SAP Community - SAP Graph

CAP Wrapper for SAP Graph API

2023-07-05T23:25:01+02:00

Overcoming Data Integration Challenges: Introducing SAP Graph as a Unified Solution for Multiple Business Systems

Business Problem -- You got multiple business systems for example SAP S/4 HANA Cloud / SAP SuccessFactors / SAP S/4 HANA System on Premise but bringing data from these systems using one Unified service is a challenge but that Change got a beautiful solution and that is SAP Graph

SAP Graph -- "Streamlining functionality, we provide developers with a single connected and unified view of all their business data through a single endpoint for all purposes."

Resources for learning:

Thank you SAP HANA Academy for such a great Youtube Series on SAP Graph please follow it for building your solutions end-2-end.

You can also follow SAP Graph tag on SAP Community and blog series on SAP Graph

Pre-requisites:

BTP Cockpit trial account or Paid Account

SAP graph Free tier Services ( Check SAP Discovery Center for more detail )

Create Graph instance and Key Service Key ( Download and Save it )

Graph Instance parameters - ( Download and save it ) More details on HANA Academy GitHub - > SAP Graph

Go to PowerShell or VS Code and install graphctl tool for graph connect

Setup Graph Environment:

Get your free tier service from SAP Discovery center and add the entitlement in your BTP Subaccount

Download your graph key and store it somewhere in your system ( I will not go into detail as there are already few blogs and series on how to set it up but this is needed for start hence adding it for connect)

Sandbox API Destination Configuration:

Get your API Key and API url from SAP' API Sandbox system.

Business Acceleration Hub - https://api.sap.com/api/businesspartner/overview

Somewhere Create destination in BTP Cockpit Destination Config will look like this :-

Login to BTP Subaccount : ( CF LOGIN -a <API> )

Connect your BTP Subaccount - Enter your registered email ID and Password and select working Dev Space

Install graphctl tool using npm : Execute command - npm i @Sap/graph-toolkit

Login to SAP GRAPH Instance : ( GRAPHCTL LOGIN -F CREDENTIALS)

Execute:

graphctl login -f shagraph-creds.JSON.txt

( Note: This is going to open Web Browser login with your BTP Credentials and then close the window )

Graph Generate & Activate Config:

Execute:

graphctl generate config -f "C:\Users\Yoga\Desktop\graph\instance-parameters.json" -i cxsales

graphctl activate config -f "C:\Users\Yoga\Desktop\graph\instance-parameters.json" --force

Graph List Config: ( GRAPHCTL LIST CONFIG ):

Graph is available for consumption

"The graph is now operational and ready to serve. Please generate your service keys on the graph instance and proceed to test the graph API".

We are pleased to inform you that sap.graph is successfully serving the Cloud for Customer entities. You have the flexibility to select any entity and seamlessly integrate or link it directly to your application. This exemplifies the power of SAP Graph - an incredible technology that yields remarkable results.

Test your GRAPH API:

Create One GET Request in POSTMAN Client and Enter your Graph URL ( https://<host>/api/v1/sap.graph )

Choose Authorization: Oauth 2.0 Credentials

Execute GET Request on Graph Endpoint:

Lets GET Company Information from Graph

Outcome:

"Graph Environment Setup: Integration with SAP Graph and SAP CX Sales Cloud APIs, Business Data Graph Generation, and Successful Testing of Graph APIs in POSTMAN Client"

Congratulations on your successful setup of the graph environment! It's great to hear that you have successfully integrated SAP Graph with SAP CX Sales Cloud APIs. Additionally, generating a business Data Graph for consumption and conducting successful tests of the Graph APIs in the POSTMAN client demonstrate significant progress. Well done!

Part 2: CAP Wrapper for Graph API:

Architecture

"The architecture diagram illustrates the connection of two business systems to SAP Graph. SAP Graph is exposed as an endpoint (referred to as a destination in the Business Technology Platform), and a CAP App consumes that destination to access and expose the business data."

What all we need ?

Node in your VS Code / BAS

Destination for Graph endpoint in BTP Cockpit

Authentication , Destination and connectivity services in CAP

Create Destination in BTP Cockpit

Obtain the Client ID and secret from the Graph Service Key file.

Navigate to the "Destinations".

Click on "New Destination" .

Provide a name for the destination (e.g., "SAP Graph API").

Fill in the required details, such as the URL endpoint of the SAP Graph API.

In the "Authentication" section, select the appropriate authentication method (e.g., OAuth2 Client Credentials).

Enter the Client ID and secret obtained from the Graph Service Key file in the respective fields.

Save the destination configuration.

Create CAP Application in VS Code

Create Simple CAP Application either in BAS or in VS Code , I am using VS Code

Lets Create one Folder in your workspace in VS Code Name it like getBusinessData

Open VS Terminal and execute

cds init 



cds add mta

Add these in package.json



Add this CDS Section

"cds": {

    "requires": {

      "shagraph": {

        "kind": "odata-v4",

        "credentials": {

          "destination": "shagraph",

          "path": "/sap.graph"

        }

      }

    }

  }

Add sales.cds  file in srv folder and add the below snippet , I have created on function import which will be returning the dynamically generated results from SAP Graph API.

@protocol: 'rest'

service root {

    @open

    type object {};

    function graph(name:String) returns array of object;

}

Add sale.js file in srv folder

const get = require("./handlers/GET/getSales");



module.exports = cds.service.impl(async function () {

  this.on("graph", get.graph);

});

handler for graph.

const graph = async (req) => {

  const srv = await cds.connect.to("shagraph");

  if (req.data.name !== null && req.data.name != undefined) {

    req.query = SELECT.from(req.data.name);

  } else {

    req.query = SELECT.from(`sap.graph`);

    req.query.SELECT.from.ref[0] = "";

  }

  return await srv.run(req.query);

};



module.exports = {

  graph

};

Execute these Commands 



cds build



"BAS Does this automatically but in VS Code we can run these commands to Bind the Application"



cds bind -2 destination-srv:key  --  Bind your App with Destination using Key

 

cds bind -2 uaa-srv:key  Bind your App with Authentication service using Key 



cds watch --profile Hyrbrind ( to run your App locally )

End-2-end execution of CAP Wrapper for Graph API:

Note: Just created this small Video for executing calls to graph API instead putting screenshots 🙂

Here CAP Endpoint is serving first for sap.graph and after that we are passing entities exposed using business data graph and it comes to an end then.

I hope you have enjoyed the reading and please feel free to post your comments or questions if any 🙂

Thanks Shivam

Graph: new in SAP Integration Suite

2023-07-12T09:19:47+02:00

With the addition of the new Graph functionality, you can now, easily and securely, provide your integration and application developers with selective, abstracted access to your enterprise data via a single, easy-to-use API. The enterprise data is semantically connected in the form of a business data graph.

Out-of-the-box, you can create a business data graph of SAP-managed data, which includes 4500+ entities and 9000+ connections. Data objects from the business systems are projected as mirrored entities in the out-of-the-box business data graph. The data graph is also enriched with unified entities (abstracted and simplified entities), which are created for similar data objects found in more than one SAP system in the landscape. This provides the baseline for the out-of-the-box data graph. You can extend the business data graph by adding custom data sources or defining custom entities.

After the business data graph has been configured, it is accessible by a single and unified API, which supports powerful data graph query languages (OData v4 or GraphQL). Developers become more productive because, through the abstraction layer Graph provides, they are no longer exposed to the complexity of the landscape. The resulting application code can often be reduced by using single graph-navigating queries to replace programming logic or by querying custom entities composed of attributes from multiple source entities.

Enterprise IT : benefits & outcomes

Carefully control which data is securely and selectively exposed to different apps

Avoid unnecessary ETLs and replications for specific use cases

Get out-of-the-box SAP support, 4500+ entities, 9000+ connections

Create your own extended data models and enterprise graph

Simplify handover – requires just one business data graph URL and credentials

Deploy landscape-agnostic reusable apps

Developer : benefits & outcomes

Enjoy one easy-to-use API with powerful data graph queries (OData v4 or GraphQL)

Focus on the data you need, regardless of landscape complexity

Experience one connected and consistent system data model

Onboard quickly by exploring configured business data graphs using Graph Navigator in SAP API Business Hub Enterprise

Use with low-code/no-code tool integration in SAP Build

Be instantly more productive

How Graph complements API Management in SAP Integration Suite

APIs are business critical assets, which must be carefully managed. Using the API Management capability in SAP Integration Suite, this can be achieved in the following ways:

Façade – create your own unified and harmonized API presence, using your own domain and branding

Security – ensure API security, traffic protection and compliance

Governance – discover and document all your APIs, manage API policy and lifecycle, offer developer services

Insights – monitor with usage analytics, logs, events and triggers; use business insights to monetize your APIs

Transforms – apply advanced header and payload modifications; use business data graphs and (3^rd party) integrations

How to get started with Graph

After successfully completing a rigorous 6-month beta program with SAP customers and partners, the new Graph functionality has been released for general availability and is therefore suitable for productive usage. The Graph functionality can be enabled in existing SAP Integration Suite tenants as of July 10th, 2023 for any SAP BTP service plan for SAP Integration Suite where API Management is available. Regional availability follows a primarily on-demand approach. To see if Graph is available in your region, refer to SAP Note 3338820.

For more details about Graph, please refer to the following information:

Documentation on SAP Help Portal

Pricing and commercial information on SAP Discovery Center

SAP Community topic Graph

Support for Graph in Actions Project

2023-08-09T08:33:31+02:00

We are pleased to announce that SAP Build Actions Project went GA with Graph support as on August 4^th. See the release information from August 4th 2023 over here.

Motivation -

Actions Project built using Graph as a supported consumption source will provide the capability to consume and access business and enterprise data which is semantically connected in the form of a data graph and further exposed via Actions.

More Information on Graph and usability is available here.

Parent Blog:

Actions Editor – Feature List, Usage and Creation/Maintenance of Actions Project

Prerequisites –

The official help document on Creating Actions project via Graph is available here. It also has details on below key prerequisites to allow the creation of Action project with Graph instance.

Subscription to SAP Integration Suite.
- Capabilities - Adding the capability for Graph which is possible while editing the capabilities.
- Design Graph - Creation of a Business Data Graph.

Activation of Graph.

Creation of Graph service instance with service binding.

Creating a destination for Graph Instance with Service binding that includes - Client ID, Client secret and Token Service URL along with additional properties. This is further illustrated below.

Destination Configuration
Field	Value
Name	Enter the name of your choice.
Type	HTTP
Description	Enter an optional description for your destination.
URL	SAP Business Data Graph URL.
Proxy Type	Internet
Authentication	OAuth2JWTBearer
Client ID	Client ID found in the service binding. For more information, see Create a Graph Service Instance.
Client Secret	Client ID found in the service binding. For more information, see Create a Graph Service Instance.
Token Service URL Type	Dedicated
Token Service URL	https://<url-retrieved-from-service-binding>/oauth/token?grant_type=client_credentials

Additional Properties
Property	Value
AppgyverEnabled	true
sap.applicationdevelopment.actions.enabled	true
sap.processautomation.enabled	true
sap.build.usage	GRAPH

Note: URL, Client ID, Client Secret and Token Service URL should be entered correctly to ensure that the destination works fine.

Selection of Destination - User can select the preferred available destinations that have been set up using the above prerequisites. These destinations would connect with the graph instances. A sample illustration is shown below.

Selection of System – Based on the Graph instance, a list of systems will be shown. Action Designer can choose a specific system based on the use case.

Selecting the API – Based on the selected system, the Action Designer can choose from the available list of API’s.

Review the Methods for the API – Action Designer can review the methods/operations that are available within the chosen API.

Create the Action Project - Action Designer needs to provide the details for the Project Name, Description and upload the corresponding API specification. The system will validate the OpenAPI specification standards in the attached specification and display an error to perform corrective measures.

If the validation is successful, the Action Designer will need to click on the Create button to trigger the creation of the Actions Project.

Note: The Destination for Test capability within Action Project in the Action Editor and URL Prefix in the Project settings is defaulted based on the associated destination of the Graph instance. Further, The URL prefix if changed manually by the Action Designer, will not be persisted for subsequent execution.

Thanks for reading and i hope it helped to understand the concept of leveraging Graph for creation and consumption of Actions Project.

References

Part 1 of the Blog Series: The New Actions Project – Major Changes including the Actions Editor Available Now !! | SAP Blogs

Part 2 of the Blog Series/Parent Blog: Actions Editor – Feature List, Usage and Maintenance of Actions Project

Next in the SAP Garage – Integrate SAP S/4HANA with Microsoft Teams via SAP Business Technology Platform.

2023-09-05T14:40:09+02:00

In the September 2023 edition of SAP Garage we feature this use case that highlights how to extend the business processes in SAP S/4HANA to the Microsoft Teams app, by using the SAP BTP Bridge Framework.

The demo will focus on how to use the Bridge Framework to view the SAP S/4HANA purchase order data, update purchase order data if needed, and perform the release purchase order process in the Microsoft Teams.

Date of the session – September 6th, 2023, Wednesday

SAP Discovery Center mission to be featured : Integrate SAP S/4HANA with Microsoft Teams via SAP Business Technology Platform

Meet the Experts:

viancu, is a Developer for the Strategic Customer Engagements team of SAP Platform Adoption and Advisory. He works alongside fellow developers, designers, and data scientists to harness the power of SAP BTP to deliver innovative solutions to customers. He began his SAP journey during college as a frontend development intern for SAP Ariba’s Guided Buying team. Since then, his fulltime role has expanded to include full-stack development centered around SAP BTP and the broader SAP Ecosystem. Victor’s most recent work has focused on bringing two worlds—SAP and Microsoft Teams—closer together through an integration solution on BTP.”

Alex Bishka, a Developer in the Strategic Customer Engagements team of SAP Platform Adoption and Advisory. Alex started at SAP under the SAP Next Talent program. Since joining the team, Alex has focused on full stack development and automation around SAP BTP technologies: specifically on his current project which aims to bridge the gap between SAP and Microsoft Teams by implementing an integration solution via BTP.

Weikun Liu, a Software Developer from SAP T&I Strategic Customer Engagements team. He is an experienced software development engineer with 4+ years 'experience on crafting efficient and scalable back-end distributed systems within cloud environments. As a Software Developer at SAP Labs, Palo Alto, he collaborated closely with customers, orchestrating the development and delivery of systems for combining SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and other hyperscaler services.

Missed our last call?

No worries you can revisit the session with details below –

Topic : Build Events-to-Business Actions Apps with SAP BTP and MS Azure/AWS

Speakers : Praveen Kumar Padegal, Development Expert & Ajit Kumar Panda, Architect, Platform Adoption & Advisory team

Link to Recording

Join us.

Thank you for all of the positive feedback we continue to receive about the SAP Garage series. We are thrilled to bring you top SAP BTP use cases and demos directly from the experts. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the series, bring your curiosity, your questions, and join us as we cover key SAP Business Technology Platform topics and use cases!

Graphical representation of MTTR and MTBF in ECC

2023-10-09T23:59:11+02:00

Disclaimer- This Blog is to display the graphical representation of MTTR and MTBF in the SAP ECC. However, the better graphical analytical report is already available in S/4 HANA Fiori applications App ID - F2812

Requirement - To display the MTTR and MTBF of a specific maintenance plant.

T-code :- MCI7

Click on Multiple section button to input all the equipments from a specific plant

Select multiple selection option to select multiple equipments from a specific plant, then click on equipment by equipment list option. Again click on maintenance plant multiple selection and mention only the required maintenance plants for which the report should be displayed and click on execute (F8) button.

All the Equipments from these plants will be displayed, now select all the equipments and click on continue button

Now click on execute button to display the MTTR and MTBF report for the selected equipments and hence for the required maintenance plant

Click on switch drilldown to display the report for each equipment of that plant

List of equipments is displayed with their respective MTTR and MTBF values

Now click on graphics or press F5 to get the graphical representation.

Output of the graphical representation is as below.

