Technical Articles

Lukas Schoemig

Posted on December 4, 2020 5 minute read

How to use REST API in SAP Analytics Cloud to update user profile in embedded scenarios

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Introduction

Currently, I am employed as a Business Process Consultant in the SAP Analytics & Insight Team, primarily focusing on SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

More and more customers are using iFrame to embed SAP Analytics Cloud into external web apps and 3^rd party software, e.g. salesforce.com. By modifying the URL parameters of the embedded SAP Analytics Cloud iFrame, it is possible to hide the main menu, toolbar and pagebar and to embed SAP Analytics Cloud in the look and feel of the web app. This creates a homogeneous appearance for the enduser and results in single point of entry.

While using SAP Analytics Cloud embedded, the question on how to update the user profile settings occurs regularly.

It is possible to use the SCIM API (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) to update the user profile (e.g. changing the Data Access Language, Language or Date Formatting) and simultaneously supporting the single frontend illusion.

In this blog I describe the process of updating the user profile using the REST API based on SCIM.

Configuration Steps

Configuration SAP Analytics Cloud

I am using basic authentication against the token service. The first step is to create an Oauth client in SAP Analytics Cloud.

In SAP Analytics Cloud I go to ‘System’ – ‘Administration’ and open the tab ‘App Integration’.

Figure%201%3A%20Adding%20OAuth%20Clients%20in%20SAC

Figure 1: Adding OAuth Clients in SAP Analytics Cloud

By clicking on ‘Add a New OAuth Client’ a new pop-up window opens

Figure%202%3A%20create%20OAuth%20Clients%20in%20SAC

Figure 2: create OAuth Clients in SAP Analytics Cloud

I select ‘API Access’ in the ‘Purpose’-Field. My goal is to update the users, which is the reason for selecting ‘User Provisioning’ in the ‘Access’-Field. After entering the information, I click ‘Add’.

By creating the new OAuth client, I get an ‘OAuth Client ID’ and a ‘Secret’. This is important for the next steps and I copy this information to my clipboard.

Figure%203%3A%20OAuth%20Client%20Information

Figure 3: OAuth Client Information

General SCIM API

SAP Analytics Cloud exposes a REST API based on SCIM 2.0. This API allows you to

Create, read, update, and delete users and teams.
Set user profile preferences.
Assign existing roles to users and teams.

Detailed information regarding SCIM 2.0 can be found here

From now on, I need a tool called Postman. Postman is a tool to test and operate RESTful APIs. It is a client Software.

Basis Authentication against the token service via Postman

Open Postman

Step #1: Create a new Request

Click on GET Request

Figure%204%3A%20Create%20new%20request%20in%20postman

Figure 4: Create new request in postman

In the request I enter the following parameters for connecting to SAP Analytics Cloud:

GET: https://<SAC tenant>.authentication.<Data center>.hana.ondemand.com/oauth/token?grant_type=client_credentials
Authorization:
- Select TYPE ‘Basic Auth’
- Enter the username and the secret from our OAuth client
  - Username Postman = OAuth client ID
  - Password Postman = Secret

Figure%205%3A%20request%20OAuth%20access%20token

Figure 5: request OAuth access token

I click ‘Send’. If everything is set up correctly, I will get a response with an access token (Status 200). This token is valid for 1 hour.

Response:

403: Not authorized
400: Bad request
200: OK

Figure%206%3A%20Obtain%20OAuth%20access%20token

Figure 6: Obtain OAuth access token

I must pass this access_token as a bearer token in the Authorization header of all following API requests. It is important to copy the access_token without “”. Having this access_token, I could already post a GET request for getting the users. For changing the users, I need an additional csrf token (Cross-Site-Request-Forgery).

Step #2: Obtain x-csrf-token

Create a new GET request
GET: https://<your-SAC-system>.<region>.sapanalytics.cloud/api/v1/scim/Users
Authorization TYPE: No Auth

Figure%207%3A%20Authorization%20Type%20for%20obtaining%20x-csrf-token

Figure 7: Authorization Type for obtaining x-csrf-token

Include the following headers with your GET request
- Authorization Bearer <Access_Token> (This is the access token I know from step 1)
- x-sap-sac-custom-auth true
- x-csrf-token fetch

Figure%208%3A%20Headers%20for%20obtaining%20x-csrf-token

Figure 8: Headers for obtaining x-csrf-token

Click ‘Send’
If everything is set up I will get a X-csrf-token in the Headers of the response.

Figure%209%3A%20Response%20with%20x-csrf-token

Figure 9: Response with x-csrf-token

Step #3: Update user profile

For this step I need the access token and the x-csrf-token that I obtained in the previous steps.
At first, I need to retrieve the current user profile with a GET request.

