About the SAP callout to an asynchronous system sample

This sample demonstrates how to use two SAP nodes, the SAPInput node and the SAPReply node, to allow a message flow application to act as a synchronous BAPI. This sample differs from the SAP callout to a synchronous system sample because it shows how to use the SAPReply node in a different flow by storing the SAP reply identifier as a WebSphere MQ message identifier and correlation identifier. The customer details are received by the SAPInput node in the form of BAPI import parameters, which are sent, through WebSphere MQ, to another message flow where they are processed by the Compute nodes. A response with the export parameters of the BAPI is sent to another message flow (through WebSphere MQ), which uses the SAPReply node to send the export parameters back to the SAP system.

A single SAPInput node represents four BAPIs:

• BAPI_CUSTOMER_CREATEFROMDATA
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_CHANGEFROMDATA
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_GETDETAIL
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_DELETE

The sample has three flows:

• SapInboundAsyncReplyCustomerSampleMFlow: This flow contains an SAPInput node that takes in the calls of the four BAPIs and passes them to the back end WebSphere MQ application.
• SapInboundAsyncReplyMFlow: This flow takes the response from the back end WebSphere MQ application and replies to the BAPI calls with an SAPReply node.
• BackEndMQApp: This flow implements the function for the four BAPIs by storing customer objects in an ESQL shared variable.

Input flow:

Reply flow:

Backend flow:

All four BAPIs manipulate customer objects:

• BAPI_CUSTOMER_CREATEFROMDATA stores a new customer
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_CHNAGEFROMDATA modifies an existing customer
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_GETDETAIL retrieves a customer
• BAPI_CUSTOMER_DELETE deletes a customer

In the BackEndMQApp message flow, the customer details are stored inside an ESQL shared variable, which can be interchanged with a database. The messages in this flow are routed automatically to the correct Compute node depending on the structure of the XML that is passed to it by the SapInboundAsyncReplyCustomerSampleMFlow flow. The message is read, and a reply is constructed in one of the four Compute nodes. If an error occurs (for example, a customer does not exist), the appropriate fields are set in the return object. The reply is then sent to the SapInboundAsyncReplyMFlow flow.

The SAP callout to an asynchronous system sample demonstrates the following tasks:

1. Configuring SAP to define an integration node endpoint (RFC Program ID)
2. Configuring the integration node SAP adapter to communicate with your SAP system
3. Rebuilding a BAR file with the newly configured adapter
4. Deploying the BAR file
5. Initiating SAP to call a BAPI that is implemented by a message flow
6. Replying to a synchronous BAPI in a different flow to that of the SAPInput node
7. Checking the export parameters that are returned to SAP from the message flow

The sample provides:

• The message flows to process the BAPI requests
• The message set that represents the import and export parameters of the four BAPIs
• The SAP adapter, which must be configured to connect to your SAP system before deployment to the integration node

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