Click on overview to change dimension and choices

It can able be extracted in Microsoft Excel with below steps

Summary- To use the filter criteria effectively to display the graphical report for the MTTR and MTBF. The same filter criteria can be used for all the other PMIS reports of plant maintenance.

Thanks for reading this short blog. Please leave your feedback in the comment section.

Follow me for more such related blogs.

Learn about SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023, ASUG Tech Connect 2023, and SAPinsider EMEA 2023

2023-10-27T06:41:58+02:00

Are you curious about SAP’s integration strategy and SAP Integration Suite sessions on coming events?

Join us in our Integration tracks at SAP TechEd 2023, in-person in Bangalore or virtually, as well as at our in-person events ASUG Tech Connect 2023, and SAPinsider EMEA 2023, to learn how we are shaping our integration platform strategy ensuring that SAP Integration Suite meets end-to-end integration requirements, how we are enabling modernization for customers, and how enterprise automation can be achieved.

This blog post provides you an overview of SAP Integration Suite sessions at SAP TechEd 2023 Virtual, ASUG Tech Connect 2023, and SAPinsider EMEA 2023.

- For an SAP TechEd 2023 overview for the in-person event in Bangalore, kindly take a look into my blog post: Learn about SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023 -

This year SAP TechEd 2023 will be provided in-person in Bangalore (India) as well as virtual, on November 2^nd - 3^rd 2023:

Furthermore, the weeks after, we will also provide in-person events for other regions:

For organizations to run successfully, it's critical to integrate business processes across SAP and non-SAP applications. With SAP Integration Suite, developers can accelerate innovation with an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaas) on SAP BTP to seamlessly integrate on-premise and cloud-based processes, applications, events, and data. Learn how SAP Integration Suite connects and automates business processes to harmonize experiences across diverse landscapes.

As we will have over 80 integration sessions for the in-person SAP TechEd 2023 in Bangalore,

kindly take a look into our blog post: Learn about SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023 to get an overview

as well as to the session catalogue of SAP TechEd 2023 in Bangalore: SAP TechEd Bangalore | November 02–03, 2023 | Home

and register for SAP TEchEd 2023 in Bangalore: SAP TechEd Bangalore | November 02–03, 2023 | Home

SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023 Virtual

At SAP TechEd 2023 Virtual, we will provide the following 9 SAP Integration Suite sessions as our highlights for this year:

Virtual: Session Catalog - SAP TechEd 2023

Please register here: SAP TechEd Virtual in 2023 | SAP Events

We will provide the following lectures for SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023 virtual:

Sub-Track: Accelerate Enterprise Automation with SAP Integration Suite

Connect and Automate Your Business Processes with SAP Integration Suite - IN100v

Unlock the full potential of your enterprise with SAP Integration Suite, an enterprise-grade offering that empowers you to smoothly integrate and automate processes across SAP and third-party applications. Discover the latest capabilities of this hybrid integration offering on SAP Business Technology Platform and learn how to implement a robust integration strategy within your business.

Speaker: Gabriela Gahse, Product Manager, SAP SE

Thursday, Nov 2 // 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM CET

Shimano Unlocks Innovation with Integrated Processes - IN203v

Learn from a customer how it is using SAP Business Technology Platform in its IT landscape. Hear about the customer’s experience with SAP Integration Suite.

Speakers:

Fernanda Ribeiro, Integration Functional Specialist Lead, Shimano Europe

Guido Koopmann, SAP Integration Architect, Acorel

Igor Mitrovic, SAP Integration Architect, Acorel

Thursday, Nov 2 // 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM CET

Manage the Lifecycle of Your Integrations from Strategy to Development - IN225v

Discover how to evaluate, optimize, and streamline your integration landscapes using SAP Integration Suite on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Apply a systematic and guided approach to design and run your enterprise integration strategy using SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology. Learn how to use the latest integration technology recommendations and bring governance to your integration practice.

Speaker: Gabriela Gahse, Product Manager, SAP SE

Friday, Nov 3 // 5:30 PM - 6:00 PM CET

Unleash Next-Generation Hybrid Integration with Edge Integration Cell - IN200v

Discover Edge Integration Cell, the next-generation hybrid integration runtime offered with SAP Integration Suite on SAP Business Technology Platform. This advanced technology enables you to run on-premise integration scenarios within your landscape whether in a private cloud or on-premise environment. Explore the key features of Edge Integration Cell and witness its capabilities through a live demo.

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Friday, Nov 3 // 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM CET

Sub-Track: Deep Dive into API and Event-Driven Integration

Embrace Event-Driven Architecture with SAP Integration Suite - IN127v

In an event-driven world, event-driven architectures (EDA) are gaining significant momentum. While many software vendors emphasize technical aspects of EDA, SAP goes further by highlighting the immense business value EDA brings. Learn how to support event-driven scenarios with the advanced event mesh for SAP Integration Suite to create a unified employee, partner, and customer experience across your organization.

Speakers:

Jannis Maier, Product Manager, SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Christoph Liebig, Strategic Projects, Integration, SAP

Thursday, Nov 2 // 7:30 PM - 8:00 PM CET

Innovate with API Management and Graph on SAP Integration Suite - IN104v

Discover how the API Management capability within SAP Integration Suite meets compostability requirements and enables developers to innovate in a more agile way with reusable artefacts. Dive into the Graph capability within SAP Integration Suite and learn how to access and track business data more easily through a unified API.

Speakers:

Christian Lindmayer, Development Manager, SAP

Jannis Maier, Product Manager, SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Friday, Nov 3 // 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM CET

Busting Myths in SAP Integration Suite - IN226v

Hear us dispel several myths about SAP Integration Suite, for example regarding connectivity options to third-party applications, scalability and high availability, DevOps, and monitoring. Learn more about the full enterprise–readiness of SAP Integration Suite.

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Friday, Nov 3 // 9:30 PM - 10:00 PM CET

Sub-Track: Deep Dive into SAP E2E Business Process Integration

Master E2E Processes with Suite Qualities and Reference Architectures - IN202v

Gain an overview of the advantages of suite qualities and understand data integration within end-to-end (E2E) business processes supported by SAP software. Learn how to harness the full potential of SAP Integration Suite supported by reference architectures based on the SAP Enterprise Architecture Methodology. Discover the path to becoming a certified professional enterprise architect.

Speakers:

Andreas Poth, Chief Product Expert, SAP SE

Holger Meinert, Chief Architect Integration, SAP SE

Friday, Nov 3 // 7:30 PM - 8:00 PM CET

Sub-Track: Elevate from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite

Hit Refresh and Elevate Your Integrations - IN221v

Evolve your enterprise landscape and modernize your integrations by moving to the cloud. Hear how SAP and our partner ecosystem provide tools and resources to elevate your scenarios from SAP Process Orchestration software and SAP Process Integration technology or from SAP BTP for the Neo environment to SAP Integration Suite.

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Friday, Nov 3 // 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM CET

Great news, the SAP TechEd 2023 Keynotes and Strategy sessions in Bangalore will be also broadcasted live and the recordings will be available online after.

Links: will follow after the event

If you're unable to make it to Bangalore but still want to experience the event with others, join our dedicated:

"watch-and-code" meetups.

These half-day, in-person events will be held in 11 different locations worldwide, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and engagement. It's a fantastic opportunity to come together, network, learn, and code!

ASUG TechConnect 2023

Get hands-on access to the latest and greatest from SAP and its partner community: Home - ASUG Tech Connect

Hosted for the first time by ASUG, Tech Connect will bring together technical practitioners, enterprise architects and SAP experts for three days of hands-on and interactive sessions.

Join us in New Orleans (USA), Nov 7th - 9th 2023, with like-minded peers to hear the latest SAP innovations, learn from SAP experts, have fun, and build your network. You’ll gain skills and expertise in three days that would take weeks to learn at home.

Session Agenda: Agenda - ASUG Tech Connect

Register now: Register - ASUG Tech Connect

Sessions for SAP Integration Suite:

Lectures

Learn How to Connect and Automate Your Business Processes with SAP Integration Suite

SAP Integration Suite enables you to smoothly integrate IT systems and seamlessly automate business processes across SAP and third-party applications. In this session you will learn about the latest capabilities of this hybrid integration platform and how to utilize this key component of the SAP Business Technology Platform to implement a robust integration strategy throughout your business.

Speaker: Milena Mathyl, Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 7, 2023 // 11:15 AM-12:05 PM CT

Room: 208/209

Leveraging Event-Driven Architecture with SAP Integration Suite

Event-Driven Architectures (EDA) can provide powerful connections across your entire enterprise portfolio. Please join us as we discuss how to support event-driven business scenarios using the Event Mesh capability within SAP Integration Suite, or the Advanced Event Mesh solution for high-performance scenarios, to create unified user experiences across your organization.

Speaker: Elijah Martinez, Senior Product Manager - SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 9, 2023 // 10:15 AM-11:05 AM CT

Room: 208/209

Modernizing Your Integration Architecture with SAP Integration Suite

If you are still running on SAP Process Orchestration, SAP Process Integration, or are on SAP BTP, NEO Environment today, discover your opportunities to lift your existing integration scenarios to the next level. In this session you will learn which solutions, tools and resources SAP and its partners are providing to help you to modernize these integration scenarios into a single cloud-based integration solution.

Speaker: Vinayak Adkoli, Lead Product Manager, SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 7, 2023 // 10:15 AM-11:05 AM CT

Room: 208/209

Enabling Innovation with API Management and Graph

In this session you will learn about the API management capabilities of SAP Integration Suite, with a focus on Graph – SAP’s unified API management solution. During this session you will learn how to leverage SAP’s API tools to accelerate your innovation efforts by re-using artifacts in a composable framework and easier tracking of business data.

Speaker: Elijah Martinez, Senior Product Manager - SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 9, 2023 // 1:00 PM-1:50 PM CT

Room: 208/209

Discover Next-Generation Hybrid Integration with Edge Integration Cell

Learn about Edge Integration cell, the next-generation hybrid integration runtime offered with SAP Integration Suite, which would enable you to manage APIs and run integration scenarios within your landscape (private cloud or on-premise). In this session, you will learn to setup and operate Edge Integration Cell, design integrations and APIs, run and monitor them on Edge Integration Cell.

Speaker: Vinayak Adkoli, Lead Product Manager, SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 8, 2023 // 1:00 PM-1:50 PM CT

Room: 208/209

Mastering Advanced B2B Efficiency with SAP Integration Suite

Join us as we embark on a technical deep dive into SAP Integration Suite's advanced features to optimize B2B efficiency, ensuring seamless collaboration with trading partners. Explore payload validation, process direct processing, and envelope customization, and gain practical insights through real-world examples.

Speaker: Milena Mathyl, Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 7, 2023 // 3:30 PM-4:20 PM CT

Room: 208/209

Roadmap

Roadmap: What's next in SAP Integration Suite.

Join us as we explore the details of SAP’s plans for evolving the SAP Integration Suite. You will learn about SAP’s integration strategy, which features and enhancements are planned, and how to take advantage of SAP’s innovations around SAP and third party integration.

Speaker: Elijah Martinez, Senior Product Manager - SAP Integration Suite, SAP

November 9, 2023 // 2:00 PM-2:50 PMCT

Room: 208/209

Hands-on Labs

Hands-On Lab: Executing Hybrid Integration Scenarios using Edge Integration Cell

In this session you will discover how to manage APIs and integration scenarios across your private cloud or on-prem landscape using SAP Edge Integration Cell. We will cover how to set up and operate Edge Integration Cell, how t o design integrations and APIs, and how to run and monitor the solution.

Speaker: Vinayak Adkoli, Lead Product Manager, SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Speaker: Stefan Ressing, Chief Cloud Architect, Vice President, SAP

November 9, 2023 // 1:00 PM-3:00 PM CT

Room: 221

Hands-On Lab: Enabling Asynchronous Integrations by using Event-Driven Architecture

In this hands-on lab, you will learn how to leverage SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh, and SAP's event-driven ecosystem to power event-triggered applications. We will cover an end-to-end perspective, from the backend all the way to the event consumer.

Speaker: Elijah Martinez, Senior Product Manager - SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Speaker: Stefan Ressing, Chief Cloud Architect, Vice President, SAP

November 7, 2023 // 1:00 PM-3:00 PM CT

Room: 221

Hands-On Lab: Start with the Right Mindset and Learn How to Modernize Your Integration Platform

For most customers, moving to the cloud is a "when" decision and not an "if" decision, and part of this move is effectively managing your integration solution. Join us for a hands-on experience where we will explore the tools and techniques around the migration assessment and migration capabilities of SAP Business Technology Platform to accelerate your move from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite.

Speaker: Milena Mathyl, Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Speaker: Stefan Ressing, Chief Cloud Architect, Vice President, SAP

November 8, 2023 // 10:15 AM-12:15 PM CT

Room: 221

SAPinsider EMEA 2023 Conference:

Make your plans today to join us at SAPinsider EMEA 2023! Taking place 14-16 November 2023, in Copenhagen, Denmark, you’ll join an immersive experience designed to provide you with best practices and expert insights for maximizing your SAP investments: SAPinsider EMEA 2023 Conference | SAPinsider

Agenda for Integration: SAPinsider EMEA 2023 | Integration + Enterprise Architecture - SAPinsider

The conference will convene hundreds of SAP professionals from across the globe to learn, connect, and expand their skillset around key SAP topics. Co-located with our inaugural SAPinsider Innovation & Technology Summit 2023 in Copenhagen, this event has 120+ sessions and is an excellent education resource in tandem with upcoming SAP TechEd events.

SAP Integration Suite Sessions at SAPinsider EMEA 2023:

Lectures

Modernize your landscape and automate business processes with SAP Integration Suite

Unleash the complete potential of your enterprise using SAP Integration Suite—an enterprise-level solution designed to empower seamless integration and process automation across SAP and external applications. Dive into the cutting-edge features of this hybrid integration offering within the SAP Business Technology Platform, and gain insights into crafting a resilient integration strategy tailored to your business needs.

You will:

- Navigate the intricacies of SAP Integration Suite to effortlessly connect and automate processes spanning SAP and third-party applications.
- Explore the diverse range of advanced capabilities offered by this hybrid integration solution within the SAP Business Technology Platform.
- Acquire practical knowledge on designing and implementing a robust integration strategy that aligns with your organization’s unique requirements.
- Gain insights into best practices for optimizing efficiency, data flow, and collaboration across your enterprise ecosystem using SAP Integration Suite.

Speaker: Emily Mui, Sr. Director Solution Marketing – SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Mastering Advanced B2B Efficiency with SAP Integration Suite

Dive deep into the technical intricacies of SAP Integration Suite’s advanced features, specifically the Integration Advisor and Trading Partner Management. Elevate your B2B efficiency and establish seamless collaboration with your trading partners. Gain hands-on experience with payload validation, process direct processing, and envelope customization through real-world examples, enabling you to implement practical solutions with confidence.

You will:

- Master the nuances of SAP Integration Suite’s powerful tools, including the Integration Advisor and Trading Partner Management, to enhance B2B operational efficiency.
- Discover techniques for fostering smooth and productive collaborations with trading partners, ensuring streamlined communication and workflow.
- Acquire in-depth knowledge of payload validation, process direct processing, and envelope customization, and learn how to apply these skills to optimize your integration processes.
- Gain practical insights and hands-on experience through real-world examples, enabling you to confidently address complex integration challenges and implement effective solutions.

Speaker: Emily Mui, Sr. Director Solution Marketing – SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Central monitoring of your integration scenarios with SAP Cloud ALM

Deep dive into the Integration & Exception monitoring capabilities of the SAP Cloud ALM for Operations. Learn how to monitor end-to-end integration scenarios, drill down to single message details, and navigate to the local monitoring tool of SAP Integration Suite for issue resolution. Hear how to configure alerts and receive auto-notifications through e-mail.

You will:

- Gain an in-depth understanding of the SAP Cloud ALM for Operations platform.
- Master the art of monitoring end-to-end integration scenarios.
- Learn advanced techniques to drill down into single message details.
- Explore the process of configuring alerts tailored to your specific integration needs.

