SAP Community - SAP BTP, ABAP environment

Consume SAP BTP Document Information Extraction service for custom documents in ABAP

2024-08-24T11:47:39.793000+02:00

Welcome folks!

This is the third and final blog in the series End-To-End : Consume SAP BTP AI Service (Document Information Extraction) from ABAP

As the first step, you must have completed Part 1 : Setup BTP Trial Account and subscribe to Document Information Extraction service

As the second step, you must have completed Part 2 : Setup and configure custom documents on Document Information Extraction service on SAP BTP

Now that we have everything set and ready on the BTP service layer, we will proceed to consuming the service (Document Information Extraction) from ABAP layer.

Let us first outline the actions that are required to achieve this.

Note critical information from BTP Service layer (Service Key)
Set up connectivity between ABAP and BTP service layers through RFC (SM59)
Upload file on ABAP layer for Extraction
Authenticate from ABAP to BTP service layer
Send File from ABAP to BTP service layer
Receive Extraction Results from BTP service to ABAP layer

Note critical information from BTP Service layer (Service Key)

Go to Trial Home.
Navigate to the Subaccount.
Click Instances and Subscriptions

Go to Application Document Information Extraction from the Instances tab.
Click Credentials Key

Credentials popup will appear. Click Form tab.

Important: Note down following information from this screen.
We will need it later when we call the service from ABAP layer.
- Service url
- swagger endpoint url
- uaa : clientid
- uaa : clientsecret
- uaa : authentication url (note without https://)

Set up connectivity between ABAP and BTP service layers through RFC (SM59)

Call TCODE SM59 to setup an RFC destination with the BTP Service
Create a new connection with type G (HTTP connection to external server)
Name : BTP_DIE_CONNECT (you may give any name, we will need this later)

Enter Description
In the Technical Settings Tab, enter values from the previously noted information
- Enter Host = uaa : authentication url
- Port 443
In the Logon & Security Tab, enter values from the previously noted information
- Radiobutton : Basic Authentication
- User = uaa : clientid
- Password = uaa : clientsecret
- SSL > Set to Active
Save the connection
Click Connection Test

Successful Connection Test screen will appear.
We have successfully established connection between ABAP and BTP service layer using our unique service key.

Now, as the connectivity is set up, we will begin the real fun - coding our way into consuming the service from custom ABAP program.

We will create a custom program through SE38
We will use local class and methods in the program
We will not go into the basics of ABAP programming, classes, methods etc. as part of this blog.
We will look into the program sections in logical partitions and the flow of execution to understand what each part of the program does and why.

Just as a reminder of what we are trying to achieve, we are going to upload below file using a custom program and extract the information of the mapped fields using the Document Information Extraction (BTP AI Service) on Trial account.

In case you have directly stumbled upon this blog and have not got the background of our end to end use case, I suggest you to refer the series End-To-End : Consume SAP BTP AI Service (Document Information Extraction) from ABAP of which, this is the third and final blog.

Upload File:

Program Result:

Upload file on ABAP layer for Extraction

Set a selection screen parameter and use method cl_gui_frontend_services=>file_open_dialog to browser the pdf file (marksheet) from the presentation layer (desktop).
Use method cl_gui_frontend_services=>gui_upload to get the BIN (binary) file type content uploaded in to the internal table.
Use Function Module SCMS_BINARY_TO_XSTRING to convert uploaded binary content into XSTRING variable, say l_file_content.

Create a local class, say lcl_doc_extract and define methods to:

Authenticate
Send file to BTP
Get Template Details
Post Document
Check Job Status

We will implement these methods subsequently.

Authenticate from ABAP to BTP service layer

Call authenticate method of the local class.
- Call method cl_http_client=>create_by_destination to set connection with RFC destination created previously, i.e. BTP_DIE_CONNECT and receive HTTP client in a local variable of type reference to if_http_client, say lo_client.
- Set header fields for 'POST' call, grant_type as 'client_credentials' and request_uri as '/oauth/token?grant_type=client_credentials'.
- Call methods send( ) and receive( ).
- Check response status with lo_client->response->get_status( ).
- In case of successful response, status 200, get the value of "access_token" from the response into a local variable, say lv_oauth.
- If authentication is successful, proceed to next steps, else give appropriate error message based on the http response.

Send File from ABAP to BTP service layer

Call Send file to BTP method of the local class.
We have created the Template and Schema in the previous steps of our blog series. Programatically, first we need to get the Template ID and Schema ID for our use case which will be used to call the API to get extraction details later.
Call Get Template Details method of the local class.
- Use cl_http_client=>create_by_url method to create an HTTP client to call the API endpoint - Get Template (Refer API Documentation)
- Set header fields for 'GET' call, request_uri as concatenation of swagger url from BTP API Service Key i.e. '/document-information-extraction/v1' and URL endpoint path '/templates'.
- Get a record from Response JSON with name (Template Name) as 'Template_Marksheet' (previously created in our use case in this blog series). Save corresponding id as template_id and schemaId as schema_id in local variables. We will need these in next steps.

Now that we have required uploaded PDF file content (l_file_content), Authentication token (lv_oaut), Template ID (template_id) and Schema ID (schema_id), we are good to proceed to send document to BTP for OCR extraction.
Use cl_http_client=>create_by_url method to create an HTTP client to call the API endpoint - Upload Document (Refer API Documentation)
- This API expects multipart payload as you may see in the documentation. So, we will send information as multipart HTTP Request.
- Set header fields for 'POST' call, request_uri as concatenation of swagger url from BTP API Service Key i.e. '/document-information-extraction/v1' and URL endpoint path '/document/jobs', Authorization as lv_oaut.
- Set request content type as if_rest_media_type=>gc_multipart_form_data and formfield encoding as cl_http_request=>if_http_entity~co_encoding_raw
- First, we will pass options content to the request using method lo_client->request->add_multipart( )
  - Fill options section of the payload with clientId as default, documentType as custom, templateId as template_id, schemaId as schema_id. Note, as we are going to extract the header and item fields from the document based on specific template and schema, we don't need to pass headerFields and lineItemFields parameters, else it is mandatory.
  - Set header field Content-Disposition with value = |form-data; name="options"; type=application/json|
  - Use method set_cdata( ) to set options to the request object.
- Now, we will pass file content to the request using method lo_client->request->add_multipart( )
  - Fill file content l_file_content with its length(xstrlen) to using method set_data( ) of the request object.
  - Set header field Content-Disposition with value = |form-data; name="file"; filename=yourfilename.pdf; type='application/pdf'|
- Call methods send( ) and receive( ).
- Check response status with lo_client->response->get_status( ).
- In case of successful response, status 201, get the value of "id" (Job ID)from the response into a local variable, say lv_job.

Call Check Job Status method of the local class
Use lv_job (Job ID) received in previous step to fetch job status
- Use cl_http_client=>create_by_url method to create an HTTP client to call the API endpoint - Get Template (Refer API Documentation)
- Set header fields for 'GET' call, Authorization as lv_oaut and request_uri as concatenation of swagger url from BTP API Service Key i.e. '/document-information-extraction/v1',URL endpoint path '/document/jobs/' and Job ID lv_job.
- Call methods send( ) and receive( ).
- Receive the JSON object as, say lo_json_response.
- In case of successful response, status 200, get the value of "status" as job status from the response into a local variable, say lv_job_status.
- If lv_job_status = 'PENDING', it means the document information extraction for the document that we had sent is still not completed. In this case, wait for 3 seconds and reattempt to get the job status.
- If lv_job_status = 'FAILED', it means the document information extraction for the document that we had sent has failed. Read the error message from the response and display to the user
- If lv_job_status = 'DONE', it means the document information extraction for the document that we had sent has completed.

Receive Extraction Results from BTP service to ABAP layer

Once the job status is found as DONE in the previous step, the details of the extracted fields will be found in the response object lo_json_response.
Now, as the extracted data is received in local object in JSON format, it is just like any other JSON to ABAP structure/variable extraction that you may do through deserialization and parsing. This data information can now be used for business purpose as required.
We will not go into its details as part of this blog as there is already ample documentation and guidance available on it in our community.

Congratulations!!!

With this, we have completed the blog series End-To-End : Consume SAP BTP AI Service (Document Information Extraction) from ABAP

I hope you have enjoyed this series. Feel free to share your feedback/suggestions in the comments to make this a better place for learning and growth.

Happy coding!

Tejas.

End-To-End : Consume SAP BTP AI Service (Document Information Extraction) from ABAP

2024-08-24T11:48:32.169000+02:00

Welcome Folks!

Today, as the world moves towards making the most of the technological advancements we have made with Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, there is no better time than now, to dive into the world of SAP AI Services (on BTP), while staying current with the good-old-solid ABAP.

This blog post is aimed at guiding ABAP programmers with step-by-step process to consume Document Information Extraction service, which is part of SAP AI Services portfolio available on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).

This blog series will act as a foundation on which, individually, you will be able to build your own customized use case. As there is ample information available on standard document types already (i.e. Invoice, Purchase Order), we will take the use case of a custom document type.

This blog series is split into three parts as below for the sake of simplicity of understanding.

Before you navigate to each of the below blogs sequentially, I suggest you to scroll a bit and read the Goal that we are trying to achieve.

Part 1 : Setup BTP Trial Account and subscribe to Document Information Extraction service

Part 2 : Setup and configure custom documents on Document Information Extraction service on SAP BTP

Part 3 : Consume SAP BTP Document Information Extraction service for custom documents in ABAP

Goal:
Let us first align at what we are trying to achieve at the end of this exercise. We aim to upload below file (pdf) using a custom program, extract the information of the mapped fields using the Document Information Extraction (BTP AI Service) and print/utilize the extracted field values for business purpose.

Upload File:

Program Result:

By the end of this, we have consumed SAP Document Information Extraction service on SAP BTP through ABAP program and used extracted information for business logic purpose.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey. Please feel free to share your feedback in the comments to make this better to benefit our community.

Thanks.

Tejas

How to schedule a daily shutdown for your Steampunk system?

2024-08-27T21:48:20.361000+02:00

As a user of a free tier SAP BTP ABAP Environment system you are used to the fact that your free tier system will be shut down on a daily basis.

Though one might not like this as a user of the free tier offering 😉 you might want to achieve the same behavior as an administrator for your own SAP BTP ABAP Environment test and demo systems.

Fortunately you can now find in the SAP Online Help how this behavior can be achieved.

The example 3 explains in detail the settings you have to choose

Schedule a (Recurring) Stop/Start | SAP Help Portal

You simply schedule a stop at e.g. 10:00 PM on a daily basis, starting from today (here the day when I posted this blog post), but choose a date that is far in the future, e.g. 2099 for the system to start again and make sure that this scheduling does never end by selecting never for the end of the recurrence.

Kind regards,

Andre

SAP Developer News, August 29th, 2024

2024-08-29T21:10:00.041000+02:00

Podcast: https://podcast.opensap.info/sap-developers/2024/08/29/sap-developer-news-august-29th-2024/

DESCRIPTION

SAP BTP ABAP Environment Release 2408

Release Notes Blog Post: https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-sap/sap-btp-abap-environment-release-2408/ba-p/13801154

SAP TechEd Registration

SAP TechEd: https://www.sap.com/events/teched.html
SAP TechEd Session Catalog: https://www.sap.com/events/teched/virtual/flow/sap/te24/catalog/page/catalog

New CodeJam: Getting started with Generative AI Hub on SAP AI Core

New CodeJam in the topic list: https://community.sap.com/t5/sap-codejam-blog-posts/sap-codejam-topics/ba-p/221407
CodeJam event in Warsaw, Poland: https://community.sap.com/t5/sap-codejam/getting-started-with-generative-ai-hub-on-sap-ai-core/ec-p/13809704#M572

ABAP Developer Challenge and Devtoberfest

ABAP Developer Challenge: https://community.sap.com/t5/application-development-blog-posts/sap-developer-challenge-abap-core-data-services/ba-p/13778288
Devtoberfest: https://community.sap.com/t5/devtoberfest-blog-posts/devtoberfest-2024-contest/ba-p/13781593

CHAPTER TITLES

0:00 Intro

0:10 SAP BTP ABAP Environment Release 2408

2:15 SAP TechEd Registration

3:08 New CodeJam: Getting started with Generative AI Hub on SAP AI Core

4:04 ABAP Developer Challenge and Devtoberfest

Transcript

[Rich] Hey folks, Rich Heilman here, and yes it is time for yet again another release of the BTP ABAP environment, release 2408. And once again, this release is jam packed with new features for ABAP developers. Just to name a few, ABAP Developer Tools now supports a read-only fallback editor for development objects that do not have a native editor, for example BSPs, and also ADT now supports displaying warning messages coming from the HANA database while debugging nested AMDPs. CDS now supports external databases via ABAP CDS and ABAP SQL using CDS external entities. We also have support for logical external schemas for outbound SQL access with external entities. There has been updates to the ABAP repository object wizard, which now includes generating ABAP CDS provider models. There is also new support for creating CDS aspects to store and reuse field definitions and calculations. and we also have support for a few new annotations as well.

There are a bunch of new features around UI services in Fiori Launchpad, like support for adding a custom logo to the Launchpad and other customizing of the browser window. A lot of new features around integration topics like direct push-based integration over RFC, new enhancements around the advanced event mesh, and creating and assigning API packages.

Now I've only touched on a few of the new features to hit release 24.08. So, if you want the full story and all of the details, be sure to check out the 24.08 release blog post today. See you next time.

[Josh] It's time for SAP TechEd. Every year, TechEd is our time to get together, share ideas, learn, and have a lot of fun. Last year's TechEd was awesome, and good news, registration for TechEd 2024 is officially open. We've got an incredible TechEd lineup. First off, two full days of keynote analysis, code demos over 80 live sessions, three channels of programming, and live Q&A. That's right, they're still letting me talk live on a microphone. Then, and I am so excited about this, join us on tour as we make our way around the world with in-person stops on three continents throughout 2024 and 2025. We can't wait to connect in person for deep dive sessions, hands-on labs, and continue learning together. And trust me, this is a TechEd you will not wanna miss. See you online in October.

