XI: Importing an R/3 structure or table into Repos...
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In recent time I saw questions on the XI forum asking if it's possible to import an R/3 structure into Integration Repository.
There's no easy way as in standard you can only import RFC and IDOCs signatures. But what if you have a structure that has 300 or 400 parameters? Do you have to do the Data Type manually ? You can... but if you want you can try this little hint. If your structure is based on a table (table type) or you want to import the table signature than there might be a way to do it in less then 2 minutes. All you have to do is to leave your SAPGUI alone. As you may know by know we'll try to export the XSD schema definitions from the database. We'll use MS Access to help us a little.
My example show how you can do it with Microsoft SQL Server but similar approach can probably be used with any other database that can export data into the XML.
Exporting data from Microsoft SQL Server
Step 1
- create a new empty database in Microsoft Access
Step 2
- choose you table from the database in Enterprise Manager(remembering that transparent tables from R/3 have the same name in the database)
- export the table
Step 3
- now we will use DTS (Data Transformation Services) to export the table from Microsoft SQL Server into our new Microsoft Access table
- create w new data source pointing to the Access table
Step 4
- choose you database table once more
Step 5
- execute your DTS package and if everything goes right you should see a new table inside the Access database
Exporting the XSD table schema from Microsoft Access
Step 1
- open you new database in Microsoft Access and choose your table
- right click (Export...) and choose XML
Step 2
- on the next popup unselect DATA (XML)
- leave "Data schema (XSD)" selected and proceed with the export
- now you have a file with XML Schema definition of the R/3 table
Importing the XSD table schema into the Integration Repository
Step 1
- create a new External Definition
- chanage the category to XSD
- choose your file (XSD schema)
Now you can use the new structure inside a mapping for instance.
Where you able to do it in less then 2 minutes? If not try once more... 🙂
I hope that the shown procedure can save a lot of time to anyone who will ever need an R/3 table Data Type inside Integration Repository.
Preparing this article I was using:
Exchange Infrastructure 3.0 SP13 Microsoft Access 2003 Microsoft SQL Server 2000