HCM and VDS

[mubarakshabna_asmi]

I am setting up IDM 7.1.

UseCase - Identity LIfecycle Management

Leading system: SAP HCM

Target Systems: ABAP (SAP HCM), JAVA (Portal), AD

I am unsure of VDS's role in this scenario. Could someone please explain.

I understand RPLDAP_EXTRACT_IDM extracts employee data and writes it to the HR_staging area. Is this correct. Then what happens. I had imported a HCM Staging area 2 SAP Master Provisioing Framework and also setup a job HCM-Read Employees according to the landscape configuration guide, which seems to write the extracted employee data to the SAP_Master Identity store.

If I am extracting data and writing to the identity store what is the role of VDS.

Thanks for you time.

S.

[Former Member]

The VDS allows you to preprocess data from HCM and enrich the data transferred to the Identity Store. F.x. we are creating a customer number from the client number in the HCM system as we operate as an application service provider.

Another advantage is that it creates an abstraction from the actual implementation of the identity store below. Suppose you at a later point in time change the database platform of IdM from Microsoft to Oracle. In that case you would only have to setup the new identity store in the VDS. The LDAP extract could more or less remain the same, thus no changes required in the HCM system. So I guess the architectural idea behind introducing the VDS is to achieve loose coupling between the source system and the IdM system.

Best regards,

Anders

[Former Member]

Hi Shabnam,

I was also trying to find "why" we need to have VDS in HCM scenario, there were couple of reasons which i got (but i am still in search mode....)

1. The data extracted from the HCM system is done using a LDAP extractor program so logically you need an LDAP to receive values at other end.

2. There are some mappings that VDS can do as an intermediate actor, just like PI system, it does mapping to entry type MX_HCM_EMPLOYEE.

3... still searching..

Cheers !!

Zaheer