[Nora] Hey there, we have a new Generative AI CodeJam on the list. The first two events are already scheduled. One of them will be on the 20th of September in Warsaw, Poland at the KMD office and the other one will be right after Virtual TechEd in Munich. During the CodeJam you will learn how to access different large range models via Generative AI Hub on SAP AI Core. We will use the Python SDK of Generative AI Hub and we will also use the SAP AI Launchpad to access the models. You will also learn how to implement a retrieval augmented generation use case using the HANA Vector Engine and we will have a look at different chunking techniques, how you can chunk your documents right and then we will also have a look at a multi modal model where you will learn how to work with images and text. So, make sure to also check out all the other great code gems on the list, find an event near you or host your own event. See you there! Hello, SAP developers.

[Shilpa] I hope you are enjoying the August Developer Challenge on ABAP Core Data Services. The last task in this four-week challenge was out yesterday. We have seen huge response over 550 plus submissions throughout the challenge and thanks to each one of you for taking time and as well as involving in some good discussions on best practices. For those of you who have not yet taken part in the challenge, you have one more week left until we close it. In this four-week task, you will learn about the basics of ABAP series, annotations, associations, criticality and object page. While this challenge is coming to an end, we have another exciting event kicking off in September and that is Devtoberfest. We are back again with lots of interesting sessions which ranges from September 23rd until October 25th. Like last year, we have dedicated topics each day ranging from ABAP, CAP, SAP Build, Build Code, integration, machine learning, AI, and front-end. Most of the sessions are already scheduled in the community event page. Check it out and happy learning!

MDG Cloud ready Mode: Integration of S/4HANA with SAP Build process automation & SAP Build work zone

2024-09-03T12:09:58.514000+02:00

Hi All,

In October 2023, SAP launched a new operational mode in MDG "CLOUD-READY MODE" for S/4 HANA 2023, following the principles of ABAP cloud and clean core methodology. Cloud-ready mode is only available for Business partners with Product domains in the MDG future roadmap.

I briefly wrote about how this mode works in a previous blog post, hence if you have missed that you find the link below

Introducing MDG cloud ready mode for Business partners in S/4 HANA 2023

INTRODUCTION:

To setup cloud ready mode, we have following pre-requisites:

An S/4 HANA 2023 private cloud edition system.
A BTP tenant with at least one subaccount.
Running instances of SAP build process automation, SAP Build workzone (standard Edition) and cloud connector

In this blog post, I will provide a detailed step by step approach to setup SAP build process automation and backend S/4 HANA 2023 for cloud ready mode.

MAIN CONTENT

BTP configuration:

We start by subscribing to SAP build process automation and SAP build workzone( standard edition ) in the BTP cockpit.
Assign the below role collections to your user.
On the destination tab in BTP cockpit, create the WM_CF_SPACE_PROVIDER destination. This destination will be used to import the live process packages in SAP build process automation.
Note: The cloud foundry API end point and the URL for the destination should match as given in the SAP help portal. The user can be a generic user who doesn't have 2 factor authentication enabled. The details can be found Default Identity Provider | SAP Help Portal
From Instances tab, launch the SAP build process automation lobby and import the Master data process approval & visualization project from the Store.
Activate the 5 visibility scenarios, which we will use at a later stage.
In the Instances tab in BTP cockpit, check sap_processautomation instance is created. Click on this and create a service key for the backend S4 HANA system.
Assign MDG-specific BTP role collections to your user.
The next step would be to setup the SAP build workzone. For the sap_processautomation instance create a service key for the workzone.
Once the key is created, create a destination for workzone. For details on how various parameters of the destination will be set, please refer to Configure SAP Build Process Automation Destinations | SAP Help Portal
From the instances & subscription tag, launch the SAP build workzone standard edition application.
In workzone, navigate to the content manager and choose the below 5 apps.
Create a local copy of the Visibility Scenario Dashboard app, change the title to Process Path Overview, and provide the navigation parameter scenarioID with the value com.sap.mdg.pv.ProcessVis.
Create a group MDG and enable the My inbox and process path overview apps
Assign the permissions for this 5 apps to everyone.
Create a site with the same alias name as the group we created in step 13.
Create the below destinations in BTP for your workflow and process path overview. Configure BTP Destinations | SAP Help Portal

S/4 HANA on-premise configuration:

Cloud ready mode should be activated in the S/4 HANA system, once activated classic MDG related apps for mass processing and consolidation will stop working and the new consolidation & mass processing apps for S/4 HANA 2023 needs to be used.

1. Create an SM59 destination in S/4 HANA system and provide the host by pasting the same hostname as the MDG workzone site. The path prefix should be /site/mdg.

2. Create an entry in the SM30 view /UI2/V_ALIASMAP as below.

3. Go to MDGIMG-> cloud-ready mode and follow the path as per below screenshot to begin with integration of Build process automation with MDG. The subsequent steps will cover all the configurations in detail.

4. In Maintain the destination to an external server, create a destination MDG_BTP_SBPA_API. The host will be same as the API endpoint for the service key created in step6 of the BTP configuration section. You have to set SSL to active.

5. Now we maintain the OAuth Client 2.0 for secure communication between SBPA & S4 HANA.

Create a new profile configuration:
For the OAuth 2.0 client profile, choose SWF_CPPA_OAUTH_PROFILE. Enter a configuration name, for example, the name of the subaccount of your service.
For the client ID, enter the JSON value $.uaa.clientid from your service key card.
Enter the client secret by copying it from the BTP instance sap_processautomation service key for S4 HANA system.
Navigate to the Authorization Server Settings section, paste the uaa-URL from your service key to the Authorization Endpoint field, and add the /oauth/authorize suffix. In the same section, add the uaa-URL from your service key to the Token Endpoint field, and add the /oauth/token suffix.

6. Activate the following OData Services:
• MASTERDATACHANGEPROCESSSB
• C_MDCHGPROCESSBPMATCH_SRV
• SWF_CPWF_NOTIFICATION_SRV
• SWF_CPPV_INTEGRATION_SRV

7. Authorization needs to be assigned to the user which will communicate between S4 HANA and SBPA. I have used a generic user with all the MDG roles. Hence not sharing the details for this step.

8. We maintain the connectivity with workflow capability. The configuration name is same as the configuration done for OAuth 2.0 client configuration in step 5

9.Maintain connectivity for generic event API of visibility capability. The configuration name is same as the configuration done for OAuth 2.0 client configuration in step 5.

10. Create a destination which will call back the S/4 HANA system. Here the URL should be the same as the one exposed in the cloud connector. The generic user should have sufficient authorizations. The user I used has all the MDG roles, hence not shared in detail.

CONCLUSION:

By following through the steps mentioned in this blog post, you will be able to setup MDG cloud ready mode with a fully functional workflow in SAP build process automation.

Cloud ready mode is the stepping-stone for next-gen master data management providing features like Data federation, integration with address provider CDQ.

Hope this will help you start your MDG cloud ready mode journey.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

SAP Master Data Governance SAP Build Process Automation SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition SAP S/4HANA SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition SAP Business Technology Platform ABAP Cloud SAP S/4HANA business partner

Regards

Anirban

Currency conversion in SAP Datasphere

2024-09-04T09:45:36.803000+02:00

Currency conversion is a fundamental capability across most SAP products, playing a vital role in enabling accurate financial reporting and analysis across different currencies. Whether you're working within the traditional BW environment or leveraging the modern features of SAP Analytics Cloud, there are various techniques available to handle currency conversion effectively.

In this blog, I’ll take you through a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to modeling currency conversion in SAP Datasphere, helping you unlock the full potential of this essential feature.

Disclaimer: All the data created are for demo purposes, the approach is used to demo the functionality of the currency conversion in SAP Datasphere, not intended for production design or usage.

Step overview:

1. Create SAP currency tables/views

2. Create a task chain to trigger data loading for SAP currency exchange rate/currency code/decimals, etc

3. Create a transaction data table and view on top of it

4. Create a currency conversion column to perform currency conversion

Detailed steps:

1. Create SAP currency tables/views

From Data Builder, create SAP currency tables/views, we can load data from S4 source system(connection needs to be set up beforehand)

The below screenshot shows the source of currency tables/views, multiple data flows also be created when currency conversion views are added to the space, you can also choose to get the source manually.

2. Create a task chain to combine all the data flows to trigger data loading for SAP currency exchange rate/currency code/decimals, etc

Running the task chain to load all the currency related data from S4

3. Create a transaction data table and view on top of it

When creating a transaction data table, we will need to assign 'Currency code' semantic type to the Currency column

In this demo, we are going to convert transaction currency to

1. Global currency

2. Currency from Input Parameter

Let's first take a look at the transaction data we created:

Exchange rate we loaded from S4 source system, in order to derive the correct date, we will need to use 99999999 minus the 'Date as of which the Exchange rate is Effective'

4. Create a currency conversion column to perform currency conversion

Convert to GlobalCurrency

In the view build, select add a 'Currency Conversion Column', a new column will be generated automatically, configure the 'Source Amoutn Column', 'Source Currency', and 'Target Currency', in this case, it's 'GCCurrency', we will use the CURRENT_DATE() as a reference date to perform the conversion,

Note: you can also create your own formula to use different date as reference date

Error handling configuration is also available to cater for failed conversion

Convert to Target Currency based on Input Parameter

In this case, we need to create Input Parameter from the downstream target, so that it will appear when we create currency conversion column in the calcuation node

Input parameter created in downstream target:

We go back to calculation node of currency conversion column, we can select Input parameter as a new option

Save and deploy the view

Final output

Now if we preview the final output, it will prompt us to choose the target currency

The value help populate all the currency code nicely

We choose JPY in this case, you can see the conversion performed nicely with result in both global currency(USD) and JPY:

Conclusion

The currency conversion modeling in SAP Datasphere is very straightforward, it can support multiple currency codes easily.

Hope you enjoy the reading, feel free to leave your comment or question below.

SAP Datasphere BW (SAP Business Warehouse)

ABAP Cloud at Devtoberfest by SAP TechEd 2024

2024-09-05T19:54:30.367000+02:00

Hey everyone!

Devtoberfest is almost here - and it's Devtoberfest by SAP TechEd in 2024! 🍻

This year, Devtoberfest, the celebration of SAP technologies, is getting closer to SAP's premiere tech conference, SAP TechEd. The free, virtual event will run from September 23 to October 25, 2024, with a break during the week of SAP TechEd Virtual 2024. All sessions will be livestreamed/premiered on the SAP Developers' channel on YouTube.

This already seems to be a tradition: Monday is 💚 ABAP & CAP Day.

You can find a list of all the session content in the SAP Community events area: Devtoberfest Events.

Monday: 🟢 ABAP & CAP
Tuesday: 🟣 Tooling (for SAP Build Apps and SAP Build Code)
Wednesday: 🔴 Integration
Thursday: 🔵 Machine Learning, AI, and Data
Friday: 🟠 Frontend

ABAP Cloud is the comprehensive development model for building clean core compliant, cloud-ready business applications, services, and extensions on both SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP S/4HANA, in the cloud and on-premise. The various ABAP sessions will cover different aspects of clean core extensibility with ABAP Cloud and GenAI - including key user, developer, and side-by-side extensibility - and more.

Take advantage of this opportunity to interact with your peers and SAP experts - and get first-hand insights into the latest and greatest ABAP features!

Here is a compact overview of the various ABAP sessions at this year's event.

◆ 📅 [CW39] WEEK 1

Clean core extensibility with ABAP Cloud in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
Understand the clean core extensibility options for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Building partner products on SAP BTP ABAP Environment
Major updates for embedded analytics in ABAP Cloud
Data integration in ABAP Cloud with SQL services and CDS external entities

◆ 📅 [CW40] WEEK 2

Data modeling with the latest features of ABAP Core Data Services
Tools for Clean ABAP
SAP Forms by Adobe
Test double mechanisms with ABAP Unit - Your friend in achieving effective test automation

◆ 📅 [CW41] ABAP Cloud sessions at SAP TechEd Virtual 2024

◆ 📅 [CW42] WEEK 3

What software developers should know about key user extensibility 
Gain Development Experience and Efficiency with Joule's ABAP Developer Capabilities
Developing and transforming your ABAP custom code for clean core in SAP S/4HANA
How to extend the different SAP S/4HANA editions effectively and clean core compliant
Source-side filtering of RAP business events in SAP BTP ABAP Environment and in Advanced Event Mesh via dynamic topics
Discover SAP Event Sources for Advanced Event Mesh

◆ 📅 [CW43] WEEK 4

Overview of reuse services in ABAP Cloud 
ABAP Development Tools - News and Roadmap
DevOps with SAP BTP ABAP Environment
SAP Business Client & SAP GUI - The Journey Continues

Below is a detailed overview of the ABAP sessions, including abstracts, schedules, speakers, and links.
ℹ️Click on the session titles to navigate to the respective event pages in the dedicated SAP Community Group, where you can already start communicating with the speakers, your peers, and the event organizers. Indicate your interest in the session in the "Will you be attending?" and use the "Add to Calendar" option to save the date and time to your individual calendar.
🔔 You can also use the "Notify me" feature on YouTube to be notified when livestreams and premieres start!