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Embrace Event-Driven Architecture with SAP Integration Suite

In the dynamic landscape of event-driven paradigms, event-driven architectures (EDA) have emerged as a dominant force. While numerous software providers tend to focus on the technical dimensions of EDA, SAP distinguishes itself by underscoring the profound business advantages it offers. This session delves into the realm of harnessing event-driven scenarios through the SAP Integration Suite, leveraging an advanced event mesh to establish a cohesive ecosystem that enhances interactions among employees, partners, and customers throughout your enterprise.

You will learn:

- How Henkel uses SAP BTP overall.
- How Henkel built this SAP Build Apps Project with Integration Suite.
- What challenges faced during the project.

Speaker: Craig Stasila, Senior Director, Solution Management, SAP

SAP Integration Suite's Dynamic API Management and Graph Capabilities

Develop personalized Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) using SAP Integration Suite’s API Management and Graph capabilities. This solution offers a framework for businesses to create, manage, and optimize APIs.

You will:

- Understand the fundamentals of API management and the role of SAP Integration Suite’s APIs.
- Explore the Graph capabilities within SAP Integration Suite.
- Learn the process of creating and configuring custom APIs.
- Familiarize yourself with best practices, security measures, and performance optimization techniques.

Speaker: Jannis Maier, Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Accelerate Your Cloud Journey: Exploring Migration Capabilities with SAP Integration Suite

Evolve your IT landscape and modernize integrations through cloud migration. Discover the Migration Assessment and Migration capabilities of the Integration Suite enabling a smooth transition from Process Orchestration/Process Integration to SAP Integration Suite. Uncover the efficiency this migration brings to your organization driving cloud adoption.

You will:

- Discover the benefits of migrating to the cloud, including scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
- Learn how to conduct a migration assessment using SAP Integration Suite’s tools.
- Explore the process of executing migrations from Process Orchestration/Process Integration to SAP Integration Suite ensuring minimal disruptions and optimal integration performance.
- Unlock best practices for leveraging SAP Integration Suite’s capabilities to embrace cloud-native integration.

Speaker: Craig Stasila, Senior Director, Solution Management, SAP

Experience the Future of Integration: Introducing "Edge Integration Cell" with SAP Integration Suite

Learn about Edge Integration Cell, the latest hybrid integration runtime available with SAP Integration Suite. Unleash the potential of running on-premise integration scenarios within your landscape whether on private cloud or on-premise environment. This session offers a comprehensive overview of the robust features and capabilities of Edge Integration Cell.

You will:

- Gain valuable insights into the core features and functionalities that make Edge Integration Cell a game-changer in hybrid integration.
- Understand how it enables smooth integration between on-premise and cloud applications.
- Discover the limitless integration possibilities that Edge Integration Cell offers.
- Get hands-on exposure to the power of Edge Integration Cell through a live demo.

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Hands-on Lab

Start with the Right Mind-Set and Learn How to Modernize Your Integration

Take your enterprise landscape to new heights and revolutionize your integration by embracing the cloud. Join us for a hands-on experience where you will discover the migration assessment and migration capabilities of SAP Business Technology Platform to accelerate your move from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite.

You will:

- Explore different strategies for taking your enterprise landscape to the cloud.
- Learn how to perform a comprehensive migration assessment to evaluate your existing integration processes in SAP Process Orchestration.
- Gain practical, hands-on experience in migrating from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite.
- Discover how SAP Business Technology Platform can accelerate your integration journey in the cloud.

Speaker: Jannis Maier, Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Speaker: Udo Paltzer, VP Product Manager SAP Integration Suite, SAP

Customer presentations

Case Study: Product Safety Sheets to End-Users Via SAP Build Apps

Henkel at-present stores all of its Product Safety Information sheets like SDSS,TDSS into their On Premise SAP ERP system. Based on country local laws, these sheets needs regular updates in all local languages. Hence considering this, we decided that instead of storing such documents in a data lake or file management system, why don’t we use SAP’s Integration Suite in conjunction with SAP BTP build apps which can then be launched using mobile app or webapp or iframed into SAP Sales Cloud.

You will:

- Learn how Henkel uses SAP BTP overall.
- Understand how Henkel built this SAP Build Apps Project with Integration Suite.
- Hear about the challenges faced during the project.

Speaker: Saurabh Kabra, Senior CRM Developer, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA

Partner presentations

Leverage Advanced Event Mesh With Low-Code Tool

Understand the tremendous capabilities of SAP Advanced Event Mesh. The speaker will demonstrate how you can enable event communication outside of SAP by leveraging configurations and existing SAP tools. By highlighting this simplified approach, we aim to provide you with the knowledge and tools necessary to streamline event handling and facilitate communication between SAP and external systems.

You will:

- Learn how to make data available in SAP via REST endpoints.
- Understand how to expose Change Pointers and Business Object Events to SAP Advanced Event Mesh via low code tools.
- See how to combine data and events to send out customized events real time to SAP Advanced Event Mesh.

Speaker: Peter Kreiner-Sasady, CTO, Invixo Consulting A/S

SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023 – Conclusion

I hope that our sessions will provide you with a comprehensive view of the SAP Integration Suite and how it can help you solve your integration needs. Build your personalized agenda and create your ultimate SAP TechEd experience. Enjoy learning, practicing, meeting SAP colleagues and customers, and exchanging thoughts with peers.

We are looking forward to meeting you in-person or virtually and would be glad about a long-time relationship with you!

PS: Our Product Management team for SAP Integratoin Suite is always interested in a long-term relationship with customers and partners by offering, e.g.,

a first point of contact in case of SAP Integration Suite questions or specific customer feedback on SAP Integration Suite capabilities and how to optimize;

and offering various internal (confidential; e.g., CEI, Beta testing, internal Voice of customer session with development) or public programs (invite to events, joint public success stories, etc.) for customers and partners.

Please feel free to reach out to me: LinkedIn: Milena Mathyl | LinkedIn

Best Regards,

Milena Mathyl

Product Manager SAP Integration Suite

Additional References:

Learn about SAP Integration Suite at SAP TechEd 2023

If you have further questions regarding SAP TechEd, you can find Q&A and post your questions to All Questions in SAP TechEd | SAP Community.

In case of specific questions to SAP Integration Suite, please have a look to All Questions in SAP Integration Suite | SAP Community.

Questions & Answers of SAP TechEd 20222 kindly here: SAP Integration Suite enhanced for today’s digital processes – SAP TechEd 2022 Edition | SAP Blogs

Questions & Answers of SAP TechEd 2021 kindly here: SAP TechEd 2021: Watch the SAP Integration Suite session recordings and discover the SAP Integration Suite FAQs | SAP Blogs

To stay up-to-date with SAP Integration Suite, please follow me at SAP Community lenamika and our community product page SAP Integration Suite | SAP | SAP Blogs.

Also please feel free to reach out to me at LinkedIn: Milena Mathyl | LinkedIn in case of further questions or interest in a long-time collaboration.

Please discover also SAP Integration Suite on help.sap.com to learn more about SAP Integration Suite and its capabilities. On SAP Integration Suite in the Service Catalog you will get more insight to SAP Integration Suite including its Initial setup, learning journey, pricing, missions, roadmap, and customer stories.

To get a full SAP Business Technology Platform experience at SAP TechEd 2023, kindly have a look to other sessions, like

Top Picks: Innovations Highlights from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q3/2023)

2023-11-09T10:00:41+01:00

What an amazing TechEd 2023! We had many announcements for SAP BTP like #SAPBTP like #SAPBuildCode, #EdgeIntegrationCell, #Vectorcapabilities for SAP HANA Cloud, #JustAsk for SAP Analytics Cloud. Also in Q3 we delievered a lot of innovations on SAP BTP. In this blog post I want to focus on a subset of innovation highlights including an outlook on what is coming up next.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q3 2023

Application Development and Automation:

Starting in the Application Development and Automation pillar of SAP BTP, with Q3 we have some higlights in the SAP Build Work Zone area. Happy to share that SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition (formerly known as SAP Launchpad service) introduced a new site experience. Having the latest functionality based on the Horizion visual theme for Fiori in place, it also offers new design time capabilities targeted to the content administrator to be able to create spaces and pages manually. Additionally, UI integration cards and tiles can be added. The end user experience improved as well. They have now the capability to consume the pages and the content of the pages in runtime. Get more information on all capabilities in the blog post of vera.gutbrod

Welcome SAP Start! With Q3, SAP Start is part of the SAP Build Work Zone family and your central entry point into SAP cloud solutions. Having SAP Start in place, you will find all your relevant business information in a single landing page based on end-user stories. It delivers immediate value with insight cards. The initial release is available for SAP customers with RISE with SAP or GROW with SAP contracts or SAP Build Work Zone (standard edition) licenses. Want to explore more about SAP Start? Then read the blog post of yumnah.abbasi

Governance can be an unpopular topic...but it doesn´t have to be. Many of our customers have not just started their low-code journey, they also extend SAP S/4HANA with low-code applications and automations. Governance is a must-have if it comes to security, performance or compliance that could affect the ERP. Helping our customers to find the right governance, we released our one-stop resource hub, the Governance Resource Center for SAP Build. It provides you with all the information, assets and practical templates designed for IT administrators, a toolkit for building a citizen developer center of excellence business site, and the new Use Case Evaluator for SAP Build projects. Check it out here.

Integration:

Graph is now generally available as part of API management in SAP Integration Suite. This new capability extends traditional API management by exposing business data in the form of a semantically connected data graph, accessed via a single unified and powerful API. Graph gives integration and application developers selective, seamless access to enterprise data via a single, easy-to-use API. It is also available in SAP Build, SAP’s low-code solution. Check out the blog post of piyush.gakhar

Migration from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite is an important topic. With Q3 you can now migrate Integrated Configuration Objects (ICO) from SAP Process Orchestration 7.31 and 7.40 versions to SAP Integration Suite. The update is available for template-based migration tooling in Cloud Integration and will be available for the Migration Assessment tooling soon. For supported service pack see What Is Migration Tooling?

Data and Analytics:

With the Q3 release of 2023, several great Calculation View feature have been released that can be used in Business Application Studio. MDS cubes provide an option to speed up analytical queries, column-level lineage gives you an indication where a column is used in a current Calculation View and measure-based restrictions in columns gives you more filtering flexibility while eliminating outliers before aggregation. But this is just a subset! Make sure you check out the blog post of jan.zwickel for the full-blown experience.

In addition to that Custom Widget can support Linked Analysis starting with Q3. The Linked Analysis feature in custom widgets gives UI developers now the chance to dynamically link custom widgets to others in the Story and perform insightful filtering operations on demand. If you want to learn more read the blog post of marouferchichi.

Artificial Intelligence:

Late Q3 we announced Joule, a natural-language, generative AI copilot. Our digital assistant that provides intelligent insights and fast business outcomes offerd with seamless user experience across the entire portfolio.By quickly sorting through and contextualizing data from multiple systems to surface smarter insights, Joule helps people get work done faster and drive better business outcomes in a secure, compliant way. Joule will be available with SAP SuccessFactors solutions and the SAP Start site later this year, and with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition early next year. SAP Customer Experience and SAP Ariba solutions along with SAP Business Technology Platform will follow. Learn more about Joule here.

With Q3 the SAP AI Core toolkit is available - our Visual Studio Code extension for AI-driven development with SAP solutions. It makes a connection to your SAP AI Core instance directly from Visual Studio Code, allows you to develop solutions for your use case, and leverage AI capabilities through SAP AI Core, in one developer tool.Check out the blog post of yoganandamuthaiah

Cross SAP BTP:

Development Operations is quite importan for our customers. With Q3 you can now transport content for SAP Analytics Cloud scenarios with SAP Cloud Transport Management service. This allows you to handle the propagation of corresponding changes through a standardized, enterprise-ready process and to align those changes with other transports, from other services or environments.Read the blog post of ashokkumar.kn and watch the replay of the What´s New with SAP BTP quarterly series to get more insights. For more on how to apply agile DevOps principles in an enterprise environment and what is possible with SAP BTP, you can also check out the new learning journey: https://learning.sap.com/learning-journey/discovering-devops-with-sap-btp

Want to know more on the announcements for SAP BTP at SAP TechEd2023? Then stay tuned for a special innovation highlights blog coming soon.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights - outlook:

Please find here my personal innovation highlights outlook coming up:

Application Development and Automation: SAP Build Code

Integration: Edge Integration Cell for on-premise and hybrid integration scenarios including API-led integrations

Artificial Intelligence: Document classification capability as part of Document Information Extraction

Data and Analytics: Next-generation natural language query (NLQ) powered by AI for SAP Analytics Cloud

Cross SAP BTP: SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery service: Pipeline to build and deploy SAP Cloud Application Programming Model applications in the SAP BTP, Kyma runtime; Provisioning of global accounts and directory members through the Identity Provisioning service

Check out all upcoming innovations in our SAP Road Map Explorer to learn more.

Check Out:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news

Check out the next blog post beginning of Q4/2023 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series

Want to get a recap on what´s new in SAP BTP then check out the What´s New in SAP BTP quarterly series

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

👉🏽Read other SAP Business Technology Platform blog posts and check the SAP Business Technology Platform Topic Page where you can also ask questions. Feel free to follow my profile stephanie.stang that you do not miss my next personal view of innovation highlights for SAP BTP for Q4 2023 and a recap on all innovation highlights of SAP TechEd 2023!

What’s New for SAP Integration Suite – October & November 2023

2023-12-07T09:32:32+01:00

SAP TechEd is over, and you got already valuable new information. Now the end of the year is upcoming, and I want to provide a wrap up of important innovations we have released over the last two months. Some of them you might have seen already during our Monthly Updates webinar late November.

SAP Integration Suite highlights are:

Next-generation hybrid integration with Edge Integration Cell

Auto-registration of developers in API business hub enterprise

New design of API business hub enterprise will get default

In-built retry functionality in the HTTP receiver adapter

Urgent reminder: upgrade to new version of third-party connectors now

Inspect system memory usage in Cloud Integration

Analysis of metered messages in Cloud Integration

Upcoming new openSAP course about B2B scenarios

Update on B2B libraries cXML, ASC X12, and Tradacoms

Import customer-extended IDocs in Integration Advisor

Support for the ProcessDirect adapter in Trading Partner Management

Custom search attributes in B2B monitoring

New rules for Migration Assessment

New templates for migration tooling

Support for older SAP Process Orchestration releases

New learning journey on define and execute an enterprise integration strategy

Subscription to integration and event packages

Next-generation hybrid integration with Edge Integration Cell

Within the SAP TechEd executive keynote we have announced that the Edge Integration Cell, our flexible hybrid integration runtime, is now generally available. This new extension to SAP Integration Suite allows customers to manage APIs and run integration scenarios within private landscapes, offering features such as flexible deployment in customer-managed private Kubernetes environments, local data processing for data compliance, and business continuity during temporary connectivity loss. This brings greater flexibility and control over integrations and APIs in heterogeneous and distributed environments of enterprises. With the combination of capabilities and the introduction of API artifacts, it is even possible to add traffic and security policies to the mediation of messages with the integration flows. Read the announcement, check out the detailed blogpost on how to setup Edge Integration Cell, and access the documentation. For future updates, visit the Edge Integration Cell roadmap.

API Management

Auto-registration of developers in API business hub enterprise

The API business hub enterprise enables you to explore the APIs, read the associated API documentation, and view resources. Now we offer a registration procedure for application developers leveraging the role-collection assignments in SAP BTP. This enhances the user experience by automatically assigning predefined roles based on role collections, reducing manual efforts by the administrator. For more information, read Register on API business hub enterprise.

New design of API business hub enterprise will get default

End of 2022 we have refreshed the user experience of the API business hub enterprise. Please be aware that starting from March 2023 the new design will be default. The classic design will be available until June 2024. Refer to Customize the visual format of the API business hub enterprise.

Cloud Integration

In-built retry functionality in the HTTP receiver adapter

We have enhanced the HTTP receiver adapter by introducing a built-in retry option, facilitating the reattempt of failed HTTP requests. This feature proves especially valuable for addressing backend HTTP server issues. Users can now configure the retry option to specify HTTP error response codes (such as 503 or 429) that trigger a retry. Additionally, they can set the number of iterations and the time interval between each retry.

