ECM SaaS

We are currently running ECM on-prem but we are exploring the move the EPICOR SaaS.

At the moment, we have a lot of data links in our workflows that query the database directly. Presumably we cannot do this in the cloud, so what is the alternative to this? I am thinking probably executing BAQ’s through REST instead?

Also, we have some batch imports that import emails this runs on an ECM client on our server, what is the alternative here. Do we allocate a workstation server on site to run these batch imports?

Anyone else out there moved from on-prem to SasS got any tips or tricks or other gotchas’s to look out for?

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How timely… Someone answer his questions, I may need to know! :rofl:

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data links via rest using BAQs

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I am also interested in the gotchyas though!

Honestly, you’ve answered your own questions with the correct answers. I’m on prem, so I might not have all the answers, but

Datalinks from the cloud - nope (unless I’ve totally missed something new). Writing new API datalinks to run BAQs - reasonable solution. Depending on the Saas setup, Azure actually allows a data gateway setup that allows the cloud resources to make direct calls to an on-prem DB, but I’m not sure IF/how Epicor implements that for customers.

Batch Imports - the standard ECM client uses and HTTPs conenction, so all you need is a client on-prem to handle that. Plus a client or two in the SaaS to handle all the other workflow offloads - but I think Epicor handles that as a shared resource.

As for other limits - someone in the cloud would have to answer that.

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Datalinks can be recreated with the JSON Web Service option which uses the REST API calls that Epicor runs on. Depending on what your SQL call were doing you may need to get creative with the JSON call definitions.

EDIT: The above assumes that you’re Epicor is SaaS. If your Epicor instance is OnPrem then you can still use SQL datalinks regardless of if you are ECM SaaS or ECM OnPrem. It all depends on where you’re connecting to, not from.

The ECM Client is still required to be a local installation so your batch settings shouldn’t be impacted at all.

As far as things to look out for, the first thing that jumps to mind is ensuring that your ECM Client is updated after a new version release of ECM. If the two aren’t on the same version then you will lose functionality. It’s a simple thing to fix and often the auto-update works, but not always.

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Thank you for highlighting this!

We are SAAS ECM and on Prem Kinetic. We connect directly to our database for reading information and it just calls a normal SQL call. If goes through the same install that the batch import stuff does, so as long as the server that the utility is installed on can get to the server that has the SQL it works.

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just to clarify @Banderson, the ECM client on-prem handles the SQL call for the datalinks? I think I saw something like that in the ECM config page, but never really paid attention b/c I’m on-prem with both.

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Correct. When you set it up, you can select the machines that have the client on it. Then you can make your normal SQL connection string with a user and PW. Once you have that setup, you can configure SQL calls with parameters.

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Ah that’s right! Thank you for bringing this tidbit up!

All great feedback. Thanks everyone. We are looking to move ERP and ECM to SaaS so REST Call will be the way to go for the datalinks I think.

We are early days in this process and still may decide to remain on-prem (at least for now) but it’s useful to be prepared.

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