Enjoy the event! 🍻

WEEK 1

🟢 Clean core extensibility with ABAP Cloud in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
In this session, we will demonstrate how the 3-tier extensibility model helps you to consume Business APIs (BAPIs) with ABAP Cloud in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and SAP S/4HANA.
Speakers: Manikandan Rajasekaran (SAP), Vignesh Subramanian (SAP) 
Livestream: 📅 Sept 23, 2024 | ⏰ 9:00 - 10:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Understand the clean core extensibility options for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Understand the difference between the different extensibility options - i.e. key user, developer, and side-by-side extensibility - available with ABAP Cloud for Cloud ERP and see how to use them. The focus of this session is on developer extensibility.
Speakers: Carine Tchoutouo Djomo (SAP), André Fischer (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 23, 2024 | ⏰ 11:00 - 12:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Building partner products on SAP BTP ABAP Environment 
In this session, you will learn how partners can develop, build, run, and operate ABAP Cloud products on SAP BTP ABAP Environment. Get an overview of the latest features and an outlook on the roadmap.
Speakers: Ronny Pahlke (SAP), Frank Jentsch (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 23, 2024 | ⏰ 13:00 - 14:00 CEST
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🟢 Major updates for embedded analytics in ABAP Cloud 
ABAP Core Data Services (CDS) based embedded analytics provides easy-to-use analytical tooling and allows you to drill down, aggregate, and display data from your core solution modelled with ABAP CDS. In this session, we present analytical data modeling basics in CDS as well as the new multi-dimensional analysis generator for building native, multi-dimensional SAP Fiori apps on top of the ABAP CDS-based analytical data model.
Speakers: Andreas Riehl (SAP), Olivia Baumann (SAP), Stefan Unnebrink (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 23, 2024 | ⏰ 15:00 - 16:00 CEST
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🟢 Data integration in ABAP Cloud with SQL services and CDS external entities
Data access patterns for ABAP-managed data can be categorized into data federation and data replication, as well as privileged access and business user access. Data federation allows for live access to the source system without replicating the data, while data replication involves replicating the data to a second system for local execution. In this session, we present steps for external data access from an ABAP System via SQL services and ABAP CDS based external entities. Data replication support with ABAP SQL service is also presented.
Speakers: Arne Harren (SAP), Dr. Harish Bokkasam (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 23, 2024 | ⏰ 17:00 - 18:00 CEST
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WEEK 2

🟢 Data modeling with the latest features of ABAP Core Data Services
The ABAP Core Data Services (CDS) framework combines semantic data model definition with the computational power of the SAP HANA DB. In this session, we present best practices for data modeling based on the latest CDS features such as scalar functions, CDS aspects, external entities, and brand-new tool integrations such as the CDS graphical modeler for SAP Business Application Studio. 
Speakers: Matthias Herchenroether (SAP), Katharina Altrichter (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 30, 2024 | ⏰ 9:00 - 10:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Tools for Clean ABAP
Clean ABAP helps to write readable, testable and maintainable code. While much of this requires human expertise and team discipline, some aspects can be automated. In this presentation we will show you how ABAP cleaner and the Code Pal checks for the ABAP Test Cockpit can help you to easily integrate the Clean ABAP rules into your development process and give you an update on how ABAP cleaner has evolved since its initial release last year.
Speakers: Björn Jüliger (SAP), Jörg-Michael Grassau (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 30, 2024 | ⏰ 11:00 - 12:00 AM CEST
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🟢 SAP Forms by Adobe
Find out how to make the most of print forms and interactive forms using SAP Forms service by Adobe in the cloud and SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe on-premise. We explain the overall strategy, key functions and benefits, continuous improvements and options for the cloud. We will also give an update about the local deployment option based on XSA,  the SAP HANA Extended Application Services, Advanced Version.
Speakers: Peter Barker (SAP), Sandra Thimme (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 30, 2024 | ⏰ 13:00 - 14:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Test double mechanisms with ABAP Unit - Your friend in achieving effective test automation
Do you face any of the following challenges while writing automated tests in ABAP?
How to have stable automated tests? How to deal with the different types of dependencies while testing your ABAP code - ABAP classes, database dependencies via CDS, ABAP SQL, RAP BOs, function modules, role authorizations, etc? When to use which test double mechanism while writing ABAP unit tests?
If yes, then this session can help you a bit!
Speakers: Sunil Bandameedapalli (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Sept 30, 2024 | ⏰ 15:00 - 16:00 AM CEST
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WEEK 3

🟢 What software developers should know about key user extensibility 
Key User Extensibility is a major pillar of the SAP S/4HANA Extensibility concept. It enables business experts to do last mile extensions by their own. But it also provides a lot of value for developers.
In this session, we provide an overview on the key user tools and will answer the question why developers should care for it. We provide examples for extensions that are realized as combination of key user and developer extensibility. An outlook on how generative AI support will change the creation of extensions will round off the session. 
Speakers: Thomas Schneider (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 14, 2024 | ⏰ 8:00 - 9:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Gain Development Experience and Efficiency with Joule's ABAP Developer Capabilities
Learn about Joule's ABAP developer capabilities. Dive through specific use cases, delve into the generative AI product roadmap for ABAP, and gain valuable insights on leveraging these advancements to enhance your productivity and experience in everyday development tasks.
Speakers: Dr. Jasmin Gruschke (SAP), Sebastian Baskovich (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 14, 2024 | ⏰ 9:00 - 10:00 AM CEST
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🟢 Developing and transforming your ABAP custom code for clean core in SAP S/4HANA
In this session we introduce the new guidelines for clean core ABAP development in the well-known 3-tier extensibility model in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and on-premise and handle transformation options for existing custom code to ABAP Cloud including outlook of future generative AI support. You will also learn how ABAP Test Cockpit will support governance of your clean core developments.
Speakers: Olga Dolinskaja (SAP), Thomas Fiedler (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 14, 2024 | ⏰ 11:00 - 12:00 AM CEST
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🟢 How to extend the different SAP S/4HANA editions effectively and clean core compliant
This session will explain how to extend the SAP S/4HANA editions effectively following the clean core guidance. This includes the 3-tier extensibility model, ABAP Cloud, CAP, LC/NC tools and how GenAI will support the developer. And we will explain how all this can work for customers who have a lot of legacy custom code in their system.
Speakers: Boris Gebhardt (SAP), Tim Back (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 14, 2024 | ⏰ 14:00 - 15:00 AM CEST
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🔴 Source-side filtering of RAP business events in SAP BTP ABAP Environment and in Advanced Event Mesh via dynamic topics
Facilitate source-side filtering of RAP business events in SAP BTP ABAP Environment using custom context attributes comply with Data Privacy and Protection (DPP) and for more sophisticated event dispatching. Use dynamic topics for routing and filtering of RAP business events in SAP Advanced Event Mesh.
Speakers: Tatjana Pfeifer (SAP), Jonas Braun (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 16, 2024 | ⏰ 9:00 - 10:00 AM CEST
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🔴 Discover SAP Event Sources for Advanced Event Mesh
SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh is SAP’s market leading event mesh and distributes events in real time in your SAP technical ecosystem and way beyond. Now, what is an event mesh, as sophisticated as it may be, without events? Not much, right? Therefore, we will look into how to expose events from SAP business applications like SAP S/4HANA, SAP ECC and SAP SuccessFactors solutions via Advanced Event Mesh. The session will both provide the theoretical and commercial background as well as provide detailed demos of event-enabling the different backends using different approaches.
Speakers: Karsten Strothmann (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 16, 2024 | ⏰15:00 - 16:00 CEST
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WEEK 4

🟢 Overview of reuse services in ABAP Cloud 
Reuse services offered by the ABAP platform provide general capabilities that are required by multiple services and apps. In this session, we will show how the most prominent reuse services that can be used in ABAP development with ABAP Cloud and which applications are delivered by SAP for monitoring and management of these services.The presentation will cover the use of application jobs, application logs, change documents, number ranges and the email API.
Speakers: André Fischer (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 21, 2024 | ⏰ 9:00 - 10:00 AM CEST
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🟢 ABAP Development Tools - News and Roadmap
In this session, learn the latest developments regarding ABAP Development Tools ranging from the ADT actions framework that let’s you extend your development environment with custom actions over new design options and an outlook on our future IDE strategy.
Speakers: Alexander Ritter (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 21, 2024 | ⏰ 11:00 - 12:00 AM CEST
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🟢 DevOps with SAP BTP ABAP Environment
Learn about git-based customer lifecycle management (LM) on SAP BTP ABAP Environment which aims to combine proven and reliable ABAP LM benefits with the git-based CI/CD approach familiar to many. Watch live demos of our latest features and get an outlook on future developments.
Speakers: Julie Plummer (SAP), Dr. Christoph Pohl (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 21, 2024 | ⏰ 13:00 - 14:00 AM CEST
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🟢 SAP Business Client & SAP GUI - The Journey Continues
Transitioning users from SAP GUI to SAP Fiori via integrating the SAP Fiori Launchpad into SAP Business Client to launch native SAP GUI for Windows transactions and Fiori Apps in one-single-entry point from local and remote systems.
Speakers: Sandra Thimme (SAP), Ralph Resech (SAP)
Livestream: 📅 Oct 21, 2024 | ⏰ 15:00 - 16:00 AM CEST
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Have I aroused your curiosity? Then attend the various sessions to learn more about the latest and greatest ABAP innovations and best practices.

In the meantime, you can watch the replays of last year's events, SAP TechEd Virtual in 2023 and SAP's Devtoberfest in 2023. You can also check out the ABAP Cloud sessions at the upcoming SAP TechEd Virtual 2024 on October 8-9, 2024.

We look forward to interacting with you!

Release Navigator for SAP BTP - What's New in Q3 2024

2024-09-11T12:33:46.687000+02:00

The Release Navigator for SAP BTP is always evolving to better serve our customers. With the latest update in Q3 2024, in addition to quarterly content maintenance and a new product page we've made significant improvements to the user experience:

New Side Menu for improved page navigation
New UI Elements for additional context
New Search Feature

Read more about the details of these enhancements in this blog post.

This section details the new UX features added to the release navigator for SAP BTP.

New Side Menu for Easier Navigation

We've implemented a new side menu on every page of the release navigator to provide a more intuitive user experience. This menu allows easy navigation to the four new main pages of the release navigator:

Product Specific
General
Get Assistance
User Feedback

Fig 1. The side menu on all new pages

As a result, some content previously found on the Home page has been rearranged. Let’s walk through what you can find on each of the new pages.

Product Specific Page

This page serves as the starting point for the release navigator and corresponds to the former Home page. It contains the core of the release navigator: curated release information for specific products and services of SAP BTP as well as information on release schedules.

Fig 2. The Product Specific page, formerly known as the Home page

At the top of the Product Specific Page you can find a message tile with helpful information and a Release Calendar. The calendar includes release dates for SAP BTP as a whole, links to product-specific release schedules and dates for upcoming release navigator updates.

Below you can find the section Products. The cards in this section are sorted alphabetically and each one takes you to a dedicated page with in-depth information and curated resources on the 27 SAP BTP products and services covered.

Product Page Navigation

Fig 3. Example of a dedicated product page

Once you are done exploring the resources on a product page and want to move on to the next product or service, you can either click on Product Specific on the side-menu or on the back arrow on the left of the page title to get back to the Product Specific page and navigate to other pages.

General Page

On this page you can find General Resources that are helpful across all SAP BTP products and services. If you can't find a certain product or service on the Product Specific page, we recommend you check out the resources on this page (and also feel free to let us know in our survey).

Besides the General resources, there are two more sections on this page:

Additional Resources contains non-release specific but nevertheless important resources one should be aware of.
Release Navigators by SAP Enterprise Support provide direct links to all currently available release navigators for other solution areas.

Fig 4. The General page

Get Assistance Page

This page contains resources to help you use the release navigator and to improve your experience. You can access it from all pages in the release navigator by either clicking on Get Assistance in the side-menu or by clicking on the red bar at the very top of the page.

At the top of the page, you can find the following elements:

Release Navigator Enablement:
- SAP Community Blog Posts: These blog posts go into detail about new features that are being added to the release navigator and provide other news.
- SAP Partner Masterclass: This recorded digital session is only available to SAP partners.
Translation Feature: Allows you to translate the release navigator (not the pages linked to) into 40 languages. The translation process takes a few moments and may impact layout and design of the navigator pages. Click on this card to sign in to the authenticated version with Universal ID or an S-user account to use this feature.
User Feedback: Click here to provide feedback in a quick 3 question survey.

Below you can find the Navigation Tips, detailed instructions on how to use the release navigator, similar to the blog post you are reading now.

Fig 5. The Get Assistance page

User Feedback Page

We've embedded a feedback survey on this page with three short questions to gather feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Your relationship to SAP.
Whether you found the release navigator helpful.
An open text field that allows you to let us know anything you liked, what you would like to see added, or what you think could be improved.

We strive to always improve the release navigator, so we really appreciate any feedback you submit.

Fig 6. The User Feedback page

Helpful UI Elements

We added two new types of UI elements that you will find throughout the pages of the navigator.

Lightbulb icon

Many pages come with additional information to guide you through the cards available on that page and provide more context on when to use which resource.

If you see a lightbulb icon next to a header, you can hover over it with your cursor to open a text bubble with additional information about that page.

The bubble can be moved around by clicking and holding your cursor and can be closed by clicking the on the top right.Fig 7. Demo of the lightbulb icon text bubble

On product pages, the information displayed in this bubble corresponds to the information formerly found on Release Guidance tiles.

About this Card

Some resource cards come with additional tips and contextual information.

If you see three dots on the bottom right of a card, you can open a tip with additional information about that particular card. To open the link of that card, you need to close this tip by clicking the three dots button again.

Fig 8. Demo on the About this Card tips

Due to the high demand for dedicated pages for products and services, the number of pages to navigate has grown significantly since launch of the release navigator one year ago and we aim to increase the number of pages even further in future updates. More pages mean more content but also more cards to browse, which can increase the time it takes to find what you’re looking for.

Our goal is for you to find what you need as quickly as possible. That’s why we implemented a new Search Feature, which allows you to search for keywords and find all pages associated with this topic, product or service name. Click on the Search icon at the shell bar and a pop-up will open. Once you enter key words, you will see which pages are associated to this term and you can jump directly to them. The search feature is optimized for product and service names.

Fig 9. Short demo of the Search function.

We collaborated closely with SAP BTP experts to add a new page for SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery. This page contains links to the release schedule, SAP Roadmap Explorer, What’s New Viewer in the SAP Help Portal and more. Check it out.

Fig 10. The new page for SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery.

Currently, the release navigator for SAP BTP covers content for 27 products and services on dedicated pages. For all products and services not featured with their own page you can find helpful resources on the new General page.

Expect more new pages dedicated to specific products and services in future updates and don't hesitate to let us know via our feedback survey, which products or services you would like to see added next.

Last update, we announced the new SAP Note Consolidated Release Schedules for SAP BTP and the corresponding initiative of communicating the release schedules of SAP BTP products and services.

We are happy to report that the number of products and services who are communicating their release schedules has further increased to more than 50 now thanks to close collaboration with various SAP BTP teams.

Check the schedules here and from the Release Calendar section of the navigator.

Tip: Did you know you can mark notes as a favorite? If you do so, you will be notified via email whenever the note is being updated. This way you can stay on top of new release schedule communication, like new dates or skipped waves. We recommend you mark all those notes as a favorite that you are interested in receiving updates for.