This enhancement extends to the ability to configure connection retry to a target system in the event of failed HTTP requests. This feature is particularly useful when the backend HTTP server encounters challenges in serving requests, especially intermittent issues. Access more information in the blogpost and the documentation.

Urgent reminder: upgrade to new version of third-party connectors now

As of SAP note 3001980 the following previous adapter versions have been deprecated since end of 2020: Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM. No new features or enhancements have been introduced for these deprecated adapter versions. Effective January 1st, 2024, these versions will no longer be operational.

Action is required from customer side. Please choose one of the following options: either migrate to updated new adapter versions and take advantage of the new features (request access to migration documentation by annemarie.kiefer@sap.com) or acquire new Advantco adapter versions directly from Advantco with support provided exclusively by Advantco. Additionally, it is necessary to delete integration flows using the adapters that are no longer in use and undeploy the adapters.

Inspect system memory usage

Since June of this year, we have implemented the powerful Inspect feature, enabling you to analyze the database resources utilized by your integration flows. As integration flows consume system memory at runtime, we have further enhanced the feature. Now, you can also inspect the system memory usage per integration flow for a specific time period. Check out the document and refer to the blogpost from June Inspecting and understanding resource consumption of your integration content.

Analysis of metered messages

Now you can analyze metered messages as a self-service. High-level insights, including a summary of messages processed within a selected date range, are provided. This includes differentiation between messages exclusively exchanged between SAP applications and the chargeable ones. Additionally, you have the option to delve into the details of a specific integration flow and download a report for further verification and audit purposes. Refer to the documentation.

B2B Integration

Upcoming new openSAP course

We are happy to shout out that a new openSAP course Manage B2B scenarios effectively with SAP Integration Suite is upcoming. Start of the 3 weeks course will be January 9^th. Enroll today!

Update on B2B libraries cXML, ASC X12, and Tradacoms

We have extended our rich type systems (B2B libraries) in recent months by new SOAP message versions for SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, based on the data from the SAP Business Accelerator Hub. Now we have expanded it again by new versions for ASC X12 and cXML. Additionally, the Tradacoms format (from GS1 UK) is now available. You have the full end-to-end support for Tradacoms messages in Trading Partner Management and can use the type system for modelling guidelines in Integration Advisor. Check out the blogpost for more information.

Import customer-extended IDocs

The Integration Advisor capability significantly simplifies the handling of customer-extended IDocs. You are now able to import your extended IDoc and reference it to the standard IDoc.

Support for the ProcessDirect adapter in Trading Partner Management

Trading Partner Management is now supporting the ProcessDirect adapter. You may define the ProcessDirect adapter as the sender or receiver adapter in the company and the trading partner profiles. This offers you the possibility to use adapter types not yet supported. Understand the integration flow configuration within the documentation.

Custom search attributes in B2B monitoring

We have extended the B2B monitoring by additional filtering attributes to give you the option to work directly with the most important parameters. You are able to define up to 10 custom search attributes in the B2B design space which can be consumed and used to filter for parameters such as a document ID. Refer to the documentation.

Migration to SAP Integration Suite

New rules for Migration Assessment

We have improved the quality of the Migration Assessment capabilities, used to assess the effort and the feasibility of the migration of SAP Process Integration / SAP Process Orchestration scenarios to SAP Integration Suite, by adding new rules. Also, we provide more information like the number of processed messages or the extraction status.

New templates for migration tooling

As you may know, the migration tool that is part of the Cloud Integration designer is based on a set of integration flow templates. We have shipped additional templates for the async/sync bridge, mail attachments, and for content-based routing and recipient list.

Support for older SAP Process Integration / SAP Process Orchestration releases

We can’t emphasize it enough. Both the Migration Assessment and the migration tooling are supporting now former SAP Process Integration / SAP Process Orchestration releases as 7.5, 7.4, and 7.31. Find additional information in the documentation.

Integration Assessment

New learning journey on defining and executing an enterprise integration strategy

A free SAP Learning Journey Getting Started with SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology is now available. The course is designed for beginners and covers important concepts such as SAP's integration strategy, the four phases of the methodology, and its tool-based approach enabled by the Integration Assessment capability. Learners have the opportunity to join the SAP Learning Group for additional support and collaboration.

SAP Business Accelerator Hub

Subscription to integration and event packages

The SAP Business Accelerator Hub has been expanded to allow users to be notified about lifecycle changes to content. Users can subscribe to an integration package or event and receive proactive emails about changes such as API deprecation and new successor APIs. If users wish to stop receiving these updates, they can mute the notifications via the My Subscriptions page. Refer to the documentation.

Become an Integration Black-Belt

We have updated the Black-Belt certification program to help you learn how to solve complex challenges by using SAP Integration Suite. Upon completion of the program, participants will earn a "black belt" badge, symbolizing their expertise. Get access to the learning program that is hosted on the SAP Learning Hub through this link.

How to stay tuned on recent and upcoming innovations?

Our roadmap gives you the answers to where we are heading with SAP Integration Suite. You can easily check out the latest innovations and follow what is planned for the following quarters. All recent innovations also cover links to blogposts or documentation - use the tab Features within each of the blue tiles.

We also refer to the complete list of new releases in our documentation: What’s New in SAP Integration Suite.

And if you have not heard of our monthly webinars, I suggest you sign up to get an invitation to the upcoming ones. Our team of Product Management experts host these webinars to showcase the latest and greatest updates regarding all SAP Integration Suite capabilities. The webinars are hosted on the last Tuesday of every month and the next one is scheduled for next year, January 30^th.

In case you have missed our last monthly webinar, don’t worry. Visit 2023 Learning Sessions for SAP User Groups on SAP Integration Suite for all recordings, presentations, and Q&As.

Join the upcoming CEI project in 2024 for SAP Integration Suite

2024-02-06T08:56:32.734000+01:00

Join the upcoming Customer Engagement Initiative project in 2024 for shaping the SAP Integration Suite product, SAP's integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) offering that helps you quickly integrate on-premise and cloud-based processes, services, applications, events, and data.

SAP Integration Suite provides out-of-the-box ready to use integration content for SAP as well as non-SAP integration scenarios and offers simple modelling based integration tooling with standard inbuilt connectivity adapters and data transformation capabilities. It allows you to manage your APIs incl. discovery and design of APIs as well as enriching your integration with security and traffic policies. Graph as part of API Management allows you to expose all your business data in the form of a semantically connected data graph accessed via a single unified API. Furthermore, the new Edge Integration Cell extends your SAP Integration Suite landscape by offering an optional hybrid integration runtime so that you can manage your APIs and run your integration scenarios within your private landscape. For customers on SAP Process Orchestration, we ease the move to SAP Integration Suite by providing a migration assessment capability as well as an in-built migration tool.

Based on customer requirements, we work on improving SAP Integration Suite's capabilities and increasing its scope. Here, we also take into account new technologies like Generative AI that may help you improving the overall productivity when implementing and running your integration scenarios.

It is essential to gather feedback from our customers at a very early stage of new developments to validate and ensure that we build the right features for your needs. Hence, we are running another Customer Engagement Initiative project for SAP Integration Suite where we like to engage with our customers and partners to discuss topics in our backlog, validate concepts, identify existing pain points, gather feedback, etc.

Some of the topics that will be discussed and validated with customers and partners include:

API Fabric offering a central, multi-gateway API registry and catalog
Use cases for Generative AI integration with SAP Integration Suite
Modernization in context of SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite move
Misc. Migration Assessment & Migration tool topics incl. reuse of artifacts (data types, message types, function libraries), ABAP proxy generation, B2B
Misc. Edge Integration Cell topics such as sizing guide, offline mode, adapters, etc.

If you like to join the Hybrid Integration with SAP Integration Suite influence project, please register at the customer registration page in the customer influence opportunities.

The registration has started on 5th of February and will go until 8th of March.

Once, the registration closes, we will invite you for an initial call where we go through the scope and prerequisites of the feedback project.

Information Map – Introduction Series: Graph in SAP Integration Suite

2024-02-21T15:10:07.961000+01:00

Graph is a powerful enhancement to API Management, capability of SAP Integration Suite , which supports in transforming APIs. You can easily and securely, provide your integration and application developers with selective, abstracted access to your enterprise data via a single, easy-to-use API. The enterprise data is semantically connected in the form of a business data graph.

This series is designed to support SAP customers and partners through building a first end-to-end implementation of Graph. To keep things straightforward, there are two personas in an end-to-end Graph implementation, which have the following responsibilities:

Administrator
- Configures the SAP Integration Suite service plan in SAP BTP, as well as SAP BTP users and their roles
- Enables connectivity to business systems in the form of SAP BTP destinations
- Creates a business data graph (including model extensions, as required)
- Explores the resulting business data graph in the Graph Navigator tool
- Prepares the credentials file to the business data graph for the developer

Developer
- Uses the Graph Navigator tool to explore the connected entities and try out OData queries on the real data included in the business data graph
- Creates and deploys an application which uses the Graph API (and the credentials file for the business data graph)

Available introduction series parts

________________________________________________________________

Palak Garg, Product Manager – SAP Integration Suite

Learn more about Graph in the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 1: Introduction to Graph in SAP Integration Suite

2024-02-22T15:40:46.459000+01:00

Hello, and welcome to the first in a tutorials series about the Graph functionality of API Management, a main capability of the SAP Integration Suite. In this series, we will take you from learning about what Graph is, to creating your own business data graphs with custom model extensions, all the way to becoming a developer who is proficient in using Graph as an access point to your business data, regardless of where this data resides.

For an overview of other parts of this series, check out the Information Map.

With Graph, you create an abstraction of business objects (aka entities) available in your landscape of business systems, in the form of a business data graph. The business data graph exposes the data of these business objects through a single, unified API. Application developers use powerful OData v4 or GraphQL commands to access only the data required to build the application and do not need to concern themselves with the complexities of the underlying data source systems.

SAP is famous for its ERP software, but today SAP customers have increasingly more complex requirements and are managing intricate and hybrid on-premise and cloud solutions. Customers want to become Intelligent Enterprises. To support their journey, SAP has augmented its ERP-centric business suite with substantial additional functions through the acquisition of cloud solutions like SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur and SAP Ariba. SAP’s Intelligent Suite portfolio now supports all key business processes and span all enterprise functions, but this expanded role and diversity of solutions has introduced some complexity. Many of SAP suite’s products have their own stack: overlapping data models, different APIs and heterogenous infrastructures, and this complexity is not always well hidden from SAP’s customers.

From the perspective of a software developer, this means that accessing SAP-managed data has become more complex. Data may be federated across hybrid networks of on-premise and cloud systems with different security protocols, replication processes and multiple master data copies. You don’t only have to worry about the data you are interested in, you have to know which copy you need, where that data exactly is located, and how to deal with connecting to these different customer systems. Different products have different connection protocols, security requirements and APIs, and those APIs expose data using different and inconsistent data models. Developing SAP extension apps requires mastering a broad set of skills for even the simplest data queries, and the applications you develop are sensitive to the smallest product and landscape configuration changes.

This is the problem that Graph addresses.

Graph is a new unified API for SAP. It addresses this run-away API complexity and integration challenge by providing developers a single connected and unified view of all their business data, consolidating the data models of data sources like SAP S/4HANA, SAP Sales Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors into one, unified and connected, data model, representing all the data in a landscape. We call this the Business Data Graph.

A data graph is a connected graph, with data entities serving as the nodes of the graph and edges that represent relationships (which we call associations) between those entities. The nodes of the Business Data Graph are the common enterprise business objects, like Customer, Supplier, Product, Sales and Purchase Order, General Ledger, etc.

As a developer, you face a dilemma. The concept of a Product or a Customer is common to many of the business systems that make up a landscape. Which of these definitions should you use? Where in the landscape is this data managed? Graph addresses this dilemma by introducing unified entities that provide the most common attributes of a business model for easy consumption and connect to the corresponding system-specific business objects for a full 360° view of the business object. You get to have your cake and eat it too: use the unified entities for simple use-cases, and easily access over 1,500 additional system-specific entities for advanced usage.

To illustrate these aspects of the business data graph, it is best if we start with a simple example taken from the enterprise world of sales. A salesperson entered a quote on behalf of a customer.

This quote is represented by a unified SalesQuote entity. The quote has an association to a Customer entity. The quote also has multiple items, each of which refer to a Product entity, which in turn has multiple associations to other entities, like Division. This is illustrated below:

Each entity has many additional attributes, such as a key (called id in unified entities), and various other attributes, which can be flat, arrays, or more complex structured compositions of other attributes. For instance, items is an array of a structured type.

With Graph you navigate to and access the data you need, regardless of where this data resides. Graph abstracts the physical landscape and the details of the different product stacks and offers you a simple view of the SAP-managed data, which you can access through a single API, spanning all key use cases. Graph accesses the data in the customer-configured landscape on your users’ behalf, technically acting as middleware. Graph itself doesn’t store or cache any data.

The above illustration shows your app accessing quote, product, customer and supplier data – but the app cannot tell if this is data is accessed from an on-premise SAP S/4 HANA system, SAP Sales Cloud or another system, like SAP Ariba. This will be determined by the specific landscape configuration that Graph accesses on behalf of the app user. As a developer, you are exempted from knowing these system details, or how to access data in these heterogenous systems. More importantly, your application will be portable across multiple and diverse landscapes without changes to your code.

But what if your app requires detailed attribute information that is not modeled in the unified entity? For instance, your app may be interested in Product inventory information, that is unique to data sources of type S/4HANA. No problem! Simply navigate over the _s4 association to access the required information, like the CountryOfOrigin of the product, or navigate further via the to_ProductStorage association.

The unified entities introduced here are actually examples of a much more powerful capability of Graph: the ability to create your own custom entities and model extensions, effectively allowing you to create your own landscape and data abstraction. We will discuss how to create your own custom entities and model extensions in a subsequent blog in this series.

Graph currently supports the OData v4 and GraphQL protocol to access the business data graph. OData (Open Data) is a widely used OASIS standard that defines a set of best practices for using RESTful data APIs.

As we shall see, OData and GraphQL APIs are easy and powerful to consume. OData requests operate on resources, the data, and extends this with query options, that let you shape the response to queries. The resources of Graph are the entities of the business data graph. GrphQL offer a similar experience, with a more intuitive syntax.

Exploring Graph using the Graph Navigator

The Graph of SAP systems is documented by the Graph Navigator on SAP Business Accelerator Hub. Go ahead and follow the link to the Graph Navigator to explore the the full graph of SAP systems. The index, on the left of the application, shows you over 1,500 entities grouped by data source. The first group of entities, in the sap.graph namespace, are the unified entities. Here is an example of a unified entity, the sap.graph/WorkAssignment.

Unified entities have a key, called id. You can see other attributes, like workforcePerson, the identifier of the person whose assignment this is. You can also see an association (a link) to the details of this person, another entity unsurprisingly called sap.graph/WorkforcePerson. Another interesting attribute is jobInfo. This is a composition, in this case of composition of many”, which you can think of as an array of this structure. Click on the little > arrow to see what it looks like, or study the example on the right, where you can see an array of one instance.
Finally, it is worth pointing out two more interesting associations, _cxsales and _hcm. These are links to the respective system-specific entities, sap.cxsales/EmployeeCollection and sap.hcm/EmpEmployment. They enable developers to augment the information available in the unified entity with system-specific attributes, and make the business data graph a connected and navigable graph of the entire enterprise landscape. Go ahead, click around the Graph Navigator to get a sense of what the full SAP-based business data graph looks like.

With this quick introduction out of the way, follow us to the next part of the blog series where we set up Graph in SAP Integration Suite.

________________________________________________________________
Chaim Bendelac, Chief Product Manager – API Management and Graph
Visit Graph on the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 2: Set up Graph in SAP Integration Suite

2024-02-23T09:37:46.550000+01:00

In this part we address you, a person with an IT administrative role and responsibilities for enterprise data. Please refer to Part 1 for an introduction to Graph, and to the Information Map for an overview of the entire tutorial series.

