What it is. Boomerang exports and imports JD Edwards Objects (grouped by OMW Projects, not by Packages) between FAT clients — across systems, across JDE releases, into and out of Standalone, and with all language translations included in a single file.

What it’s used for. Four core jobs, in roughly that order of popularity:

1. JDE Upgrades — bring custom Objects across to the new release without freezing development in the old one, often replacing the SPEC Merge entirely.
2. Software Distribution — package a JDE solution once, ship it to customers on any supported release, in any language. Used for that purpose by Oracle, Deloitte, QSoftware, Capgemini and many others.
3. Backup & Versioning — daily snapshots of in-flight development, roll-back of broken Objects after ESUs, multi-revision archives.
4. Remote Development — develop on a Standalone or sandbox system anywhere in the world, then send the work back into the central system in one click.

How it compares to Product Packaging. Boomerang works with OMW Projects (not Packages) and uses local FAT-client specs. The result, for a representative test case — exporting P4210 — is roughly 2 minutes and a 1 MB file with Boomerang, versus about an hour and a 10 MB file with Product Packaging. Standalone JDE is fully supported as both source and destination.

For Upgrade Teams

The conventional JDE upgrade requires freezing development in the source system between SPEC Merge and go-live — typically months. Boomerang removes that constraint.

How upgrade teams use it:

• Bring Objects across on demand. Export the OMW Projects you actually care about from the old release; import them into the new one. Selectively, cleanly, and at the moment of your choosing.
• No development freeze. The old release stays open for normal development right up to decommissioning, because Boomerang can bring forward whatever lands there in the meantime.
• Replace SPEC Merge. Many customers use Boomerang to copy custom Objects directly into the new system instead of running SPEC Merge as part of the Upgrade Plan. The target system ends up cleaner and the upgrade finishes sooner.
• Cross-release in both directions. Boomerang is the only tool on the market that copies Objects from XE / ERP8 up to E8.9 / E810 / E811 (incl. SP1) / E812 / E900 / E910 / E920 — and the other way. Functionality from a newer release can be down-ported into an older one to extend its useful life.
• Spec-true exports. Every export contains the full set of Object specs, including Version security, Data Selection, Vocabulary Overrides, Processing Options, all bitmaps and icons, and all language translations — not just one. A single Boomerang Package serves customers regardless of which language(s) they run.
• Real cost savings. Saved development time, no parallel maintenance of frozen branches, smaller and cleaner target systems, faster upgrades.

Pair Boomerang with our other upgrade tools: Processing Option Commander, Data Selection Commander and Update Queue Names In Versions.

For Developers

Boomerang is built around how developers actually work, not around how the SPEC-Merge-era distribution model wants them to work.

What it gives you:

• Remote development. Develop wherever you can run a JDE FAT Client — in a sandbox, on a Standalone, on a laptop on a plane — then send the work back into the central system as a single small file.
• Standalone-friendly. Boomerang exports and imports against Standalone JDE just as cleanly as against the full Client/Server system, and fixes the usual out-of-the-box Standalone CNC misconfigurations on the fly so it’s actually usable for development.
• Object Backup & Restore. Treat Export as a “multi-Save” — save the same Object multiple times into different files. Before an ESU or Update, back up the Objects you suspect may be affected; if anything breaks, roll back from the backup. Or apply the ESU on a crash-and-burn system, cherry-pick what you actually need, and import just that into Production.
• Versioning. Take Export snapshots of the same Objects at successive revisions; import any revision back at any time. A typical Project with several large interactive programs compresses to roughly 1 MB in under 2 minutes — small enough to keep daily snapshots without thinking about disk.
• Code library & reuse. Build a personal toolbox of exported partial or complete Objects and snippets; import a ready piece of code and use it as the base for the next customisation.
• Visual ER Compare workflow. Create a fresh copy of the original Object in Standalone under the same name as your modified version, export it with Boomerang, import into the live system on a client (which only overwrites the local specs), then compare local against Central Objects. Erase the check-out and the local copy is discarded — the system is back to where it started.
• Local-specs unique. Boomerang is the only software on the market that works directly with the local specs on the client computer — meaning your actions only affect your workstation until you check in. Testing is dramatically simpler, and nothing in the Central Objects database changes until you say so. Product Packaging files, by contrast, must be installed on the Deployment Server and affect Central Objects immediately.
• Take the code with you. Where contract and local law permit, developers can keep a personal copy of the code they wrote — or take it home for further off-site work.

For ISVs & Consultants

Boomerang is the de-facto distribution mechanism for native-JDE software. Almost all major JDE solutions developed in the native toolset ship as Boomerang Packages.

Why ISVs use it:

• Develop once, ship many. A single Boomerang Package, taking a few minutes to produce, installs on any OMW-enabled release of OneWorld / EnterpriseOne and includes every language translation. Boomerang Lite (free) means customers don’t need a Boomerang licence to receive the package.
• The numbers. Doing the same with Product Packaging means producing one ASU stream per release (4) times one copy per supported language (24) — 96 ASUs. At one hour each with one person dedicated, that’s over 2 weeks of work, often only completing just in time for the next release to start the cycle over. The Boomerang equivalent is one package.
• A Boomerang Package is a re-usable component. Conceptually closer to a re-usable OCX Control than to an installation set — the same functionality, developed once, shipped to many.
• Used by the firms you’d expect. Oracle, Deloitte, QSoftware, Capgemini and many others use Boomerang for software distribution.
• Off-site & remote development. The same “take the code with you” properties that help in-house developers help consultants double down — develop in your office or at home, deploy at the customer site.
• Competitive bids. Implementation proposals that price in Boomerang-based remote development and distribution are materially cheaper to deliver, which sharpens your bid economics.