Fig 11. Where to click to mark a note as a favorite and receive notifications once it gets updated.

Please note: To access SAP Notes you need to log in to SAP for Me using your Universal ID or S-user ID. Read more about the required authorizations here.

Next updates are scheduled on a quarterly basis in alignment with the Harmonized Release Calendar for SAP Cloud Products.*Disclaimer: The schedule is subject to change without prior notice including, when necessary, delays or incorporating changes in subsequent update windows and not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality.Looking ahead, 2025 updates will mainly focus on quarterly maintenance of release resources and a steady extension of product coverage. Currently, there are no plans for further mayor UI updates in the near future.

The Readiness@Scale team at SAP Enterprise Support is dedicated to ensuring release readiness across the SAP Enterprise Support portfolio. Our mission is to empower SAP customers to be prepared and ready to adopt and utilize innovations.

If you have any feedback or specific requests for content in the release navigator, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

And don't forget to check out our team's blogs tagged with Readiness@Scale.

Happy navigating!

Readiness@Scale
SAP Enterprise Support

What is TAANA in SAP?

2024-09-12T14:11:07.897000+02:00

TAANA Transaction vs. SE16N: A Comparative Analysis

Understanding TAANA and SE16N

TAANA and SE16N are two commonly used transactions in SAP for data maintenance and analysis. While they share the same underlying purpose of providing a platform for data access and manipulation, they cater to different use cases and offer distinct functionalities.

TAANA: A Transaction for Table Maintenance

Purpose: Primarily designed for maintaining data in custom or standard tables.
Functionality: Offers a user-friendly interface with fields and buttons for creating, editing, and deleting table entries.
Features:
- Field help and description for better understanding of data elements.
- Checkboxes for mandatory fields and validation rules.
- Option to display table entries in a list view.

SE16N: A General Data Browser

Purpose: A versatile tool for browsing and analyzing data from various SAP objects, including tables, views, and data clusters.
Functionality: Provides a more flexible approach to data exploration, allowing users to define selection criteria and perform data manipulations.
Features:
- Advanced search options and filters.
- Ability to export data to various formats (e.g., Excel, CSV).
- Integration with other SAP tools like ABAP debugger.

Key Differences

Feature TAANA SE16N

Primary Purpose	Table maintenance	Data browsing and analysis
Interface	User-friendly, field-based	More flexible, selection-based
Functionality	Create, edit, delete table entries	Explore data from various objects
Features	Mandatory fields, validation	Advanced search, data export

Export to Sheets

When to Use Which

TAANA: Use TAANA when you need to directly modify data in a specific table, especially for routine maintenance tasks.
SE16N: Choose SE16N when you want to explore data from multiple sources, analyze trends, or perform more complex data manipulations.

Running TAANA in SAP: A Step-by-Step Guide

TAANA is a transaction code in SAP used for maintaining data in custom or standard tables. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to run TAANA:

1. Access the SAP System

Log into your SAP system using your credentials.

2. Enter TAANA

In the SAP Easy Access menu, navigate to the Transaction field.
Enter TAANA and press Enter.

3. Select the Table

In the Table Name field, enter the name of the table you want to maintain. For example, if you want to maintain data in the MARA table (material master), enter MARA.
Press Enter.

4. Choose Maintenance Mode

You'll be presented with options for maintenance mode:
- Display: View table entries without editing.
- Change: Edit existing table entries.
- Create: Add new table entries.
- Delete: Remove existing table entries.
Select the appropriate mode based on your requirements.

5. Enter Selection Criteria

If you want to filter the table entries based on specific criteria, enter the values in the corresponding fields. For instance, to find materials with a specific material group, enter the group in the MATNR field.

6. Execute the Query

Click the Execute button to retrieve the table entries based on your selection criteria.

7. Perform Maintenance

Depending on the maintenance mode you selected, you can:
- Display: View the table entries.
- Change: Edit existing fields by double-clicking on them and entering new values.
- Create: Add new table entries by entering values in the required fields and clicking Save.
- Delete: Select the entries you want to delete and click Delete.

8. Save Changes

After making your changes, click the Save button to store them in the database.

9. Exit TAANA

To exit the transaction, click the Exit button or press Ctrl+F3.

Remember:

Always exercise caution when modifying data in SAP. Incorrect changes can have significant consequences.
If you're unsure about the implications of your actions, consult with a SAP expert or refer to the system's documentation.

By following these steps, you can effectively use TAANA to maintain data in SAP tables.

Conclusion

Both TAANA and SE16N are essential tools for SAP users. Understanding their differences and knowing when to use each can significantly improve your efficiency and effectiveness in data management and analysis.

Now Presenting: Download and Upload of Pages between Systems

2024-09-16T13:05:45.658000+02:00

Autors: Sylvia Strack, Kattia Jordan-Philipp

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, the transport of spaces and pages from a development system to a test or production system (3 system landscape), or from a quality system to a production system (2 system landscape) is done via Software Collection (see System Landscape and Transport Management | SAP Help Portal).

However, so far there was no option to transfer spaces and pages created in a starter system to a development or quality system. You had to manually re-create the spaces and pages in the other (target) system which was time- and effort-consuming.

We can share good news, since this situation changes now.

To create a space is a straightforward activity. However, to create a page demands more time and effort.

With SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408, SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain 2408, and SAP BTP ABAP Environment – Release 2408, SAP releases the download and upload functionality for pages. The functionality focuses on pages only and not on spaces.

Download and upload of pages is an easy task. It requires the following steps:

Source System:

Logon to the source system (e.g., the Starter system) where you have the page(s) you want to take over to the target system.
Open the Manage Launchpad Pages app.
Select one or multiple pages that you want to take over into another system, e.g., into the Development system.
Press Download on the upper right above the list of pages.
A file of type JSON with the information of the selected pages is created on your computer.

Target System:
1. Logon to the target system (e.g., the Development system into which you want to take over the pages you created in the Starter system).
2. Open the Manage Launchpad Pages app.
3. Press Upload on the upper right above the list of pages.
4. Click on Browse and select the previously created JSON file from your computer and click Next.
  
  Please note, if you are on the SAP BTP ABAP Environment, then you need to enter a transport, that you have created upfront, into the Transport field:
5. Before the actual upload takes place, a dialog appears with two tabs: the tab Pages That Can Be Uploaded and the tab Pages That Can’t Be Uploaded. For each page that cannot be uploaded, you get the information explaining the reason. A possible reason could for example be that you try to upload a page, that already exists on the target system, by having the same page ID.
  In the tab Pages That Can Be Uploaded, you need to select all pages that you intend to upload to the system. Press Upload and the pages from the JSON file will be uploaded.
6. The desired pages are imported and shown in the pages list. Continue working with the pages as required. This includes for example, to assign the uploaded pages to spaces in your system.
We hope the download and upload functionality helps you optimize your pages creation and supports you to achieve greater efficiency and reuse.

Documentation
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Uploading and Downloading Pages | SAP Help Portal
SAP Integrated Business Planning: Uploading and Downloading Pages | SAP Help Portal
SAP BTP ABAP Environment Uploading and Downloading Pages | SAP Help Portal

Cloud Transport Management for Steampunk – The Five-System Landscape

2024-09-17T12:16:35.241000+02:00

Previously in Cloud Transport Management - 2302

Just over a year ago, it became possible to manage transports in SAP BTP, ABAP Environment (i.e. “Steampunk”) systems using the BTP service, Cloud Transport Management (cTMS).

Harald Stevens wrote an exhaustive, step-by-step blog post, which I found indispensable:

Setting up SAP Cloud Transport Management for SAP BTP ABAP Environment

However, we’ve updated the service, so I thought I would run through the changes here.

Now in Cloud Transport Management - 2405

One limitation was that you could only import one released transport at a time. Now, we’ve developed some improvements:

Import All – to import all transport requests (TRs) in the sequence in which they’re placed in the import queue.
Import Upto – i.e., you select a transport request; this and all previous requests are imported, in sequence, from the import queue.

If you want to know more, check out the SAP Help Portal:

Import Transport Requests | SAP Help

To use these improvements, you need to use a new Communication Scenario, SAP_COM_0948 (instead of the deprecated SAP_COM_0510.) I’ll talk about this below.

How many systems should you set up?

Both the use cases I will discuss here are covered in detail in SAP Help Portal:

We strongly recommend that you set up five systems for any project requiring more than occasional development. In fact, we really don’t recommend a three-system landscape for projects where you need to fix bugs in parallel to ongoing feature development.

In a 3-system landscape, you can of course use git branches to save your work on new features. You could then temporarily use your development (DEV) system as a correction (COR) system – for fixing urgent bugs on the release branch that is currently active in production (PRD).

However, if you had already extended your data model for a new feature, any test data based on the extended model would be lost when switching DEV to the previously released state. The only way to avoid such inconsistencies caused by switching branches would be to deliver fixes directly with the next regular release. If this is not feasible for your project, you need a 5-system landscape.

With five systems, you can set up two codelines:

An “infinity” codeline for developing new features in DEV, where released transports end up as commits on the main branch. Depending on your test strategy, you can either set up a CI pipeline to import new commits in TST for automatic testing with ATC and AUnit; or you could set up a cTMS route transporting exported commits to TST for manual acceptance testing.
A delivery codeline for releasing features and hot fixes, based on release branches R1..n, created whenever new features from infinity should be prepared for production. The cTMS route starts in COR where corrections are developed. Manual acceptance tests are performed in QAS before final release to production (PRD).

Cloud Transport Management (cTMS): Five-system landscape

This graphic shows the systems involved:

DEV = develop features on main branch

TST = Quality Assurance / acceptance testing on main branch

COR = develop corrections on release branch;

QAS = Quality Assurance / acceptance testing on release branch;

PRD = Productive end use

It works like this:

Developers release several transports in DEV, resulting in commits C1, C2, and C3 on branch main.
CI pipeline imports the latest commit C3 (implicitly including all previous commits C1, C2) to TST for automated testing.
CI Pipeline tags C3 after successful testing
(Iterate as required until the Release decision is made.)
When the Release decision is made:
The Release Manager pulls the qualified commit (here: tagged C3) into COR, creates release branch R1 , exports C3 to the cTMS transport route for delivery to PRD.
If required, the developer creates corrections in COR (here: C4)- in parallel to new features being developed in DEV for the next release.
Here: The developer releases transport from COR, resulting in commit C4 on branch R1.
The Release Manager exports commit C4 to cTMS transport Cor1
Cor1 (containing C4) is automatically forwarded to QAS for manual acceptance testing.
After successful testing, Cor1 is manually forwarded to PRD.
Developer performs double maintenance of C4 in DEV, resulting in new commit C5 on branch main from DEV.

The advantage of the five-system landscape is that you keep your feature development route separate from your hot fix route – i.e., you develop to your heart’s content in the infinity codeline. If you need to implement a correction, you can directly do so in COR on the release branch and transport the fix, knowing that there are no new features in the way that may not be ready.

For the COR-QAS-PRD route, we recommend Cloud Transport Management, for controlled delivery and orchestration with other tools, such as Change Request Management (ChaRM) on SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) or Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (CALM). While you could also set up a 2nd cTMS route for DEV-TST, we recommend using the ABAP Environment Pipeline from Project Piper to enable faster automated roundtrips. With a second cTMS route, you would have to manually export commits from DEV for import to TST.

If you want to find out more about CI pipelines for ABAP Environment at SAP, I can recommend this detailed blog post by Daniel Mieg:

SAP BTP, ABAP Environment Pipeline: Introducing AB... - SAP Community

Worried about costs?

Since SAP BTP 2308, you can temporarily “hibernate” / suspend any systems that are not permanently needed – here, TST, COR, QAS, and possibly even DEV, -- thus reducing the operating costs and making a 5-system landscape much more affordable.

That is, you pay for the disk space but not for memory or processing time. You also need to plan for a few minutes spin-up time.

For more details about hibernation, see:

How to set this up

Landscape overview in SAP BTP, ABAP Environment and in the Cloud Transport Management service

Most of the setup has been covered already in Harald’s blog post, so I’m just going to focus on the new parts.

Prerequisites - same

Service Instance for cTMS - same

cTMS versus CI pipeline

Despite the fact that this is a five-system landscape, I’ll focus only on the cTMS route COR-QAS-PRD. As suggested above, I’m going to assume that you are using cTMS for your correction development but a CI pipeline for your “infinity development.” This means I’ll be setting up a transport route for: COR > QAS > PRD. I will not include DEV or TST.

Outbound Communication Arrangement SAP_COM_0599 in ABAP COR

Create the communication arrangement:

Choose New.
Select the scenario SAP_COM_0599, choose an Arrangement Name. Then paste the Service Key from your Cloud Transport Management (cTMS) service instance. This is less error-prone than pasting individual entries. Choose Create.
A communication system is created automatically, with the correct OAuth settings, along with an outbound communication user. Choose Save.
Finally, back in your Communication Arrangement, in Additional Properties > CTMS Node Name, enter a name for the entry node (i.e. development node) in you transport landscape. You will reuse this name when creating transport nodes in cTMS. Also, note that the name will be converted to upper case letters after you’ve entered it.

The new inbound Communication Arrangement, SAP_COM_0948

SAP BTP, ABAP Environment: Inbound Communication Arrangements in QAS and PRD

The process is very similar to the process in Harald’s blog post, but I’ll run through it anyway.

In (one of) your target systems, create a new Communication Arrangement, by choosing New. Here, I am setting up the QAS system.
Select the Communication Scenario SAP_COM_0948:
Then create the communication system: In Common Data, choose New.
Choose a System ID for the communication system (only upper-case letters and underscores are possible). The System Name can be identical. Choose Create.
Now create a communication user:
Scroll down to Users for Inbound Communication, then choose the + icon:
- Choose New User.
- Enter User Name, Description and Password. Store this information in a safe place, because you will need it later to set up the destinations for cTMS. The password must have at least 20 characters, so I used Propose Password.
- Confirm the user by choosing OK.
Save the Communication System.
The data from the Communication System is automatically transferred to the Communication Arrangement.
The Communication Arrangement should look roughly like this. You will use the Manage Software Components API later when creating a destination.
Save inbound communication arrangement
Repeat these steps for your other target systems – in our example, PRD.