As always, you can find all the details for what we are going to discuss here in the Graph documentation on the SAP Help Portal.

The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP)

Enterprises and other companies deploy a variety of business software solutions to manage their major business processes. We refer to these software systems as data sources, and to the collection of data sources as the landscape. As we shall see, the business data graph is a connected graph of the business data in your landscape.

Enabling access to a landscape involves a great many concerns, related to connectivity, user management, trust, and other security topics. Establishing these aspects is exactly the role of SAP’s Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), available on multiple cloud infrastructure providers. As an owner of data sources, you use the SAP BTP cockpit as the central point of entry, where you can access your accounts manage all activities associated with them.

Graph is a powerful addition to the API Management capability in SAP Integration Suite. Graph can be used in any SAP Integration Suite plan where API Management is available (including SAP BTP trial accounts), but not necessarily in every region where API Management is available. For more details about the regional availability of Graph, be sure to check out SAP Note 3338820.

Configuring Graph

If you are not familiar with the SAP BTP cockpit, there are many blogs, videos and tutorials (like this one) to make you feel at home. Here we will assume some familiarity with the SAP BTP Cockpit to apply the following process:

Create a subaccount, which represents your landscape
Create the SAP Integration Suite service
Add Graph to SAP Integration Suite
Assign yourself Graph roles in SAP BTP
Set up destinations to the data sources of your landscape
Generate credentials, by creating a service binding

Step 1: Create a subaccount

Use the SAP BTP cockpit to login to your “global” account. Create a subaccount:

Enter the subaccount display name, for instance Graph Sandbox (this will also fill the subdomain field with a unique string)
Set Region, for example to Europe (Frankfurt) under Amazon Web Services (CF-EU10).

Click Create; wait until the subaccount is created.

Next, enter the subaccount by clicking on its tile, select Entitlements from the left-side menu, click Configure Entitlements and then Add Service Plans, search for SAP Integration Suite, check the plan you wish to use, and confirm by clicking the Add 1 Service Plan button. Don’t forget to click Save.

Note: The SAP Integration Suite trial plan is automatically entitled for the default SAP BTP Trial subaccount, and Graph can also be seamlessly deployed there.

Step 2: Create the SAP Integration Suite service

In the SAP BTP cockpit, select Instances and Subscriptions from the left-side menu, click Create and then configure the SAP Integration Suite service with your desired plan.

Then select Security > Users from the left-side menu and assign your user the Integration_Provisioner role collection. You can do this by clicking the user name, and then selecting ‘…’ under the Role Collections table. Find the Integration_Provisioner role collection and assign it.

Step 3: Add Graph to SAP Integration Suite

At this point, you should have an SAP Integration Suite application that you can access and add capabilities to. Go to Instances and Subscriptions in the left-side menu, and open the SAP Integration Suite application.

Select Add Capabilities to open a menu where you can select Manage APIs.

By clicking Next, you are taken to the API Management setup step where you must enable both API Business Hub Enterprise and Graph.

Finally, select Activate and wait for the newly configured capability to show ‘Active’ for all selected features.

Step 4: Assign yourself Graph roles in SAP BTP

Graph has two dedicated SAP BTP role collections: Graph.KeyUser and GraphNavigator.Viewer. The role collection GraphNavigator.Viewer provides access to explore the entities and try out OData queries on the real data reflected in the business data graphs in the SAP BTP subaccount in the Graph Navigator tool in SAP API Business Hub Enterprise. This role collection is relevant for developer persona.

The role collection Graph.KeyUser is required to configure business data graphs in the SAP Integration Suite application. The Graph.KeyUser role collection also includes navigator viewer role to access Graph navigator.

Select Security > Users from the left-side menu and assign your user the Graph.KeyUser role collection. You can do this by clicking the username, and then selecting ‘…’ under the Role Collections table. Find the role collection and assign it.

At this point, you should be able to navigate to the Graph user interface in the SAP Integration Suite application. You can open the Graph user interface from the SAP Integration Suite application left-side menu under Design Artifacts. We will come back to the Graph user interface in the next part of the blog tutorial series. The rest of the blog focuses on the remaining setup in the SAP BTP cockpit.

Step 5: Create destinations

In this tutorial, we will use the SAP Business Accelerator Hub sandbox systems as data sources. Note that creating destinations to other data sources is often more complex, due to trust establishment. Refer to the Graph documentation for more information.

Within the same subaccount, select Connectivity / Destinations from the left-side menu and click New Destination, as follows:

Fill in the form as follows to create a destination to the SAP CX Sales Cloud sandbox system:

Use cxsalescloud as the name and https://sandbox.api.sap.com/sap/c4c/odata/v1/c4codataapi/ as the URL.

Since the sandbox APIs require an API key in HTTP headers, we will add this header. Click New Property, then enter URL.headers.apiKey as property name and enter your unique API key from the SAP Business Accelerator Hub as the value. Then Save.

You can easily repeat this process to create additional destinations, by cloning this destination, and changing the Name and URL fields. Go ahead, and add another destination named s4_product, with the following URL: https://sandbox.api.sap.com/s4hanacloud/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_PRODUCT_SRV

Here are additional useful API services to consider:

SAP SuccessFactors: https://sandbox.api.sap.com/successfactors/odata/v2
SAP S/4HANA Business Partner: https://sandbox.api.sap.com/s4hanacloud/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_BUSINESS_PARTNER
SAP S/4HANA Sales Order: https://sandbox.api.sap.com/s4hanacloud/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_SALES_ORDER_SRV

Step 6: Create a Graph service instance

To consume your Business Data Graph OData endpoint, you need to have service credentials to get a valid token. To do so within the same subaccount, select Services / Instances and Subscriptions from the left-side menu, and then click Create in the top-right corner.

In the wizard:

Select SAP Graph from the drop-down service menu.
Select the api service plan.
Leave Other as runtime environment.
Enter an instance name, e.g., sapgraph1. Choose Create.
Click the three dots to the right of the created instance and select Create Service Binding

6. Download and save the created credentials as a text file:

In summary

The steps above complete the configuration of the landscape and the preparations for creating a business data graph for your developers. The final step is to create the business data graph itself – this will be the topic of the next part of this tutorial series.

________________________________________________________________
Hamid Reza Laleh, Product Owner – Graph
Visit Graph on the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 3: Construct and explore a Business Data Graph

2024-02-23T09:38:54.537000+01:00

In this part of the series on Graph – the new API for connecting to your business data – we will discuss the concepts and configuration of the Business Data Graph. Please refer to the Information Map to see all parts of this series. The Graph documentation on the Help Portal provides an in-depth look at many of the concepts featured in this part. 

The “data graph” concept is central to the Graph capability. The business data graph is essentially the artifact that connects the business data together. The administrator is responsible for creating and shaping how the data in the business systems is reflected in the business data graph.

A data graph consists of mirrored entities, which are projections of the business objects that Graph automatically discovered in the business systems. They are mirrored one-to-one in the data graph and grouped in namespaces that correspond to each business system. Then the mirrored entities are connected through additional semantic connections.

Additional projections, called unified entities, are created on top of the mirrored entities. They connect semantically common business concepts from multiple data sources and are created in the namespace sap.graph. It is also possible for customers to extend the data graph by creating custom entities. We will address model extensions in a separate blog post.

Finally, the data graph is activated to create a business data graph, which is a runtime artifact based on the configured data graph, and accessible as a unified API.

The official documentation set provides goes more in-depth of what is described in this section and can be accessed here: SAP Help Portal: Graph - Business Data Graph

We pick up from where we left off at the end of the previous blog. You previously set up Graph in SAP Integration Suite, created destinations to data source endpoints, and assigned yourself the dedicated Graph role collections. Also, you created a service binding for Graph and generated and downloaded the credentials text file.

In the following steps, you will construct a business data graph from the data sources you previously configured as SAP BTP destinations and explore the business data graph in the Graph Navigator tool.

Construct the Business Data Graph 

1. In the SAP Integration Suite application, select Graph under Design Artifacts in the left-side menu.

2. Select Create new business data graph in the center panel.

3. Provide an ID for the business data Graph. Use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.

4. Select the data sources you would like to include in your business data graph. These are the destinations you previously configured in the SAP BTP cockpit. Select Next.

5. Skip the optional Model Extension step for now, by selecting Next. Your draft business data graph gets generated.

6. Review the configuration file and select Create to activate the business data graph.

7. Wait for the Status to update to be Available. Eventually, the status goes from Processing to Available.

Note: You can navigate to more information about individual business data graphs by selecting >. You can edit or delete the business data graph, or view the logs.

Explore the business data graph in the Graph Navigator

You just created your business data graph. Wouldn’t it be cool to explore the semantic connections between the data entities and even try out a few OData queries on the real data in the business systems? You can do exactly that using the Graph Navigator within API Business Hub Enterprise! This section takes you through exploring the business data graph you created in the previous section, using the Graph Navigator tool.

1. Open the Graph Navigator tool in API Business Hub Enterprise by selecting the menu icon in the top panel and then Graph Navigator.

2. The Graph Navigator automatically lists all the business data graphs in your SAP BTP subaccount. Select the business data graph you previously created.

3. On the left, in the Entities index, you see a search window, and collections of the available entities, grouped per namespace.

4. Depending on the data sources you included in your business data graph, you may have three namespaces containing the business objects from SAP SuccessFactors (sap.hcm), SAP S/4 HANA (sap.s4) and SAP Sales and Service Cloud (sap.c4c). Open one of these three namespaces. For instance, pick the sap.c4c namespace, and then select SalesQuoteCollection under Sales Quote.

5. You can easily see which operations are allowed (create, read, update, and delete), review the list of attributes, and see an actual data example. Take the time to explore the root entities (potentially representing 4,500+ entities and sub-entities in SAP systems), in the different namespaces, within the Graph Navigator context.

6. Explore one of the unified entities in the sap.graph namespace, the top namespace in the list on the left. Unified entities are simplified projections on some of the most complex business objects in SAP systems. They are useful in particular for apps that only require basic, essential information.

For instance, you can search for sales quote (or SalesQuote) in the search box on the left and pick the first search result: sap.graph/SalesQuote.

This too is a synthetic entity, a projection, of the actual sales information in your systems.

7. Now switch to the Try Out tab at the top.

8. You can see an OData request, for one record of sap.graph/SalesQuote ($top=1). Click Run. You will see your Sales Quote appear on the screen.

9. Now let's have some fun. Use the $expand button to check _salesOrganization and _distributionChannel. Did you see how this automatically changed the OData request?

10. Click run to see the result of this query. Scroll down to see the expanded sales organization and distribution channel information. As you can see, this is a (mock) quote from one of BestRun's direct sales customers in the US.

11. We could try out different variations of "$expand", to get of sense of all the data. Here is another fun query we can try:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$expand=items($expand=_product)

and learn that the customer was quoted a single calculator which is of product type 3.

12. When dealing with a specific single record, we can also navigate across the data to access other pertinent information. First, let's expand the customer (a business partner) on our order to find out the type:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote/c4c~1?$expand=_soldToParty

13. This is a corporation, so we can navigate to:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote/c4c~1/_soldToParty/_corporateAccount

Let's also add some options to the query before we run it:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote/c4c~1/_soldToParty/_corporateAccount?$expand=addresses,contacts

14. Expanding and navigating are two powerful capabilities. But what makes data graphs even more useful are queries that combine these capabilities with other features, such as:

$select: return only the attributes you need

$filter: use data selection criteria

$orderby: return results in sort-order.

For instance, the following query lists ten sorted (ascending order) quotes by netAmount greater than 2000, with customer names and sales organization:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=10&$expand=_soldToParty($select=name)&$filter=netAmount ge 2000&$select=id,netAmount,salesOrganization&$orderby=netAmount

In summary

This part of the series concludes the basic introduction to Graph. In the previous part, we learned how to set up a landscape for Graph, which we used in this part to create a business data graph and explore it in the Graph Navigator tool.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Marc Vornetran, Product Owner – Graph in SAP Integration Suite

Learn more about Graph in the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 4: Hello Graph! Write your first Graph application

2024-02-28T10:16:21.965000+01:00

This is the first of the end-to-end implementation blog series for Graph that focuses on a developer writing an extension application that uses the single, unified API of Graph in SAP Integration Suite. Please refer to Part 1 of this series for an introduction to Graph and to the Information Map for an introduction to the entire series.

The initial developer parts in this series will lead you through building the rudimentary basics of a classical enterprise extension web app: a list-details-navigate application in the next part. This is what it will look like:

Here, in this part, our goal is to establish the basic hello world programming essentials. This implementation requires no prior knowledge – we will teach you everything you need to know to become a proficient Graph developer. To test that everything works, we will re-use the Graph server that was configured as an SAP Business Accelerator Hub sandbox, and that we used in Part 1.

Getting Started: Node.js and NPM

We will use node.js (v20.11.1) and npm (version 10.2.4) to build this application and to keep it extremely simple, we will use the express web framework. Not familiar with node.js and express? I recommend this article on the Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) website. This article also explains how to easily set up a Node development environment, whether you use Windows, MacOS, or Linux.

If you prefer to develop applications in the cloud directly from your browser, SAP offers a great cloud-based development experience alternative in the form of the SAP Build. Follow this link for more details on getting your instance. The rest of this blog assumes that you installed node.js and npm on your computer.

package.json

Select a folder (directory) where you want to develop your application. In this folder, create a small file called package.json, with the following content:

{
    "name": "hello-graph",
    "version": "0.0.0",
    "private": true,
    "type": "module",
    "script" : {
        "start": "node src/hellograph.js"
    },
    "dependencies": {
        "express": "4.18.1",
        "node-fetch": "3.3.2",
        "universal-cookie": "7.1.0"
    }
}

Note: For the latest version of these libraries please refer to https://www.npmjs.com/

After saving the file, run the following command on your console:

npm install

If your node.js environment was properly set up, then this command will install a few standard library packages in a new sub-folder called node_modules.
Now, create another sub-folder, next to node_modules, called src. This is where we will develop our code.

graph.js

First, we will create a boilerplate file in the src folder, called graph.js. This file will serve as a foundational template that you'll reuse, with a few small changes, across all future Graph implementation blogs and your projects. This file will contain a class called Graph, which provides a nice wrapper for using Graph. At this time, we will show how to read data, using a get() function.

Copy and paste the code below into the file, then save it. This straightforward snippet utilizes the node-fetch package for simplicity.

import fetch from "node-fetch";
export default class Graph {
    async get(entity, params) {
        const url = `https://sandbox.api.sap.com/sapgraph/${entity}${params ? `?${params}` : ""}`;
        console.log(url) //for debugging 
        const options = {
            method: "get",
            headers:{
                "Accept": "application/json",
                "apiKey": "<your-api-key>" // TODO: Enter the actual key
            }
        };
        const response = await fetch(url, options);
        console.log(`${response.status} (${response.statusText})`) // for debugging
        return await response.json();
    }
}

Please note that we hard-coded the Graph server that uses the SAP Business Accelerator Hub sandbox. This allows us to focus here on the data access API, without requiring you to configure a new Business Data Graph(BDG) and deal with all the complex aspects of security and authentication, which will be the subject of future blog series.
Since we are accessing the sandbox landscape data via SAP Business Accelerator Hub, you will need to insert your API Key (a short string) into the code above. Where do you get this key? Simply log in to https://api.sap.com/settings and click on Show API Key to see and save it.

hellograph.js

Now we are ready to write our first, simple server-side application that uses Graph. Paste the following into a new file, called hellograph.js, in the src folder:

import express from 'express';
import Graph from './graph.js';

const app = express();
const port = 3004;
const graph = new Graph();

app.get('/sap*', async (req, res) => {
    const response = await graph.get(req, `${req.url}`, "");
    res.send(`<pre><code>${JSON.stringify(response, null, 2)}</code></pre>`);
});

app.listen(port, () => { 
    console.log(`Explore Graph at http://localhost:${port}`) 
});

As previously mentioned, our code uses a popular node.js package called express. On line 8, we define the action taken when our server-side app is called from a browser. Here, we simply take the URL that we received (req.url) and pass it through to Graph. We then show the returned data from Graph as a raw result on the browser screen.

