Trigger SAP PO process from PO

[stephen_xue]

Hi Gurus,

Our requirement is like this, A third party system provides us a web service to be consumed and as discussed, the service is supposed to be called on 3:00PM daily. There is no need to give any  information in the request message and the web service will give whatever we wanted in the response message based on the calling time.

My question is since there is no sender business system, can the schedule of the process be configured somewhere in PO? how can this process be triggered regularly? Currently i just configured a file adapter to trigger the process, which looks very ugly. we do not have an ECC system btw. So ABAP proxy cannot be used as the sender either.

The elegant solution should be a process start from SAP PO i assume.

i assume it should be a common request. isn't it?

[stephen_xue · Accepted solution]

finally, our solution is like this:

1. create an EJB for adding a new background job to NWA via NWDS

2. trigger the BPM process by configuring this job

by this means, a process can be scheduled and be started from PO rather than any of the application systems.

I assume this question can be closed. thanks everyone.

[nikhil_bose]

Stephen,

Create a Business Component with sender channel that submit/trigger the web service. Scheduling can be done using Communication Channel -> Availability Planning. Engage an intermediate message event in NW BPM to receive the web service response and process it further.

Regards,

Nikhil Bose

[stephen_xue]

Hi Nikhil,

thanks for your suggestion. actually currently as a walk around, a sender file(ftp) adapter has been used to triggered process. I just wonder is there a solution that the whole process can be scheduled and triggered from SAP PO rather than a file/ftp adapter.

[nikhil_bose]

Stephen,

In PO, either the scheduling can be done using a intermediate timer event - a separate process thread waiting till the specified time; or default java scheduler can be used to trigger the web service.

In case of more information is required, please share current process design and flow.

Regards,

Nikhil Bose

[stephen_xue]

Hi Mate,

our current walk around solution is like this:

step 1: sender file adapter which has been scheduled reads a dummy file and sends the message to PO.

step 2: PO forward the dummy message to a SOAP receiver adapter to consume the web service

step 3: a SOAP sender receives the response message from the web service and delivers the message back to PO.

however ideally if the process can be scheduled in PO without a file system to be involved, that will be perfect.  Raghuraman's suggestion is very closed to our requirement. however the generated request message by the AXIS Soap sender cannot be recognized by the web service. the structure needs to be customized.

hope the description above makes sense. cheers

[Former Member]

why do u need a request message to be sent as SOAP sender will poll the actual data for you. Do you have a specific structure for the request message given by the thrid party

[stephen_xue]

Hi Arvind,

yes we do. the default request message from SOAP(axis) sender could not be recognized by our web service unfortunately. I wonder there is a place, like adapter module, to configure the request message type.

[Former Member]

Hi Stephen,

Even though no sender system, you can create a BC and a SOAP receiver channel configured with web service. we can schedule the channels in PI for 3PM daily.

But as you have mentioned if web service returns response how you will capture that response and process further.

If you open the web service in IE or in SOAP UI, you can able to find the input parameters and same can be configured with ESR and send empty request to trigger web service and for response you need create ESR/ID objects accordingly.

hope you need to verify the business requirement and on response handling.

Regards,prasanth

[stephen_xue]

Hi Prasanth,

your advice should be working with a dummy sender BC. however it is just working like a walk around. is there a way to let sender soap adapter poll the data from a web service?

Actually I found Raghuraman's suggest is the closest to our requirement. the only limitation of that axis soap adapter is that the request message cannot be customized and it is not recognized by our web service system. 😞

but anyway, thanks for your reply. 

[former_member186851]

If your using newer versions of SAP PI,

configure Soap adapter with AXIS protocol and schedule the channel for 3.00 P.M

Refer the below link.

[stephen_xue]

Hi Raghuraman

thanks for the information provided. by configured like that, the process can really be scheduled. however the following error message was got from the web service side:

Invalid SOAP request.

It looks like the request message which was generated by the sender adapter wasn't recognize by the web service. actually our web service from the third party system needs a request message and will give a response message back to us.

how can the sender AXIS adapter generated the required request message to the web service? actually the message type used for the sender service interface (bundled with the sender AXIS adapter) is matched with the response message from the web service. then how can the request message type be configured somewhere in this scenario? cheers

[former_member186851]

Stephen create the structure exactly as per request and enable the rest parameter to true.

[stephen_xue]

Hi Raghuraman,

how can the defined request message type be linked to the axis adapter? is it via adapter module configuration or via outbound service interface?

see, the outbound service interface is supposed to forward the response message from the web service. therefore I assume the message type of that outbound service interface should be the same as the response message from the web service. isn't it? then where can the request message to the web service be configured?

cheers.

[former_member186851]

Stephen you will hitting a web-service and getting an response right?.Create a strucuture accordingly.And configure the AXIS adapter polling to get the data.

[stephen_xue]

Hi Raghuraman,

I fully understand what you mean. there is no problem with the response message from the web service. the problem is, how the dummy request message can be delivered to the web service. the default request message that has been generated by AXIS SOAP adapter wasn't recognized by the web service. I need to define it somewhere.

[former_member186851]

Fine Stephen,Just customize the structure.I also the faced the same issue.Did a small customization it went on well.

[stephen_xue]

Hi Raghuraman,

can you add this part to your blog? thank you very much. 😉