The Communication Arrangement should look roughly like this. You will use the Manage Software Components API later when creating a destination.
Save inbound communication arrangement

Destinations for cTMS import into QAS and PRD

You now need to create destinations pointing to your target ABAP instances, using the information from the inbound communication arrangements.

Check connection
Check the Connection. It should return '200: OK'.
Connection check successful

And that’s it. You should now be ready to transport your development objects as Harald describes. And as he said, please feel free to leave your feedback.

For more information, please see SAP Help:

SAP Build Code Sessions at SAP TechEd in 2024

2024-09-17T18:33:01.981000+02:00

Hello Everyone !

That time of year is here again, SAP TechEd 2024 is just around the corner!

SAP TechEd is the leading tech conference for all developers, IT professionals, business experts, tech visionaries, innovators, and leaders eager to gain in-depth knowledge of SAP’s solutions, platforms, and technologies, along with insights into their future direction. It also offer an opportunity to network and connect with peers and SAP experts.

SAP TechEd in 2024 will kick off with a free, engaging virtual event accessible to everyone, followed by SAP TechEd on Tour stops all around the world for a unique opportunity for more in-depth, in-person learning experiences. The series of local on-site events will be organized in partnership with and hosted by SAP User Groups and SAPinsider. Learn more about the virtual experience here.

The choice is yours: Join us virtually for the first event in the series, SAP TechEd Virtual 2024!

📌Save the date and register now!
📅 October 8 - 9, 2024

At this year's SAP TechEd, you will have the opportunity to attend a variety of sessions and formats - such as lectures, jumpstarts, and roadmaps - organized into six (6) content tracks that are aligned with your business needs, covering SAP technologies, products, and solutions:

Digital Transformation with Cloud ERP (DT)
SAP Business Technology Platform – General (XP)
Application Development and Automation (AD)
Data and Analytics (DA)
Integration (IN)
Artificial Intelligence (AI)

📚Access the full session catalog of SAP TechEd Virtual 2024

SAP Build Code - Sessions

📅Tuesday, Oct 8

1. AD100 | Unlock SAP Build and ABAP Cloud interoperability to elevate your extensions

[Track Overview, 45 min] Discover a new approach to building extensions while keeping your core clean. Learn how SAP Build solutions and the ABAP Cloud development model work together to foster fusion development. Whether you prefer pro-code or low-code tools, you can smoothly integrate them to build extensions tailored to your needs. Learn from experts about best practices, innovative solutions, and practical applications that can enhance your development processes and drive business growth.
Speakers: Dr. Alexander Rother (SAP) , Bjorn Schulz (SAP) , Andre Borchert (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Tuesday, Oct 8 | 🕛 6:00 PM – 6:45 PM CEST

2. AD105 | Enhance your fusion team collaboration with ABAP Cloud and SAP Build

[Lecture, 25 min] Learn how to take advantage of interoperability between SAP’s low-code and pro-code solutions. Discover how you can use the graphical modeler in the development environment of SAP Build Code for the ABAP Cloud development model and how your ABAP Cloud projects can be integrated into the lobby of SAP Build solutions.
Speakers: Tim Back (SAP) , Anne Keller (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Tuesday, Oct 8 | 🕛 7:00 PM – 7:25 PM CEST

📅Wednesday, Oct 9

3. AD104 | SAP Build Code: AI development and new service integrations with CAP

[Lecture, 25 min] Examine new capabilities of SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) in SAP Build Code, and experience how the Joule copilot can speed up your extension development. In addition, find out how service integrations with CAP can reduce development effort, help you avoid pitfalls, and allow for evolution without disruption following the clean core strategy.
Speakers: David Kunz (SAP) , Daniel Schlachter (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Wednesday, Oct 9 | 🕛 11:30 AM – 11:55 AM CEST

4. AD101 | Tailor your UI with SAPUI5 in SAP Build Code

[Lecture, 25 min] Discover the latest on SAPUI5 development in SAP Build Code, providing a modern user experience across ABAP and SAP Cloud Application Programming Model. Learn how to realize clean core extensibility with new capabilities and how you can future-proof your app with new tools and best practices. Understand why SAP Web Components are strategic and how you can benefit from using them.
Speakers: Oliver Graeff (SAP) , Peter Muessig (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Wednesday, Oct 9 | 🕛 12:00 PM – 12:25 PM CEST

5. AD103 | Extend your SAP solutions with custom mobile apps using SAP Build Code

[Lecture, 25 min] Leverage our mobile development kit, SAP BTP SDK for iOS, and SAP BTP SDK for Android to create extensible enterprise-grade mobile apps. Learn how you can transform your user experience with SAP Mobile Services and AI capabilities in SAP Build Code.

Speakers: Sami Lechner (SAP) , Sandeep Tetali (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Wednesday, Oct 9 | 🕛 12:30 PM – 12:55 PM CEST

📅Thursday, Oct 10

6. AD181 | Develop applications and processes with SAP Build and Joule

[Jump-Start, 25 min] Immerse yourself in creating comprehensive intelligent applications using SAP Build solutions in this hands-on session. Gain comprehensive knowledge of full-stack development, process automation, and business site creation with SAP Build. Learn how SAP Cloud Application Programming Model is leveraged in a highly productive development environment with Joule technology.

Speakers: Eric Solberg (SAP) , Patrick Schad (SAP)
Schedule: 📅 Thursday, Oct 10 | 🕛 9:00 AM – 9:25 AM CEST

I hope this overview gives you a few more reasons to join us at SAP TechEd 2024.

We look forward to meeting and interacting with you virtually at SAP TechEd Virtual and in person at the local events in West Palm Beach (US), Melbourne (AUS), Copenhagen (DK), Birmingham (UK), and Wiesbaden (DE).

In the meantime, you can check out this overview of the SAP Build Code Session at Devtoberfest which will take place virtually from Sept 23 to Oct 25, 2024.

Stay tuned - and see you there!

Be a Cockroach: A Simple Guide to AI and SAP Full-Stack Development - Part III

2024-09-21T07:32:46.244000+02:00

Disclaimer: There are various methods to develop the SAP iFlow, Custom Dashboard and RAP program, but I’ve opted for a basic approach to comprehend table custom concepts and explore the fundamentals from a beginner’s perspective. If you’re already proficient in advanced techniques, feel free to move on and explore other content.

I) Introduction:

If you’re new to this blog series, I recommend starting with PART-1 and PART-2 by clicking the link provided. This post is PART-3, so starting with PART-1, PART-2 will help you grasp the topic better, especially since it uses story-based learning.

II) Agenda:

Background Insights: Delving into the Story Behind
Getting to Know Dashboard: Understanding the Custom Dashboard
Use Case Implementation: Understanding the Use Case Implementation
GR Dashboard: GR Automation Dashboard
Wrapping Up: Summarizing Key Points and Looking Ahead

III) Background Insights: Delving into the Story Behind

Continue…

After placing the order in the S/4HANA system, Sundhara Pandiyan Purchase Order is sent to the Chola Group, a renowned coffee export company based in Bremen, Germany. Upon receiving the order, Chola Group utilizes a cutting-edge dashboard powered by AI technology to scan their inventory.

This system marks the goods and promptly sends back a confirmation of receipt, known in technical terms as “Goods Receipt” Confirmation. With this efficient process, Chola Group ensures that Sundhara Pandiyan order is accurately confirmed and ready for fulfilment, reinforcing the collaboration between the two companies in delivering quality coffee to Queenstown.

IV) Getting to Know Dashboard: Understanding the Custom Dashboard

I often tell my students, “If you want to crack the system, you need to understand it.” Aspiring to be a developer doesn’t mean sticking to one technology and using it for the next 30 years. Staying updated with the latest advancements is essential.

Here we can visualize the custom dashboard for the GR-Automation, where the Image processing technique has implemented to visualize the content in the real time and update it in the dashboard.

The dashboard above was developed using a ReactJS application. I’d like to express my gratitude for open-source technology, which makes concepts easier to understand and allows for customization. Here’s a link to the GitHub source code, so you can create your own custom dashboard.

To get started, you’ll need a basic understanding of ReactJS, familiarity with Visual Studio, and a strong motivation to learn!

NPM Installation
PIP Installation
NodeJS
VS Studio
Basic Understanding Github – Custom Dashboard
ReactJS concepts

V) Use Case Implementation: Understanding the Use Case Implementation

In the table shown, the purchase order highlighted in red indicates that it is an SAP PO being transferred from the SAP system to the K-Dashboard system for GR automation. The expected quantity of coffee beans is 1,390 units, highlighted in yellow. However, Chola Group's automation AI checked the inventory and confirmed that only 1,289 units, highlighted in purple, are available.

Chola Group's manager, Karikagal Chola, confirmed with Sundhara Pandiyan that they could only deliver the 1,289 units of coffee beans. He then pressed the save action button, which triggered an integration event from the K-Dashboard system to the SAP Integration Suite, facilitating the data transfer to the SAP S/4 HANA system. After this confirmation, SAP generated and confirmed the Goods Receipt number, which is highlighted in green.

PO – Purchase Order
GR – Goods Receipt

The events from the K-Dashboard triggered the Integration Suite iFlow, which then sent a message to the S/4 HANA system to create the Goods Receipt (GR) and return the GR number in the response back to the K-Dashboard system.

In the upcoming blog, we will explore how the iFlow was created to facilitate the message transfer from the K-Dashboard to the S/4 HANA system. The technical details, configurations, and key steps involved in this process will be discussed in Part-4. Stay tuned for an in-depth look at the integration flow and its implementation!

VI) Wrapping Up: Summarizing Key Points and Looking Ahead

In this blog, we explored how Chola Group automated the Goods Receipt process using a custom ReactJS dashboard integrated with SAP S/4 HANA. The dashboard enables real-time inventory management and order fulfilment. We discussed the use case of integrating the K-Dashboard with SAP S/4 HANA, focusing on how the system confirmed the Goods Receipt. In the next part, we will dive into the iFlow setup and how it handles message transfers between K-Dashboard and SAP. Stay tuned!

Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through

2024-09-26T20:02:05.284000+02:00

Introduction

From 2402 Release, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition added a new system monitoring capability, collectively called the Technical Monitoring Cockpit for monitoring the ABAP system. The Cockpit provides a seamless connection between your system workload and single ABAP statistics records (main records and sub-records) down to SQL statements and their prepared plan. Now you have a good starting point to conduct performance analysis on the SAP S/4HANA system in case of high response times.

As this Technical Monitoring Cockpit is not unique to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, but also to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and the Business Technology Platform, the discussion here applies to them as well.

I plan to tackle this topic in a series of blogs in bite sizes so that you can easily consume them during your day-to-day work.

Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through: this blog provides a guided tour of the Cockpit to readers, walkthrough (clicking through) various functions and resolve some confusions.
Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts: this blog explains what metrics we are looking for in the Cockpit, and how they can be helpful to you, especially when something seems suspicious.
Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System (to be published): this blog discusses how to analyze a situation unique to you, which might or might not be answered in the collected system data.

Let’s do a guided tour in this blog: What is the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, how to access it, and how to navigate different screens in the Cockpit.

What is the Technical Monitoring Cockpit?

First thing first, I want to solve a mystery around theTechnical Monitoring Cockpit at the very beginning!

When you get on an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system, search a Fiori application called Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you will find nothing. Wait a minute, when you search the same app in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, you easily find the app Technical Monitoring Cockpit with the App ID F4031.

The Technical Monitoring Cockpit App as Shown in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library

In the Implementation Information section, it lists below App Launchers, i.e. these apps launch the Technical Monitoring Cockpit App:

HANA Thread Samples
SQL Trace Analysis
Sampled Work Process Data
System Outbound Communication
System Workload
Table Analysis

You might ask what is going on here? Here is the story: The Technical Monitoring Cockpit was designed as a big workbench tool for system root cause analysis. Under this umbrella tool, there are many Apps, like System Workload, HANA Thread Samples, System Outbound Communication, etc. as shown in the above list. You can view these apps as an entrance to the system analysis, and they are all under the Technical Monitoring Cockpit umbrella after getting into the door. For example, if you search HANA Thread Samples App, it still displays Technical Monitoring Cockpit as the app title (shown below). Only the chart section and the table section have the title of HANA Thread Samples.

The HANA Thread Samples App

Now if you click on the Apps -> Recently Used (or Apps -> Most Used), the app HANA Thread Samples is listed as the Technical Monitoring Cockpit. When you click it, it goes back to the HANA Thread Samples App.

The Technical Monitoring Cockpit Is Shown as an App in the Recently Used or Most Used Tab

Also you will notice that HANA Thread Samples App doesn’t exist in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library. When you type the name to search it, it returns only the Technical Monitoring Cockpit.

Here is the conclusion:

There is no app called Technical Monitoring Cockpit in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system, although it is listed in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library. It is a system analysis workbench title.
To explore different features of the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you need to enter the name of various analysis apps, such as HANA Thread Samples.
In the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, you don’t find any system analysis app like HANA Thread Samples. It points you to the Technical Monitoring Cockpit.

This confusion will be resolved by our development, but I don’t know when.

Accessing the Technical Monitoring Cockpit

To access the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you need to have the right authorizations, especially the Business Catalogs. The Business Catalogs grant the access to the Technical Monitoring Cockpit are:

Business Catalog	Business Catalog Description
SAP_A4C_BC_DEV_SUP_PC	Development - Analysis and Support
SAP_CORE_BC_TMC_MON_PC	Technical Monitoring – Analysis

In the Fiori Launchpad, we organize apps by Spaces and Pages. The Pages list relevant apps are:

Page	Page Description	Page Title
SAP_A4C_PGT_DEV_SUP_PC	Development - Analysis and Support	Analysis and Support
SAP_CORE_PGT_TMC_PC	Administration - Technical Monitoring	Technical Monitoring

Here is the example of the Technical Monitoring page. The relevant apps are marked with a medal.

The Technical Monitoring Page

The Pages are organized under Spaces which in turn are assigned to a business role. The following four Spaces contain above two Pages:

Space	Space Description	Space Title
SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR	Administrator	Administration
SAP_BR_APPL_SUP_ENG_DEV_SUP	Application Support Engineer - Development Supporter	Development Support
SAP_BR_DEVELOPER	Developer	Development
SAP_OC_SPT_ADMINISTRATION_PC	Administration - Output Control	Administration - Output Control

In my case, I access these apps by clicking on the Administration Space, then the Technical Monitoring Page on the Fiori Launchpad (see above figure).