Our server-side app is ready. To run it, use your terminal console to enter:

npm run start

The console will show:

$ Explore Graph at http://localhost:3004

Now the fun begins. The application expects a well-formed query URL to function properly. Open a browser window or tab, and enter the following query URL:

http://localhost:3004/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=2

The browser will invoke your application code, which will call Graph to fetch the data, and if all goes well, you will see the following output on your screen.

Note: if you get an unformatted result, you can install a JSON formatter in your browser.
Our Hello Graph app is already pretty useful; we can use it to explore the business data graph, by trying out different OData queries. Note: to stop your app from running, simply kill it (e.g. press CTRL-C on your Linux terminal or Windows console).
We will re-use this app as a skeleton in the next part of this series, where we will introduce authentication.

Shardul Sonar, Developer – Graph in SAP Integration Suite

Learn more about Graph in the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 5: Use Graph Securely with Real Data – Authentication

2024-02-28T15:12:59.976000+01:00

Here, in this part of this tutorial, we are going to build the rudimentary basics of a classical enterprise extension web app: a list-details-navigate application. Please refer to Part 1 of this tutorial for an introduction to Graph in SAP Integration Suite, to the previous tutorial part for an introduction to the programming interface of Graph, and to the Information Map for an introduction to the entire tutorial series.

Business Data Graphs

In the previous part, we accessed data from a preconfigured Graph sandbox server via SAP Business Accelerator Hub. We even embedded this server URL into our code. Anybody with an API key can access the sandbox data, without any further authentication or authorization.

Of course, this is not a secure way of accessing confidential business data. Therefore, in this part of the tutorial, we will access Graph securely, via the oAuth protocol. OAuth doesn’t share password data but instead uses authorization tokens to prove an identity between clients and services like Graph and supports Single Sign On. With oAuth, you effectively approve your browser to interact with Graph on your behalf without giving away your password.

Graph is a multitenant service. Customer administrators use the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to subscribe to Graph in SAP Integration Suite, by configuring one or more business data graphs. We discuss this topic in more detail in a separate part of this tutorial, but for this tutorial part it is important to understand that the business data graph is the key to a specific landscape of customer systems. Most customers will configure multiple landscapes, for instance for development, staging and productive usage.

Each Graph business data graph is unique with unique credentials, such as its URL, its business data graph identifier and various secrets/tokens.

credentials.js

To programmatically access the data from a Graph business data graph, an application requires these credentials. How do you get them? A file containing them, credentials.json, is created during the process of setting up and configuring the business data graph. You receive this file and the business data graph identifier from the BTP administrator or key user who configured the specific business data graph you want to access.

Save the credentials file in the src folder of your project (you can use the existing src folder in which we developed our very first hello Graph server-side application, or create a new source folder in your project, up to you).

auth.js

In the same src folder, create a file called auth.js, paste in the following boilerplate (standard) code, and save:

import credentials from "./credentials.json" assert { type: "json" };
import fetch from "node-fetch"; 
import Cookies from "universal-cookie"; 
const CALLBACK_URI = "/myCallbackURI"; 
const CookieName = "SAPGraphHelloQuotesCookie"; 

export default class Auth { 
    constructor() { 
        this.clientId = credentials.uaa.clientid; 
        this.clientSecret = credentials.uaa.clientsecret; 
        this.authUrl = credentials.uaa.url; 
    } 
    getToken(req) { 
        const cookies = new Cookies(req.headers.cookie); 
        return cookies.get(CookieName); 
    } 
    async fetchToken(code, redirectUri) { 
        const params = new URLSearchParams(); 
        params.set('client_id', this.clientId); 
        params.set('client_secret', this.clientSecret); 
        params.set('code', code); 
        params.set('redirect_uri', redirectUri); 
        params.set('grant_type', 'authorization_code'); 
        const response = await fetch(`${this.authUrl}/oauth/token`, { 
            method: 'post', 
            headers: { 
                'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded', 
                'Accept': 'application/json' 
            }, 
            body: params 
        }); 
        const json = await response.json(); 
        return json.access_token; 
    } 
    getMiddleware() { 
        return async (req, res, next) => { 
            const redirectUri = `${req.protocol}://${req.get("host")}${CALLBACK_URI}`; 
            if (req.url.startsWith(CALLBACK_URI)) { 
                const code = req.query.code; 
                if (code) { 
                    const token = await this.fetchToken(code, redirectUri); 
                    res.cookie(CookieName, token, { maxAge: 1000 * 60 * 120, httpOnly: true,  path: "/", }); 
                } 
                res.redirect("/"); 
            } else if (!this.getToken(req)) { 
                res.redirect(`${this.authUrl}/oauth/authorize?client_id=${encodeURIComponent(this.clientId)}&redirect_uri=${encodeURIComponent(redirectUri)}&response_type=code`); 
            } else { 
                next(); 
            } 
        }; 
    } 
}

As you can see, this boilerplate authentication code refers to several pieces of information which are extracted from the credentials.json file, and are used to log the user of your application in, using single sign on, according to the specifics of the business data graph. For the user’s convenience, it also saves the obtained access token as a cookie, so that it can be used until it expires.

graph.js

We will re-use the Graph class that we saw in the previous part of this tutorial, but now that we are required to authenticate the user before we can use the business data graph, we need to make a few small changes. Copy the following text into graph.js and save.

import credentials from "./credentials.json" assert { type: "json" };
import fetch from "node-fetch";
const apiUrl = credentials.uri;
const dataGraphId = "v1"; // example, modify accordingly 

export default class Graph {
    constructor(auth) {
        this.auth = auth;
        this.apiUrl = apiUrl;
        this.dataGraphId = dataGraphId;
    }

    async get(req, entity, params) {
        const token = this.auth.getToken(req);
        const url = `${this.apiUrl}/${this.dataGraphId}/${entity}${params ? `?${params}` : ""}`;
        console.log(url) //for debugging 
        const options = {
            method: "get",
            headers: {
                "Authorization": `Bearer ${token}`,
                "Accept": "application/json"
            }
        };
        const response = await fetch(url, options);
        console.log(`${response.status} (${response.statusText})`) // for debugging 
        const json = await response.json();
        return json;
    }
}

You can see that we made two small changes. The Graph URL is now determined from the credentials of the specific business data graph, and the authorization token, obtained during user authentication, is passed to Graph. You may have to modify the business data graph identifier string from “v1” in the above code, before saving the file.

helloQuotes.js

Now are we finally ready to build the rudimentary basics of a classical three-page enterprise extension web app: a list-details-navigate application. This is what it will eventually look like:

Don’t expect fancy code, with all the necessary error and exception handling of a robust, production-ready application. Our goal is to show how easy it is to just create small business applications using Graph; we will discuss the finer aspects of robust Graph clients in another part of this tutorial.

We will first establish the skeleton of our application, in a file we will call helloQuotes.js:

// Hello Quote - our first SAP Graph extension app 
import express from 'express';
import Graph from './graph.js';
import Auth from './auth.js';
const app = express();
const port = 3003;
const auth = new Auth();
app.use(auth.getMiddleware());
const graph = new Graph(auth);
// ------------------    1) get and display a list of SalesQuotes   ------------------ 
// ------------------    2) show one quote and its items   ------------------  
// ------------------    3) navigate to the product details for all the items in the quote   ------------------  
app.listen(port, () => {
    console.log(`Example app listening at http://localhost:${port}`)
});

This code doesn’t do anything interesting. It basically logs in the user, using the standard authentication that we just discussed, and then listens on port 3003 for web (REST) requests. To make the code work, we need to install request handlers.

Using the express framework, we now create three such handlers, corresponding to three different expected URLs:

The root (/)

Request for a quote: /quote/…

Request for a quote’s product details: /quote… /product

Here is the first request handler:

// ------------------    1) get and display a list of SalesQuotes   ------------------  
app.get('/', async (req, res) => {
    const quotes = await graph.get(req, "sap.graph/SalesQuote", "$top=20");
    const qlist = quotes.value.map(q => `(${q.netAmount} ${q.netAmountCurrency})`).join("");
    res.send(` <h1>Hello Quotes</h1> ${qlist} `);
});

The handler will be fired if the browser requests the root document (“/”). What does the code do? It fetches the first 20 quotes (sap.graph/SalesQuote), and then wraps the resulting information (date and total amount) in HTML, and returns it.

Go ahead, paste this handler into the app skeleton, save, and run the server-side app on your terminal console as follows:

node helloQuotes.js

Open a new browser tab and enter the URL http://localhost:3003. If all went well, you will now see a list of dates and corresponding amounts in the browser.

That was nice, but not very interesting. To turn your app into an interesting list-details app, modify the qlist assignment above to introduce a link, as follows:

const qlist = quotes.value.map(q => `<p> <a href="/quote/${q.id}">${q.pricingDate} </a> 
(${q.netAmount} ${q.netAmountCurrency}) </p>`).join("");

Now, when the user clicks on one of the quotes, your app will be called again, and this time the URL will match ‘/quote…’.

Let us now also introduce our second and third handlers:

// ------------------ 2) show one quote and its items ------------------ 
app.get('/quote/:id', async (req, res) => { 
    const id = req.params.id; 
    const singleQuote = await graph.get(req, `sap.graph/SalesQuote/${id}`, "$expand=items&$select=items"); 
    const allItemLinks = singleQuote.items.map(item => `<p><a href="/quote/${id}/item/${item.itemId}"><button>Product details for item ${item.itemId}: ${item.product}</button></a></p>`).join(""); 
    res.send(` 
      <h1>SalesQuote - Detail</h1> 
      <h4><code>id: ${id}</code></h4> 
      ${allItemLinks} 
    `); 
}); 
// ------------------ 3) navigate to the product details for an item in the quote ------------------ 
app.get('/quote/:id/item/:itemId', async (req, res) => { 
    const id = req.params.id; 
    const itemId = req.params.itemId;
    const product = await graph.get(req, `sap.graph/SalesQuote/${id}/items/${itemId}/_product`, "$expand=distributionChains"); 
    res.send(` 
      <h1>Product Detail</h1> 
      <h4><code>For SalesQuote ${id} and item ${itemId}</code></h4> 
      <pre><code>${JSON.stringify(product, null, 2)}</code></pre> 
    `); 
});

The OData query at the heart of the second handler uses the $expand query parameter to fetch the details of the quote, including what was quoted (items). The product id in the quote is then used in the third handler to navigate across the business graph, to fetch the detailed product information from the product catalog. In both cases, the data is just dumped to the screen as JSON, but evidently, a real app would format the information much more nicely.

Go ahead, make the change in the first handler, and then paste the second and third handlers in your code, save the file, restart the service, and refresh the localhost:3003 page in the browser. Voila! Your app is live.

Note again, how you, as a developer, never had to ask yourself where the data came from. You just navigated from a quote object to a product object, without any effort. The landscape that you accessed via the configured business data graph may have managed quotes in SAP Sales Cloud, or in SAP S/4HANA, and the product catalog may have been, theoretically, in yet another system. You simply don’t have to care.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Leonid Gunko, Developer – Graph in SAP Integration Suite

Learn more about Graph in the SAP Community

API Composition with Graph: customizing your Business Data Graphs with Model Extensions

2024-03-15T13:43:13.362000+01:00

Hello!

in this part of the tutorial series we will have a look at how to use Graph for composing APIs and customizing business data graphs with model extensions. We will walk through an example of how to create a custom entity with a custom association.

For an overview of other parts of this series, check out the Information Map.

---

API Composition helps organizations to customize their API surface and combine multiple data sources into a single unified API. With Graph, as part of SAP Integration Suite, API administrators can create a single API using a customized connected graph data model either for their whole landscape or for specialized use cases.

API administrators can customize Business Data Graphs with the help of Model Extensions. These are packages that define several Custom Entities. All customizations in Graph are virtual: custom entity definitions are projections using mirrored entities as sources. Custom entities can have one or multiple source entities from possibly different data sources.

Example Scenario

In this blog we will walk through an example of composing and customizing an API from two separate services. An SAP S/4HANA Service and a service based on a custom CAP extension. Here is an overview of the example scenario:

Example scenario diagram

We will compose a demo.FrequentFlyer Custom Entity out of two sources: the sap.s4.A_BusinessPartner from an SAP S/4HANA data source and a my.custom.LoyaltyAccount entity from a custom CAP Extension on BTP. In addition, we will model an association from the custom entity demo.FrequentFlyer to the my.custom.LoyaltyStatus mirrored entity from the custom CAP Extension.

Example Setup

In this example we will be using the SAP S/4HANA sandbox provided on SAP Business Accelerator Hub and a simple CAP Extension service which we will be deploying in Cloud Foundry. The following steps will guide you through the required setup.

(1) Setting up Graph and SAP Integration Suite

First we need a BTP subaccount with an SAP Integration Suite instance with Graph activated. Follow the steps outlined in this previous blog post if you have not done so already. As a result you have a running SAP Integration Suite instance with Graph.

(2) Setting up the SAP S/4HANA Sandbox Destination

For demo data we will be using the SAP S/4HANA BusinessPartner sandbox service available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub. Create a destination named demo-s4-bupa in your BTP subaccount for this service with the following URL:

https://sandbox.api.sap.com/s4hanacloud/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_BUSINESS_PARTNER

You will also have to configure an API key for sandbox access as described in this previous blog post.

(3) Setting up the demo CAP Extension Service Destination

For the custom extension service, we will be deploying a small CAP-service in Cloud Foundry for demo purposes. We prepared this service here. Note that this example is only for demo puposes and would not fulfill requirements for any productive use cases.

To deploy the example CAP-service, make sure your BTP subaccount has the Cloud Foundry runtime enabled and a Cloud Foundry space exists (see also this tutorial). Note that this minimal demo service only serves a few example records and does not require a database.

Clone the example service repository and copy the contents of .cdsrc.json.template to a new file .cdsrc.json and add a password for the configured Basic Authentication. In this demo we use Basic Authentication, to learn more about authenticating against Graph see here.

git clone https://github.com/SAP-samples/graph-example-apps.git
cd graph-example-apps/blog-series/API-composition/graph-demo-service
cp .cdsrc.json.template .cdsrc.json

Make sure you have installed the prerequisites (Node.js, CAP, MBT) listed here. Then install and build the project:

npm ci
npm run build

Next, deploy the service, for example using the Cloud Foundry CLI (see also here)

cf login --sso
cf deploy gen/mta.tar

After the deployment is finished you can access the example Loyalty service under <CF-application-route-URL>/graph-demo/.

Finally, we need to create a BTP destination for this service. In the BTP Cockpit under Connectivity > Destinations create a new Destination demo-loyalty with the following URL: <CF-application-route-URL>/graph-demo/ (<CF-application-route-URL> depends on your Cloud Foundry deployment). Select "BasicAuthentication" for Authentication and add the user name and password you previously configured.

(4) Preparing a Business Data Graph for the Example Scenario

Now that we have created two destinations with our demo services, we can create a business data graph which we will extend with a model extension in the next section. In SAP Integration Suite open Design > Graph and create a new business data graph demo-bdg. Select the two destinations demo-s4-bupa and demo-loyalty. Leave the model extension input empty for now, this is what we are about to create. Activate the BDG in the final step. By default, Graph will use the namespace my.custom for destinations with services of unknown type, such as demo-loyalty in this case. When the business data graph is active we can start to model an extension for it.

Custom Entity Modeling

Graph allows to customize business data graphs with model extensions. A model extension is a package that contains one or more custom entity definitions. To customize a business data graph, we create a new model extension for it and then add it to the BDG configuration.

Start in SAP Integration Suite under Design > Graph and open the Model Extensions tab. Create a new model extension called demo-extension and select the demo-bdg as modeling metadata BDG (this is only for retrieving metadata while modeling, the extension itself is independent).

