Manage Communications dialog

The Manage Communications dialog lists the communications of every system of one B2B business entity, so you can compare its Dev, Test and Prod setup without opening each communication in SAP Trading Partner Management (TPM).

Open the dialog from Partner Profiles or Company/Subsidiaries: select a trading partner, communication partner, company or subsidiary and click Manage Communications.

The table is a tree. Each system of the business entity is a parent row, and the communications of that system are the rows below it. Everything in the dialog is read-only - change a communication in TPM.

1. Columns

  • System Name - the name of the system the communication belongs to.

  • System Purpose - Dev, Test or Prod.

  • Communication Name - the name of the communication in TPM.

  • Communication Alias - the alias of the communication.

  • Communication Direction - Sender or Receiver.

  • Communication Adapter Type - the adapter type, for example AS2, SFTP or Process_Direct.

  • Endpoint - where the communication points, see Endpoint.

A system (parent) row fills in only System Name and System Purpose, and leaves the remaining columns empty.

2. Endpoint

Since 2609 the last column shows where a communication points, read from the adapter configuration of that communication in TPM. A long value is cut off in the cell, and the tooltip shows it in full.

Each adapter type keeps its endpoint in a different field:

Adapter type Direction Endpoint

AS2

Receiver

Recipient URL

Process_Direct

Receiver

Address

IDOC

Receiver

Address

SOAP_1.x

Receiver

Address

SAP RM

Receiver

Address

SFTP

Sender and Receiver

Address and Directory, separated by one space

Any other adapter type or direction

-

Empty

Most senders have no endpoint because a Sender communication describes the partner as a sender, while the address on which your own tenant receives the message belongs to your B2B IFlows, not to the partner. SFTP is the exception: there your tenant connects to the partner’s server, so TPM stores the partner’s Address and Directory.

Each system shows the endpoint of its own communication, so the same communication name can show different endpoints under the Dev, Test and Prod systems. If only one of the two SFTP fields is set, only that value is shown. A missing value leaves the cell empty.

User names, passwords, credential names and key aliases are never shown in this column. The covered adapters keep them in separate fields that Figaf Tool doesn’t read.

2.1. Placeholder addresses and leftover values

When Figaf Tool creates a communication, it writes the placeholder address http://<partner>.dummy. How the column treats it depends on the adapter type:

  • For a Process_Direct, IDOC, SOAP_1.x or SAP RM receiver, Address is the real endpoint field that TPM shows, so the placeholder is shown as it is until someone sets the real address in TPM.

  • For AS2 and SFTP, the placeholder isn’t part of the adapter configuration and TPM doesn’t show it, so the cell stays empty until the real fields are filled in.

Only the fields of the adapter type a communication has now are read. If the adapter type of a communication was changed, values left over from the previous type are ignored rather than shown as a stale endpoint.