XI: BAM - Episode I - Introduction

[MichalKrawczyk]

Did you ever wanted to link an event (that you use with the workflow for example)
with your XI server? Do you think it would be quite difficult?
Actually it's not at least since February 2006
(the release of SAP note 879121 BAM downport to 6.20 and 6.40 release)
Thanks to that note by using transaction SWF_BAM we can define an event linkage between
not only an alert category (which is very often used in "pure" BAM - Business Activity Monitoring)
but also a link between an application event and an ABAP message proxy.

1. How to do that?

There are just a few steps to enable your SAP Application systems to send events to XI server
and the possibilities you gain with that are endless (more about it at the end of this blog).

a) first of all you need to connect your SAP Application system to the XI server.
It's very well discussed in weblog:
XI/PI FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

b) next you need to design your outbound message.
In my example it just contains 2 fields: from and to.

In this weblog we will not discuss any other XI objects
(like routings in Integration Directory and so on as I assume the reader has the basis XI knowledge)

c) the next thing you need to do is to generate your outbound message
via transaction SPROXY in your SAP Application system:

This is all from the XI point of view - now the only thing that remains
is creating the link between the SAP Application event and the new outbound message.
In this scenario I will present how to send a message upon creation of a new sales order.

a) We need to go to transaction SWF_BAM (if your SAP Application's was is 6.20 or 6.40 make sure you apply SAP Note 879121)

b) from this transaction we choose Create an Event Linkage: Application Object to Message Proxy



c) next we need to select the proper business objects - Sales Order which is BUS2032
and the event Created (as we want to generate it upon the SO creation)







d) in the next step we choose the new outbound message interface (class) from the XI

e) Now all we need to do is to add Binding between the event and out message.
Let's suppose we want to send the Sales Order number to the XI
(SalesDocument field in the _EVT_OBJECT container)



f) if we want optionally we can specify conditions upon which the outbound message will
be generated in the condition editor

2. Testing

To test the scenario all we need to do is to create a new Sales Order. Once we do that
we should see an outbound message in transaction SXI_MONITOR
in SAP Application system and also in the XI server.

3. Usage

As you see the development is fairly simple but what about the possibilities:

a) we can simply develop application acknowledgments for our messages coming
from the XI (alternative to ALEAUD)

b) we can send our own fields but simply changing the business objects
(it will be shown in the next BAM Episode)

c) we can build simple but powerfull PROACTIVE monitors for our business scenarios
(this will also be shown in one of the next BAM Episodes)

If you're interested in more advanced usages of those BAM Events and XI
I'd like to invite you all to watch/read the next BAM weblog Episodes.