How to connect to Network Partner in Business Network for Logistics as a shipper or Network Owner

[ravishshetty_r]

Introduction

Business Network for logistics(BN4L) has integration to certain list of the B2B carriers and visibility partners. This document will describe the step by step on how to setup the connection from your account to network partner

• B2B Carrier – Is nothing but a carrier in your system. Carrier Business users instead of using LBN Web UI, will be using carrier’s IT system. LBN will be integrated to carrier system

 

• Network Partner – Also called as a digital forwarder, is another network of carriers. They act on behalf of the carriers for digitally transacting document. LBN will be integrated to Network partner and network partner there on to the carriers.

The required configurations for setting up the connections to B2B carriers and Network partners are similar.  In this document, we will cover only the steps involved to connect to Network partners.

Step1: Discover the Network Partner and establish relationship

Step2: Configure connection parameters in BN4L

Step3: Testing with Network partners

 

 

Step1: Discover the Network Partner and establish relationship

Pre-requisite: You have established connection to all the carriers, that you wish to collaborate or require tracking information. You can find in the below link on how to establish connection to your carriers.

FC:https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_LBN_FC_OPTION/185742008f2c477ca789b93675b0ec6c/a1c5c34037a94fd68fbc24b...

 

GTT:https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_LBN_GTT_OPTION/d0802f41861a4f81a3610d873fdcf148/a1c5c34037a94fd68fbc24...

 

Navigate to Discover Business Partners tile

 

Search for the network partner that wish to connect to. Fourkites, inc. is used as an example

 

View detail information for Fourkites, Inc and click on Request for connection. The connection request is routed to the network partner.  The network partner will receive a connection request and the network partner will accept/reject depending on your contract with the network partner. To proceed further, the network partner must accept the request.

 

Step 2: Configure connection parameters in BN4L

Once the network partner accepted your request, you may proceed with the next steps. In most cases, the network partner also would have onboarded you into their systems and would have generated a user credential to access their systems. This credential must be maintained in BN4L for communicating digitally with network partner via BN4L.

 

Maintaining Network Partner Credential

Navigate to configure partners connection app

Click on Manage credential and maintain the credential provided to you by the network partner

BN4L support Basic, OAuth and APIkey credentials. Depending on the type of credential provided by the network partner, maintain the entries accordingly . Even for P44, the credential must be maintained as mentioned in the below screenshots.

In addition, if you are using tracking for via P44 LTL scenario, you would have to maintain additional values with project44 tab. In P44 terms it is called as capacity provider account. P44 uses the details mentioned in the capacity provider account to retrieve tracking information from carrier system.

In case you are setting up connection to P44, follow the below mentioned guide:

https://help.sap.com/doc/96e23bc983664cc998bd044a66c7b5cd/LBN/en-US/SAP_LBN_FC_p44_guide.pdf

 

Mapping Carriers to Network Partner

After maintaining the credential, you must map carriers to network partner. You have an option to map all the carriers to the same network partner for each scenario.

Depending on the network partner, the list of supported services by the network partner can be seen in drop down. This list will vary from one network partner to another.(These list of services is configured by network partner and integration is built based on supported list). You may select a specific scenario that you wish to setup. BN4L will route the calls to network partner entries endpoints based the transaction data values, mainly transportation Mode( Air , Ocean, Road ) and  shipping type( FCL, LCL, FTL, LTL ).

Note: It is highly recommended to pass the Transportation Mode and Shipping type, if available in the transaction data .

Map the network partner credential that was created earlier.

After creation, you will have an entry as below. The information can be read as all carriers will be routed to Fourkites for shipment tracking of all modes.

Step 3: Testing with Network Partners

Integration testing must be done on a project basis involving representatives from SAP and network partner organisation. The above setup can be achieved in test and productive environment. In the test environment, you may use one of test carrier tenants in your global account. This test carrier tenant must be mapped to one of the network partner carriers by the network partner.

In productive tenants, the carrier that you wish to collaborate must be shared with network partner. Network partner does the mapping between the LBN carriers and the Network partner carriers.

In addition, check the logs in Manage Integration Log app for successful communication with network partners

Summary

By doing above configuration you have enabled connection to Network partner. You can trigger the payload from FC or GTT and see that the calls are going to the network partner.