Walking through the Technical Monitoring Cockpit

When you are in the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, regardless of how you enter there through which door/entrance/app (such as HANA Thread Samples), click on the so-called Hamburger Menu (next to SAP logo), a menu panel is opened on the lefthand side as shown.

Menu Panel of the Technical Monitoring Cockpit

It is not obvious that these menus lead to the relevant apps. For example, when you click on the menu Dashboards -> Application System Overview, you can see four apps are listed:

Four Apps under Dashboard ->Application System Overview

On the other hand, when you click on the menu Information -> Workload -> Captured Request Statistics, the app Captured Request Statistics is launched directly. You cannot drill down further by clicking on the arrow icon (details).

The Captured Request Statistics App

I am listing these menus and their relevant Apps in the below table. I add brief comments to some apps as I don’t plan to discuss further. All other apps will be explained in my blogs.

Navigating the Technical Monitoring Cockpit

Regardless which app you use, the navigation technique is basically the same by clicking and drilling down. Let me use System Workload app as an example, as it has more data to work with. I close the Hamburger Menu to save the limited launchpad space.

The System Workload app can be launched in three ways: 1) Using Hamburger Menu, Dashboards -> Application System Overview-> System Workload: Response Time Contribution. 2) Using App Finder and type in “System Workload”. 3) Using Space and Pages, Administration-> Technical Monitoring-> System Workload.

In the System Workload screen, there are four sections vertically: Title, Time Range, Chart and Details Table (Top 10 entries if there are more than ten).

The First Window of the System Workload App

Title Section

There is not much you can do in this section.

Time Range Section

To define a range of data you are going to focus on, you need to define a time range. The Time Slider is visual and convenient but not accurate. More accurate definition is by using the time windows on the left and right. For example, currently I define a time range starting from 2024-09-16 11:40 to 2024:09:17 11:40. That is exact one day of length. This duration information is displayed in the center of the window as “1 D”. If we extend the time range, the duration could be “1D 1h 19m”.

The double arrow icon (left and right) helps you to move the Time Slider exactly to the left or right by the duration. If the duration is “1D 1h”, the new time range becomes 2024-09-15 10:40 to 2024:09:16 11:40.

There is a pull-down window to adjust the granularity of the data. By default, it is “In 10-Minute Intervals”. I change that to “In Hours” to be used in Section Chart discussion later.

Chart Section

Depending on what data you are looking at, it mostly shows the stacked bar chart or a line chart.

In addition, this chart has multiple tabs. When you click on one of them, it opens a similar screen with a chart and a table for that particular interested area, such as ABAP CPU Time. I will leave them for discussion in the subsequent blogs. From chart navigation perspective, they all behave the same way.

To check out a specific bar, you can hoover the mouse over the bar. It shows the time and value of the data in a pop-up label.

Hoover Over to Read a Bar

Another way to read the bar value is by clicking on that bar. A vertical dash line appears on that time, and all the same type bars are highlighted. The value of that bar you clicked is shown at the upper left.

Click to Read a Bar Value and Time

If you click on the ABAP Processing Time icon in the Legend, it highlights all the same type bars and displays the Mean Value of that bar type. In this case, it is 20.16 seconds.

Click the Legend Icon to Read a Mean Value of One Type of Bars

The top row of the Chart Section has many filters. In the Public Cloud, the Fiori apps use OData V2, so this is a good Request Entry Type to choose. With this filter, the details table is impacted as well, by only showing the data associated with the OData V2 requests.

Filter Data with Request Entry Type = OData V2

At the table, each vertical column values can be filtered as well by double clicking the column title. But this filter only affects the value display in the column. The filter in the Chart Section affects both chart and table.

Details Table Section

The Details Table below the Chart usually lists top ten data records. At the bottom, the R stands for Rest, i.e., the total amount minus the sum of top ten records. The T stands for Total, i.e., the total amount of top ten records in the table. If there are less than ten records in the table, the total value of R should be zero. T will be whatever is available in the table.

The primary function of the Details Table is to drill down by clicking on the Details Icon at the end of each row.

Let’s take a closer look at the top row. Its Request Entry Name is /SAP/ESH_SEARCH_SRV/0001, and the Program Context is /sap/opu/odata/sap/ESH_SEARCH_SRV/DataSources. It tells us the top workload is caused by a search function originated from a Fiori app. By clicking on the Details Icon, we can have further information about this search program: how it consumes ABAP Processing Time within this 24-hour period.

Details of Request Processing Time

Here you need to be careful. The chart uses a set of aggregated data. When you use the granularity of hours, you could find peak values totally different from using granularity of As Collected.

The three figures below show the ABAP Processing Time in three granularities: As Collected, At 10-Minute Intervals, In Hours. The peak Processing Times shift based on the granularity: 4:49:00, 4:50:00, 7:00:00, respectively. Obviously, the Peak Value at 7 am is quite misleading.

ABAP Processing Time Peak at 4:49:00 (Granularity: As Collected)

ABAP Processing Time Peak at 4:50:00 (Granularity: At 10-Minute Intervals)

ABAP Processing Time Peak at 7:00:00 (Granularity: In Hours)

When you change the granularity, the table rows change as well. The time is aggregated according to the granularity. To get an accurate entry point for analysis, I would use the granularity of “As Collected”.

The table is sorted by the column ABAP Processing Time, with the highest value at the top. From the Start Time column, you can observe the top Processing Times, some are on Sep. 16, and some are in Sep. 17.

Now if you drill down further of the top row, you will reach the ABAP Statistics Record window. Immediately you learn that there are 12 records and this is the first one (1/12), the highest ABAP Processing Time. By clicking on the arrows at the top, you can scroll through these twelve rows.

ABAP Statistics Record Screen

When you look at the ABAP Statistics Record, not only you can find out who runs this program at that time, but also status of Database Connections and Memory Consumptions. I will discuss them in subsequent blogs.

Conclusion

The Technical Monitoring Cockpit is an umbrella covering many analysis tools/apps for administrators and developers. You can enter this Cockpit from different entrances/apps. The layout and structure of different apps under this umbrella follow a systematic approach from the navigation perspective. After reading this blog, you should be NEVER LOST when using this new tool.

References:

SAP Help: Monitoring the System Workload
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System Workload (to be published)

Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Key Concepts

2024-09-26T20:02:14.451000+02:00

Introduction

I plan to tackle this topic in a series of blogs in bite sizes so that you can easily consume them during your day-to-day work.

Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through: this blog provides a guided tour of the Cockpit to readers, walkthrough (clicking through) various functions and resolve some confusions.
Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts: this blog explains what metrics we are looking for in the Cockpit, and how they can be helpful to you, especially when something seems suspicious.
Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System (to be published): this blog discusses how to analyze a situation unique to you, which might or might not be answered in the collected system data.

Let’s talk about the Key Concepts in this blog: the Server Response Time, The ABAP Statistics Records, the Sampled Work Process Data and the Single Work Process Sample.

Server Response Time

In the SAP Help – Server Response Time Contribution, there is a good illustration of the time elements contributing to the total Server Response Time (see below).

Elements of Server Response Time

The Server Response Time counts from a request is put into a queue for processing, until an answer returns to the queue for picking up. The time spent on Dispatcher/Gateway/Internet Communication Manager is not counted. The large chunk of time is spent in ABAP Work Process and HANA Database. The Database Network Time depends on how many data records are transmitted back to the ABAP Work Process; it is a significant portion of the Database Processing Time, as the in-memory data processing is much faster than transmitting data over a network.

ABAP Statistics Records or ABAP Request Statistics

In an ABAP environment, each running of an ABAP program is recorded with technical information, such as response time, program name, CPU time, etc. This statistics record is written to the system. With these records, an administrator or a developer can investigate the performance or resource consumption in detail, so that you can identify the cause of a problem should a performance problem occurs.

The use cases for ABAP Statistics Records are:

Top system workload consumers and their response times and database connections
A specific workload associated with a user or a program at a particular time

The below figure is a good illustration of ABAP Statistics Record and its screen, and how to get there: Information -> Workload -> Captured Request Statistics.

ABAP Statistics Record Screen

The ABAP Statistics Record screen includes a lot of information, namely

Server Response Time Contribution, including processing times, wait times, load times, database network time, and so on
Subsequent sub-records if they are available
- SQL Statements
- Database Connections
- Extended Passport
- Memory
- Gateway Calls
- Badi Calls
- HTTP Client/Server Calls
- RFC Client Calls
- Web Service: Consumer Calls

How many sub-records are shown depends on the selected main record. For example, if a database request has been made in the context of the action for the main record, there's a sub-record for database connections. Otherwise, there is no database connection sub-records.

How Are ABAP Statistics Records Collected?

In an ABAP system, when a HTTP call is made to the application server, it goes through the Internet Communication Manager (ICM), which places it in a queue. When a Work Process becomes available, it picks up the request from the queue and process it. At the end of processing, it writes a statistics record into the buffer. If the buffer is full, old records are written to the ABAP Statistics Files to make room for the new records. This ABAP Statistics Records Collection process is shown below.

ABAP Statistics Records Collection Process

It is important to keep below two points in mind when considering how often you get ABAP statistics records:

Before ABAP statistics records are shown in the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, they are captured and processed by a collector that runs every minute, so you must expect that captured request statistics are displayed with a delay of a minute.
If you have a long-running request, ABAP statistics records will only appear for this request after the request is done. The collector then captures the request and calculates its workload over its runtime.

ABAP statistics records are the data basis for system workload analysis, including the System Workload and the Captured Request Statistics in the Technical Monitoring Cockpit. Aggregates are built using all records, but only samples of single records are stored and shown. In other words, one single statistics record for one specific program and one specific workload doesn’t exist. All the records contain aggregated data, even we call some of them “Single Records”.

ABAP Statistics Records Capture Profiles

Different from what you think, the ABAP Statistics Records are not a complete set of records for the selected period, rather, they are samples of them after aggregation, based on selection criteria defined in capture profiles.

The ABAP Statistics Records Capture Profiles are defined in the Capture Request Statistics app. This app cannot be accessed within the Technical Monitoring Cockpit. You have two options: 1) In the Fiori Launchpad, follow the Administrator Space to the Technical Monitoring Page. 2) Call the app directly from the App Finder.

Below figure shows the Capture Request Statistics app screen. It lists seven profiles, six of them are defined by SAP and you cannot change them. One profile Z_GEORGE is user defined, by me. The Profile Type indicates they are all for ABAP Statistics Records, while SAP profiles are forever active, my profile Z_GEORGE is currently Inactive. User can decide when and how long the user defined profile runs.

Capture Request Statistics App Screen

The first SAP profile is called SAP_DYNAMIC_CAPTURING. It captures “good” statistics samples of requests with respect to the server response time. As a result, you can compare statistics of samples of “bad” workload to statistics of samples of “good” workload. The top workload in your system might vary as well as the behavior in response times change over the time. The dynamic profile adapts to these changes.

In addition, for the top workload, the dynamic profile captures samples of ABAP statistics when their server response times deviate too much from the average server response time of this specific kind of workload. This ensures that for workloads with typically different server response times, samples of ABAP statistics records are also at hand, even if their server response times do not exceed the static thresholds of the static profile types.

The remaining five SAP profiles capture “bad” requests (high consumption of computation resources) in their respective areas: ABAP CPU time, ABAP processing time, HANA CPU time, HANA processing time, and Server response time.

To define your own Profile, click on Create button in the Capture Request Statistics app screen. The Profile definition screen appears. Here you need to enter the following:

Profile ID: follow naming convention in the SAP Universe, avoid using “SAP” as prefix. Z and Y are a good choice.
Description: give a meaningful description
Profile Type: choose one from two: ABAP Statistics Records (Static) or SQL Trace
Target User Group: see below table

Target Group	Description
Customer Business	Only system activities of business users are captured
Customer Communication	Only system activities of communication users are captured
Customer Print	Only print requests are captured
Customer	System activities of all of the above target groups are captured

Retention Time: depending on your business needs, you can choose from 1 Hour, 1Day or 2 Weeks.
Record Limit per Minute (the maximum number of records you want the system to capture per minute): 1,000 is a good number. If the number is too high, it uses a lot of memory to store the data. SAP profiles use 500.
Sampling Rate (the probability of capturing one single ABAP statistics record): 100 %
Health Monitoring: if clicked, the data is sent to the SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Monitoring (Cloud ALM).

Capture ABAP Statistics Record App – Profile Definition Screen

You might ask what the difference between my profile and SAP’s profiles is. Well, it has a lot to do with how you define and control the profile to run. After you hit the Create button in the Profile Definition screen, you get the 2nd screen Conditions for ABAP Statistics Records.

Capture ABAP Statistics Record App – Condition List Screen

When hit Create button in the Condition List Screen, you enter the Condition Creation/Edit Screen. In the Field ID, you can choose one specific area you are interested in, say ABAP CPU Time [ms]. Next, you need to define what range of CPU Time you want to capture by using the Low/High values and an operator, such as “exclude less than 100”. This condition will collect ABAP CPU Time Records larger and equal to 100 [ms].

Capture ABAP Statistics Record App – Condition Creation/Edit Screen

Here is the screenshot of the profile Z_GEORGE2 with its condition set. If you are ready, you can activate this profile to run in a specific amount of time. You can see all the ABAP Statistics Records collected by following this profile when clicking Analyze Request Statistics button. I will discuss this topic in my next blog Introduce Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System.

Capture ABAP Statistics Record App – A User Defined Profile with a Condition

Sampled Work Process Data

Besides ABAP Statistics Records, we have another type of statistics data called Sampled Work Process Data. People are easy to get confused by two of them.

The Sampled Work Process Data focuses on monitoring work processes and concurrent workloads at a specific time. It provides an overview of the workload on your ABAP system with the help of samples that are taken in a high frequency (every second). Data are aggregated as well, including ABAP CPU time, main memory consumption, and work process utilization.

In the SAP Help, there is a good explanation on the difference between ABAP Statistics Records, Sampled Work Process Data and HANA Thread Samples. I use its figure and explanation here, except my notes in italic.

