Bristlecone Inc. developed the SAP ECC and HANA Spokes for Integration Hub.
SAP ECC and HANA are the industry leading ERP systems. However, SAP integration can be complex. ServiceNow customers may or may not have sufficient SAP functional or technical knowledge to use our IntegrationHub SAP ECC or HANA Spoke. The purpose of this FAQ and demos is to clarify some of the most popular field questions and help the SC to build confidence with the customers.
Procure-to-Pay Demo (Credit to Shao Wei Tan)
FAQ:
1. Why are these two different SAP ECC Spokes?
SAP ECC systems can be integrated using two proprietary protocols: BAPI and IDOC. BAPI is synchronous (request and response message) and IDOC is asynchronous (fire and forget). BAPI is usually for transactional use cases, such as get vendor details, create purchase order, etc. IDOC is usually for one way sync from the third-party system to SAP, such as create fixed assets, create vendor, etc.
Thus, ServiceNow IntegrationHub also has two Spokes to reflect these SAP protocols. SAP ECC RFC Spoke addresses BAPI integration; SAP ECC IDOC Spoke address IDOC integration.
2. What are some prereq setup needed for the SAP ECC Spokes?
SAP ECC is an on-prem system. Firstly, a mid-server is needed to integrate between ServiceNow and SAP ECC. Secondly, 3 dependency files need to be installed to the mid-server to run the SAP ECC Spokes.
- sapjco3.jar
- libsapjco3.so (if mid-server is Linux) / sapjco3.dll (if mid-server is Windows)
- sapConnector-1.0.jar (available along with the Spoke)
For more info, please refer to Spoke Requirement section and MID Server Requirement section.
3. What SAP ECC version does SAP Spokes support?
SAP ECC 6 EHP8
4. Does SAP ECC Spokes support other SAP versions too?
These Spokes were tested against the SAP ECC 6 EHP8 version. They can be potentially backward compatible with the older SAP ECC versions but haven’t been tested. Please use with discretions.
5. Do these SAP Spokes also support S/4 HANA?
SAP ECC Spokes do not support S/4 HANA. Please use SAP S/4 HANA Spokes instead.
6. Does the SAP ECC RFC Spoke support all BAPIs, including custom BAPIs?
SAP ECC RFC Spoke has several key out of the box actions to show the design pattern of GET and Create/Edit BAPIs. Execute RFC Action can extend most of the GET standard and custom BAPIs. Customer can leverage the existing Create/Edit action design pattern and extend the Spoke.
7. Some of the fields in the SAP ECC RFC Spoke action are missing. Why is that?
SAP ECC BAPI payload is big and complex. To maintain IntegrationHub performance, ServiceNow team carefully craft out what are the essential fields for the Action. The non-essential fields are hidden under “Additional Field” button towards the bottom. Customers can add more fields if needed.
The Spoke framework is easily extensible. If the desired fields are not available in the “Additional Field” of the Action, customer can add the desired fields within the Action itself.
8. How can I extend the SAP ECC RFC Spoke?
SAP ECC RFC Spoke comes with a generic “Execute RFC” Action. Customer can simply:
a. Find out the desired BAPI name in SAP ECC.
b. In ServiceNow’s filter navigator search bar on the left pane, type in “SAP ECC”
c. A list of out of the box BAPIs will be returned for “Execute RFC” Action.
d. Click the “New” button.
e. Enter the BAPI name as that in SAP ECC. Choose the associated application.
f. As usual, go to Flow Designer and add the “Execute RFC” Action.
g. The recently added BAPI should now be selectable in the dropdown for integration.
9. Does SAP ECC RFC Spoke support bi-directional? If so, how?
The Spoke currently supports the polling mechanism to sync between the last modified date of the SAP Business Object vs. the current runtime. In the future, ServiceNow Platform will support a more Publish/Subscribe model to detect deltas in SAP.
