Consuming Your First Synchronous RESTful Service - Step-by-Step - Integration Builder Objects

[Former Member]

Introduction

This is the fourth part of a mini-series blog about how to build a basic SAP-to-REST synchronous interface scenario. The blog's first part can be found here:  Consuming Your First Synchronous RESTful Service - Step-by-Step - Introduction. This part is to build all Integration Builder objects (integration system-specific objects). The objects we will be building are shown as all the colored objects in this diagram:

Let's get to work

Creating IB Objects:

• The objects will be created in the following order: Business System, Business Component, Communication Channels, Sender Agreement, Receiver Determination, Interface Determination, then Receiver Determination.
• Start the "Integration Builder" by clicking the link on the NW Process Integration page shown above (transaction SXMB_IFR).
• Once the tool starts, it will look very similar to the ESR tool. We will need to create a configuration scenario to group all of our objects together.
  • Click the "Create Object" button. Expand node "Administration" and select object type "Configuration Scenario." Type a configuration scenario name then click the "Create" button.

• In the "Configuration Scenario" details screen, click the "Save" button. You can use this screen to create other objects if you like.

• You can see the configuration scenario created successfully.

• In order to have a similar view like the one above, you need to change the "Object View" to "Configuration Scenario View".

• Now, we need to add the SAP ECC Business System to the configuration scenario.
  • Expand the node of the configuration scenario you just created, then right-click the "Business System" object type and select the "Assign Business System" option.

• You will be presented with a wizard-like page on which you need to click "Continue." When asked for a "Party" or to "Assign Partner", you can leave the field blank. After that, you need to select the sending SAP ECC system from the list of business systems. This system must have already been defined in the PI SLD as mentioned in the pre-requisite section. Once you select the business system, you need to click the "Finish" button.

• Note that if the business system is not available in this list (and you are sure it is available in the SLD), it might have already been assigned to another configuration scenario. That is OK. What you need to do is find which configuration scenario it is defined in. Then, right-click the business system there and select the "Assign Configuration Scenario" button.

• In the pop-up screen, select the new configuration scenario you want to add the business system to. The configuration scenarios that are currently assigned to the business system will be already checked.

• Verify that the business system is added to the configuration scenario.

• The next IB object is a Business Component to represent the third-party system that hosts the RESTful service.
  • Right-click the "Business Component" object type or just click the "Create Object" button. Expand the "Collaboration Profile" node in the pop-up screen and select "Business Component" object type. Then, click the "Create" button.

• In the business component details screen, make sure you are on the "Receiver" tab to select the inbound interface we created earlier in the ESR using the value help menu. Then, click the "Save" button.

• Verify the business component is now created in the configuration scenario.

• If you can't find it, it might be in the "Unassigned Objects" folder. You can right-click an object in that list and select the "Assign Configuration Scenario" option to move it to your configuration scenario.

• Next, we need to create a communication channel for the sender.
  • Right-click the sender Business System and select the "New" option (or click the "Create Object" button). Expand the "Collaboration Profile" node and select "Communication Channel" object type. Type a name and make sure the correct communication component and scenario names are selected. Then, click the "Create" button.

• In the communication channel details screen, select the SOAP adapter type from the value help menu.

• Change the message protocol to "XI 3.0" then click the "Save" button.

• Verify the communication channel has been created in the configuration scenario.

• Now, we need to create a communication channel for the receiver.
  • Right-click the receiver Business Component and select the "New" option (or click the "Create Object" button). Expand the "Collaboration Profile" node and select "Communication Channel" object type. Type a name and make sure the correct communication component and scenario names are selected. Then, click the "Create" button.

• In the communication channel details screen, select the REST adapter type from the value help menu.

• Change the communication channel to a "receiver" as shown below.

• Go to the "REST URL" tab and type the following URL: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address={req_zipcode}

• In the same tab, change the variable source to "XPath Expression." Then, in the pattern element name, type the name of the variable defined in the URL. The other field is the "XPath Expression" which is basically the XML tag of the field in the interface message. This is exactly the name of the field in the data type of the message that goes from the PI system to the receiver system (DT2 in the ESR Objects diagram).

• Switch now to the "REST Operation" tab and select the "GET" operation in the "Static Value" field. The "Value Source" field should already be set to "Manual Value" and if not, you should change it to that value.

• Switch now to the "Data Format" tab. In the "Request Format" section, change the data format to JSON and check the "Convert XML Payload to JSON" checkbox.
• In the "Response Format" section, change the data format to JSON and check the "Convert to XML" checkbox. Also, check the "Add Wrapper Element" checkbox which will enable two fields that will be used to send response data. In the "Element Name" field enter the message type of the response (DT4 in the ESR Objects diagram above) and enter the namespace in the "Element Namespace" field.

• Now, click the "Save" button and verify the communication channel has been added to the configuration scenario.

• The next object to be created is the "Sender Agreement."
  • Click the "Create Object" button then expand the "Collaboration Agreement" node and select object type "Sender Agreement." Select the sender business system. Then, select the outbound interface from the value help menu. Note that you will most probably have to change the value of the "Business System" in the pop-up to "- Any -" in order to be able to find the outbound interface created earlier. Make sure to click the refresh button so that the interface list is updated.

• Once the communication component, interface, and namespace fields are populated, click the "Create" button.

• In the sender agreement details screen, select the communication channel we created earlier and then click the "Save" button.

• Verify the sender agreement has been created and added to the configuration scenario.

• It is now the "Receiver Determination" turn to be created.
  • Click the "Create Object" button then expand the "Configuration Objects" node and select object type "Receiver Determination." Select the sender business system. Then, select the outbound interface from the value help menu and click the "Create" button.

• In the receiver determination details screen, select the receiver's business component then click the "Save" button.

• Verify that the receiver determination object has been created successfully.

• Now, we need to create the "Interface Determination" object.
  • Click the "Create Object" button then expand the "Configuration Objects" node and select object type "Interface Determination." Select the sender business system. Then, select the outbound interface from the value help menu. Finally, select the receiver business component and click the "Create" button.

• In the interface determination details screen, make sure the software component version is selected correctly. Also, select the mapping operation created in the ESR from the value help menu. Then, click the "Save" button.

• Verify the interface determination object has been created and added to the configuration scenario.

• The last IB object to be created is the "Receiver Agreement."
  • Click the "Create Object" button then expand the "Collaboration Agreement" node and select object type "Receiver Agreement." Select the sender business system. Then, select the receiver business component and the inbound interface from the value help menu then click the "Create" button.

• In the receiver agreement details screen, select the receiver communication channel then click the "Save" button.

• Verify that all the receiver agreement is created.

• Now, that we created all the necessary IB objects, we need to activate them. Go to the "Change List" tab. Expand the change list all the way, right-click the "Standard Change List", then select the "Activate" option.

Finally, let's create a proxy and test our work. See you in the fifth part.