Interface Monitoring App

Transcription

1 Build Your Own SAP Fiori App in the Cloud Final Assignment Interface Monitoring App Companies that use multiple systems in their environment use interfaces to connect them and allow data and document flow between the systems. In SAP, a widely used solution are IDocs electronic Intermediate Documents messages, that carry business objects such as master data or functional documents. When IDoc arrives to SAP, some errors may still appear in production despite testing. This is due to incorrect or missing data, locked documents, insufficient stock. Interface require regular monitoring to detect problems and react, to allow business running smoothly. This is usually a role of SAP technical consultants. In case of any of the above problems appears, usually it is enough to get in touch with business and reprocess the failed IDoc. Important job here is to quickly identify the problem and find the reason. Interface Monitoring Application is a tool, that allows to promptly check for state of messages exchange (IDocs) between SAP and other systems. The application could be used by customers, who use IDoc scenarios in their landscape (segmentation). It is targeted for technical consultants, whose responsibility is to monitor the interfaces (both proactively and on request), detect issues and react. The application offers quick access to information, that normally needs entering SAP GUI, transactions WE02, BD87, SM58 and thanks to employing SAP Hana Cloud platform, it doesn t require setting up VPN connection and installing SAP client software it can be run on any device!

2 Persona Meet Moss, a SAP Technical Consultant in his company. They implemented SAP recently and integrated it with their legacy order completion system, so delivery data and confirmations are exchanged between the systems. Moss have everything running fine for me and be more creative in my work 32 years old, IT engineer, 8 years of experience. Member of 10 person SAP Support Team SAP Technical Support Consultant Interface Monitoring daily Issue Solving depending on needs Participation in Development Projects weekly Supporting Business Users daily Access monitoring tools quickly and from everywhere. Be able to quickly evaluate interface health. Do not put creative work in the background. Make sure the interfaces work seamlessly Keep business users happy Have time to perform creative development work Excessive time spent on running monitoring transactions Monitoring requests disturb creative work Monitoring tools require SAP GUI environment Support Manager Key Users Moss likes the systems run smoothly, so he can concentrate on development projects. Unfortunately, he needs to start his day from launching SAP GUI over VPN and run a couple of transactions to check interface health. Sometimes he is disturbed in during the day by call from business users to check for their lost documents. This requires him to leave his development and switch to SAP GUI again, not rarely just to simply reprocess an IDoc. On rare occasions, he has similar requests regarding important documents off his office hours. The interface monitoring is not rocket science, but it s a responsibility. Availability and quick response are key to keep business users happy, otherwise they will complain that the interfaces are broken, again!. And if the monitoring tools were more handy, this task would be performed better, less disturbing some more sophisticated, creative tasks.

3 User Experience Journey Here are Persona s Mindset, Actions and Touch Points during his experience. Mindset I need to check the interfaces That routine again Let s see Just 3 failed due to locks, I can reprocess Everything s ok Somebody s calling again I need to stop my development Here it is Data issue again It s fine now! Actions Run company PC Start VPN Enter IDoc monitoring Check error reason Reprocess the IDocs Pick up the phone Run and log in to SAP GUI Find the missing message Edit IDoc field Confirm status Touch points Phone VPN Client t-code WE02 IDoc Editor Key User SAP GUI t-code BD87 Master Data End user Duration of the journey: minutes. Mock Up The following Mock Up screens present user experience across the application. We start with Application Launchpad. There are multiple Application Tiles to enter monitoring applications for specific IDocs (with IDoc counts), preview of IDoc statistics and a tile to enter RFC Monitor (with failed LUW count). The Launchpad includes standard Page Header.

4 The following screen presents a layout of IDoc Monitoring application. It is based on Master / Detail Template. User can go through a list of relevant IDocs here and display details of selected IDoc. Icon TabBar is used to switch to tabs for IDoc content and statuses. Footer Toolbar has been modified to include Process and Edit buttons. The first Tab provides technical information about the IDoc. If it s not fully processed yet, this can be triggered by pressing Process button. The second Tab presents IDoc content. Expand / Collapse Panels are utilised to display IDoc segments:

5 The third Tab displays status messages of the selected IDoc. Timeline component has been used for this purpose: If it s necessary to modify IDoc content, Edit mode can be entered by pressing Edit button. Again, it s an Master / Detail screen. Object list on the left displays available segments, and right window allows to input or edit data in segment fields. Edit Form with several Inputs, and Value Help Dialog (if available) is used for this purpose: When done editing, user can save changes with Save button on Footer Toolbar. Changes can be discarded by pressing Cancel button.

6 Going back to Launchpad, an overview of IDoc processing statistics is also available. This application is using Analytics Chart component to present IDoc processing statistics with breakdown on IDoc types, plants and time period. Finally, the Interface Monitoring solution includes a Transactional RFC Monitor. trfc is a protocol used to exchange IDocs between SAP systems, and its monitoring is important to make sure, that nothing is stuck (eg. caused by connectivity issues). In such case, messages can be pushed in this app: The above view uses Filtered List Report component to display trfc messages and allows to filter them according to selected criteria.

7 App Prototype Implementation of Interface Monitoring application is still well under way in SAP HANA Cloud Platform using SAP Web IDE environment. Below are some screenshot from the implementation process showing particular components. SAP Fiori Master / Detail Template in the process of development of IDoc Monitor. Icon Tab Bar has an additional icon to enter IDoc statuses Tab. For Transactional RFC Monitor, SAP Fiori Full Screen Application Template is being adjusted. Thanks for your attention, I hope you ve had a delightful experience!