New ESR in Eclipse features continued (from 7.5 SP03 to SP15)

As a follow up to the blog series Best practices ESR in Eclipse where we described new features of the Enterprise Services Repository perspective in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) which we shipped with 7.5 SP02 and before, I would like to point you to further new features that we have shipped since then.

Taking into account the announcement from Oracle to remove Java Web Start from Java version 11 on which actually impacts the ESR and Directory tools of SAP Process Integration and SAP Process Orchestration, you may have to look for alternative UIs. See also SAP note 2677849 where we list two alternatives. If you like to stick to the Java Web Start based clients, you may go for OpenJDK and IcedTea-Web plugin. Otherwise, you may switch to the Enterprise Services Repository perspective in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio. The advantage of using the ESR perspective over the Java Web Start UI is that you can use one single UI environment to design your interfaces and mappings in the ESR perspective, model your BPM processes in the Process Composer perspective, and finally configure your integration flows in the Process Integration Designer perspective. With the new Process Integration test tool that we shipped with 7.5 SP14 there is even more reason to switch to the NWDS. Setting up your test cases to run integration scenario tests is also done in the NWDS.

So, what happened lately in the area of the ESR? Let’s go through some of the new features in the order of delivery.

Recursive structures in message mapping

See SAP note 2211034.

In case of recursive structures of your source or target, you can create additional recursive nodes by selecting Expand Recursive Node from the context menu within the message mapping. The recursive nodes are marked with a special icon.

Mapping migration switch for PI 7.0 to 7.5 upgrade

See SAP note 2434890.

There are changes between XI 7.0 and higher releases in mapping node functions where ‘null’ might be returned instead of ‘SUPPRESS’. This may impact your user defined functions. In order to retain the old behavior, a parameter retainSUPPRESS has been introduced.

Create mapping template from existing mapping

See SAP note 2483582.

You can create a mapping template based on an existing field mapping …

… which you may reuse in other message mappings.

Support for Java 8 features in message mapping

See SAP note 2482929.

You can use new features of Java 8 and above in user defined functions and function libraries. So far, a global parameter has been supported where you can switch to a recent Java version, this however applies then to all message mappings. Now, you can choose the Java version for a particular message mapping.

Where-used list enhancements

See SAP note 2645540.

Where-used has been supported previously. In addition, you can now call the where-used capability from the search results …

… and from the where-used results.

Clear SLD cache

See SAP note 2650726.

If you have done a change in the System Landscape Directory, you may have to update the cache to make the changes effective in the ESR perspective in NWDS. This can be done in the NWDS preferences.

Display object status

See SAP note 2651230.

In the navigation pane of the ESR perspective in NWDS, inactive objects can be now distinguished from active objects. Former are displayed with a red tick mark in the top left corner of the object name label.

Maintain authorizations

See SAP notes 2648269 and 2703762.

You can create and change authorizations in the ESR to define specific permissions such as creating, changing, deleting design objects, taking over change lists, exporting/importing ESR objects, etc.

Furthermore, you can either propagate an authorization to all child nodes or choose to inherit the authorization from the parent node.

Activate & reject option for non-active objects in repository browser tree

See SAP note 2713731.

Activating and rejecting objects in ESR has been supported in the change list view only. Now, you can also do this from the context menu of an object in the navigation pane of the ESR in NWDS.

Return as XML in message monitor editor

See SAP note 2714152.

Use the return as XML feature if you need to copy an XML sub tree from the source to target.

Matching service interface

See SAP note 2713763.

For point-to-point communication using the Web Service runtime, you can now define matching services, i.e., inbound and outbound service interfaces assigned to each other.

User roles

See SAP note 2714223.

You can create your own user roles providing access to specific SWCVs and object types. Once the roles are activated, they show up in the UME as XI_Rep_<rolename> where you can assign them to your users.

UI Text Editor

See SAP note 2757822.

You can create reusable UI text objects of different categories such as field label, checkbox, tab title, etc.

Update message types

See SAP note 2768207.

So far, it was not possible to change existing message types. Now, you can update message types.

You can either change the associated data type or namespace of a message type

For further details, check out the release notes.