SMP 2.3 - Sales Order application dev. queries

[Former Member]

Hi,

I want to develop an android application relating to Sales Order. What I need to do is basically create a sales order and post it to intended recipients to approve the sales order and then receive the approval as a receipt. How do I go about this? Can this be done the native way? Or do we need the hybrid approach? Also could somebody please point me to an example representing an idea of this sort? I would be grateful.

Eventually, I think I'll also need to use SAP as back-end and use BAPIs and stuff. If anybody could help me with the idea for the development and maybe detail me on the approach along with examples, it would be great!

Thanking all geniuses in advance!

Tags edited by: Michael Appleby

[midhun_vp · Accepted solution]

In your case you have two functionalities in the SalesOrder creation and SO approval and two set of end users SO creators and SO approvers. If the creation of a SO is complex, that means the user has to enter a lot of fields in the mobile in order to create a SO and they want to do it even the device is offline etc you can go for native approach. Else you can go for HWC. HWC apps are light weight apps, it is not capable to do complex scenarios.

Other part of the app is SO approval. It best suits HWC application. But if you are planning to go for native approach you can better implement this also in the same app. That means both SO creation and SO approval can be done from same app. Based on the user logged in to the app only available details can be shown by keeping a flag in the device coding.

Coming point in sending notifications to the user for approval, SUP/SMP supports push notifications. In terms of SAP/SUP we can call it as DCN (data change notification). In your case the moment a user create a SO from a mobile device or SAP server a push notification should reach the approver's  mobile. To achieve that you have to implement DCN.

In SAP system you have to configure DCN. An example is here, http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/mobility-platform/blog/2012/06/11/calling-the-sup-data...

If you want to get the notification in a native application you have to make you app support to GCM (Google cloud messaging). If you want notifications in HWC you have to go with the approach of server initiated starting point. Configuring your app with server initiated starting point will get the notifications to the device whenever a data change occurs SAP system (creation of new SO).

- Midhun VP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you. That was a brilliant explanation. Also, thank you for the example.

Finally, is there any example that shows the type of functionality (not only the DCN part, but the entire SO creation, approval workflow) I'm trying to develop and implement? Especially, involving SAP back-end and BAPIs.

[midhun_vp · Accepted solution]

You would not find perfect examples for your requirement, like SO approval. But you can get information in SCN and use it while developing the app. If I am right there were some projects in SDN codeexchange related to server initiated starting point. But unfortunately the repository is not available now since the projects are moving to GIthub. http://scn.sap.com/community/code-exchange

You will get some information on server initiated app from the attachment https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-mT2qP-FXCcQ0kzaVRvLXZNME0/edit?usp=sharing

Hope that helps.

- Midhun VP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you . Let me see what I can do. I'll get back to you geniuses as and when I face trouble in development. Thanks a ton for all your support and time.

[Former Member]

Could you shed some light on this?

[Jitendra_Kansal]

just to get clarity

What I need to do is basically create a sales order and post it to intended recipients to approve the sales order and then receive the approval as a receipt. 

you want to create a sales order from device.. once you press CREATE it will go to respective receipients?

He/she will approve it from device/system? Once done, you will get notification?

did i understand it correctly?

[Former Member]

You got it absolutely correct, Jitendra.