Extend SAP SuccessFactors on SAP BTP with CAP – Create the CAP Service

Prerequisites

To follow-up with this blog post you must have read and completed the following previous blog posts in this series:

• Series introduction and preparation
• Jumpstart the CAP Project
• Import SAP SuccessFactors OData Services definitions
• Define the CDS Data Model

Create the Service Definition File

In the last blog post from this series, we have defined the data model for our solution and populated it with some initial test data. But, when we first run the application we noticed no services have been defined, thus the entities where not exposed.

In this section we will create such service definition.

1. On the left-hand pane of SAP Business Application Studio, select the srv folder, then click on the three dots to the right of the project name and select New File

Figure 1 – Create New File

2. On the dialog name the file projman-service.cds and click OK

Figure 2 – Set File Name

Service Definition Coding

Copy and paste the code snippet below into the recently created file:

using sfsf.projman.model.db as model from '../db/projman-model';
using PLTUserManagement as UM_API from '../srv/external/PLTUserManagement.csn';

namespace sfsf.projman.service;

service ProjectManager @(path : '/projman') {
    @odata.draft.enabled
    entity Project as projection on model.Project;

    entity Member as
        select from model.Member {
            * ,
            member.defaultFullName as member_name
        };

    entity Activity as projection on model.Activity;

    @readonly
    entity SFSF_User       as
        select from UM_API.User {
            key userId,
                username,
                defaultFullName,
                email,
                division,
                department,
                title
        };

    annotate SFSF_User with @(cds.odata.valuelist);
}

Let’s quickly analyze the service definition code:

First we import the solution model from the file we created in the previous blog post as well as the PLTUserManagement OData service we imported in the third blog post referencing them through the aliases: model and UM_API, respectively

Then we define a namespace to contain the service definition (sfsf.projman.service) and through which we will refer to it in the future.

Next, we declare (define) a service named ProjectManager to be hosted at the path “/projman“, so it will be invoked through the syntax <application host>/projman/<entity name> (or $metadata to fetch the service metadata).

Finally, into the service, we project the entities from our model (only those which are not annotated with @cds.autoexpose) and the SFSF_User selecting some specific fields from the SuccessFactors User entity.

In the Member entity, besides all regular fields, we add an additional projection of an attribute coming from the association to the Employee entity (defaultFullName) as member_name, which will be further used in some UI annotations.

We also annotate the Project entity (the root entity of our model) with @odata.draft.enabled, because CAP exposes services via the OData v4 protocol and, for that version, Fiori Elements only displays the CRUD actions in the UI if the entity is draft-enabled. The SFSF_User entity is annotated as @readonly and with @cds.odata.valuelist as it will be used to populate the value help with SuccessFactors Users to be picked as employees assigned to projects.

Check Service

Now that we have properly defined a service and exposed the desired entities, you should notice that, in the Terminal, cds watch has updated:

Figure 3 – Serving the CAP Service

It’s now serving the ProjecManager service at path /projman reading from the service definition file we just created. So, if you go back to the application preview tab (the one that has opened when you CTRL-clicked http://localhost:4004) and do a refresh, you should now see links to all exposed entities as well as to the service metadata:

Figure 4 – Service Endpoints

You can click on any entity link (except the SFSF_User) to view the data that has been loaded from the CSV files. Let’s click, for example, on the Project entity:

Figure 5 – Project data from service call

Notice that CAP has automatically added the draft control attributes due to the @odata.draft.enabled annotation.

If you click the SFSF_User link you’ll get an error, because that’s not an entity defined in the application data model but rather a projection of an entity which should be populated via an OData service consumption. Therefore, CAP cannot use its generic service handlers for such entity as the OData call is delegated to the logic defined by the developer. Thus, for that kind of entities, a custom handler (with specific business logic) must be implemented and we’ll do it in the next blog post from this series.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully created and tested the CAP service of the application. In the next blog post, we will add the business logic of the application following the business rules defined in the series introduction and preparation.

NOTE: all the instructions provided in this blog post apply exactly the same to any CAP project that extends other applications (SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Ariba, SAP CX, and other third-party), if you would like to try it in the future.

Please, do not hesitate to submit your questions in SAP Community through the Q&A tag link: https://answers.sap.com/index.html

Next blog post in this series

• Add Business Logic