Configuring SAP AS4 Receiver Adapter for ATO Integration

Introduction

SAP Cloud Integration already offers AS2 adapter (as of now available only with Enterprise licensed tenants) for B2B integration scenarios.

With May 2018 release of Cloud Integration, SAP started offering AS4 receiver adapter (available on all types of cloud integration licenses) to support Business-to-Goverment (B2G) integration scenarios.The initial version of the adapter is aimed to support the integration of Business-to-Authority (B2A) Manager of SAP with ATO (Australian Taxation Office).

SAP is currently building a Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting solution for ATO using the AS4 receiver adapter. More details about the STP reporting solution would be covered in a different blog very soon.

In this blog, I would describe distinctive features of AS4 receiver adapter that helps you achieve the B2G integration between B2A Manager and ATO agency.

Overview

The SAP Applicability Statement 4 (AS4) is a secure, reliable, and payload-agnostic protocol. It uses Web services to transmit business documents. For more information refer AS4 conformance profile defined by OASIS standard.

AS4 receiver adapter uses the Light Client conformance profile to address the functional requirements of e-commerce and e-governance services. It supports message pushing for sending MSH (Messaging Services Handler) and selective message pulling for receiving MSH. The adapter uses secure SAML tokens for authentication and authorization between two MSHs.

AS4 receiver offers two different variants to support One-Way PUSH and One-Way Selective PULL Message Exchange Patterns (MEPs). Initial version of the AS4 receiver supports only Bulk-Async-Delayed service invocation type for ATO.

Below diagram depicts the complete data flow of the communication between:

• Application (B2A Manager)
• AS4 client (AS4 adapter)
• Government Agency (ATO)

Pre-requisites:

Each customer needs to have the below prerequisites to be met before configuring & running the scenarios.

1. Register and get an AUSKey for your Employer. More details can be found here.
2. Deploy the AUSKey and public certificate in the Cloud Integration tenant key store.More details about deploying keystores can be found here.

Scenarios:

Scenario 1: Configure the Integration Flow to submit payevnt BULK document through One-way PUSH Request

Use the ebMS3 Push variant of the adapter to submit a PUSH request.

A sample integration flow is shown below:

AS4 Adapter configuration for PUSH

In the below screenshots, I have mentioned the configuration required in the AS4 adapter to establish the connection to EVTE test environment of ATO.

Connection:

Processing:

Security:

NOTE:All the adapter configuration values can be influenced with dynamic values through exchange headers or properties.

More information on different configuration parameters related to ATO can be found in the ATO-ebMS3 implemenation guide available at ATO-Common-Information-Documents. After configuring the integration flow,deploy and run the scenario.

As soon as the document reaches ATO, we receive a receipt that contains <RefToMessageId> as shown below. Using the RefToMessageId value, you can perform Selective PULL for the Business response of the submitted document.

Scenario 2: Configure the Integration Flow to perform Selective One-way PULL 

Use the PULL variant of the AS4 receiver adapter to get the business response.

A sample integration flow is shown below:

AS4 Adapter Configuration for PULL

Runtime Configuration: Allowed Header(s):

In the Allowed Header(s) field, enter RefToMessageId as shown here.

Connection:

Security:

After configuring the integration flow,deploy and run the scenario.

Now the B2A Manager sends a request to this integration flow with a header <RefToMessageId> containing the value received in the PUSH receipt.

If the response for the submitted request is already available on ATO side,you will receive the business response immediately.Else, you will receive an error mentioning that the response is not yet available.

You need to retry this process from B2A manager until you receive the business response.

Summary:

We learnt how to configure  AS4 receiver adapter to establish the connection to EVTE environment of ATO to submit payevnt documents.

See you in the next blog as soon as the STP reporting solution is available from SAP.

References: AS4 Receiver Adapter

STP Packages