SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity

Introduction

An SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity, using its SAP connection, receives an outbound Intermediate Document (IDoc) from SAP and is intended to be used as a source in an operation.

To send an inbound IDoc to SAP, use the IDoc activity.

Prerequisites

Prior to using this activity, additional prerequisites must be met.

Create an SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity

An instance of an SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity is created from an SAP connection using its Receive IDoc (Beta) activity type.

To create an instance of an activity, drag the activity type to the design canvas or copy the activity type and paste it on the design canvas. For details, see Creating an activity instance in Component reuse.

An existing SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity can be edited from these locations:

• The design canvas (see Component actions menu in Design canvas).
• The project pane's Components tab (see Component actions menu in Project pane Components tab).

Configure an SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity

Follow these steps to configure an SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity:

• Step 1: Enter a name and select an IDoc message type
  Provide a name for the activity and select an IDoc message type.

• Step 2: Select an IDoc type
  Select an IDoc type.

• Step 3: Review the data schemas
  Any request or response schemas are displayed.

Step 1: Enter a name and select an IDoc message type

In this step, provide a name for the activity and select an IDoc message type. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Name: Enter a name to identify the activity. The name must be unique for each SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity and must not contain forward slashes / or colons :.

• Select an IDoc message type: This section displays IDoc message types available in the SAP endpoint.

  • Selected IDoc message type: After an IDoc message type is selected, it is listed here.

  • Search: Enter any column's value into the search box to filter the list of IDoc message types. The search is not case-sensitive. If IDoc message types are already displayed within the table, the table results are filtered in real time with each keystroke. To reload IDoc message types from the endpoint when searching, enter search criteria and then refresh, as described below.

  • Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to reload IDoc message types from the SAP endpoint. This may be useful if IDoc message types have been added to SAP. This action refreshes all metadata used to build the table of IDoc message types displayed in the configuration.

  • Selecting an IDoc message type: Within the table, click anywhere on a row to select an IDoc message type. Only one IDoc message type can be selected. The information available for each IDoc message type is fetched from the SAP endpoint:

    • Name: The name of the IDoc message type.

    • Description: Displays the name of the IDoc message type.

  Tip

  If the table does not populate with available IDoc message types, the SAP connection may not be successful. Ensure you are connected by reopening the connection and retesting the credentials.

• Save & Exit: If enabled, click to save the configuration for this step and close the activity configuration.

• Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 2: Select an IDoc type

In this step, select an IDoc type. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Select an IDoc type: This section displays IDoc types available in the SAP endpoint.

  • Selected IDoc message type: The IDoc Message Type selected in the previous step is listed here.

  • Selected IDoc type: After an IDoc type is selected, it is listed here.

  • Search: Enter any column's value into the search box to filter the list of IDoc types. The search is not case-sensitive. If IDoc types are already displayed within the table, the table results are filtered in real time with each keystroke. To reload IDoc types from the endpoint when searching, enter search criteria and then refresh, as described below.

  • Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to reload IDoc types from the SAP endpoint. This may be useful if IDoc types have been added to SAP. This action refreshes all metadata used to build the table of IDoc types displayed in the configuration.

  • Selecting an IDoc type: Within the table, click anywhere on a row to select an IDoc type. Only one IDoc type can be selected. The information available for each IDoc type is fetched from the SAP endpoint:

    • Name: The name of the IDoc type.

    • Description: Displays the name of the IDoc type.

  Tip

  If the table does not populate with available IDoc types, the SAP connection may not be successful. Ensure you are connected by reopening the connection and retesting the credentials.

• Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

• Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 3: Review the data schemas

Any request or response schemas are displayed. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Data schema: These data schemas are inherited by adjacent transformations and are displayed again during transformation mapping.

  For information on IDoc schema fields, refer to the SAP Help Portal or engage with your SAP administrator or SAP consultant.

• Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to regenerate schemas from the SAP endpoint. This action also regenerates a schema in other locations throughout the project where the same schema is referenced, such as in an adjacent transformation.

• Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

• Finished: Click to save the configuration for all steps and close the activity configuration.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Next steps

After configuring an SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activity, you first configure an operation, and then deploy the operation and enable events.

Configure an operation

Complete the configuration of the operation by adding and configuring other activities, transformations, or scripts as operation steps. You can also configure the operation settings, which include the ability to chain operations together that are in the same or different workflows.

Menu actions for an activity are accessible from the project pane and the design canvas. For details, see Activity actions menu in Connector basics.

SAP Receive IDoc (Beta) activities can be used as a source with these operation patterns:

• Transformation pattern
• Two-target archive pattern (as the first source only)
• Two-target HTTP archive pattern (as the first source only)
• Two-transformation pattern (as the first source only)

Operations that contain an SAP activity can only have one SAP activity and cannot also contain any NetSuite, Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceMax, or SOAP activities. Note that there is currently a known issue where operations that contain more than one of these types of activities appear to be valid and are able to be deployed without error. However, the operation will fail at runtime.

To use the activity with scripting functions, write the data to a temporary location and then use that temporary location in the scripting function.

Deploy the operation and enable events

Once the operation is configured, deploy it. Deploying the operation activates a toggle that is present at the bottom of the operation on the design canvas. By default, event listening is disabled.

To enable event listening for the operation, click the toggle:

When event listening is enabled, the operation will run when it is triggered by the configured event.

After the operation triggers, you can validate behavior by checking the operation logs. A log entry is made for every message processed by the listening operation.

Administrators can also enable or disable event listening from the Management Console Projects page.

Troubleshooting

If you experience issues, these troubleshooting steps are recommended:

• Confirm the values for the Listener Count, Destination, and Gateway Service connection fields are valid, as invalid values for these fields may result in an error when deploying the operation or enabling the listener.

• Disable the listener on the operation (described above), restart the private agents, and re-enable the listener on the operation.

For additional troubleshooting steps, see Listening service troubleshooting.