How to retrieve the IdM data in SAP ?

[Former Member]

Here is my requirement.

We have the data available in IdM which needs to be used in many of SAP applications. Please let me know how to retrieve the IdM data in the programs.

Thanks for reading and your help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

This is a pretty involved question, so I'll just give you the high level overview.

First off, IDM must be installed with a supported database backend (currently MS SQL or Oracle, others are rumored to come with the next release) The IDM engines will run in Windows or *NIX, but a Windows system is required for configuration. (It's based on a MMC console currently, also scheduled to change)

Once the system is installed you will need to install the Provisioning Framework (PF) which is what is used to connect to most systems.  The PF comes with the ability to connect to both ABAP and JAVA based systems (and databases and LDAP servers and ...)

There is one exception to this is when you do HCM loads which will go through a different component of the IDM Suite called the Virtual Directory Server.  This application serves as a SPML router between IDM and HCM.

To gain a better understanding of how this all works, I'd suggest reading some of the documentation that can be found in the Documents Space for IDM.

Cheers,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Matt for your valuable explanation.

IdM (7.2) has been installed and the data also loaded from Ldap. Now I have to fetch the data in my ABAP program from IdM for further process. Please let me know what are the steps involved in accessing IdM data? It would be great, if you provide some information.

Thank you.

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

There's a process referred to as an initial load that you will need to execute.

Download the IDM related PDFs, but specifically this one.  You'll need to understand IDM a bit deeper before you can go much further.

Regards,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Matt for your time.

We have a team for maintaining the IdM. My part is to read the data from IdM source in a conversion program. My basic question is how to access the IdM data? Do I need to call any ICF services in my program? I am looking for the process/steps from ABAP point of view.

Thanks

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Kumar,

Have the IdM team create a view of the data via their VDS (Virtual Directory Server).  After that, you should be able to access it directly via LDAP.

Another option would be to go direct to a database table, but the VDS option is a lot better.

Regards,

Chris

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Chris,

Appreciated your response.

I have to check with IdM team regarding the creation of view using VDS and we will go with VDS option only. Assume that the view is available in IdM and kindly let me know the detailed procedure to get data in my program. Do you have any documentation with examples? It would be great if you share the detailed information.

Thank you very much.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Kumar,

Unfortunately I don't have a guide handy and I didn't see one in the document repository.  I will try to see if I can put a blog together about it in the next few weeks if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Regards,

Chris

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

Kumar,

There's a template in VDS for virtualizing the Identity Store.  If the IDM team sets this up for you, I think that will take care of the need.  Make sure they give you the Virtual Directory Port # and starting point so that your program will know how to access this via LDAP.

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Creating the blog, Great. It helps a lot. Thank you.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Our IdM team is not using VDS. They are directly connecting the ECC clients to IdM system. IdM will read data from ECC via initial load mechanism and stores in their identity. Do you guys have any idea

in this scenario? how can I read data from IdM ?

Thank you.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

That's how all IdM implementations are.  You read from ECC directly to IdM.  The point of the VDS is to give different applications and people like you the ability to read data from the IdM system.  They should just install it and create you the view, it is not a very involved process and they should be able to do it.  If they don't want to for some reason, then you will have to read directly from the IdM database.  That will require a lot more work than simply installing a VDS.

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

Well VDS can be installed if needed. If your use case directly supports reading the data via LDAP then this is the best way to do it.

I guess my big question is what are you using the data for?  Is it for something IDM cannot do?

You might want to look into gathering the data directly from the IDM database then.  You'll need to reference a couple of views (idmv_values_ext and idmv_values_link) as I recall.)

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Appreciated your quick responses Chris & Matt.

Let me give you more details. Due to the security reasons, we have decided to maintain some translation data in the IdM instead of SAP tables. Translation data is simple. It will have two columns with ID1 and ID2.

Forward Translation is from ID1 to ID2

Reverse Translation is from ID2 to ID1.

We would like to use these translations in the interfaces and conversions. During the execution of interface/conversion if program encounters ID1, it should be translated to ID2 using some methods. Since the data is not in SAP tables, we have to get it from IdM. Now we are figuring out how to read/get the data from IdM.

Hope this will give more details to answer my question.

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

If that's the case, have the IDM team implement VDS.  It will be the best way to execute this, I think.

I'm kind of surprised that you're not using VDS for loading HCM data.