No Model Extensions exist

Create a new Model Extension dialog

Creating a Custom Entity

We will now create our custom entity demo.FrequentFlyer by composing it from two source entities. In the dialog select sap.s4.A_BusinessPartner as the main source entity. This is the entity that defines the identity of data-objects and is the source of the primary key for our custom entity. Then add my.custom.LoyaltyAccount as an additional source entity. Here, we need to define the join condition that defines how data objects from both entities are matched. For that we select which attributes from both entities are matching. When the complete primary key of the additional source attribute is matched, Graph infers that there exists a cardinality-relationship of 0 or 1 between the data objects of both entities, as is the case in our example.

In the other case where only a partial primary key is matched, a many-cardinality will be assumed. In that case, for each data object of the main source entity there could be any number of additional source data objects. Graph will treat that case as a composition, where an entity contains an array of sub-entities.

With the source entities defined, we continue by selecting which attributes of each source we want to project into our custom entity demo.FrequentFlyer. Here, we select the primary key attribute BusinessPartner of our main source entity in addition to other attributes from both sources (see below). Graph will suggest new names according to the Graph attribute naming best practices. Having selected some attributes we finalize the dialog via Create. We can then open our newly created custom entity and continue modeling the details.

Empty Model Extension

Custom Entity creation dialog

Source entities definition step

Additional source entity definition

Main source attribute selection

Additional source attribute selection

Model Extension with the newly created Custom Entity

Custom Entity attributes

Applying Transform Functions

When defining custom entities, graph allows to apply transform functions as part of the definition. When adding attributes from a source entity to the custom entity this is plainly called a rename transform (as was done in the entity creation dialog).

In our example, we want to change our data model and invert the boolean source attribute isMarkedForArchiving, which denotes whether an object was archived, and instead call the inverse isActive. For that we use the negation transform. We select the isMarkedForArchiving attribute and change the transform in the right-side panel to negation, rename the attribute and apply our changes.

Details of the applied negation transform

Adding a new Association

Graph allows to customize the graph structure of a business data graph with the help of custom associations in custom entities. For example, foreign-key relationships that are present in mirrored entities, can be converted into semantic associations between custom entities.

In our example, the additional source entity my.custom.LoyaltyAccount has an atttribute loyaltyProgramStatusId that references my.custom.LoyaltyStatus data objects by their ID. We turn this foreign-key relationship into an association as follows: in the dialog under Add > Association select the type of association. Here, it is a to-one association, as each LoyaltyAccount references only one LoyaltyStatus via ID.

Next, select the target of the association: my.custom.LoyaltyStatus. Graph will suggest a name according to the Graph modeling best practices.

Then define how these two entities are related by matching attributes from the source entity (foreign key) to the primary key attributes of the target entity. In our example we only map the LoyaltyAccount attribute loyaltyProgramStatusId to the single LoyaltyStatus key attribute statusId and then add the association to the custom entity.

This completes our example. Now we can apply the changes to our custom entity and save the extension.

Add Association dialog

Complete demo.FrequentFlyer Custom Entity definition

Applying the Model Extension to the Business Data Graph

Now that we have created a model extension for our example scenario with the demo.FrequentFlyer custom entity we want to see it in action. For that we will apply the model extension to a BDG.

Creating new BDGs with Model Extensions

With an existing model extension, we can simply create a new BDG and select the extension during the BDG-creation dialog. Graph will then generate a BDG configuration with locating policy rules for all custom entities.

Selecting an existing Model Extension during BDG creation

Adding Model Extensions to existing BDGs

Alternatively, we can also manually add a model extension to an existing BDG. Here we need to add the name of the extension to the top-level extensions array (see below), and add locating policy rules for all custom entities.

"extensions": [
    "demo-extension"
],

BDG configuration extensions snippet

In our example we add a single custom entity that is based on two source entities which requires two entries in the BDG locating policy rules, one for each source entity (see also here). Add the following snippet to the BDG configuration under locatingPolicy.rules (adapt the name of the leading data sources to match the ones in your BDG).

{
    "name": "demo.FrequentFlyer",
    "leading": "s4",
    "local": []
},
{
    "name": "demo.FrequentFlyer",
    "leading": "my.custom",
    "local": [],
    "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount"
}

BDG configuration locatingPolicy.rules snippet

Finally, we activate the BDG with the included model extension to try it out. Once the BDG was updated we can open the Graph Navigator in SAP API Business Hub Enterprise (see also this blog). There we can see that our updated demo-bdg now has a demo.FrequentFlyer entity with the schema we previously modeled. In the "Try Out" we can also see that we can follow the new _loyaltyStatus association via $expand or semantic navigation.

Custom Entity schema in Graph Navigator

Custom Entity Try Out in Graph Navigator

Summary

This small blog example illustrates how Graph can be used to compose APIs and customize the API surface with the help of a business data graph.

We used Graph to compose two different service APIs into a single connected business data graph: an SAP S/4HANA service and a custom CAP-extension service. We created a model extension containing a custom entity demo.FrequentFlyer with a custom association to another entity and a negation transform function.

To learn more about the full Graph modeling capabilities find the documentation here with more infomation on modeling topics such as all supported transform functions, creating compositions and adding to-many associations to your model.

Reference Materials

Find the full BDG configuration JSON and custom entity definition JSON files used in the example demo below.
Custom Entity definition JSON file:

{
  "entity": "demo.FrequentFlyer",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "sourceEntities": [
    {
      "name": "sap.s4.A_BusinessPartner"
    },
    {
      "name": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount",
      "join": [["BusinessPartner", "userId"]]
    }
  ],
  "attributes": [
    {
      "name": "id",
      "source": ["BusinessPartner"],
      "key": true
    },
    {
      "name": "businessPartnerFullName",
      "source": ["BusinessPartnerFullName"]
    },
    {
      "name": "loyaltyProgramName",
      "source": ["loyaltyProgramName"],
      "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount"
    },
    {
      "name": "loyaltyPoints",
      "source": ["loyaltyPoints"],
      "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount"
    },
    {
      "name": "isActive",
      "source": ["isMarkedForArchiving"],
      "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount",
      "transform": "negation",
      "type": "Boolean"
    },
    {
      "name": "_loyaltyStatus",
      "type": "Association",
      "associationTarget": "my.custom.LoyaltyStatus"
    },
    {
      "name": "_loyaltyStatus.statusId",
      "source": ["loyaltyProgramStatusId"],
      "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount"
    }
  ],
  "annotations": {
    "description": "",
    "readonly": false
  }
}

BDG configuration JSON:

{
  "businessDataGraphIdentifier": "demo-bdg",
  "graphModelVersion": "^v3",
  "schemaVersion": "1.2.1",
  "dataSources": [
    {
      "name": "my.custom",
      "services": [
        {
          "destinationName": "demo-loyalty",
          "path": ""
        }
      ],
      "namespace": "my.custom"
    },
    {
      "name": "s4",
      "services": [
        {
          "destinationName": "demo-s4-bupa",
          "path": ""
        }
      ],
      "namespace": null
    }
  ],
  "locatingPolicy": {
    "cues": [],
    "rules": [
      {
        "name": "sap.s4.*",
        "leading": "s4",
        "local": [],
        "cues": [],
        "sourceEntity": null
      },
      {
        "name": "sap.graph.*",
        "leading": "s4",
        "local": [],
        "cues": [],
        "sourceEntity": null
      },
      {
        "name": "my.custom.*",
        "leading": "my.custom",
        "local": [],
        "cues": [],
        "sourceEntity": null
      },
      {
        "name": "demo.FrequentFlyer",
        "leading": "s4",
        "local": [],
        "cues": [],
        "sourceEntity": null
      },
      {
        "name": "demo.FrequentFlyer",
        "leading": "my.custom",
        "local": [],
        "sourceEntity": "my.custom.LoyaltyAccount",
        "cues": []
      }
    ],
    "description": "",
    "keyMapping": []
  },
  "effectiveGraphModelVersion": "3.1.0",
  "description": "",
  "exclude": [],
  "extensions": ["demo-extension"]
}

---

Florian Moritz

Graph intro series, part 9: Use Graph With GraphQL

2024-03-17T04:30:00.031000+01:00

GraphQL

GraphQL is a query language for APIs that provides a type system to describe the data model in a structured way. It provides a strongly typed schema to describe the data model of an API in a structured way. Additionally, clients of an API use the query language to describe the data they want to request. GraphQL is similar to OData because they both provide a structured, typed schema for APIs and also enable clients to write powerful queries to request exactly the data they need using a single request.

The GraphQL adapter builds on the same metadata as the OData adapter.

Tutorial Setup

To keep things simple, we will be using the Graph sandbox endpoint. All you need to use this endpoint is your favorite GraphQL tool, for example the Altair GraphQL client, and your API key from SAP API Hub. To retrieve your API key, log into SAP API Business Hub, go to settings and copy your API key from the Show API Key button.

To make requests against the Graph sandbox, add your API key as an HTTP header in your requests: apiKey: <your API key>. Then you can use the Graph sandbox through the following endpoint:

https://sandbox.api.sap.com/sapgraph/graphql

Tutorial Specific Settings

Usually, GraphQL requests are done using POST requests. But, the sandbox is limited to GET requests, so we need to do GET requests for this tutorial. For most GraphQL clients this is just a setting and we are not creating too large request. A productive Graph instance is able to receive POST requests.

The API key is just used for the purposes of this sandbox endpoint and not relevant in the context of requests to productive Graph instances.

Also note that the URL of the Graph sandbox differs from the a productive URL of Graph.

Exploring the Schema

Every GraphQL service defines a schema that completely describes the set of types you can use for querying that service. GraphQL allows asking about what queries it supports using the introspection system.

Most GraphQL clients automatically load and scan the complete schema automatically, so you might not need to do that on your own and use the client to explore the schema.

To see what types are available, you can query the __schema field:

{
  __schema {
    types {
      name
    }
  }
}

This will return all service specific and build-in types of the service:

{
  "data": {
    "__schema": {
      "types": [
        {
          "name": "Query"
        },
        {
          "name": "sap_c4c"
        },
        {
          "name": "sap_c4c_BusinessAttributeCollection_connection"
        },
        {
          "name": "sap_c4c_BusinessAttributeCollection"
        }
        ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

To get more information for a specific type, you can either extend the query above or do a separate query for the __type field. If you introspect the Query with

{
  __type(name: "Query"){
    name
    fields {
      name
    }
  }
}

you get all namespaces. These include Graph's build-in namespaces as well as user-defined custom namespaces for custom entities.

{
  "data": {
    "__type": {
      "name": "Query",
      "fields": [
        { "name": "sap_c4c" },
        { "name": "sap_graph" },
        { "name": "sap_hcm" },
        { "name": "sap_s4 "}
      ]
    }
  }
}

You can use a similar query to get the list of entities in a namespace, by using the namespace instead "Query" as the name.

To get more information in a single request, you can extend the query, for example to get all fields of sap_graph_SalesQuote with their name and kind, you simply query this:

{
  __type(name: "sap_graph_SalesQuote"){
    name
    fields {
      name
      type {
        name
        kind
      }
    }
  }
}

returning all available properties of the sap_graph_SalesQuote:

{
  "data": {
    "__type": {
      "name": "sap_graph_SalesQuote",
      "fields": [
        {"name": "id", "type": {"name": "String", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "createdAt", "type": {"name": "DateTime", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "changedAt", "type": {"name": "DateTime", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "displayId", "type": {"name": "String", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "netAmount", "type": {"name": "Decimal", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "quoteType", "type": {"name": "String", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "soldToParty", "type": {"name": "String", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "_soldToParty", "type": {"name": "sap_graph_SalesDocumentReason", "kind": "OBJECT"}},
        {"name": "_soldToParty_id", "type": {"name": "String", "kind": "SCALAR"}},
        {"name": "items", "type": {"name": "sap_graph_SalesQuote_items_connection", "kind": "OBJECT"}},
        ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

We can see that a SalesQuote has several properties of different types, such as String or Decimal, but also more complex structured types like the items property, which is a collection of several sap_graph_SalesQuote_items, that are also defined in the same data model. The _connection types allow for retrieving data of entities of a to-many relation.

{
  "data": {
    "__type": {
      "name": "sap_graph_SalesQuote_items_connection",
      "fields": [
        {"name": "nodes", "type": {"name": null, "kind": "LIST", "ofType": {"name": "sap_graph_SalesQuote_items"}}},
        {"name": "totalCount", "type": {"name": "Int", "kind": "SCALAR", "ofType": null}}
      ]
    }
  }
}

Simple Example

Let us look at an example. We want to get a SalesQuote. For that, we create the following GraphQL request:

{
  sap_graph {
    SalesQuote (top: 1){
      nodes {
        id
        displayId
        netAmount
      }
    }
  }
}

In GraphQL, you always specify exactly what fields you would like to receive. In the example request above we selected the id, displayId and the netAmount of the SalesQuote. To make the query fast and have an easy to read result, we have added (top: 1) to get only one SalesQuote.

{
  "data": {
    "sap_graph": {
      "SalesQuote": {
        "nodes": [
          {
            "id": "c4c~1",
            "displayId": "1",
            "netAmount": "890"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Example With Nesting

We now want to get the items and the soldToParty of that SalesQuote as well, so we simply add these attributes to the query with the fields we would like to see.

Note that the attributes of the items attribute are encapsulated with nodes like it is done with the attributes of the SalesQuote as well. This has to be done for all list types. _soldToParty is a to-one association, so here the attributes are directly. The reason for this extra level is so that you can get the total amount of elements next to the actual elements of the list like here for the SalesQuote:

{
  sap_graph {
    SalesQuote (top: 1){
      totalCount
      nodes {
        id
        displayId
        netAmount
        _soldToParty {
          id
          name
        }
        items {
          nodes {
            itemId
            itemText
            product
            quantity
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This will result in the items of the SalesQuote and the associated soldToParty being returned. The total count of found SalesQuotes is now available as well:

{
  "data": {
    "sap_graph": {
      "SalesQuote": {
        "totalCount": 135,
        "nodes": [
          {
            "id": "c4c~1",
            "displayId": "1",
            "netAmount": "890",
            "_soldToParty": {
              "id": "c4c~10014",
              "name": "System Tec"
            },
            "items": {
              "nodes": [
                {
                  "itemId": "10",
                  "itemText": "Green Emission Calculator",
                  "product": "P300100",
                  "quantity": "1"
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Working with collections: filtering, ordering and pagination

When working with collections of entities, we typically want to filter the entities by some criteria or arrange them in a specific order. In Graph's GraphQL schema this is supported via the filter and order arguments.

Let us continue with our example above. Say, we want to retrieve all SalesQuotes with a value greater than 100 U.S. Dollars. The value condition can be formulated with the filter rule netAmount: {ge: 100}. For the currency condition we need to compare it with a string for equality: netAmountCurrency: {eq: "USD"}. Filter rules that are in one filter object are combined with logical conjunction (and). If you want to combine rules with logical disjunction (or), you would pass multiple filters as a list in the filter argument.

In addition, we define an ascending ordering on the netAmount property: orderBy: {netAmount: asc}.

With top and skip we can additionally define a sliding window over the result to implement pagination. top specifies how many result entities should be returned: the page size. How many result entities should be skipped from the beginning of the ordering is defined with the skip argument.

{
  sap_graph {
    SalesQuote (
      top: 5,
      skip: 5,
      orderBy: {netAmount: asc},
      filter: {
        netAmount: {ge: 100},
        netAmountCurrency: {eq: "USD"}
      }
    ){
      totalCount
      nodes {
        id
        netAmount
        netAmountCurrency
      }
    }
  }
}

Summary

In this tutorial we had a look at using Graph with GraphQL. We covered all the features that you as a developer working with Graph need to know, like how to:

inspect the schema and structure of the business data graph
formulate complex queries
work with collections

GraphQL itself offers much more than what we showed in this tutorial. You can read more about it in the the GraphQL documentation and the Graph documentation .

You as a developer now have a second data protocol option you can use with Graph. The structure of all entities in the business data graph is exactly the same as if you access Graph with the OData protocol. You have one API to retrieve data in one unified format, no matter the source system.