Explanation on the difference among ABAP Statistics Records, Sampled Work Process Data and HANA Thread Samples

You've got four ABAP workloads here. Each of them starts at a different point in time and runs for a certain time.

For the Sampled Work Process Data app, a sample is created with high frequency. For the sake of simplicity in this example, let's assume that a sample is taken every 20 seconds, at the times t1, t2, and so on. The samples taken at the time t2 and t3, for example, then captured data from ABAP Workload 1 and ABAP Workload 2 at exactly these two points in time. ABAP Workload 2 is also captured in the samples at the time t3 and t4. ABAP Workload 3 is included in the sample taken at the time t6 only. However, ABAP Workload 4 isn't part of any of these samples because it's running in the gap between the samples at the times of t2 and t3. About ABAP Workloads 1 and 2, you get information at multiple points in time, so you have details about the behavior of this workload over time, which might help you to identify resource consumption peaks.

In contrast, for the System Workload app, a collection of ABAP statistics records for completed workloads is scheduled once per minute. This regular data collection captures completed workload asynchronously. This means that ABAP Workload 1 to ABAP Workload 4 are captured and taken into account for the aggregated data shown in the System Workload app. At time t4, the ABAP statistics records for Workload 1 and Workload 4 are processed because they are completed. One minute later (three 20 sec intervals) at time t7, Workloads 2 and 3 are processed. (George’s Note: I changed last two sentences from SAP Help, because I believe my discussion is more accurate in explaining the ABAP Statistic Record collection mechanism.)

All in all, when you call up the System Workload app, you first get aggregates that are based on ABAP statistics records. These aggregates are always complete in the sense that they are based on all ABAP statistics records in the system. There are no gaps where an individual workload might slip through as it might happen with the collection of individual work process samples, such as Workload 4 in the example. With the collection of individual work process samples, you get an insight into a running workload, like for ABAP Workload 2 at t2, t3, t4, and t5. Therefore, the individual work process samples can give you more fine-granular details about the workload.

George’s addition/simplification: The ABAP Statistics Records collect the information contributed by the completed workloads not collected in the previous point (green box and arrows); In contrast, the Sampled Work Process Data show the information of one or many workloads running at one specific time point (red line and arrow). They are just two different perspectives of the system performance to help you understand the system better: one look deeper at the running workloads and another one look back to those completed workloads.

Similar to work process samples, HANA thread samples are also collected every second and before the actual workload is completed. The HANA thread samples give you an idea of your HANA workload in the SAP HANA database server.

~From SAP Help

To view the ABAP Statistic Records, you use the System Workload app; to view the Sampled Work Process Data, you use the Sampled Work Process Data app. Both apps can be found in the App Finder, or the Fiori Launchpad -> Administration Space -> Technical Monitoring Page.

Below is the screenshot of the Sampled Work Process Data app. In the app, you can explore four metrics over a period of time:

ABAP CPU Time
Main Memory
Dialog Work Process Utilization
Background Work Process Utilization

Sampled Work Process Data app – ABAP CPU Time Screen

One concept associated with the Sampled Work Process Data is called “Request Entry Point”, a combination of Request Entry Type + Request Entry Name + Tenant ID. For example, in the table (ABAP CPU Time Details) of above screenshot, we look at the first row of data:

Request Entry Type: OData V2
Request Entry Name: /SAP/ESH_SEARCH_SRV/0001
Tenant ID: 000000000742874876

These three data formed a unique “Request Entry Point”. When both Request Entry Type (= OData V2) and Tenant ID (= 000000000742874876) don’t change, each different entry name determines one unique “Request Entry Point”. It helps to analyze the performance behavior of one specific program.

The Request Entry Type is the type of a request entering the system, for example, a Remote Function Call (RFC Call), or a Fiori App call (OData V2). The Request Entry Name is the name of a request entering the system, like a program name.

Single Work Process Samples

Now we go to the details page of this “Request Entry Point” (see below). It shows ABAP CPU Time for this “Request Entry Point”. Since we are only looking at one specific program, so the name of "Single Work Process". On top of that, we might have multiple executions of the same program, so the name of "Samples". Hence the chart shows the Single Work Process Samples by each program name listed according to a timeline (Collection Time Stamp).

The highest CPU consumption happens at 2024-09-20 04:10:00 with program /IWBEP/CL_MGW_ABS_DATA========CP.

By clicking the program /IWBEP/CL_MGW_ABS_DATA========CP in the Legend, we can see four Single Work Process Samples collected at four different times.

Four Single Work Process Samples collected at four different times for Program /IWBEP/CL_MGW_ABS_DATA========CP

By clicking the last entry, we got below Single Work Process Sample screen to show more data on this process in three tabs.

The Work Process: Data tab provides details about the chosen work process sample, including information about the workload as well as session and logon information.
The Work Process: Metrics tab provides important metrics of the chosen work process sample, including response times, the ABAP memory consumption of a single work process, and the number of read and changed database records since the last sampling.
The ABAP Stack Trace tab goes directly to the code that was being executed when this work process sample was taken.

Response Time Info within Single Work Process Sample Screen

When clicking on ABAP Statistics Record button, we get to the ABAP Statistics Record screen the same as we approach from the System Workload app.

ABAP Statistics Record screen

To summarize, we can follow the below flow to link all the data together: from Sampled Work Process Data to Request Entry Point to Single Work Process Sample to ABAP Statistics Record.

Navigating from Sampled Work Process Data to Request Entry Point to Single Work Process Sample to ABAP Statistics Record

Not only the ABAP CPU Time, but we can also explore the Main Memory, Dialog Work Process Utilization and Background Work Process Utilization in a similar way.

Conclusion

This blog discussed three important aspects of collecting/analyzing system workload data: the Server Response Time, the ABAP Statistics Records, the Sampled Work Process Data and the Single Work Process Sample. The ABAP Statistics Records collects the information contributed by the completed workloads not collected in the previous collection point. The data is collected every minute. The Sampled Work Process Data show the information of one or many workloads running at one specific time. It is collected every second. The Single Work Process Sample is the contributor to the Sampled Work Process Data for deep diving into a single work process sample.

References

SAP Help: Monitoring the System Workload
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts
Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System Workload (to be published)

Working with Internal Sessions in ABAP Cloud

2024-09-26T20:53:06.032000+02:00

Introduction

I have been writing code extensively in ABAP Cloud for some time now. As it’s a restricted version of ABAP, I encountered many challenges when trying to accomplish tasks that were simpler in the classical version. Nevertheless, some old technical aspects aren’t being replaced that easily. I’ve learned that returning to the unchanged fundamental concepts is always a good idea.

Developing in ABAP Cloud can be pretty demanding, mainly if you are used to powerful features in the classic ABAP version that are no longer available (such as using unreleased objects like CL_SESSION_INFO, functionalities like EPP passports, or more advanced tools for monitoring bgRFCs and background jobs).

In this new programming world, I wanted to create some functionality to trace the ABAP internal sessions, spot any short dumps, receive automatic notifications, and measure execution performance. What follows is a description of how I achieved this.

Background

When I first started learning ABAP (too long ago), one of my main concerns was understanding the ABAP Application Server, its components, how to use its resources, and how to run the code I write in this environment. For many developers, the picture below is well-known:

Figure 1 - Sessions on the AS ABAP (from the official SAP Help documentation)

In the classic ABAP version there are several options available for tracking the internal sessions:

Class CL_SESSION_INFO - which can provide a lot of valuable information like the session ID, type of user session, memory information, etc. ;
Extended Passport (EPP) - which can also provide information about the internal session, but is also very useful in understanding the execution from one session to another; it can also be used for automatic analysis of short dumps;
Others.

ABAP Cloud works with the same internal sessions, of course. A work process always executes the code you write in an ABAP internal session started by a plain old SAP program. However, these helpful tools are unavailable as they are not part of the released APIs.

Internal sessions manage SAP LUWs. Understanding how the SAP LUW concept works and how it can be leveraged helps developers create robust functionality.

In the classic ABAP version, you could use the RFC functionality in many practical ways. One of these was calling synchronous RFCs within the same system( destination NONE'), explicitly starting a new sequential SAP LUW without ending the current SAP LUW. This would easily allow you to “catch” a short dump. With the new bgPF framework in Cloud ABAP, this is not possible anymore.

Before I delve into my small utility project, there’s one more thing worth mentioning about ABAP Cloud. One of the strongest concepts introduced in this new cloud programming world, along with the Restful ABAP Programming Model, is the SAP Controlled LUW. This is a great feature but restrictive at the same time. It saves developers from manually handling transaction consistency (remember building CUD operations with CALL FUNCTION … IN UPDATE TASK?). It is by default embedded in RAP and bgPF controlled units and local consumption of RAP business events (though I wouldn’t even count the latter since it is also handled by controlled bgPF).

But what about other scenarios, like task automation or pipeline implementation and execution, where you must perform several tasks within the same ABAP internal session, split by sequential COMMIT WORK statements? If you find yourself in a SAP controlled LUW, that becomes impossible. Fortunately, you can also start ABAP internal sessions on the cloud AS ABAP that don’t “enforce” the controlled LUW part by default, or you can enforce the controlled part on your own when needed.

These latter types of sessions are my focus in this article.

In summary, I wanted to be able to track in ABAP Cloud these kinds of uncontrolled LUW sessions for the following reasons:

There are missing tools from the classic ABAP version;
It is impossible to spot runtime errors automatically;
It is impossible to debug background jobs, so I need more info about that session, which I cannot debug.

Note: In both the BTP ABAP Cloud Environment and S/4HANA Public Cloud, I found some tools that facilitate the analysis of executed bgPF units or system work processes. However, these tools were insufficient - particularly the ‘Monitor bgRFC Queues’ app. The name itself is somewhat confusing, as bgRFC cannot be used in ABAP Cloud, where the bgPF framework is employed instead. Thus, I would have expected the term "RFC" to be avoided.

The solution to Track ABAP Cloud Internal Sessions

From my experience so far, I have identified the following common “types” of sessions used in ABAP Cloud (I use quotes here as this is my classification based on empirical research, not from any official SAP documentation; the list is not exhaustive) :

Sessions handled by dialog work processes (DIA WP):

Started as an HTTP call (SAPMHTTP [system] %_http_start [module pbo] screen 0010 ) - this refers to any Odata service call as part of RAP business objects (Fiori apps) or an external HTTP call of a published service;
Started as a bgPF unit call (SAPMSSY1 [system] %_rfc_start [module pbo] - screen 3004) - this is started by an explicit bgPF unit execution, or the local handling of a RAP business event;

Sessions handled by background work processes (BCK WP):

Started as a result of a background job running (RSBTCPT6 start-of-selection [event])

These sessions can be controlled( by the SAP frameworks themselves—like RAP or bgPF controlled launch—or by the developers using class CL_ABAP_TX ) or uncontrolled. My focus is on tracking the uncontrolled ones.

For every session started within custom code on an AS ABAP in the cloud, I would like to know a few aspects:

When a session started and ended, and from what starting point;
Whether a session has created other sequential sessions linked to it;
How much time it took for a session to complete the logic;
If a short dump or another runtime error prevented the session from being completed.

To achieve this, I have created a relatively simple class, with a few methods, called zcl_xx_session_tracker, which can be simply used in custom code:

Starting:

METHOD start.
   IF zcl_os_session_tracker=>tracker_activated = abap_false.
     RETURN.
   ENDIF.
   TRY.
       me->session_int_uuid = 
                    cl_system_uuid=>if_system_uuid_static~create_uuid_x16( ).
     CATCH cx_uuid_error.
    " This should not interrupt the processing in any way. So in case of 
       error it just exits
       RETURN.
   ENDTRY.
   DATA(stack_list) = _get_call_stack(  ).
   IF lines( stack_list ) >= 3.
     me->stack_current_point = stack_list[ 3 ]->get_text( ).
   ENDIF.
   INSERT zos_sess_track FROM @( 
                  VALUE #( uuid = me->session_int_uuid
                           session_id = me->session_id
                           work_process_type = COND #( WHEN sy-batch = 
                                            abap_true THEN 'BCK' ELSE 'DIA' )
                           stack_start_point = me->stack_start_point
                           stack_current_point = me->stack_current_point
                           started_at = me->_now(  ) ) ). 
   IF sy-subrc = 0 AND commit = abap_true.
     COMMIT WORK AND WAIT.
   ENDIF.
 ENDMETHOD.

Ending:

 METHOD end.
   IF zcl_os_session_tracker=>tracker_activated = abap_false.
     RETURN.
   ENDIF.
   TRY.
       DATA(delete_after) = cl_abap_tstmp=>add( EXPORTING 
                               tstmp = CONV timestampl(  me->_now(  ) )
                               secs  = keep_track_log_in_minutes * 60 ).
     CATCH cx_parameter_invalid_range cx_parameter_invalid_type.
   ENDTRY.
   UPDATE zos_sess_track SET ended_at         = @( me->_now(  ) ),
                             rec_delete_after = @delete_after,
                             is_finished      = 
                         WHERE uuid  = ->session_int_uuid.
   IF sy-subrc = 0 AND commit = abap_true.
     COMMIT WORK AND WAIT.
   ENDIF.
 ENDMETHOD.

Linking sessions (example of linking a subsequent bgPF session):

 METHOD link_subsequent_session.
   IF zcl_os_session_tracker=>tracker_activated = abap_false.
     RETURN.
   ENDIF.
   INSERT zos_sess_links FROM @( 
                   VALUE #( parent_session_id = parent_sess_id
                            child_session_id  = subseq_sess_id
                            bgpf_mon_string   = bgpf_monitor_string
                            job_name          = jobname
                            job_count         = jobcount ) ).
   IF sy-subrc = 0 AND commit = abap_true.
     COMMIT WORK AND WAIT.
   ENDIF.
ENDMETHOD.

All the information gathered with the class above is saved in custom database tables to be used and checked later.

Since I also want to catch possible runtime errors that might occur in the middle of a session, the start() and end() methods execute a COMMIT WORK by default (remember, I am using this in the uncontrolled scenario; for the controlled one, COMMIT WORK would not be possible, evidently).

Below is a short sample of how the tool can be used for tracking sessions started from Eclipse by running the main() method:

  METHOD if_oo_adt_classrun~main.