Create a new GET request
GET: https://<your-SAC-system>.<region>.sapanalytics.cloud/api/v1/scim/Users/<username>
Authorization TYPE: No Auth
Include the following headers with the GET request:
- Authorization Bearer <Access_Token> (The access token we know from step 1)
- x-sap-sac-custom-auth true
- x-csrf-token <x-csrf-token> (Step 2)

Figure%2010%3A%20GET%20request%20for%20user%20profile

Figure 10: GET request for user profile

In the response body I get all the information about the user. I copy this response body.

Now I can update the current user profile with a PUT request.

Change the request from GET to PUT
PUT: https://<your-SAC-system>.<region>.sapanalytics.cloud/api/v1/scim/Users/<username>
Authorization TYPE: No Auth
Include the following headers with the GET request:
- Authorization: Bearer <Access_Token> (The access token we know from step 1)
- x-sap-sac-custom-auth: true
- x-csrf-token: <x-csrf-token> (Step 2)
Chose raw as format and select JSON from the dropdown box.
Paste the response body from the previous GET request (i.e. from the GET request which delivered user profile) to the PUT request body and change one of the parameters.

You can find all the parameters that can be changed here.

Figure%2011%3A%20Update%20user%20with%20copying%20and%20changing%20body

Figure 11: Update user with copying and changing body

If everything is correct I will get a “Status 200” notification
Also, I will see the updated body response of the user.
I can doublecheck the new settings in the SAC Profile settings.

Response:

404: Not Found
403: Not authorized
400: Bad Request
200: OK

Figure%2012%3A%20Profile%20settings%20SAC

Figure 12: Profile settings SAC

Conclusion

As described in the introduction, there are many more possibilities using the REST API, as the API allows you to

Create, read, update, and delete users and teams.
Set user profile preferences.
Assign existing roles to users and teams.

For a better understanding how the authentication works all the steps are done manually. With Postman it is also possible to automate this with variables.

Go ahead and check out the SAP Analytics Cloud APIs in your system, I am looking forward to your feedback and comments!

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16 Comments

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Martijn van Foeken

December 7, 2020 at 8:57 am

Hi Lucas,

First of all, great blog. Nice hands-on guide on how to use SCIM.

I have one question which I hope you know the answer to: What happens with the content of a user when you delete this via SCIM? If you delete a user via the SAC UI you get different options. Are there additional parameters available?

Kind regards,

Martijn van Foeken | Interdobs
- Like(1)
- Lukas Schoemig Post author
  
  December 8, 2020 at 12:40 pm
  Hi Martijn,
  
  thank you very much for your feedback. Yes, you are right when deleting the user in SAC you have two options
  - Transfer all content to another user
  - Delete private files and only transfer public and shared content
  You could use the SCIM API to remove the user from SAC. Doing so will delete their personal content and public content will not be re-assigned.
  
  Best regards,
  
  Lukas
  - Like(1)
Anthony Sciascia

December 7, 2020 at 1:05 pm

Hi Lukas,

thanks for your very interesting blog.

Could this scenario be used in a case where a sac report is embedded in a iframe on external web, and users don’t need to enter credentials (using a concurrent user) ?

thanks

Anthony
- Like(0)
- Lukas Schoemig Post author
  
  December 8, 2020 at 12:40 pm
  
  Hi Anthony,
  
  even with SAC embedded reports you have to enter your credentials. Of course, if you are using SSO for the web app you could pass these credentials to SAC.
  
  Best regards,
  
  Lukas
  - Like(0)
  - Gabriel BERTHION
    
    December 9, 2020 at 5:21 pm
    
    thanks lukas
    
    Anthony
    Like(0)
Jaewon Lee

December 11, 2020 at 3:25 am

Hello Lukas,

Thanks for your great blog!. It's very helpful information for me.

I have a question about Team Provisioning API. User Provisioning API ( /api/v1/scim/Users/ ) is working fine like your blog.

When I tried Team Provisioning API, Groups API ( /api/v1/scim/Groups ) is working. But, Team API ( /api/v1/scim/Groups/<Team_ID> ) return not found page error(404).

For example, Even I can find Team ID 'AA' from Groups API return value. '/api/v1/scim/Groups/AA' is not working with 404 error.

Have I any mistake when I call Team API?

Best regards,

Jaewon.
- Like(0)
- Lukas Schoemig Post author
  
  December 11, 2020 at 9:58 am
  
  Hi Jaewon, good catch! I have the same issue and it looks like something is not working correctly. I checked the help page but this is exactly what we do: https://help.sap.com/viewer/298f82da4b184d1fb825b7ffe365e94a/release/en-US/a0572791c8444bda9084d8b07a982b4f.html
  
  I will get back to you, when I have an answer.
  Best regards,
  Lukas
  - Like(0)
  - Jaewon Lee
    
    December 14, 2020 at 12:59 am
    
    Hi Lukas,
    
    I've found a notes # about TEAM API error.
    
    https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2857395
    
    That API had defect in SAC Public API. As Notes, It was fixed at the 2019.24 version. But some additional setting is needed to use TEAM API as I understand.
    
