HighJump Software
HighJump Software, a 3M company, is the largest,
most successful, and most experienced
provider of sales and distribution
software for direct store and
direct home delivery of consumer
packaged goods in the world.
Their Synergy/DE-based route
accounting application, SDMS,
helps beverage distributors
efficiently manage every step
of the order-to-delivery cycle,
from order entry and fulfillment
to vehicle loading, delivery,
route settlement, and financials.
Recently one of HighJump ’s customers
needed to obtain real-time pricing
and promotions information from
their parent company, which was
in a different location, on a
different computer, and using
different software. Previously
this type of information had
been calculated and stored independently
by each division (in this customer’s
case, in their SDMS database).
However, the parent company decided
to centralize this information
for all of their divisions and
created a set of Web services
to supply prices and promotions
through XML requests. HighJump ’s
challenge was to get SDMS to
call on these Web services, while
making sure the order entry programs
continued to function as they
had before.
HighJump was able to accomplish the
Web integration using the Synergy
XML API and the Synergy HTTP
document transport API. By following
examples in the Synergex CodeExchange,
they quickly wrote a routine
to exchange data with the parent
company’s system. The %HTTP_CLIENT_POST
routine enabled them to easily
send XML request documents to
the Web services and receive
XML response documents. They
recorded the sent and received
data using the log file option
(“a great tool for debugging,” says
SDMS Chief Architect John Getgood).
They also added routines that
obtained the pricing and promotions
data from the Web services rather
than the SDMS tables. These new
routines returned the data in
the same form as the SDMS tables,
so all other parts of the shared
routines could continue operating
as before. The overall access
to external pricing was flag-controlled
to allow the software to operate
with either SDMS or external
pricing.
The new pricing interface was
installed at the customer site,
and the customer is very satisfied
with the results. Up-to-the-minute
pricing and promotions information
is now coming from the parent
system without affecting the
users.
HighJump’s development team
is also very satisfied with the
process. “The Synergy HTTP
API made this functionality possible,
and the XML API saved us a lot
of time,” states Getgood. “Using
these tools made developing the
pricing subroutines a very straightforward
process. Prior to Synergy/DE
version 8, we had to write our
own procedures to create XML
documents. The new XML routines
took care of this automatically
and also made handling the response
XML documents much simpler.”
HighJump intends to apply this new
knowledge to other upcoming projects. “With
XML becoming more of a standard,
it’s great to have these
tools at our disposal,” comments
Getgood. “It really opens
up the possibilities for communication
between our SDMS users and their
customers and suppliers.”
Getgood concludes, “Our
SDMS software was first written
over 20 years ago and has always
run on OpenVMS—first
VAX, then Alpha, and in the future,
Itanium. Using new language features
like HTTP and XML has allowed
our product to evolve over time
and keep up with current technologies.”
About HighJump Software
HighJump Software's suite
of products is designed to streamline
the entire order-to-cash cycle
for wholesalers that provide
direct delivery of products to
stores, offices, and homes. HighJump
helps these organizations respond
rapidly to changes in demand,
often day to day or even hour
to hour, delivering world-class
integration of processes throughout
the supply chain while exploiting
the benefits of a mobile computing
platform. The company's solutions
are designed to handle complex
order management, customer service,
distribution, asset tracking,
and workforce automation, and
to address the issues presented
by direct store delivery (DSD),
direct home delivery (DHD), and
vendor managed inventory (VMI).
