Is there ABAP backend in SAP IBP
For a long time I was under the impression SAP IBP was HANA only application with just 2 layers DB and light-weight Web Application Server for Presentation layer (that is part of HANA Platform in the form of XS Engine). At least this was true in S&OP on HANA available for deployment On-Premise only on HANA. SAP IBP was introduced from Version 4.0 onwards and became a cloud only deployment option. Then came IBP 5.0 that as per documentation has Netweaver ABAP layer for Transport (CTS) management. But can it be just restricted to that 😉 . Moreover S/4HANA On Premise roadmap (further 1511 Simplification List page 127) mentioned IBP components available in future as replacement of PP-SOP and Flexible Planning functionality in Enterprise Management Core. S/4HANA is essentially ABAP stack with S4CORE100 as the software component that has certain amount of code pushed down to HANA DB layer. Best example is redefined MRP (MRP Live) having business logic related computation in HANA DB pushed down from Application i.e. ABAP layer.
Anyway not to digress into S/4HANA, but coming back to the blog topic “Is there ABAP backend in SAP IBP”. There has been some recent posts where there was mention about classical ABAP transactions to check job failures, multiple mention of ABAP as keyword in IBP FAQ document and couple of issues raised as OSS Messages required application of SAP Notes in backend by Support Team (wondered how can you fix issues in HANA only system using OSS note application) etc. So the search began to find an answer and now I am confident there is ABAP backend in SAP IBP 5 (not in IBP 4) systems. This may also be the reason for having Fiori apps available in IBP 5 and not in IBP 4 (not sure though).
SCMIBP100 software component can be found in most of recent IBP related SAP Notes pointing to support packages. Thankfully these IBP support packages are not huge having low double-digit number of correction notes (compared to 3200+ notes in S4CORE100 SP1 that is still to be released). If interested take a look at SP1 (registered in May 2015) to SP7 (latest one).
The next logical question is what kind of ABAP coding is there in SAP IBP system. Again I picked a random recent note 2249414 Incorrect KPI Value on Dashboard. This note has two correction instructions one for SCMIBP100 and the other for SCMIBP100UI. Opening the correction instruction for SCMIBP100 shows class /IBP/CL_AN_REPORTS_DPC_EXT Method /IBP/CL_AN_REPORTS_DPC_EXT KEYFIGUREQUERIES_GET_ENTITYSET and you see familiar ABAP code. I could not open any of the source correction objects in the SCMIBP100UI component that includes SAPUI5, CSS, JavaScript files.
Then another note 2263849 Planning Area cannot be displayed and activated having code corrections in Class /IBP/CL_SAP_SFND_SOPMU Method SOPMU_GET_RECOMM_PLEVS_SAPSOP. If you are really interested check out the associated code correction where you get Context Block of code:
METHOD sopmu_get_recomm_plevs_sapsop BY DATABASE PROCEDURE FOR HDB LANGUAGE SQLSCRIPT
OPTIONS SUPPRESS SYNTAX ERRORS
USING /ibp/dmattr /ibp/dmplevatt /ibp/dmplobjatt /ibp/sdmattr /ibp/sdmplevatt /ibp/sdmplobjatt.
Cryptic? quick SCN search finds out this is AMDP – ABAP Managed Database Procedure that allows SQLScript coded Stored Procedures in HANA DB to be called from ABAP layer. Still curious then check out Implement and Consume AMDP.
HANA or not ABAP still rules!!!
PS: This blog may not be meaningful from IBP functionality standpoint but hopefully gives insight in guts of Cloud-based HANA DB application.
nice find...
Hi Somnath- nice post.
I attended the IBP5.0 Authorization call yesterday and the back-end was clearly displayed on screen. In fact many of the familiar BW Authorization concepts are carried over and were displayed. We asked about how to troubleshoot authorization errors and the presenter explained this would be done in the Netweaver back-end. Now we have to find out how we access that on the project.
well, that is clearly a challenge. Even as SAP consultant (I can log on to the backend), I dont have proper authorization to check more than just PFCG and SU01
All other transactions such as SU53, se11, sm37, st22, SM50, RSxxxxx etc I am lacking authorization in a customer system (only in internal systems)
And no, I cannot assign myself more authprization objects that would allow it...
The roles that are / can be assigned are all IBP*-roles, and they dont include it
But in general you are right, it is pretty much back to "standard" authorization concept, including possibility to allow specific KF or MD-values as in BW.
Alan & Irmi - thanks for your comments and valuable inputs.
My personal feeling these are the first step towards converge of IBP application components into S/4HANA in near future. Obviously IBP (or I should say S&OP on HANA) is being retrofitted from a HANA Cloud based application to On-Premise (or even deployed as Cloud) where Netweaver ABAP stack is the foundation layer on top of HANA as DB.
Plus IBP 5 now has Fiori front-end also and going forward in 6.x Order-based planning will be featured (both for Supply and Response Management as I understand). I cannot see how Orders can finally be generated without involving existing order creation logic from either APO or ERP. Just having Time-series based data model for Supply is not feasible as the orders finally need to hit an operational planning system and further execution.
So I am happy to see ABAP stack in IBP backend which also means possibility of custom extensions in future (currently any custom requirement is managed by SAP only as it involves backend HANA procedures and L-Code).