Oracle E-Business Suite and SFTP / Flat Files integration

What moves between them

Data flows from Oracle E-Business Suite to SFTP / Flat Files. The connector polls your EBS instance at a schedule you define, retrieves open invoices, purchase orders, GL journals, vendors, and items from the REST interface, and transforms them into the structured format your trading partner requires. The files are uploaded to the SFTP server's outbound folder and marked as processed. Inbound files from your trading partner can optionally be polled from the SFTP inbound folder and imported back into EBS via concurrent programs. GL journals are read-only; they flow outbound only.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores your EBS hostname, port, username, and password encrypted, and your SFTP hostname, port, and SSH key encrypted. It authenticates to EBS via HTTP Basic Auth or session token (re-authenticating when tokens expire after 30 to 60 minutes), and retrieves records from the open interface views (AP_INVOICES_ALL, PO_HEADERS_ALL, PO_LINES_ALL, GL_JE_HEADERS, GL_JE_LINES, PO_VENDORS, GL_CODE_COMBINATIONS). On the SFTP side, it establishes an SSH connection with host key verification to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, and uses your SSH key to authenticate. The connector transforms EBS REST responses into the column order and CSV or X12 format your partner expects, handles file naming conventions per partner spec, and produces X12 997 or EDIFACT CONTRL acknowledgments for received files. It tracks which invoices and orders have been sent via sequence numbers so no record is sent twice, and retries on network failures or SFTP timeouts with exponential backoff. Every file movement and transformation is logged with a full audit trail.

A real-world example

A mid-sized distributor runs Oracle E-Business Suite for financials and procurement and sends daily invoices and PO confirmations to multiple EDI trading partners via SFTP. Before the integration, the accounts payable and procurement teams manually exported invoices and orders from EBS each night, transformed them into the CSV or X12 format each partner required, and uploaded the files to the partner's SFTP server. Order exceptions and invoice errors discovered downstream required manual re-keying in EBS to fix. With Oracle EBS and SFTP / Flat Files connected, each night's close automatically exports the day's open invoices and orders from EBS, transforms them into each partner's expected format, and deposits them on the correct SFTP server. Partners receive files in the right format with no manual steps, and errors in the source EBS data are caught by the flow validation before files are sent.

What you can do

• •Poll your Oracle E-Business Suite instance on a schedule you set and export open invoices, purchase orders, GL journals, vendors, and items to SFTP as CSV or X12 EDI files.
• •Transform EBS REST data into the column layout and file format your SFTP partner requires, with no manual file mapping or re-keying.
• •Authenticate to EBS via HTTP Basic Auth with automatic session token refresh, and to SFTP via SSH with key-based or password authentication and host key verification.
• •Handle X12 997 and EDIFACT CONTRL acknowledgments for received files, and track sent records by sequence number to prevent duplicates.
• •Log every file operation, transformation, and authentication event with a full audit trail, and retry failed uploads with exponential backoff.

Questions

Does Oracle E-Business Suite support webhooks to notify the connector of new invoices or orders?

No. Oracle E-Business Suite has no modern webhook system for cloud connectors. The Workflow Business Event System can fire internal events, but outbound routing requires Oracle SOA Suite or Oracle Integration Cloud as separate middleware. The recommended and practical approach is scheduled polling of the open interface views filtered by LAST_UPDATE_DATE.

What happens when an EBS session token expires?

EBS session tokens expire after 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your configuration. ml-connector catches the 401 response, discards the expired token, and re-authenticates using HTTP Basic Auth to get a new token. The interrupted operation is retried automatically, so you see no gap in the flow.

How does the connector ensure files are not sent twice to the SFTP partner?

ml-connector tracks which invoices and orders have been sent by recording their EBS sequence numbers and the SFTP file name in the audit log. On the next poll, it compares the open invoices and orders in EBS against the sent list and only exports new records or records that have changed since the last successful export. This prevents duplicate files on the SFTP server.