________________________________________________________________
Alexander Hoffert, Senior Developer – Graph

Visit Graph on the SAP Community

Graph intro series, part 8: Use Graph With OData v4

2024-03-19T14:21:24.058000+01:00

What you will learn: use OData v4 to fetch data and explore the structure of the connected data model exposed by Graph.

Hello!

In this part of the tutorial on Graph we will focus on the OData protocol that Graph exposes and how to explore the structure of the data model of a business data graph. OData is one of the two data protocols supported by Graph - next to GraphQL.

For an overview of other parts of this series, check out the Information Map.

Graph is built on open standards and technologies. Clients can communicate with Graph using the Open Data v4 Protocol (OData). This is a standardized RESTful HTTP protocol with defined semantics that help promote interoperability between services.

OData is centered around resources (data entities), which are identified by URLs. In Graph, there are for example the Customer, Product, or SalesQuote entities. The structure of these entities is defined in an Entity Data Model (EDM) which can be inspected by clients. OData provides many operations to filter or search in entity collections, to navigate between associated entities and to adapt the response shape.

We will now look at examples on how to formulate OData requests for Graph.

Tutorial Setup

To keep things simple, we will be using the Graph sandbox business data graph (BDG). All you need to use it is your favorite HTTP tool, for example Postman, and your API key from SAP Business Accelerator Hub. To retrieve your API key, log into SAP Business Accelerator Hub, go to settings and copy your API key from the Show API Key button.

To make requests against the Graph sandbox BDG, add your API key as an HTTP header in your requests:
apiKey: <your API key>

Then you can use the Graph sandbox BDG through the following endpoint:

https://sandbox.api.sap.com/sapgraph/

Note: The API key is just used for the purposes of this sandbox endpoint and not relevant in the context of OData requests or productive Graph instances.

Exploring the OData data model

OData defines an Entity Data Model that describes the structure of all known entities. This helps developers and clients alike to reason about the available entities and their structure. The data model and further metadata can be inspected through a special $metadata resource. Graph makes metadata available for each namespace, such as sap.graph for the unified Graph data model.

To retrieve the metadata of the unified data model in Graph, make the following request, which will return an EDMX specification (an XML dialect for describing OData Entity Data Models).

https://sandbox.api.sap.com/sapgraph/sap.graph/$metadata

In the response, we can inspect the structure of all the entities (and sub-entities) that are described as EntityType entries as well as other metadata. Let's have a closer look at the definition of the SalesQuote entity type in this extract from the sales domain metadata:

<EntityType Name="SalesQuote">
    <Key>
        <PropertyRef Name="id"/>
    </Key>
    <Property Name="id" Type="Edm.String" MaxLength="82" Nullable="false"/>
    <Property Name="displayId" Type="Edm.String"/>
    <Property Name="netAmount" Type="Edm.Decimal" Scale="6" Precision="22"/>
    <Property Name="pricingDate" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset"/>
    <Property Name="netAmountCurrency" Type="Edm.String" MaxLength="5"/>
    <NavigationProperty Name="_netAmountCurrency" Type="sap.graph.Currency"/>
    <NavigationProperty Name="items" Type="Collection(sap.graph.SalesQuote_items)" Partner="up_" ContainsTarget="true"/>
    <Property Name="soldToParty" Type="Edm.String" MaxLength="10"/>
    <NavigationProperty Name="_soldToParty" Type="sap.graph.Customer"/>
    <NavigationProperty Name="_cxsales" Type="sap.cxsales.SalesQuoteCollection"/>
    ...
</EntityType>

We can see that a SalesQuote has several properties of different types, such as String or Decimal, but also more complex structured types like the items property, which is a collection of several sap.graph.SalesQuote_items, that are also defined in the same data model. Furthermore, we see that the id property is referenced as key for this entity type. Navigation Properties allow for navigation to a related entity. The items property is a navigation property because the sap.graph.SalesQuote_items is modeled as a separate entity type in the metadata.

Let's look at an example. Add the following query path to the sandbox endpoint to make the request. This will retrieve one SalesQuote entity (here we add $top=1 to limit the result set to one entity):

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1

From inspecting the metadata, we have learned that SalesQuotes have items, however when comparing with the response from the example, no items are included in the response.

The reason for this is that OData has a mechanism for the client to control which navigation properties are included as part of the response. This is called expanding a property. By default, Graph returns responses non-expanded if not specified by the client. In addition to expanding the response, OData also allows for restricting it to requested values only. We will have a look at these mechanisms next.

Expanding and restricting the response

OData allows clients to adapt the response format in two ways. Clients can restrict the response to a set of specified properties via $select. And they can expand the response by including referenced entities inline as part of the response via $expand.

If we only require the netAmount of a SalesQuote, we can restrict the response by adding it to the $select query parameter:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$select=netAmount

This will return only the netAmount property along with the id, as it is the key attribute and therefore always included.

If we also require the items of a SalesQuote, we need to expand the response (as it is a navigation property) by adding it to the $expand query parameter:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$select=netAmount&$expand=items

This will result in the items array being returned as part of the SalesQuote response as illustrated here:

If we have a look at a response snippet, this is what is being returned:

{
    "@odata.context": "$metadata#SalesQuote(netAmount,id,items())",
    "value": [
        {
            "id": "cxsales~1",
            "netAmount": 890,
            "items": [
                {
                    "itemId": "10",
                    "parentItemId": "",
                    "alternativeToItemId": "",
                    "itemCategory": "AGN",
                    "itemText": "Green Emission Calculator",
                    "product": "P300100",
                    "soldToPartyProductId": "",
                    "quantity": 1,
                    "quantityUnit": "EA",
                    "grossWeight": 0,
                    "grossWeightUnit": "",
                    "netWeight": 0,
                    "netWeightUnit": "",
                    "volume": 0,
                    "volumeUnit": "",
                    "plant": "",
                    "netAmount": 890,
                    "netAmountCurrency": "USD",
                    "pricingProduct": "",
                    "incotermsClassification": "",
                    "incotermsLocation": "",
                    "processingStatus": "1",
                    "cancellationReason": ""
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Note that we do not have to specify expanded properties explicitly as part of $select.

We see that the item in the example above has a property product that references an id. When we inspect the metadata of the items by searching for the EntityType SalesQuote_items. We see that the product property represents the referenced product with a string value and the _product navigation property references the connected sap.graph.Product entity.

<EntityType Name="SalesQuote_items">
    <Key>
        <PropertyRef Name="itemId"/>
    </Key>
    <Property Name="itemId" Type="Edm.String" MaxLength="10" Nullable="false"/>
    <Property Name="itemText" Type="Edm.String"/>
    <Property Name="product" Type="Edm.String"/>
    <NavigationProperty Name="_product" Type="sap.graph.Product"/>
    ...
</EntityType>

To also include this _product as part of the response, we can expand it inside the already expanded items: a nested expand.

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$select=netAmount&$expand=items($expand=_product)

Which will include the _product response inline in the item of the SalesQuote response.

If we also want to adapt the format of the expanded product we can nest a $select query parameter in parentheses after the product. To restrict the nested product to the displayId, for example:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$select=netAmount&$expand=items($expand=_product($select=displayId))

If we also want to select more properties, such as netAmountCurrency, we can just add them to the $select query parameter targeting the SalesQuote, separated by commas:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$top=1&$select=netAmount,netAmountCurrency&$expand=items($expand=_product($select=displayId))

The response for the SalesQuote with included netAmountCurrency, items and _product now looks like this:

{
    "@odata.context": "$metadata#SalesQuote(netAmount,netAmountCurrency,id,items(_product(displayId,id)))",
    "value": [
        {
            "id": "cxsales~1",
            "netAmount": 890,
            "netAmountCurrency": "USD",
            "items": [
                {
                    "itemId": "10",
                    "parentItemId": "",
                    "alternativeToItemId": "",
                    "itemCategory": "AGN",
                    "itemText": "Green Emission Calculator",
                    "product": "P300100",
                    "_product": {
                        "id": "cxsales~P300100",
                        "displayId": null
                    },
                    "soldToPartyProductId": "",
                    "quantity": 1,
                    "quantityUnit": "EA",
                    "grossWeight": 0,
                    "grossWeightUnit": "",
                    "netWeight": 0,
                    "netWeightUnit": "",
                    "volume": 0,
                    "volumeUnit": "",
                    "plant": "",
                    "netAmount": 890,
                    "netAmountCurrency": "USD",
                    "pricingProduct": "",
                    "incotermsClassification": "",
                    "incotermsLocation": "",
                    "processingStatus": "1",
                    "cancellationReason": ""
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Working with collections: filtering, ordering and pagination

When working with collections of entities, we typically want to filter the entities by some criteria or arrange them in a specific order. In OData this is supported via the $filter and $orderby query parameters. With $top and $skip we can additionally define a sliding window over the result to implement pagination.

To continue with our example above, let's remove the $top=1 we added initially to now retrieve a collection of SalesQuotes. Say we want to retrieve all SalesQuotes with a value greater than 100 U.S. Dollars.

The value condition can be formulated with the greater equal operator: netAmount ge 100. For the currency condition we need to compare it with a string (enclosed in single quotes) for equality: netAmountCurrency eq 'USD'. We then combine these conditions with a logical and expression and add it to the example query below. We also define an ordering on the netAmount property with the $orderby query parameter, which is ascending by default.

Note: OData operators are lower-case and space-separated. This requires URL encoding. If you are using Postman for this tutorial you don't need to worry as Postman automatically applies URL encoding.

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$select=netAmount,netAmountCurrency&$expand=items($expand=_product($select=displayId))&$filter=netAmount ge 100 and netAmountCurrency eq 'USD'&$orderby=netAmount

Note: OData only supports writing filter expressions using a small vocabulary of filter operators. See here for a full list.

As a last step, we will now define a paging-window over all results. This can be achieved with the query parameters $top, which specifies how many result entities should be returned: the page size, and $skip, which defines how many result entities should be skipped from the beginning of the ordering. Hence, we describe the page size with $top and index the single pages with multiples of the page size in $skip. For the second page of five entities each, this would translate to our example as follows:

/sap.graph/SalesQuote?$select=netAmount,netAmountCurrency&$expand=items($expand=_product($select=displayId))&$filter=netAmount ge 100 and netAmountCurrency eq 'USD'&$orderby=netAmount&$top=5&$skip=5

Summary

In this tutorial we had a look at OData, one of the two data protocols used by Graph. We covered all the features that you as a developer working with Graph need to know, like how to:

formulate complex queries
inspect the metadata and structure of the unified data model
expand and restrict responses
work with collections

OData itself offers much more than what we showed in this tutorial. You can read more about it in the standard.

With Graph, you as a developer now have one data protocol you can use together with one API to retrieve data in one unified format, no matter the source system.

---
Florian Moritz

Creating a dynamic graph to use as an SPC chart purposes

2024-03-26T20:23:31.719000+01:00

In this project, we aimed to create a dynamic graph to use as an SPC Chart, ["Fig. 1."]. In order to achieve this, we created a custom plugin to view the graph from the POD, custom tables in a cloud database to feed data to the graph, the process to add data to the database and create scenario-based actions, tags to read data from the shop-floor, and a subscription.

["Figure 1- Overall Graph View"]

Details & Design of the Development

In our scenario, there will be five random measurements values at the first operation of an order. Our main process is triggered by the input fed by the tag in the form of an (sfc,value) structure, when related tag value changed, it is catched by the subscription created via the Automatic Trigger App, and this subscription triggers a spesific process. [“Fig. 2.”]

["Figure 2 - Main Process"]

Within the process, after separating this input into sfc and value, further information about the sfc, such as resources, is obtained using Retrieve Sfc Details Service.

After getting the SFC details there is a parallel condition to invoke both a second process [“Fig. 3.”] and a custom service that adds data to the 'z_spc_period' table ["Fig. 4."]. With the second process, we aimed to update the resource status as 'SCHEDULED_DOWN' and send a notification to a Teams Channel, when the value falls outside the maxOut and minOut limits. For the maxValue and minValue violations, we aimed to log a pre-defined Nc code, change the status of the SFC to 'HOLD' and send a notification to a Teams Channel with this process.

["Figure 3 - Second Process"]

["Figure 4 - z_spc_period Table"]

We created 3 graphs as; SPC, Average Value, Value Gap. When the custom plugin screen opened, the Average Graph is preselected. To facilitate ease of use, there are total of 5 filters that are same to all graph selections: Workcenter, Resource, Order, SFC, and Material. Average value graph gives the average of values for a completed period. Calculation is performed based on the values from the custom 'z_spc_period' table and the results are inserted in the 'z_spc_value' table at the cloud DB [Fig.5.], however the max. number of values that could be in a period can be changed from the process design that we create, by editing the maxDataNum value.

["Figure 5 - z_spc_value Table"]

SPC graph gives the value versus period ID graph based on a SFC. As this graph functions based on a SFC, SFC field at the filter section becomes mandatory. Graph also shows the maxValue&minValue limits, maxOut&minOut limits and for the points that exceeds those limits there is an NC logging option. To log an NC, user need to click on the desired data-point and the NC log button from the info box that is opened [“Fig. 6.”]. This button will lead to a pop-up NC Logging screen [“Fig. 7.”].

["Figure 6 - Info Box of Data Point"]

["Figure 7 - Custom NC Log Popup"]

Demo Video

If you like this post or have any questions, please let us know in the comments.
All questions are highly appreciated.

Dilahan Çiloğlu & Ege Aksöyek

Knowledge Graphs on Datasphere and HANA Cloud. The differences

2024-04-02T16:59:17.079000+02:00

The ability to enhance RAG with Vector search, Graph knowledge bases, or SQL Queries is fundamental. SAP recently announced the Datasphere capability to create Graphs, and there are some key differences between the graph capabilities in SAP HANA Cloud, the new announcement SAP Datasphere knowledge graph and the Intergation Suite capability called Graph:

1. SAP HANA Cloud has had a powerful graph engine for analyzing complex relationships in business data for a while now. It allows creating graph workspaces from existing tables/views, querying graphs using openCypher, writing custom graph algorithms, and visualizing graphs.

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-sap/sap-hana-graph-resources/ba-p/13505490

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaSQu9laYKE

2. Datasphere Creating knowledge graphs manually is very costly, so SAP Datasphere comes to help by automatically pre-populating them using content already available in SAP Datasphere like connections to source systems, tables, foreign keys etc. SAP Datasphere knowledge graph is a new capability announced in March 2024. As data is onboarded and integrated into SAP Datasphere, it automatically creates an ontology representing the relationships in the data, including business context from SAP sources like S/4HANA

caption by SAP. Currently in Preview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQrFjthwOWQ&t=169

https://news.sap.com/2024/03/future-of-data-driven-business-new-sap-datasphere-capabilities/

3. SAP Graph as an Integration Suite capability

Parallel to building Graphs from Databases, SAP Graph is an alternative unified API available on the SAP Business Technology Platform that provides access to a connected graph of SAP-managed business data, regardless of where the data resides.

SAP Graph is intended for building extension applications, such as workflow applications using low-code tools or event-driven applications, and it supports modern open standards like OData v4 and GraphQL

https://podcast.opensap.info/cloud-platform/2022/04/28/episode-82-sap-graph-the-easy-to-use-api-of-the-intelligent-enterprise/

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-sap/graph-new-in-sap-integration-suite/ba-p/13555887

Conclusion

While the SAP HANA Cloud graph is more for custom graph algorithm development and analysis, the SAP Datasphere knowledge graph is an automated capability that provides a rich context for generative AI use cases by capturing complex data relationships and metadata. The two serve different but complementary purposes in the SAP data and analytics portfolio.

Additional information:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-use-sap-hana-cloud-graph-model-analyze-complex-your-holitschke

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-sap/sap-hana-graph-resources/ba-p/13505490

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-q-a/native-hana-vs-sap-datasphere-findings/qaq-p/12689997

https://www.techzine.eu/blogs/data-management/117331/sap-expands-datasphere-with-knowledge-graph-and...

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-q-a/sap-datasphere-is-an-alternative-of-sap-hana-modelling-w...

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-members/access-sap-hana-cloud-underneath-of-sap-dat...

https://developers.sap.com/group.hana-aa-graph-overview.html