How to start with SAP EP?

[Former Member]

Hi,

I'm a Java/JEE developer with knowledge of Web Dynpro for Java. I want to learn SAP EP. Can anyone advice me from which version of SAP EP should I start with? What all topics need to be covered to move into SAP EP Development?

Regards,

Nitin

[Former Member]

Hi Nithin,

Firstly ,as per your information you have knowledge on webdynpro java ,such that for learing SAP EP there are two divisons likely:

1.Portal Admisntration

2.EP developement.

EP development is where , webdynpro java is used for any kind of techincal developments, for example for any kind of applications or kind of customizations related to devlopment areas of portal ,using nwds or nwdi enivironment .

Whereas Portal adminstration is compltely realted to the configurations or setup kind of thigns doen on to the portal as your new to the portal ,get decide in what area's you want to start up on.

For the topic area's ,as you have known about webdynpor java try exploring about what is content admisration does and check on the help.sap links & sdn links for webdynpro java example application ,check on with soem books like ja310 which is a beeginer book for any EP Developer.

For portal admistration explore on user admisntration and system admisntration related areas ,can take help of sdn site and can be explored more.

Hope you have the required information now!

Thanks&Regards

AswinChandraGirmaji

[Former Member]

Hi Nitin,

could you please specify a little bit more what exactly you want to learn ?

Do you want to learn about the Portal itself ? The settings, PCD, configurations and administration of it ?

Do you want to learn how do develop Portal Components ? (and I mean - developing using the Portal APIs) ?

What type of development you want to do on the Portal ? (is it SAP access ?, KM development, other ???)

Please let me know.

Kind Regards

/Ricardo Quintas

[Former Member]

Hi Ricardo,

Thanks for the reply!!!

What I want to know is how do I move into SAP Enterprise Portal Development?

What all should I learn and in what order.

Regards,

Nitin

[Former Member]

Dear Nitin,

here's what I would recommend

1) Know the Portal

This is what you first need to know well.

You need to learn everything about the portal itself.

The PCD objects. (iViews, Pages, Worksets, Roles, etc...)

How to create Systems.

How to monitor and check the logs.

The architecture (J2EE and its settings)

The Portal Layout and Themes.

Authorizations on the Portals (Roles, Users, permissions and the ACL)

The transport mechanism.

But this is just the basics. There's a lot more....

2) Create your first Portal Objects

Start by creating some PCD objects and see how they integrate with the backend.

Some simple iViews.

Some simple transactions iViews to connect to the Backend (via ITS service)

Play with the Users and Roles and Pages, and try to build some navigation menus.

3) Now let's do some development

Now that you're familiarized with the Portal and its objects I would suggest you start with the development.

And here you have several options

Option1 - core EP development

This is where you develop your PAR files to interact with Portal API.

This is pure JAVA development done with NWDS.

With this type of development you can, for example, read the roles/groups of a user.

Etc...

Option 2 - Webdynpro

You can integrate your WD4J or WD4A inside your Portal.

If you're already confortable with WD development - you can move forward and try to integrate these WD with the Portal.

For example WD4A you can use IF_WD_PORTAL_INTEGRATION.

Check these links:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/da/f96f4132f15c58e10000000a1550b0/content.htm

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/0e/a1e94205045604e10000000a155106/content.htm

There's plenty of post on SDN about this

Option 3 - BSP

I love BSP.

They're simple and very flexible.

You can also try some tutorials here and put them isnside some Portal iViews.

Check here for more

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/1a/c5133a62983c0ae10000000a114084/frameset.htm

And there you go.

This would be my recommended roadmap.

But there are other paths as well.

Good Luck on your journey!

Kind Regards

/Ricardo Quintas

[Former Member]

Thanks a lot Ricardo!!!..... That was a great help....

Regards,

Nitin

[Former Member]

Hi Nithin,

Welcome to SAP EP it is not necessary to practise on all versions but it is better to know what are the releases and updations on different versions.

Hope this helps

Thanks,

Rahul.

Edited by: rahul.girmaji on Oct 21, 2011 12:11 PM

[Former Member]

Hi Rahul,

Thanks for the reply!!!

[Former Member]

Hi Nitin,

WebDynpro is used to develop User Interfaces for EP. It has two variants WebDynpro Java and WebDynpro ABAP.

Coming to portal side, the current version of EP is 7.3. You can start your practice from EP 7.0. You must be familia with basic concepts like Roles, Worksets, Pages, iViews, System Objects, System Aliases. Practice on System Admin, Content Admin and User Admin Roles. You must know how to integrate different SAP and Non-SAP systems with portal. Be familiar with KM, which is used for document management, collaboration, news, searching and etc. Coming to server side EP runs on J2EE engine of SAP Application server. To administer J2EE you use Visual Admin and Config tools. There is another tool called SDM which is used to deploy sca, sda files onto server.

Hope this helps you..

All The Best,

Nagireddy.

[Former Member]

Hi Nagireddy,

Thanks for the reply!!!

If I start from EP 7.0, do I need to practice through all the versions like 7.1, 7.2 and now the latest 7.3?

I already know about roles, iview creation through WD4J, JSP etc., using SDM, Visual Config etc.

Regards,

Nitin