RE: Looking for ideas

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Paul Nelson
>
> When a purchase order is created, or an existing one is updated,
> send an email to the vendor telling him to go to a specified URL
> and enter his pre-assigned ID and password, along with the P.O.
> number assigned to him. Display a "form" showing the details of
> the P.O. If he can ship the entire order, allow him to check a
> box at the top that automatically checks off each line item. If
> he cannot ship the complete order, check the ones he can ship.
> Allow him to indicate which lines will be back ordered, and to
> indicate the date on which he'll be able to ship. When the vendor
> clicks the submit button, initiate a program that picks up the
> vendor's responses and output a file that can then be sent back
> to the acknowledgement system.
>
> I'm looking for any and all suggestions that can run on the
> iSeries platform. The customer has 2 machines that are
> under-utilized, and he wants to put one of them to use. (He's
> trying to fight off the encroachment of ORACLE into his company).

Paul, all of this can be done from the iSeries quite easily.  There are a
number of free and shareware sendmail programs that will allow you to send
the appropriate email.  Create an email where the body has a link to a web
application, with the order number as a parameter in the URL.

The web application itself would be a piece of cake.  I'd write it with
servlets and JSP, but if Java or WebSphere is a problem, you can certainly
use RPG CGI.  Include the order number in the URL, and then verify that the
order belongs to the user ID that logs on.  Use a validation list rather
than OS/400 passwords and profiles; this is much more secure.  Throw up the
appropriate HTML, and away you go.  Oh, for the "auto-click" where clicking
a box at the top in turn clicks all the boxes on the page, David Gibbs did
something like this in one of his web interfaces; if he's unable to share
that code, I'm sure it's not that difficult.

If you don't want to include the order number, you could also simply have a
file that cross-references user IDs to open orders.  If only one order
exists, show it, otherwise show a selection panel.

Does this help at all?

Joe