B2B Configuration (Part I) - Creating an "Integration Scenario"

[shailesh_mane]

XI provides a great tool for automatically creating a B2B configuration. Most people do not use this tool and thus end up creating a configuration manually, which can be a painful process. This weblog aims to provide some insight into using this automatic configuration tool thereby reducing the time (and the pain) of creating a configuration.

The automatic configuration tool requires that an Integration Scenario (an important step) be created in the Integration Repository before the tool can be used to create a configuration. Thus the two major steps involved in creating a configuration using the automated tool are:

I. Create an Integration Scenario in the Integration Repository.

II. Create the Configuration in the Integration Directory using the automatic configuration tool.

Thus, I have divided this weblog into two parts so that it is easier to understand the two pieces separately and also it is tedious to read (and write) a long weblog.

As mentioned above the first step is to create an Integration Scenario in the Integration Repository. For the purpose of this weblog I will be using the Purchase Order Idoc i.e. a Buyer (R/3) sending an ORDERS.ORDERS05 IDoc to the Seller (non-R/3). The IDoc will be mapped to the Chemical Industry standard payload (CIDX - OrderCreate xml payload). For your exercise you could replace the IDoc and the CIDX interfaces with your interfaces

I. Create Integration Scenario:

1. Create an Integration Scenario object by right-click on Integration Scenarios object and then selecting New from the context menu as shown below:
   
   
2. Provide a name for your Integration Scenario.
   
   
3. The integration scenario will be created as shown below. The next step is to create the swim-lanes in order to add the appropriate Application Components and Actions for the Business Process. Two swim lanes will be created - one for Buyer (running a SAP R/3) and the other for the Seller (running a non-R/3 system). The two parties send messages using a CIDX industry standard (I am using the CIDX standard since this is easily available to me, but for your purposes you could use any source and target interfaces with appropriate mapping between the two).
4. First we create the swim lane for the Buyer who has the SAP R/3 backend system. Right-click in the first swim lane in the right-pane to display the context-menu item Insert Application Component as shown in the diagram below. Select this option.
   
   
5. Enter the following details on the pop-up screen.
   
   • In the Insert Application Component pop-up window select Template radio button.
   • In the Role tab enter the following:
     • Name: Buyer
     • Description: Buyer R/3
   • In the Further Attributes tab enter the following:
     • Extended Name: Buyer Service
     • WSCI Name: Buyer_Service
6. Next we create the swim lane for the Seller. Right-click in the second swim lane in the right-pane to display the context-menu item Insert Application Component. Select this option.
   
   • In the Insert Application Component pop-up window select Template radio button.
   • For the Communication Type select the checkbox for External Party with B2B Communication.
   • In the Role tab enter the following:
     • Name: Seller
     • Description: Seller
   • In the Further Attributes tab enter the following:
     • Extended Name: Seller_Service
     • WSCI Name: Seller_Service
   • Save the scenario.
7. The Integration Scenario should now look as below:-
   
   

8. Create Actions:-

9. Next we have to create Actions which are to be used in the Integration Scenarios.
   • Create Send_IDoc Action.
   • • Make sure the “Type of Usuage” is External.
     • On the Outbound Interfaces using the + button, and using F4 help add the IDoc Interface Orders.Orders05.
     • Right-click on this Action in the Integration Scenario and select Define Action as Start Action from the Context Menu.
     
     
     
   • Create Receive_Order_Create Action.
     • Make sure the Type of Usuage is External.
     • On the Inbound Interfaces using the + button, and using F4 help add the CIDX Interface OrderCreate.
     • Right-click on this Action in the Integration Scenario and select Define Action as End Action from the Context Menu.
10. Select the two actions and using the context menu create a connection between the two actions. Assign the necessary mapping.
11. The Integration Scenario should now look like as shown in the figure below.
    Note: Please note that the two actions are at two different levels i.e. Send_IDoc action is above the Receive_Order_Create action. This indicates that the communication between the two actions is Asynchronous. If the actions were at the same level then the communication between the two actions would be Synchronous. Depending on your case you could have the communication between the two actions as Synchronous or Asynchronous. I am using Asynchronous communication between the two actions.
    
    
12. Before we call it a day we need to make sure the Integration Scenario is free of errors. There are two error checks that XI provides as described below.
    • First check if the Integration Scenario has any general errors. This can be accessed via the menu: Integration Scenario -> Check (F7).
    • The second check is for Configurability. This can be accessed via the menu: Component View -> Check Configurability.
13. Now that the error checks are successful and our Integration Scenario is free of errors, the next step is to create the Configuration in the Integration Directory using this Integration Scenario. This will be described in the B2B Configuration (Part II) - Creating the configuration using the automated configuration tool of this weblog.