Use this activity to define an external file type header in the External Files toolkit.
A file type is always associated with a specific component and it defines
the data structure of the file in terms of record types and available column
data for each record type.
Normally the file type is associated with a specific
interface in the component. The interface must be built to handle input and/or
output files. In the first case the interface must be able to fetch the file
data, the external transactions, read and unpacked by the External Files toolkit.
In the latter case the interface has to create output data and send it to the
External Files toolkit that then takes care of the formatting and output.
The external file type describes both; the data that the interface can handle
and how this data can be structured in the file.
A special case is when a file type is created via a view definition. Then the view itself will be used when reading data and a general interface in the External Files toolkit will be used to handle the retrieved data and formatting it before writing it to an output file.
A complete file type definition consists of the following:
During installation some pre-defined system file types will be installed. These file types along with the pre-defined file templates makes it possible to access external files, structured according to the pre-defined definitions, more or less directly after installation. Typical supported interfaces are:
All pre-defined file types are system defined and cannot be modified. If e.g. the External Vouchers Interface in Accounting Rules is used then this interface only knows about the system defined file type associated with this interface. If a copy of a system define file type is made then this file type can be modified freely and accessed via the general External File Assistant.
None.
After having defined an external file type, an external file template must be defined that is associated with the file type. When this is done it is possible to test if the definitions can be used to process e.g. an input file, either by using the External File Assistant or the External File Transactions pages.