For IT & CNC

Boomerang is a JDE FAT-client utility. From a CNC perspective, it is about as low-risk as a JDE tool gets.

Architecture:

• JDE API based. Boomerang uses OneWorld / EnterpriseOne APIs for almost all tasks. Because EnterpriseOne does the actual work, Boomerang inherits JDE’s back-end hardware and database independence — if EnterpriseOne can work with an Object, Boomerang can too.
• No back-door data access. No direct ODBC reads or writes against the JDE tables. Every action is performed by EnterpriseOne.
• Self-configuring. No manual configuration; saves roughly half a day to a day of setup time compared with Product Packaging.
• Standalone CNC fix-up. Boomerang transparently corrects the misconfigurations that ship in out-of-the-box Standalone, so it can be used for OMW operations — without changing the central system.

Security:

• Same login and the same security layer as any other EnterpriseOne application — full Development access is required to use Boomerang; ordinary users cannot.
• Imported Versions retain their original security settings.
• All actions are logged by the OMW logging engine, because EnterpriseOne is doing the work.
• Installing a Boomerang Package displays a full list of every Object it contains — comparable to an Impact Analysis — and Objects can be selected or deselected before Import.

Footprint: per-user, FAT-client only. No deployment-server install, no server-side software, no changes to the central JDE configuration.

OS: Microsoft Windows (x32 or x64)
OS Versions: 2003 / XP and up
OS Editions: Workstation or Server, excluding Home Edition
CPU: Intel or AMD (x32 or x64)
System Type: Physical (preferred) or Virtual (see Remote Use in the Guide)
JDE Releases: XE (B7333), ERP8 (B7334), B9 (E1 8.9), E810, E811 (including E811 SP1), E812, E900, E910, E920
JDE Tools Releases (pre-Unicode): SP16 – SP25
JDE Tools Releases (Unicode): TR891 – TR925x

Note: since TR923x, the JDE Fat Client can be installed in either x32 or x64 bitness. The original Boomerang requires x32. This does not refer to the bitness of the OS or to the x64 conversion status of the PathCode — you can run under an x64 OS and have the target PathCode converted to x64 — but you must select x32 Foundation when building the Package and deploy it to create an x32 Fat Client installation in order to use Boomerang.

Note: a newer version of Boomerang (Nov-2020) for x64 clients is required when the JDE client is running in x64. The x64 JDE introduced additional incompatibilities, and a new Boomerang Package format (BG3) addresses these. The support matrix for the three available file formats:

JDE Backend Hardware Platforms: hardware-independent — all platforms supported by JDE are supported
JDE Backend Database Platforms: database-independent — all platforms supported by JDE are supported
Client Machine Software Requirements: a pre-existing functional JDE Fat Client installation, including any necessary DB connectivity clients and the MS Access ODBC drivers
Client Machine Hardware Requirements: no requirements beyond JDE Fat Client MTRs; will benefit from any additional capacity

• “I’ve got to say that even though I’ve only been dealing with you for a day, you’ve already given me the best support I’ve had from anyone in quite a while.
  
  You can definitely count on me to be recommending you to several others in the immediate future.
  
  Thanks again.”
• “Two years ago we upgraded to XE and the problem was that all development work was halted for the 3 months between the Spec Merge and the go-live.
  
  Following the Spec Merge, we found objects (custom and pristine) that were missing.
  
  We used Boomerang to bring them into EnterpriseOne 8.9 very easily. There was no halt in development.”
• “Boomerang is proving excellent value for money and an absolute God-send for what I have been tasked with!”
• “I would just like to say how delighted I am with Boomerang. I have really put it through its paces this week and it has consistently delivered the goods.
  
  Congratulations on a great product!”
• “We used Boomerang extensively for our XE to ERP8 upgrade.
  
  Because we did not have the luxury of stopping development in XE during the upgrade, it was necessary that we bring any object changes into the upgrade environment, so that those changes would be migrated when the time came.
  
  Now we are using Boomerang to help harmonize our American and European instances into one single JDE instance.
  
  It would have been much more difficult to do either of these activities without your software.”

This software is licensed Per Named Machine over the Internet (the legacy hardware-dongle licensing is still supported and is also available).

The optional Yearly Update / Upgrade Subscription is available at the time of purchase (not available separately) for an additional yearly fee. It is payable in advance per licence, per year. It includes premium support and all software updates released during the paid period. Its cost is calculated as 20% of the product’s list price at the time of invoicing, as may change from time to time. Unless the software is purchased for a single, short-term application, we generally recommend opting in for this Subscription: any future JDE Tools Releases and Releases / Updates may require an updated version of this solution, and the Subscription is generally more cost-efficient than one-off Upgrades.