Technical Articles
[CPI] Chrome Plugin to Enhance SAP Cloud Platform Integration Usability
Follow this post to stay current with new releases<<
EDIT: I created a new blog post with all features. This ist the new reference blog post.
Edit: Version 1.5 is out.
EDIT: Version 1.2.3 is released
EDIT: Version 1.1 is out. So if you work with variables, this could be something for you.
EDIT: Version 1.0 with InlineTrace-Feature is out now. More details in my new blog post.
EDIT: I had some issues with the Chrome Store. You will find the newest version 0.5.6 here:
If you had issus with the “Trace”-button, this is fixed now.
Please change to this version. The old Chrome Store entry will not be updated and will be deleted
EDIT: I was accepted for the Chrome Web Store. I recommend you to install the plugin from there to get updates automatically and to avoid developer mode.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convista-sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb
Delete manually installed version before.
EDIT: Version 0.5.3 is now released. See https://github.com/dbeck121/ConVista-CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension
[Feature] Added last visited iflows in browser-bar-popup
[Feature] Added useful links in browser-bar-popup
[Feature] Added undeploy button in info-popup
Info: The screenshots do not show all features.
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EDIT: Version 0.4.0 is now released. See https://github.com/dbeck121/ConVista-CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension
New feature: Popup with deployment infos.
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EDIT: Version 0.3.1 is now released. See https://github.com/dbeck121/ConVista-CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension
New feature: See error message from processed messages directly in the integration flow designer.
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Hello integrators,
my team and I have been working for about 3 years now with the SAP Cloud Platform Integration.
To make it short: Usability is not the core competence of SAP and so I decided to improve the daily life of my team with a plugin for the Chrome Browser to hack some usability improvements into the CPI.
Features
Switch on tracing
This is now done with one click from the integration flow designer 🙂 I counted at least 4 clicks before including open a new window.
View Messages
You get a small dragable sidebar with the last 10 message status directly in the integration flow designer.
View Infos and Trace
The small sidebar I mentioned before has two buttons to open a new window that brings you directly where you want to go. Of course, the trace is only available if you activated it before. But this is only one click away 🙂
How does it look like
If you installed the plugin, you will have two more buttons in the integration flow designer:
And if you press “Messages”:
Installation
Install directly from Chrome Web Store
After installation, you see the icon in the browser bar.
At first it is grey but it activates when you are on a CPI page. The new buttons will be added automatically when you are on the integration flow designer.
Contribution
My time is very limited so you are welcome to contribute with good comments, finding bugs or pull requests. More infos on the github page:
https://github.com/dbeck121/ConVista-CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension
Ideas and contributions for new features are always welcome.
Ideas
- Add possibility to show errors, payloads, properties and headers from messages directly in the design screen
Things to improve
- Find a better way to get the X-CSRF-Token. Currently there is a background javascript for that.
- Find a better way to detect url changes
- Improve design
Bugs
There are probably many of them. Please leave a message.
I hope you like this project and it would be great if you leave some helpful comments.
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic,
Such an awesome blog this is indeed really helpful for every CPI developer.it saves a lot of time
i have just tried it it works like champ..:)Thank you Dominic.
Regards,
Bhaskar.
Thats great to hear 🙂
Very Good Job Dominic,
Very useful,
Thanks for sharing
Thank you Dominic
This a great help for us in CPI task.
Best Regards
Cesar
Fabulous!
Not only you guys developed it, but shared with us, great job!
Thanks @Dominic Beckbauer & Team!
Awesome Dominic! I always considered you fixing things that aren't broken as one of our greates assets on that C4/Hana Project. Excited for more things to come 🙂
Till next time in Cologne.
KR
Martin
Updated to v0.3.0
Hi Dominic,
Fantastic blog for CPI developer. really it will save more time in navigating for monitoring and tracing.
I can see there is a time difference in message monitoring and CPI helper chrome extension
Message monitor
can you please check this.
Best Regards,
Umesh Reddy
Fixed in 0.3.1
Perfect, It's working now.Thanks
Fantastic product. Well done Dominic.
Good work!
Nicely done, works with Chromium Edge as well.
Update to 0.4.0
Trace is not getting activated in 4.0
Hi Dominic!
Thank you very much for doing it and share it with us!
Adrián
0.5.3 is ready to download on github
Thank You very much for fixing the bugs Dominic. kudos to you.
Umesh Reddy
The Plugin is now released in Chrome Web Store. Please use this version to stay up to date.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convista-sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb
Hi Dominic Beckbauer,
thanks you very much for the sharing. its awesome.
thanks
The link to chrome webstore is not available anymore. Should we go for github again?
Hi,
sorry, there were some issus with the chrome store. I had to publish again with a new id:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convista-sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb
From now on, this will work and I promise that I will never press the unpublish button again
Best regards
Sorry, I had issues with the Chrome Store. We had a different oppinion what “unpublish” means. Sorry for that.
