Setting up and Debugging a WCEM Application

[Former Member]

Hi Seniors,

I am new to web channel and have a few questions regarding it.

1. What all things we require to develop a web channel application?
2. What technologies it involves?
3. How to Debug these applications?
4. What are the configurations, setup file and plugin's required to get started with WCEM development?

Thanks in Advance.

Regards,

Sachin N M

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

What all things we require to develop a web channel application?

Here are the rough steps you need to do

1) You need a NWDI which operates as versioning control system (server) - it's similar to CVS, Subversion, Perforce, etce.

2) Then you create within the NWDI a developer track and define all Software Components (SAP WCEM), which you like to modify

3) Because the previous step was just the metadata definition, you need to download from SAP all required SCA files and import them within the NWDI to your developer Track

4) After the import, you need a NDWS - which is the Eclipse Java IDE with some SAP specific plugins. You connect your NWDS to the NWDI using the developer user account, that was created for you on the NWDI. Download/import the developer track configuration.

5) Again, you just have the definition downloaded. Now you can select the individual DCs and create local eclipse projects to modify those (read the extension guide, of how to create your own modules / extending SAP modules using your own namespace)

6) To be able Test your application, you need a J2EE Server. The best case is to have a local J2EE Server installed and configured (The J2EE & NWDS together is called NWDW - NetWeaver Developer Workstation)

7) Within the NWDS you can define the connection to the your local J2EE, so that you can directly deploy the individual modules directly to the J2EE

To sum it up

• NWDI
• NDWS
• J2EE Server
• A backend to connect (ERP or CRM)
• A catalog engine (MDM or Trex)
• The SCA Files (specific for WCEM and for the general NW 7.3x java stack)

What technologies it involves?

• JSF 2
• CSS3 / HTML5
• JavaScript
• Velocity (for generating the HTML)
• GenIL and a another Search Framework (SAP specific for backend interactions)
• OData (for Web-Services) using ATOM or JSON as output
• Ajax
• ... and many more

How to Debug these applications?

You connect your NWDS to the J2EE Server (local or remote) after you enabled the debugging feature on the server. Anything is like classic debugging for Java code. XHTML files of JSF itself you cannot debug, but you have the parameter wec-debug=true, which you can add to the URL to see some more debug output.

What are the configurations, setup file and plugin's required to get started with WCEM development?

You find everything in the installation & extension guide for WCEM, that you get from the sap service market place. For your NWDS installation you have additional WCEM plugins, which you must install manually using the installation tool integrated to Eclipse. You find the instructions in the installation guide as i remember, but do not forget to manually install/import the SAP certificates within your Internet Explorer otherwise the installation-tool will fail

Hope that helps

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Thank you very much. The details you gave were very helpful. Can you please give me a little more info on following questions I have regarding the same.

Are all these software open source or requires to buy from the SAP?

If so what among these need to be purchased from SAP so that I can get started with Development in WCEM? Trial Version if any?

Also, I went through the links which say, we require NetWeaver Developer Studios(NWDS) to support any JAVA based development. Can you give me information on how NWDS and NWDI are related or not related?

Thanks in Advance.

Regards,

Sachin

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

you must buy a SAP WCEM licence before being able to download anything related to this subject.

You can download the NWDS developer environment and there are pro. Within this guide you get some installation instructions

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/80a100d2-109f-2e10-e996-c2b808037...

The NWDI is probably something you won't get for free. If you get from someone access to the download files, then you should have a 30 days temporary licence in place. Normally you have the Software Provisiong Manager, which you download. This guides you through the installation and provides you all options as well as asks you for all packages required to finisht he installation. This tool will be used to install the J2EE Engine as well as the software packages on top (which can be also the NWDI, etd.)

Some of the software packages you might find here

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/downloads

but you might not be able to get access to everything until you have bought the licence, as everything you need is behind http://service.sap.com

You won't be also able to develop SAP WCEM without having a MDM/Trex and backend system in place. You will get some error messsages without a working connection.

Again, without proper access to SAP you won't be able to do anything  - and you would not get it working without it - it's just too much complexity, that you cannot avoid to setup.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for taking your time to help me out.

I will check with my manager regarding the license and other credentials required to get started with development in WCEM.

Thanks and Regards,

Sachin

[fabianl]

Hi Sachin,

do you have check the following links, there is so much stuff where u can find the answers to your questions:

How to self-educate about SAP Web Channel Experience Mgmt. - A Guide

http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/web-channel/blog/2013/02/11/how-to-self-educate-about-wcem--a-guide

FAQ Blog - SAP Web Channel Experience Management

http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/web-channel/blog/2013/02/11/how-to-self-educate-about-wcem--a-guide

SAP Help Page for WCEM

http://help.sap.com/wec

WCEM Wiki

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/CRM/SAP+Web+Channel+Experience+Management

And check theWCEM  dev an extension guide:

https://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001259492012E

For example: "Chapter 2 > Architecture" and so on...

Finaly check the "service.sap.com/swdc > Installations and Upgrades >

A - Z Index  > W > SAP WEB CHANNEL EXP. MGMT." to get all necessary instaltion files.

br,

fabian

[Former Member]

Hi Fabian,

Thanks for the above links.

I have gone through a couple of these links, but I do not have Sap user Access and most of document in above links ask for a User Name and Password. So I have been only able to go through certain of them and not a majority of them.

Regards,

Sachin

[fabianl]

Hi Sachin,

ok yes that´s true u need for e.g. an s-user to get acces to some of these docs.

If you working for a sap partner etc. u must contact the responsible in your company to get an user.

br,

fabian

[Former Member]

Hi Fabian,

Can you please give me any information, on what is the developing environment like Softwares and Programming Languages used for developing WCEM.

I have a good knowledge of SAP ABAP, OOPS ABAP, Scripts and CRM. I also possess decent knowledge of JAVA, J2EE and some web technologies like HTML, Javascripts and CSS.

What more technologies I need to through with in order to get going with WCEM?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Sachin

[fabianl]

Hi,

please check this blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/web-channel/blog/2012/04/23/the-web-channel-platform

And this about WCEM and JSF:

http://scn.sap.com/community/crm/web-channel/blog/2012/05/18/web-channel-experience-management--jsf-...

The Dev Environemt ist the Eclipse basedd "SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio" and the SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure (NWDI) (http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-8227)

For WCEM u need also a WCEM Plugin for NWDS.

br,

fabian

[Former Member]

Hi Fabian,

Thank you very much. Your links were very helpful.

Got many information I needed.

Thanks and Regards,

Sachin

[ingo_woesner]

For the NWDI there is plenty of valuable resources linked in the WCEM WIKI section "Development and Extensions".

Especially watch the recorded expert session and the step-by-step guide to setup the NWDI.

Best regards,

Ingo

[Former Member]

Hi Ingo,

I saw these links before, but since I don't have a s-user name and password, I couldn't go through any materials available as most of them required user access.

I look forward check on them once I get a s-user access.

Regards,

Sachin