Input Data Adaptor Overview
The Input Data Adaptor reads preventive maintenance data from external source systems, transforms it to the PTC Orbit Canonical Data Model, and loads it into Snowflake for use by Demand Forecasting, the Maintenance Forecasting Engine, and the Maintenance Performance Dashboard.
Demand forecasting and maintenance analytics in PTC Orbit require clean, normalized data from PM Plans, Schedules, and Coverage records. Different source systems store this data in different schemas and formats. The Input Data Adaptor is the translation layer that bridges a source system and the PTC Orbit Canonical Data Model (CDM).
An implementer deploys and configures the adaptor once. After initial setup, the adaptor runs on a schedule; keeping the CDM up to date with changes in the source system without ongoing manual effort.
The Input Data Adaptor is specific to its source system. For this release, the supported source is ServiceMax Core (Salesforce). The adaptor authenticates to Salesforce, extracts the PM objects defined in the CDM, transforms each extracted record to the CDM schema, and loads the result into Snowflake staging tables.
All PTC Orbit features that rely on maintenance data; Demand Forecasting, the Maintenance Forecasting Engine for Recurring PM Plans, and the Maintenance Performance Dashboard; consume data from the CDM. The adaptor is therefore a prerequisite for those features to display accurate results.
How It Works
The adaptor is implemented as a Matillion ELT pipeline called the PM Data Sync Framework (PMDF). A single master pipeline orchestrates four extraction and load stages in sequence.
• Stage 1: PM Plans and PM Plan Templates.
• Stage 2: Schedule Rules; PM Schedule Definitions and PM Schedule Templates.
• Stage 3: PM Schedules (upfront, confirmed visits).
• Stage 4: Children; PM Coverage, PM Process, PM Expressions, Work History, and Applicable Products.
Each stage uses the modular-salesforce-input-v2 Matillion connector to read records from Salesforce and write them into Snowflake DEV_*_PREDB_SYNC_STAGE tables. The pipeline supports three load modes.
• AUTO (default): Detects configuration changes and selects FULL or INCREMENTAL automatically.
• FULL: Performs a complete data refresh, replacing all existing records in the staging tables.
• INCREMENTAL: Syncs only records changed since the last run, using the Salesforce LastModifiedDate field.
Supported Source Systems
For this release, ServiceMax Core is the supported source system. The adaptor connects to Salesforce through an External Client App configured with the OAuth Client Credentials Flow. Future releases will extend support to additional source systems.
Considerations
The following list represents important considerations when configuring input data adaptors.
• PM Plans, PM Coverages, PM Schedules, PM Schedule Definitions, and related objects must exist in ServiceMax Core before the adaptor can extract data.
• The Max platform must have Data Ingestion Mode set to Direct Sync for each target CDM object, and the Snowflake PreDB Sync staging tables must be created before the first pipeline run.
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