Please change to the newest Chrome Store Entry here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convista-sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb
You have to uninstall the old version before. The old one will be deleted in the future.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Version 1.0 is out with great new features. See my new blog post for details.
And we have 1.1 now 🙂
Great extension Dominic! I'm a happy user!
Hi Dominic ,
Thanks for the plugin, this plugin works fine in Neo but in a Foundry environment, the "info" button does not give any output I get and error: {"status":406,"statusText":"Not Acceptable"}
I believe this because the API is different in Neo and CF which plugin is referring.
Thanks,
Manoj
Hi,
thanks for the response. I do not have a CF CPI but I am using a trial account now.
You are right with the API, I will try to fix that the next days. Did you find any other problems on CF?
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic,
This tool is very helpful. Thanks for sharing.
I am testing it and found that inline debugging is not working as expected.
Thanks,
Manoj
Hi Manoj Vempati,
thanks for your message.
Maybe the plugin does not read all the Data. Are there many steps before the point where the blue items ends? Unfortunately I cant see the whole process in your screenshots.
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic, thoughts on adding the iFlow version on the info tab?
Hi Dominic,
This will make a CPI developer's life easy.
I am having a small concern, adding ConVista Extension Plugin to Google Chrome. I understand that using Trace mode directly will reduce the developer's time to check payload content but Is it advisable to add external plugin used to see the client data or Is there any security risk adding the extension.
Thanks,
Deepak
Hi Deepak Tandon,
I understand your concern. It is still the trace mode of the cpi tenant. So there are no data stored in the plugin itself. The plugin just gives you a button for activation.
If you have concerns, you can check the sources on github. It is open source. You will see, that no data is stored and there are no connections to the outside.
Regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic
I am not able to get below features in Iflow
Below are the Errors in Inspect
Error
Kindly suggest
Which version are you running? 1.2.2 is the last one.
Regards
Hi Dominic
Yes current version is 1.2.2
Snap
Any update Dominic
Hi Ajay Jadhav
Sry for the late response. Seems like you are the only one with this error.
Are you running the CPI on Cloud Foundry or Neo?
Are all features not running? Or do you see the buttons?
Have you tried to reinstall?
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic
Sorry was busy
Are you running the CPI on Cloud Foundry or Neo? - Neo
Are all features not running? Or do you see the buttons? Yup all features are not running like Trace , Message and Info
Have you tried to reinstall? Yup
Hi,
I see a syntax error in your Error Log. But there should not be one. What version of Chrome do you use?
It is strange that others do not have this problem.
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic,
I've been a fan of this tool, using it since inception 🙂 Thank you for it!
I have one enhancement request. Presently the extension gets enabled only for CPI tenants on *.hana.ondemand.com. Is it possible to extend and allow enabling it for the custom hosts? We are running CPI on custom host too and I'm missing this extension access there.
Thanks,
Santhosh.
Hi Santhosh,
I am not sure if this is possible, because I have to hardcode the URL.
What you can try is using the sources (https://github.com/dbeck121/ConVista-CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension#install-in-developer-mode-from-sources)
you only have to modify the manifest.json file:
I am not sure if this works but maybe you can try this.
Best regards
Dominic
Hi Dominic,
Thank you. I tried this in the past, however unsuccessful when directly modified the matches in manifest file from chorme extension folder.
I removed the extension, did an update today in two places i.e. permission and matches of the manifest file in downloaded copy, installed it once again in developer mode. This did the trick. Thank you again 🙂
Thanks,
Santhosh.
Great Addon! Unfortunately i couldnt enjoy it completeley since the 2 new buttons just wont appear. Do you have any suggestions?
Cheers
Hi Martin,
it works without problems in my tenants. Do you have a different URL or do you use Cloud Foundry? (I do not have a CF tenant for testing)
We use NeoCloud so far. I will try it with CF as soon as possible.
What is the domain that your CPI environmont is hosted on? I found that only my Neo clients seem to work, cloud foundry not (yet).
I'd create a pull request to add CF support, but I don't have the time at the moment.
Update! Version 1.2.3 is released:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/convista-sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb
https://blogs.sap.com/2021/03/12/cpi-convista-cpi-helper-the-show-goes-on/
Update of the features: https://blogs.sap.com/2021/09/02/cpi-cpihelper-chrome-extension-swiss-army-knife-for-integrators/
Hi Dominic,
I love this tool! Have been using it a lot during development.
I do have a question. I want to trace the cause of a production issue and want to do that with a minimum set of permissions in Production. Is it possible to use CPI Helper in a read-only mode (besides activating the trace), and view for example the payload, and more importantly which role templates would I need in Cloud Foundry to be able to use the tool in Read only mode?
Kind regards,
Jim