topic Re: Regarding Web Services in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Regarding Web Services

Former Member — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:27:47 GMT

Hi Rich,

i have built one application i.e. one program in ABAP, which has some 10-15 Dialog Screens in it, but the requirement is to call that program from an external Website , i am totally dumbstruck, and have no clue on how to do it, my last Query was answered by you, so i am directly adressing you, as u said, we can handle this kind of situations with Web services. Please explain me in detail, if its possible with an example.

Regards

Siddhartha

Re: Regarding Web Services

RichHeilman — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:51:19 GMT

Hi. Lets examine this a bit. You need to do some transactions(some screen sequences) and be able to call this from outside the system. I assume that you just want to update the data, and not present the user with some screen from this side. If this is the case, this is exactly what Web Services can do for us. But, there could be some issues here. First, this exact reason is why it is important to embrace the MVC paradigm when developing your applications. This means, good separation between UI logic and business logic. I assume that this program which has 10-15 screens, has some business logic mixed in with it, yes? If so, there is going to be an issue. If you had the chance to develop from the ground up, you would have wrapped all of your business logic in a class or function group, and then exposed this business logic directly from the function group, so that it is not screen dependant. Now, you only option may be to do BDC wrapped in a function module which is then exposed as a web service, to perform you screen sequence and update the database.

Regards,

Rich Heilman

Re: Regarding Web Services

Former Member — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:19:46 GMT

Hi Rich,

thanks again for analyzing the problem correctly, i just need to update some tables, but the problem is that, the screens that i have developed, have diffrent data inputs as per the user input on previous screens. i think you are talking about Webdynpro, creating an application from there with the MVC paradigm. rite? but i tried witha a simple application like, user inputting two fields let say, Carrid and Connid, and below there is a table where it displays the data retrieved , but thats not working, meaning that if i am creating a simple application without any RFC linking , then its working fine, but as soon as ai try to link up any Functionmodule like BAPI_FLIGHT_GETLIST its giving , "request cannot be Processed", if this problem is sorted then i can apply some technique and come up witha solution for my actual problem. Can u please help me with this. i dont know whether i am fully clear or not, please revert back for any further clarifications.

Regards

Siddhartha

Re: Regarding Web Services

Former Member — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:46:51 GMT

Hi,

SAP has a number of different ways that data can be presented to or obtained from a web page.

- If the web page is to be built using external tools that just want to call SAP as an interface, then the Web Service is probably the best choice. This requires you to build the business logic independant of the screen logic as described by Rich.

- If SAP is to produce the Web page, then tools such as BSP, Web Dynpro and ITS can be used. BSP gives the best presentation at a cost of having to code to handle some browser peculiarities. Web Dynpro gives slightly less flexible presentation, but is more stable in handling supported browsers and is SAP's preferred way forward for web presentation within a company. ITS is older technology and requires more HTML and Javascript coding, but can provide a simple front end for Dynpro based screens (eventually these will need to be migrated to BSP / Web Dynpro as SAP reduces support for ITS - they are already moving most internal services, and have made documentation on the ITS almost impossible to find in SAP Help).

Andrew

Re: Regarding Web Services

Former Member — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:51:13 GMT

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the reply, and also for making me understand clearly the scnearios. It was of great help, ok lets come to the point, i would choose the second Option that is Creating BSP's and then carrying on with that, or Webdynpro. But teh Question here is, BSP application would be running on local host, but the requirement is to call a SAP Application from an external Website, let us say i dont build webpage with external tools but with BSP, but that page should be visible from any browser which is connected to internet. how to configure that kind of a situation? any idea. please help.

regards

Siddhartha