Integration of SAP Change- and Request Management into Mylyn

[Former Member]

What is the motivation behind the project?

We are using SAP's Change and Request Management to plan and roll out our releases. The "problem" with ChaRM is that you need to use the Web-Ui to organize your documents. I am developing in Eclipse using the ABAP Development Tools (ADT), but I need to constantly switch between Eclipse and ChaRM's Web-Ui in order to maintain my change documents. So I worked out a solution to integrate our change documents from ChaRM into Eclipse by developing a Mylyn connector.

What is Mylyn?

Mylyn is an application lifecycle management framework for Eclipse. It offers an task focused user interface, which allows you to organize your workload without leaving you development environment. Since Eclipse became the state of the art development IDE for ABAP development, I came up with the idea to develop a plug-in for eclipse which allows you to connect to your SAP Solution Manager in order to integrate your ChaRM documents into mylyn.

How is ChaRM integrated?

In order to maintain your change documents, I developed a REST-API in the Solution Manager which offers following key-features:

• Up- and Download attachments


• Maintain Status (Perform Actions)


• Maintain Custom Fields


• Add Comments

How is the connector integrated in our process?

The requirement of changes and the related change documents are still created via ChaRM's Web-Ui. After the change document is assigned to a developer, you are able to fetch it with Mylyn by defining a corresponding query.

What does Mylyn look like?

Login into your repository

You can add your Solution Manager as a repository in mylyn.

Query Page

This is a lightweight searching mask to fetch the change-documents from ChaRM which are assigned to you.

Task-View

On the view you can see all relevant information about a task.

Schedule Options

Mylyn allows you to schedule your tasks, to keep an overview of your workload for the next weeks. The defined dates are only local and will not be synchronized with your repository.

Link tasks with development objects

Mylyn allows you to link your tasks with your development objects. So when you activate a task in Mylyn all linked development objects will be opened in Eclipse, which avoids searching for your artifacts manually. This feature is called context in Mylyn.

What are the benefits?

• Maintain your change documents without leaving Eclipse


• Organize your workload by defining queries


• Link tasks with development objects


• Schedule tasks

Prospects

Releasing the Plug-In

It is planned to release the Eclipse Plug-In and the REST-API with an Open Source License, so that everyone who is interested in using the Plug-In can do so or contribute to the project.

Possibly integrate further features

• See related documents


• Organize transports


• Organize SolMan documents

[Timo_John]

Great Work Torben!
Hope we can release this soon

[Former Member]

 

Hello Torben,

 

First Great Work.

I hope you will release this soon.

on which Version of SolMan is this developed?

[Former Member]

Hello Sascha,

 

sorry for responding that late. The software was developed on SolMan 7.1.

[peter_langner]

For everybody who is interested in using it, here you find it in github: https://github.com/theits/CharmMylynConnector

If you find a bug or have further requests please report it in github.

[yglatorre]

Hi All!

I'm trying to connect Charm with MyLyn with no luck.. I'd installed the connector but it's throwing me a dump for syntax error.. is this normal? Once I have the connector, which are the next steps?

Sorry for this, but I'm new in this and I can't find much information in web.

 

thank you !

[peter_langner]

Hello Yesica,

is the syntax error in Eclipse or in Solman?

Best Regards

Peter

[yglatorre]

Hi Peter! Thank you for taking the time to look at it!!

 

The error it's occurring in SolMan... when I try to execute MyLyn from the Gateway:

perhaps this is correct!

[peter_langner]

Hello Yesica,

please goto class zcl_001_mylyn_http_handler. In which line does the syntax error occur?

Have you tried to activate all objects belonging to that aplication in one step?

BR Peter

[yglatorre]

The issue, it's happening when trying to read the method from an Interface...

Happens in those 2 lines, and if I comment those, has errors in the method ZCL_001_MYLYN_HTTP_HANDLER ->RUN_SERVICE.. since it's also referencing to an interface...

 

After pulling everything from GIT, all the objects are active.. so when I press activate again, just try to active this class only.

 

thanks!!

[peter_langner]

Dear Yesica,

are you sure, that all services are active? I am not sure, that the mylyn service can be called stand alone. It might miss parameters.

I think you need the front end (Eclipse) as well. Have you already installed the Java part in Eclipse?

BR Peter

[yglatorre]

Yes, all it's active.. and Probably the reason that I'n getting that error, it's because what you say.. the standalone running...

 

I have Eclipse and MyLyn workspace installed.. but not sure if I had all the steps complete... do you have an URL or step by step for dummys to follow?

[peter_langner]

Dear Yesica,

from the source in the git reposttory you must generate jar files using Maven. Have you done that?

One other question: Is your Solman Version 7.1 or 7.2?

BR Peter

[Timo_John]

Hello Peter, Hello Yessica,
the connector was written by a trainee of mine 3 years ago.
It was done for solman 7.1 and might have some specialities in it regarding our company.

As Peter stated you need defintive the complield JAR files to be placed in the plugins folder of Eclipse. This enables Solman as Mylin Repository... und this is needed.

Sorry that this project is currently discontinued on our site.
May be Torben can / will help via GitHub he is / was the expert.

Good Luck
Timo

[yglatorre]

My Solman it's 7.2 and I think that the jar files using Maven... no.. i just saw in the GIT that you can plase the files manually... clearly not right...

 

Sorry.. I'm new in this Eclipse world

[yglatorre]

Thank you Jhon on your reply!

[theits]

Hello Yessica,

it has been quiet a while for me since I developed this software, but I will try my best to help you. Currently I have no chance to test this on a real SAP-System.

You can try to access the API with any HTTP-Client, but i highly recommend to use the Eclipse-Plugin. The URL for working with the tasks is ...sap/bc/mylyn/task/{guid of the tasks}. This is the guid from the table crmd_orderadm_h. The http-method GET will return the entity, but you can also use PUT in order to change it.

If you want to use the Eclipse-Plugin you definitely need to compile the java files by yourself. Therfore you should install Maven in your local comuter. Please find the following link for instructions https://maven.apache.org/install.html. You should then navigate to the folder where the pom.xml is located (please refer to the repository) and run the command "mvn install -f pom.xml" in the cmd.

As already said, it was quiete some time ago for me... If you have problems, then I can try to provide futher information regarding the maven install.

Best regards,

Torben

 

[yglatorre]

Thank you so much Torben!!! I’ll give it a try and let you know!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN!!

[UPDATE] I was able to get the repository working! THANK YOU! No w I got some issues while accesing to the API, but that is because of the syntax_Error that I had before.. I'll work on that and add that to the GIT also, so can be consume by others! 🙂

THANK YOU again for taking the time to help me!