What is a BAPI

[Former Member]

I know this sounds like a really stupid question but could someone give me an explanation as to what a BAPI is... Also why you would expose it as a Webservice and what effect this would have(what would it do as a webservice)

You know for example if you expose a BAPI as a webservice and then deploy this webservice on an external Webpage then what would that achieve? What could you do...

Please if you can don't direct me to help.sap.com and instead give me your understandings of my above questions

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

here SAP documentation:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/5c/f3f0371bc15d73e10000009b38f8cf/frameset.htm

Hope this help

Francesco

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

oh... sorry,

i've not read the last line of your post

Francesco

[Former Member]

Hi,

Yes, you could say that.

Good link..

http://searchsap.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid21_gci948835,00.html

All the very best!

cheers,

Prashanth

P.S Please mark helpful answers

[Former Member]

So Just to confirm... A BAPI that is exposed as a webservice simply means that if a webpage had the right fields on it then it could access this BAPI over the internet and get the Function Module to perform its duties and return a result over the internet...

So in Essence when people talk about putting the Webservice onto a Webpage... they are doing nothing more than putting the required fields for the BAPI on the webpage so that the webpage can then send the message to the BAPI over the internet and this BAPI can then process the incoming message and return a value to the Webpage over the internet...

So essentially the webpage is just a GUI for the exposed BAPI?

[Former Member]

Yes,

But to send data through webpage takes a bit of programming effort.

Thanks,

Tuhin

[Former Member]

Another great blog on the topic

/people/community.user/blog/2006/10/24/exposing-bapi-as-web-services-through-sap-xi

[Former Member]

Hi,

just go through this link.hope it will be of some use.

http://www.erpgenie.com/sapgenie/docs/BAPI%20Programming.doc

Regards

Madhu

[Former Member]

Ok I think I am understanding now... SO lets say you expose a BAPI as a Webservice then you take this BAPI/Webservice and put it onto an External Webpage (Can you do that?).... Then essentially all the Webpage is... is an interface to communicate with the BAPI in the r/3 system is that right?

So you Would have

External Webpage with th BAPI/WEBSERVICE on it.... ANd this would basically be an interface... So if the Origional BAPI require Name and Favourite Food then this web page would have the same fields....

Then this webpage would send a soap message directly to the exposed bapi which would then Process what ever the function on the R/3 Side and return the relevant information..

Does this sound right?

[Former Member]

Hi,

There are various ways to do that.

One of the way is as below.

/people/kumar.prashant4/blog/2006/07/14/using-rfc-as-webservice-in-webdynpro

Thanks,

Tuhin

[Former Member]

Hi,

Thats absolutely right. Not only you can acces it from a web page but from any web service client. Even a standalone java program can act as a web service client.

Regards,

P.Venkat

[Former Member]

Hi,

To my knowledge BAPI's are provided by SAP in order to handle their mySAP solution suite. We cannot directly manipulate a standard BAPI. We can call them in the RFC's i think. And as ususal we can use them in XI to operate in the R/3.

Exposing the BAPIs' as web service is done to make them available as a service that can be consumed by any Web service client.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

P.Venkat

[Former Member]

HI,

BAPI is one of the interface technology provided by sap so that sap systems can be easily integrated with other systems using BAPI.

As far as exposing them as web service is concerned once you expose BAPI as web service you can access it using standard protocol(SOAP) and using any languages e.g .NET or J2EE.It can be accessed through internet also.

Thanks,

Tuhin