e-mail.
Email Bcc
If this field is filled out with an e-mail address, this will be included as ‘bcc’ receiver on the mail sent to the standard e-mail.
After having set up your Stakeholders, you can now continue with Setting up error-handling rules.