While many people are enjoying their well-deserved (summer) holidays, the
release schedule of SAP BTP ABAP environment does not stand still, which is why we just published the next SAP BTP ABAP environment release, version 2208. This one includes many exceptionally big feature deliveries such as event consumption and exposure, RAP Extensibility, SAP HANA NSE support, support for OData streams and XLSX read access.
As always, the following condensed overview provides a quick insight into the new features of this release.
For the full set of items and information please check out the
official release notes page.
Event Consumption and Exposure
The ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP) now supports the native consumption and exposure of business events. For exposure, an event can be defined and raised in a RAP business object or in the behavior extension and then published via Event Bindings (
details). The consumption is implemented via an event consumption model which establishes an integration of ABAP environment with the SAP Event Mesh service in SAP Business Technology Platform (see
details and the new
tutorial).
RAP Extensibility
To cater for use cases in which a consumer of a RAP application wants to adapt it to their specific requirements, a stable and resilient extensibility concept is an important prerequisite. The RAP framework now supports extensibility on different levels in the data model including extensions for database tables, CDS views, behavior definitions and service definitions (
details).
Streams in RAP
The RAP framework now supports OData streams. As example, it is now possible to integrate Large Objects (LOBs) into your RAP applications. This means that you can, for example, upload and attach binary or text files when editing entity instances (
details).
HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE) Support
For custom tables, the SAP HANA Native Storage Extension is now available. By specifying a load unit, you can define how the data of the tables is loaded into the main memory of the SAP HANA database (
details).
XLSX Read Access as part of XCO Library
The XCO library now offers a new module including abstractions and APIs which can be used to programmatically work with XLSX workbooks and their worksheets. Currently the main use case is to read data from the documents (
details).
ABAP Development Tools
- Support for the Application Job Catalog Entry Editor which can be used to create and edit application job catalog entries (details)
- Support for the Application Job Template Editor to create and edit application job templates (details)
- Support for the new form-based Change Document Object editor (details)
- Availability of the new API Catalog editor which displays the documentation of API catalogs
- Availability of the new Behavior Extension creation wizard which is used to specify the behavior extension to be extended and if interface behavior definitions exist
- Enablement of the Element Information popup for authorization objects
- Support for the Element Information popup of RAP types now showing secondary keys
ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model
- Support for the RAP Business Object test double framework offering different options to configure the behavior of EML statement calls to the RAP BO
- Support for the definition of business object interfaces to introduce an additional abstraction layer between RAP BOs and their business projection layer (details here and here)
- Support for the definition of actions and functions that can be executed multiply on the same instance in the same request (details here and here)
- Support for the option “WITH FULL DATA” for unmanaged/additional saves of managed BOs (details)
- Support for the analytics annotation “@AnalyticsDetails.variable” which can be used to create any variable in the analytic query from a parameter (details)
- Availability of a new RAP facade which can be used to start a workflow during the save phase of a RAP BO
Administration
- Availability of the new Horizon theme which can be selected by the administrator or the business user (details here and here)
- Support for notifications in SAP Fiori Launchpad for ABAP environment using a new communication scenario (details)
- Support for the usage of SAP Enable Now to create in-app help content for custom applications or extend SAP-provided content (details here and here)
- Support for the integration of custom themes created with SAP UI Theme Designer in SAP Fiori Launchpad of the ABAP environment system
Continuous Integration & Delivery
- Availability of a new piper step to create tags for a commit of software components (details)
- Support for adding multiple tags to a commit in the Manage Software Components app (details)
- Support for an automatic roll-back of failed software component clones on production systems (details)
- Support for a denial error message during a second software component clone via the web API “MANAGE_GIT_REPOSITORY” if the same software component has already been published
- Support for Object Set Library in the ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) service API (details)
Infrastructure
- Internal migration from HANA Service to HANA Cloud finished
- Provisioning of new systems on Kubernetes/Gardener instead of Cloud Foundry/Bosh
- Availability of ABAP environment in the AWS data center locations Australia (Sydney), Brazil (São Paulo), Canada (Montreal), Singapore and South Korea (Seoul) (all since September 2nd)
Integration & Security
- Support for the consumption of asynchronous SOAP services and a monitoring capability via Application Interface Framework (AIF) for respective calls
- Support for maintaining trusted hosts for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
- Support for push and pull of HTTP service objects to and from an abapGit repository
- Availability of a newly designed UI in the Maintain Business Roles App to maintain restrictions for business roles and to display all restrictions with filters
- Availability of new business catalogs to grant read-only access to Identity and Access Management apps as well as Communication Management apps for development support cases
- Support for viewing all business roles with default values from business catalogs in the IAM Key Figures app
Reuse Services
- Enhancements to the XCO Library in addition to the new XLSX module such as support for transformations in the XCO Generation APIs, enablement of the origin concept for the XCO Read APIs, support for the read out of transport request attributes via the transport Read APIs and availability of a new transport filter to query transports based on attributes (details)
- Enhancements to the Maintain Job Users app including support for changing owners and users of an application job as well as displaying the change history and deleting application jobs (details)
- Enablement of new features in the number range API including the definition of the current number range level as well as the specification of a customizing transport request for number range intervals
- Availability of the Factory Calendar Pull Integration which is used to import factory calendar customizing from on-premise systems
Hopefully this overview helps you to digest the pretty long list of new features.
Please let us know if you have questions.
Stay healthy and take care!