    I hope it will help you to find answer.
    
    Best regards,
    
    Jaewon.
    Like(0)
    - Lukas Schoemig Post author
      
      December 14, 2020 at 7:37 pm
      
      Hi Jaewon, these are the only workarounds for SAC running on cloud foundry so far
      Best regards,
      Lukas
      
      Like(0)
      /
      - Do Hai Dang Le
        
        January 29, 2021 at 3:21 pm
        
        Hi Lukas,
        
        i can see the region of your tenant ist eu10. All cloud foundry tenants have a 2 digit number in the region (eu10, us20 etc.), don't they?
        
        So your tenant must be cloud foundry already.
        
        Best regards,
        
        Dang
        
        Like(0)
      - Lukas Schoemig Post author
        
        February 1, 2021 at 9:53 am
        
        Hi Dang,
        
        yes, the tenant is running on CF. They are mentioning in the Notes that the issue happens on non-SAP data centers (Cloud Foundry / CF).
        
        The workaround creating the teams using SCIM API instead of creating a team through SAC it is working.
        
        Like(0)
Do Hai Dang Le

January 29, 2021 at 3:18 pm
Hi,

the response of the GET request to v1/scim/users only consists of 50 items per page.

Do you have any idea on how to get the next page of the response or increase the number of items?
{ "schemas": [ "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:core:2.0" ], "totalResults": 122, "itemsPerPage": 50, "startIndex": 1, "Resources": [ { "schemas":
Best regards,

Dang
- Like(0)
- Lukas Schoemig Post author
  
  February 2, 2021 at 8:58 am
  
  Hi Dang,
  
  the itemsPerPage are probably based on the pageination and you can't adjust them. Nevertheless, you could use the display parameters
  
  https://docs.wso2.com/display/IS580/Using+the+SCIM+2.0+REST+APIs#UsingtheSCIM2.0RESTAPIs-GET/FilterGroups
  
  In this case you will get the entries from startIndex=100
  
  https://<your-SAC-system>.<region>.sapanalytics.cloud/api/v1/scim/Users?startIndex=100
  
  Best regards,
  
  Lukas
  - Like(0)
Piotr Tesny

May 8, 2021 at 6:46 am

Hello Lukas,

Nice blog!

However I recently hit a roadblock when trying to create or modify users (POST and PUT verbs). Even if I followed the documentation I would always get a 403 (forbidden) error code as a result.

It appears that the culprit was the very usage of Postman which intercepts the cookies (from the GET call that was used to fetch the x-csrf-token in the first place) and automatically adds these cookies to the following POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE REST API call as described here.

I published the 403 when trying to create user with the SCIM REST API blog that explains the importance of providing the session cookie(s) that will assert the validity of the x-csrf-token.

best regards

Piotr
- Like(1)
- Lukas Schoemig Post author
  
  May 21, 2021 at 7:12 am
  
  Hi Piotr, thanks for clarifying and for creating the Blog related to the 403 (forbidden) error.
  - Like(0)
Patrick Melli

May 29, 2021 at 1:43 am

Dang,

You could loop through the pages to get all the users or all the teams. I implemented the logic for a customer. Basically, pass the index the count per page to the url. Note that the count default is 50 items per pages and the max was 200

// from the first query, found the statistic and get the first page.

jsonObject = new JSONObject(responseData);

int iTotalResult = (int) jsonObject.get("totalResults");
System.out.println(" iTotalResult: " + iTotalResult);
int iItemsPerPage = (int) jsonObject.get("itemsPerPage");
System.out.println(" itemsPerPage: " + iItemsPerPage);
int iStartIndex = (int) jsonObject.get("startIndex");
System.out.println(" startIndex: " + iStartIndex);

int pages = iTotalResult / iItemsPerPage;
System.out.println("Pages " + pages);

int modulo = iTotalResult % iItemsPerPage;
System.out.println("Modulo " + modulo);

---

get the teams or users from the first page and add them in a container

//
// loop on groups from one page
//
for (int i = 0; i < jsonArrayRessources.length(); i++) {
JSONObject jsonSingleGroup = jsonArrayRessources.getJSONObject(i);

jsonArrayAllTeams.put(jsonSingleGroup);

}

---

then get the remaining pages

// retrieve the remaining teams

for (int j=1;j<=pages;j++) {
idx = j*count;

url = sURL + _sGroupsEndPoint + "?startIndex="+idx+"&count="+count;

// retrieve the remaining teams (modulo)

idx = pages*count;

url = sURL + _sGroupsEndPoint + "?startIndex="+idx+"&count="+count;

Regards,

Patrick
- Like(0)