Plex to EDGEBIC: The Data Mapping Reference

Mapping Plex data into EDGEBIC is a column-mapping exercise rather than a development project: you export items, work centers, routings, open orders, and optionally logged hours to Excel or CSV, then drag each source column heading onto the matching EDGEBIC field once and save it as a reusable import mask. This reference lists what maps to what, which columns are mandatory, how unit conversion and blank cells behave, and what every row outcome means when a run finishes.

EDGEBIC by User Solutions integrates with Plex through those masks rather than a certified connector, so nothing is installed inside the ERP and a cloud release has nothing to break. If you have not read the end-to-end version, start with the complete Plex integration guide. This post is the lookup table you keep open while building masks.

The load order

Import in dependency order. Later files reference records that earlier files created.

Two entity types have no Plex origin and are built from a spreadsheet you write yourself: Shift (one row per shift with a start and end pair per weekday, a blank pair meaning the day is off) and PlantHoliday (closures by name and date). These two define the calendar every date is computed against, so they deserve ten careful minutes rather than five.

Auto-create is on by default, so a routing file naming a work center that has not been imported yet creates it on the fly. That is a useful safety net and a poor strategy: an auto-created work center has a name and nothing else, meaning one machine, no shift assignment, and no efficiency. Load the work center file properly first.

Items to Product

Only the item name is required. Everything else can arrive later through a second, narrower refresh file, because blank cells preserve existing values on an update run. Watch identifier formatting across exports: matching ignores case but not leading zeros or suffixes, so make every export render the item number the same way.

Work centers to Workcenter

This is the file where scheduling accuracy is won or lost, because it carries capacity.

Number_Of_Instances is the highest-value column on the page and the one most Plex exports do not carry, because ERP data models generally describe a work center as a capacity figure rather than a count of machines. A cell of two identical machines imported with one instance produces a plan roughly twice too long, and it fails quietly: nothing errors, the dates are simply wrong. Fill it deliberately for every multi-machine center. The arithmetic is in how EDGEBIC calculates work center capacity.

If your export expresses capacity as an available-hours figure that already embeds a machine count, do not carry that number into Capacity unchanged while also setting instances, or you will count the same capacity twice. Pick one representation: instances plus the shift calendar is the one the engine reasons about best.

Machine pools have no export column

Planners think in pools of interchangeable machines, and EDGEBIC models that as a work center group. The membership is not a static assignment: a routing step bound to a group re-evaluates every member on each reschedule, picks by strategy (earliest completion, primary first, or earliest start), and applies a per-member efficiency factor so a slower machine is chosen only when it still finishes first. Operations already started keep the machine they started on, because recorded work is never moved.

None of that fits in an export column. Import the members as ordinary work centers, then create the group inside EDGEBIC and add them: a one-time configuration per pool, and one of the settings that most changes what the schedule looks like. See how to create work center groups.

Routings to BOR

Op_Flag is the field people get wrong first. True means "this row is an operation running on a work center." False means "this row is a component consumed at this point in the routing." Mixing them produces a routing full of work centers that are actually parts, and it is visible immediately in the graphical designer.

Why the import takes two passes

A routing cannot be written row by row, because op 10 must point at op 20 and op 20 does not exist yet. So the import runs in two passes. Pass one validates each row, resolves or creates the items and work centers it names, and buffers the row. Pass two groups the buffer by end product, sorts by sequence number, writes the steps, and wires the chain: 10 to 20, 20 to 30, and the terminal step to the finished item so the routing renders connected. Check that visually after the first import: a routing missing its final link draws as a chain floating free of the item it builds.

Two rules follow from the same mechanism. All of one item's steps must travel in one file, because a run wipes and recreates that item's steps on first reference, and splitting across two runs means the second wipe deletes the first run's work. And re-importing is safe for running orders, because every scheduled job carries a frozen snapshot of the routing it was planned with.

A high-volume plant that also runs short-run work usually names those work centers differently, and the routing import wires both correctly as long as each step names a center exactly as the work center file loaded it. Load the work center file first so every center exists with its real instance count.

Orders to SalesOrder

Two mask options control the date logic when the export carries only one date: one treats the job date as the due date, the other derives the job date backward from the due date. Choose the one matching how your export is built, once, on the mask.

Actuals

Job number, work center name, and actual date are mandatory (Job_Number, WorkCenter_Name, Actual_Date). Hours and pieces (Actual_Hours, Actual_Pieces) are both optional, and either can be derived from the other using the operation's rate, which suits a high-volume plant that counts pieces more naturally than hours.

The import always overwrites the days a file carries, so re-running a corrected extract fixes the numbers rather than doubling them. Days a file does not mention are preserved unless you explicitly ask for them to be cleared. Actuals import last, because each row has to find an operation on a job that is already scheduled.

Conversions, blanks, and zeros

Different columns in the same file can carry different factors, so a routing export mixing per-lot run times with per-changeover setup minutes lands correctly in a single run.

Reading the outcomes

Every row resolves to Created, Updated, Reused, or Failed. Reused is the default for a record that already exists, so a weekly item file of 9,000 rows reporting Created 15, Reused 8,985 is the desired result rather than a failure. When counts look wrong, the per-run log file carries one line per row with the exact reason for every failure.

What import cannot bring, and why it matters

The settings that most differentiate a schedule have no column in any ERP export: the sequence-dependent setup matrix, operator skills, work center group strategies, bottleneck anchoring, and lot streaming transfer batches. Those are configured once in EDGEBIC and then apply to every imported order afterward, which is exactly why a high-volume plant that also runs short-run work can plan both streams together without changing the import. The EDGEBIC product overview maps the engine, and the ERP integration architecture explains why one mask design serves every ERP.

The IQMS / DELMIAworks and ProShop references show how little the method changes from one platform to the next, and the ERP scheduling add-on page frames the category.