Entity Client Overview/Troubleshooting Tips

The Entity Client is one component of the integration process between the AS/400 (SunPac/ISIS) and the North Carolina E-Procurement Service. The Entity Client runs as a service on a designated computer at your LEA. It passes requisitions, purchase orders, invoices and vendors between E-Procurement and your financial system. Your entity client has message folders for Requisition, Order, Invoice and Vendor information. The messages are stored in the inbox, outbox, archive (SunPac only) or error folders (depending on the type of message) until the entity client is able to transfer them into SunPac/ISIS or out to the E-Procurement System. The process of transferring these messages in and out of your AS/400 is activated by the scheduled batch jobs that were setup during your E-Procurement interface setup. The recommended settings allow your LEA to pass these messages as follows: requisitions every 10 minutes; vendor messages (updates) nightly; invoice information weekly. Purchase Orders are passed to E-Procurement once they are printed (SunPac) or approved (ISIS).
 
For example, requisitions that are created in the E-Procurement service will pass into the Requisition message inbox and will be swept into SunPac/ISIS when the automatic batch process runs. These folders are setup on your AS/400 and can be accessed by mapping a drive to the AS/400 as the example below shows.
 
X://(LEA's Internal IP Address)/Messages
/Vendor
    /Inbox
    /Archive (SunPac only)
    /Error
/Requisition
    /Inbox
    /Archive (SunPac only)
    /Error
/Order (POs)
    /Outbox
    /Archive (SunPac only)
    /Error
/Invoice (Payment)
    /Outbox
    /Archive (SunPac only)
    /Error
 
In the event that you encounter a missing requisition or purchase order, there are several steps the help desk may ask you to perform to troubleshoot the issue. These steps should include checking the status of your Entity Client to make sure it is running, as well as making sure your AS/400 Netserver is running. When working with the help desk, you may be asked to review messages in the above folders on the AS/400 in order to determine the status of your requisition or purchase order. Your system administrator may also be asked to retrieve logs from the entity client to help our technical teams track and resolve the issue.