    DATA(random) = cl_abap_random=>create( cl_abap_random=>seed( ) ).
    DATA(current_session_id) = |TEST_BGPF_MAIN_{ random->int31( ) }|.

    zcl_os_session_tracker=>session( current_session_id )->start( ).

    _start_new_bgpf_udemo_unit( parent_sess_id = current_session_id ).

    zcl_os_session_tracker=>session( current_session_id )->end( commit = 
                                                                abap_false ).
    COMMIT WORK.

    out->write( 'A new test for ABAP Session tracker was started. Check 
                  also subsequent bgPF units' ).

  ENDMETHOD

All in all, this small project allows me to have a comprehensive view of the ABAP internal sessions that I start with my custom code in ABAP Cloud, as shown in the image below:

Figure 2 - Session-tracked data gathered by the tool

The information consists of the following fields:

session ID - generated to identify a session
Work Process type - dialog or background
session starting point - the first program in the call stack starting the session
current place in call stack - place where I call the start() method in the call stack
start time - timestamp
end time - timestamp
delete record after - timestamp
session is finished successfully - boolean
bgPF monitor string - string generated by the bgPF framework when creating a new bgPF unit
job count - job information
job name - job information

In addition to the start and end timestamps information, I also persist the job identifier (job name and count) for the background sessions and the bgPF monitor string generated when creating a new bgPF unit. This is very useful if I want to retrieve the status of that job/bgPF unit programmatically later.

Also, I assign these tracking records a lifetime value to avoid overcrowding the database. A background job automatically deletes these records when they expire.

The above-mentioned background job is running periodically and checks the sessions that were started more than one hour ago (for sessions processed by dialog WPs) or one day ago (for sessions processed by background WPs) and have not finished yet. This is how I identify potential failed sessions and send necessary alerts when needed.

Last but not least, this functionality can be activated and deactivated according to the developer's needs as it may not always be necessary to have it active in a productive system. You can also use this tool for tracking sessions with controlled LUWs, but you must ensure that no commit work is executed, and be aware that runtime errors cannot be identified in this case.

Conclusion

I developed this small utility tool to help track and log internal sessions, measure performance, and identify potential runtime errors. This can also serve as a starting point for automating the maintenance of complex custom ABAP developments by monitoring ABAP internal sessions, gathering more information about them (started as bgPF or jobs), and sending alerts to the appropriate teams when vital processes exhibit unusual behavior.

As I conclude this small presentation, I would like to find out your thoughts and opinions on the topics mentioned.

References:

This article also appeared on Linked-in: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/working-internal-sessions-abap-cloud-octavian-mihail-savu-tkmlf/?trackingId=IfI%2BV54JTt%2BuSnpwmYUveg%3D%3D

Customer & Partner Roundtable for SAP BTP ABAP Environment #17

2024-09-27T21:50:39.046000+02:00

👉 The call for contributions for one of the upcoming roundtables is open!

If you want to show a demo or share a use case scenario for SAP BTP ABAP Environment send us an email and we will get back to you.

Introduction

As SAP BTP ABAP environment (aka Steampunk) and ABAP Cloud became more popular inside and outside of SAP, there is a high demand for rolling out the latest product news and updates, asking questions, and showing demos.

💡 You can find the slides presented, recordings, and further references from the previous rroundtables in this GitHub repository.

Meeting Information

When:

October 22nd, 10:00 - 11:00 AM CET – Zoom Meeting (please register in advance)

Who:

All interested customers, partners, and stakeholders are invited to join this roundtable
Steampunk team: Frank Jentsch (Product Lead for SAP BTP ABAP Environment), Iwona Hahn, Burcu Karlidag, Ronny Pahlke (Product Management)

Preliminary Agenda:

System landscape setup and costs
Pre-upgrade option for 2411 release
Planned features for 2411 release
Q&A

Looking forward to meeting you!

Check out our SAP Business Technology ABAP Environment page in SAP Community for product updates and upcoming events.

SAP Learning Journey – Administrating SAP Business Technology Platform

2024-10-01T09:54:30.730000+02:00

Since it was announced at SAP TechEd 2021, SAP offers digital learnings free of charge to everybody interested in SAP products on https://learning.sap.com. In this blog post, I want to present to you the learning journey Administrating SAP Business Technology Platform.

Introduction

SAP offers plenty of services to enhance your business in one central place: SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). This platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provides the central place to improve your handling of data and analytics, integrate data and processes, or develop and extend software by leveraging such SAP BTP services.

But before you can operate a service, you must define the basis like directories, subaccounts, and runtime environments. Users need authorizations and applications need connections to service provides. There are various configuration options to define your service landscape suitable for your business scenarios. All of this should also be observed and monitored concerning performance or costs.

This is exactly what this learning journey is about: Administrating the basis for operating SAP cloud services in SAP BTP. And yes, I chose the term “basis” on purpose for those people out there, who are right now on their journey from on-premise to cloud. Just take a seat in our learning journey.

The units in the current version are the following:

Overview, Responsibilities and Guidance
Architecture
Identity and Access Management
Configuration
Connectivity
Observability and Monitoring
Cost and Usage Management

Content

1. Overview, Responsibilities and Guidance

Unit 1 describes shortly the SAP Business Technology Platform and its commercial models. Most importantly, it analyzes responsibilities and guidance resources for SAP BTP.

There is no exercise in this unit. If you want to know more, please check our learning journey Discovering SAP Business Technology Platform acting as a prerequisite.

2. Architecture

Unit 2 covers the SAP BTP account model consisting of global accounts, directories, and subaccounts. After service subscriptions, the runtime environments in SAP BTP are managed. Cloud Foundry and Kyma are enabled and (name-) spaces created to instantiate services in these runtimes. Finaly, the ABAP environment is enabled and the landscape portal is used to manage ABAP system hibernation.

The following is exercised:

3. Identity and Access Management

Unit 3 explains the identity and access management on SAP BTP on all levels and distinguishes business from platform users. How to manage users and authorizations on SAP BTP with roles and role collections connected to identity providers is followed by a summary of the security concept for cloud native applications. This leads to the management of users and authorizations in SAP BTP environments.

The following is exercised:

4. Configuration

Unit 4 provides various ways to configure the SAP BTP starting with boosters, which are guided interactive steps to configure services. Operating the command line interface (CLI) tools btp CLI for SAP BTP and cf CLI for Cloud Foundry are like the kubectl for Kyma the most direct way to interact with SAP BTP on a technical level. To manage SAP BTP with Terraform incorporates btp CLI to automate infrastructure provisioning and management.

The following is exercised:

5. Connectivity

Unit 5 starts with analyzing connectivity in SAP BTP and jumps to using destinations on subaccount, service, and environment level. To connect the SAP BTP to on-premise systems, operating the cloud connector is mandatory for any SAP BTP service.

The following is exercised:

6. Observability and Monitoring

Unit 6 imparts the observability strategy of SAP BTP with SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) in its core. It offers central observability tools like business process, integration, user, or health monitoring. Including the local observability tools SAP Alert Notification Service and SAP Automation Pilot, SAP BTP offers a comprehensive monitoring approach.

There is no exercise in this unit. If you want to know more, please check our learning journey Operating with SAP Cloud ALM, especially unit 2 (Using Monitoring and Analysis).

7. Cost and Usage Management

Unit 7 closes the learning journey with cost and usage management, a topic often requested by customers.

There is no exercise in this unit but many slides and videos with hints around handling the costs of SAP BTP efficiently.

Summary

If you have read so far, it seems that you are really thinking about consuming the learning journey. Don’t hesitate and jump right in:

https://learning.sap.com/learning-journeys/administrating-sap-business-technology-platform

If you want to put your hands on some live system, the SAP BTP trial is just on click away:

https://www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/pricing.html

If you are more interested in a customer course for SAP BTP administration, please visit https://training.sap.com. The ADMCLD (Introduction to SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Administration) is a 3-day-course offered as physical and virtual event:

https://training.sap.com/course/admcld

For any other questions around the offerings of SAP Learning Services, please jump to our community page and get in contact with us:

https://pages.community.sap.com/topics/training-certification

Happy learning
Stefan

Different types of SAP BTP environments and how to choose the right one

2024-10-03T18:47:52.435000+02:00

SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is an integrated offering comprised of four technology portfolios: database & data management, application development & integration, analytics, and intelligent technologies. The platform allows users to turn data into business value, compose end-to-end business processes, and quickly build and extend SAP applications.

SAP BTP comes in two variants:Neo, which is being gradually phased out, and Multi-Cloud, which has been the default for new customers since 2020. SAP BTP lets you choose from different infrastructures and runtimes. Its services and solutions are available on multiple cloud infrastructure providers; it supports different runtimes, such as Cloud Foundry, ABAP, and Kyma, as well as multiple regions and a broad choice of programming languages.

In thisblog, I will explain the difference between each environment and how to choose the right one.

SAP BTP Environments

The environment in SAP BTP is a platform-as-a-service offering that offers runtime, services, and tools for developing and executing a business application. Environments are chosen at the subaccount level.

SAP BTP comes in two variants, offering different environments:

Multi-Cloud
- Cloud Foundry Environment:
  - The Cloud Foundry environment contains the SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry runtime service, based on the open-source application platform managed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation.
  - It enables developers to develop new business applications and business services, supporting multiple runtimes, programming languages (Node.js, Java, Python, etc.), libraries, and services.
  - Scales easily and supports DevOps pipelines.
  - It offers a broad range of services like machine learning, IoT, and SAP AI.
- ABAP Environment:
  - The ABAP environment allows developers to create extensions for ABAP-based products, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and develop new cloud applications.
  - It supports the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model, which includes SAP Fiori and Core Data Services (CDS).
  - Ideal for extending on-premise SAP systems.
- Kyma Environment:
  - The Kyma environment is a fully managed Kubernetes runtime based on the open-source project "Kyma."
  - It allows developers to extend SAP solutions with serverless functions and combine them with containerised microservices.
  - Supports serverless capabilities and event triggers.
  - Supports autoscaling and self-healing.
  - Ideal for event-driven architectures.
Neo
- Neo Environment:
  - The Neo environment is provisioned from SAP data centers.
  - It enables developers to develop HTML5, Java, and SAP HANA extended application services (SAP HANA XS) applications.
  - SAP has announced that the Neo environment will be phased out on December 31, 2028, subject to terms of customer or partner contracts.

Comparison: SAP BTP, Kyma Runtime and SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry Runtime

Category	SAP BTP, Kyma runtime	SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry runtime
Based on open source	Based on Kyma open source	Based on Cloud Foundry open source
Developer profile	Developers skilled in Java, Node.JS, Python, and the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP), including SAP UI5 and Fiori Elements.	Developers skilled in Java, Node.JS, Python, and the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP), including SAP UI5 and Fiori Elements.
Micro Services	Yes	Yes
CAP Applications	Yes	Yes
SAP Cloud SDK support	Yes	Yes
Approuter support	Standalone approuter	Both Standalone and Managed Approuter
Supported buildpacks	Cloud-native buildpacks	SAP-managed and Cloud Foundry community buildpacks for several development languages.
Service mesh support	Yes	No
Elasticity	Yes	Yes
Autoscaling support	Yes	Yes, with the Application Autoscaler service.
In-system build & deploy using buildpacks	No	Yes
Platform-as-a-service: MTA support	No	Yes
Transport services	No	Yes
Minimum infrastructure size	3 Kubernetes Nodes, each 4 CPU and 16 GB memory. Roughly 40% is reserved to run the infrastructure.	1 GB Memory with ¼ CPU core.

How to choose the right environment – Cloud Foundry vs ABAP vs Kyma

It is essential to choose the right environment for your BTP account. Here are a few points to consider:

Evaluate your application requirements:
- If your application needs multi-cloud support and scalability, then Cloud Foundry is likely the best choice because of its multi-cloud and microservices capabilities.
- If you are extending an existing ABAP-based SAP system, then ABAP Environment is the most suitable.
- If you are building event-driven, serverless, or containerised applications, Kyma Environment would be the best choice as it supports Kubernetes and microservice architectures.
Programming language and technology stack preferences:
- Cloud Foundry supports various languages like Java, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and PHP.
- Kyma is Kubernetes-based and supports containers, microservices, and serverless functions.
- ABAP Environment uses ABAP and is ideal for customers with an existing SAP ABAP codebase.
Assess your integration needs: Choose the environment based on the requirement to integrate with other SAP systems or third-party services.
- Cloud Foundry integrates easily with various SAP and non-SAP services.
- ABAP Environment integrates smoothly with existing SAP systems, especially S/4HANA.
- Kyma supports both event-based integration and Kubernetes orchestration, which is ideal for extending cloud applications.
Consider scalability and cloud provider options:
- Cloud Foundry allows deployment on multiple cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
- Kyma supports Kubernetes, which is highly scalable for containerised workloads.
- ABAP Environment is SAP-managed and designed for extending SAP environments.
Evaluate cost and pricing: Different environments have varying cost implications depending on:
- Services you require.
- Your cloud provider of choice.
- The scale of your application.

Conclusion: Which Environment to Choose?

Cloud Foundry: If you need multi-cloud support, microservices, and broad programming language support.
Kyma: If you are building event-driven, Kubernetes-based applications or using serverless architecture.
ABAP Environment: If you are extending SAP’s core applications (like S/4HANA) and working with an ABAP-heavy stack.

Best Regards,

Sudhir.

SAP BTP Partner Hands-on Excellence Program (HEP) Workshop Catalog

2024-10-04T09:00:00.028000+02:00

Introducing the SAP BTP Partner Hands-On Excellence Program (HEP) Catalog 2024 / 2025 featuring the following topics. To bring you top content and key insights, we cover the hottest core topics of SAP Business Technology Platform in 2 or 3 day workshops. Our workshops are available on-site and in-person across several different locations.

We have dates available for the following topics:

Our workshops are expanding! We are excited to cover even more topics in the coming months. Stay tuned for our workshop dates featuring:

SAP Fiori E2E
SAP Mobile Experience
SAP Build Code

What is in it for you?

On-site events for full focus and participation
Direct access to topic experts. Get your questions answered and grow your network
Elevate your skills as you learn and explore the benefits of SAP Discovery Center as an enablement platform from upskilling to go-live.
Make your voice heard by sharing your feedback on the workshop and products
Receive your digital badge after successfully completing the workshop