Doing SAP CPI Transports with IRT

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Once I started to make my first SAP CPI transports I did not like that you needed to transport the full package. I wanted just to transport a single Iflow and log what was changed with it, then I knew what was being changed. But it was a rather difficult process to make sure you did correctly. So I thought we could optimize the process to make it easier to apply transports for single iflows.

So we have created a flow for developers where they will make the normal changes.

  1. Save it as a version in the development CPI system after normal development
  2. Syncronize the IRT with the CPI system (by clicking the button or wait for the scheduled synchronization job)
  3. Create a ticket and assign the object version to the ticket. A ticket can correspond to a Service Request or Incident. It is possible to update the version if you have multiple attempts to fix the problems
  4. From the ticket, you then create transport with one of the Iflow on the systems
  5. IRT can then import that QA/production system. It will delete the existing iflow and upload the new version.

I have recorded a demonstration video you can see how it works

The following are we working on before it will be released.

  • Fix some of the few bugs we have seen in our test environment
  • Have a way to get the configuration in a global table, so once you import an iflow on QA it will apply the configured configuration from IRT
  • Investigate if we can upload the new iflow without removing the old version.

There may also be other ways we can integrate this both with our testing application part and make a flow that better fits with a DevOps focus of development.

We expect this functionality to be released within the next few weeks both in our cloud application as well as the on-prem deployment of IRT.

Want to try it on your own system

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SAP CPI course

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Over the time I have gotten a lot of request for a SAP Cloud Platform Integration / Hana Cloud Integration (SAP CPI/HCI) course. I have always wanted to help solve clients needs but did not have the experience of creating integrations in SAP CPI self. It is first the last half year that I have really been involved in projects and I have learned a lot about how to create integrations. I did struggle a lot of times to understand how I should build my integrations the best way, and what it really is about.

I am happy to announce that I have put a lot of effort and energy in developing a brand new CPI course, which I am sure will be very valuable for you.

My goal

My goal has been to make a course that takes you thru the process of designing iflows without having to do as much research as I had to go thru to understand the basics of
building good integration. In the course, I’ll not go into details about all elements because it is a lot easier to find it directly in the manual.

Why take the SAP CPI Course?

Learning SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI aka HCI) can be pretty difficult. I was struggling when creating my first projects with on CPI. It was pretty easy to get started. In the design part, I ran into multiple problems, that I did not understand how to solve. It was all of the challenges the course will cover.

Why Cloud Integration?

Customers are moving to the cloud and also want easy to use the tool in the cloud All the competitors have a cloud product and if SAP customers are moving away from SAP
it is not a good thing. SAP needs to make it easier to integrate all their application, so customers will buy the full intelligent enterprise from SAP and not mix it. Cheap to get started with (Compared to SAP PI)

Modules in the course

In the CPI course I will take you through the following modules:

  • Getting started
  • Building
  • Communication
  • Advanced
  • (Bonus)

All the modules of the CPI course are not yet published. But they will be in a short
while. I also plan to do a Question and Answer-session.

Prize

The prize for the full course will be 147 euro, but if you buy no later than February 15., 2019 you will get a 50 euro discount, so your prize will be only 97 euro.

Do you want to learn more about the SAP CPI course?

If you have any comments or questions regarding the CPI course do not hesitate to contact me.

GET STARTED WITH SAP CPI COUSE

How to monitor SAP CPI using Figaf IRT

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So, how can Figafs Integration Regression Tool help you to optimize your workflow while working on the CPI? You can do a lot of error handling in your flows. It does sometimes mean you will have to spend more time setting up correct error handling in each flow. We want to make it faster for you to develop and deliver your integrations.

In the standard CPI monitoring it is pretty fast to find errors, but if you want to find the iflows you have where there are extra attachments on it becomes more complex. You will have to use the OData interface self.

In Figaf IRT has many cool functions that will make your work a lot easier. IRT allows you to support and monitor all your different systems in one place. If you, for example, have many different kinds of errors in your system, it can be a big challenge to handle all of them, but with IRT you can set up rules, based on criteria of your choice.

A rule is defined with Xpath making it easy to figure out how to set it up with the information. Then you can send data to Jira, Slack or as an Email, then the correct persons can be informed about the error. You also have labels to identify what the error is related to and how critical it is.

In this video  I explain much more about how to monitor SAP CPI using Figaf IRT:

So, you want to try Figaf IRT? It is really easy to get started.

Try IRT FREE

You also have the option to subscribe to our coming Cloud solution for CPI.

How to build a business case

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For any business investment you must to is to build a business case so you can show a positive ROI. Otherwise, money can spend on something else that has better output.

The same applies if you want to get a better SAP PI/PO testing up and running. And all of my customers of Integration Regression Tool (IRT) must go through this process. Therefore I thought about helping them out, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

I have created an IRT-ROI-business-case 2019.

There are obviously a lot of assumptions that I have made in it. The assumptions are for a medium SAP PI/PO customer based on my experiences. I have tried to explain them in the video that I have made.

In this case, normal usage of testing would cost around 80.000 EUR a year.
If you go for IRT the first year, it will only cost around 40.000 EUR. The second year would be even better because you have made all the initial investment in the testing.
I was trying to see whether you really should be testing. This part had some nasty consequences like have system or factory down for 2 hours or losing a relationship with a customer. Here the price was 85.000 EUR. It had big fluctuations if you depending on how if your system was down every year or every second year.


Do let me know in the comments if there are ways this can be improved.

News for Figaf IRT – January 2019 Improving SAP CPI and PI development and monitoring

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Enhanced SAP CPI Monitor, Web integration and PI create test form error

So, lately I have been working with development of Figafs Integration Regression Tool, and I think the new stuff is pretty cool. Hopefully, it will be something that is useful for you to improve the ability to develop and run SAP CPI/PI content even faster and give you less support. If you have ideas for improvements I’ll like to hear.

Improved SAP CPI monitoring

We have improved the logging of errors. So it will download the attachments for the failed flows. Then it will be a lot easier for you to monitor and process the alerts. We have also improved the OData filter, so you can specify filters for messages that do not fail. So if you are using sender and receiver information you can setup a filter like Sender = ‘Salesforce’ and Receiver = ‘LOG’ that way you can get the payloads even if there are no errors on the CPI flow.

Support tool with webhooks

The IRT Support desktop is not the only one in your organization. This way you can setup integration with Jira, Paparduty or Solution manager. We configure to receive Jira notifications in about 1 hour with the information we got from the rules using zapier.com but you can use SAP PI/CPI for it.

 

Used Mappings report

Understand what is used on your SAP PI system of mappings, we have now added an option to show also Java Mappings, XSLT and also Message Mappings. Just use the Excel export of your configuration scenario.

In December 2018 I published a blog about this topic: SAP PI/PO Used message mapping.

Create a test case from a failed message

If your message fails because of a message mapping, you can set up a new test case to cover that case. This way it becomes a lot faster to validate that you have fixed the mapping once you have fixed the problem.

 

Want to ease your work?

I do believe that these improvements will make your work a lot easier. If you want to learn more please watch this video:

 

The last details

I also cover my newest insight about IRT in this slideshow:

 

You can try the features now on your own SAP PI/CPI system.

Download IRT for now