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Discontinuing Integration between SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Subscription Billing
SAP will discontinue the support for the CPI-based integration between SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Subscription Billing. The integration content available on the SAP API Business Hub is deprecated and will be removed with the 2305 release. In case there is a business requirement, partners can offer an integration by leveraging the public APIs for both SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Subscription Billing.
SAP Business ByDesign 1902 release provides an out of the box integration to SAP Subscription Billing in order to simplify implementation of subscription-based business models.
To achieve this we have built and published standard integration flows in the SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SAP CPI) - SAP's cloud based middleware. With this customers can use both solutions with zero coding for integration.
- Support subscription-based business models
- Out of the box integration for ByD and SAP Subscription Billing using configurable SAP Cloud Platform Integration flows
- Extend and adapt standard integration flows in SAP CPI to build more advanced integration
Here you find a quick demo which uses the out of the box integration:
What is a subscription based business model?
Across all industries and countries companies are extending their business models by adding subscription options for their products and services. This allows customers to consume them in a completely different way. Some of the reasons for going into subscription-based business models are:
- Digital products are rising e.g. Media, Streaming, Games, Digital Marketing…
- Software is eating hardware e.g. Smartphone apps replace devices like CD player, scanner, GPS…
- Service is eating material sales e.g. Print-on-demand, Textile Management, Fleet Management…
- Ownership of hardware is less important e.g. SaaS, Carsharing, …
Configuration, pricing and usage measuring of subscription services tends to be complex. We all see this with our good old newspaper subscription which offers options like “daily”, “weekend-only”, “first-month-free”, etc. but suddenly also includes “full”, “limited” or “pay-per-view” online versions. SAP Subscription Billing is SAP's cloud solution to cover all those requirements.
What is the value of using SAP Subscription Billing together with ByDesign?
Using the out of the box integration means that you only have to configure the data flow - no coding needed. Configuration means setting the parameters of your systems in in SAP CPI e.g.
- the host names (e.g. the URLs)
- security credentials (e.g. user names, passwords, security tokens)
- value mapping (e.g. market to company, units of measure).
Here you can find the integration flows in the SAP API hub. The following data flow is provided as standard:
How to configure SAP Cloud Platform Integration and SAP Subscription Billing?
The full documentation on how to configure SAP CPI integration flows can be found under "Documents" in SAP CPI.
Here is a quick summary video which explains the configuration:
Can the standard integration content be changed and enhanced?
SAP CPI provides not only access to the standard integration flows but also provides all other SAP Business ByDesign interfaces and it's documentation. With this system integrators can find and understand the scope of most important ByDesign interfaces and integrate them to extend the standard and build a custom scenario.
An example for an extended standard integration is the yellow part in the diagram below:
With the additional integration to e.g. sales order, product data, service confirmation or outbound delivery requirements for a more advanced revenue recognition and profitability tracking also on ordered profit might be achieved.
Here you can find more information:
- SAP Managed Tags:
