September 2015: Reader’s Digest for SAP Decision S...

carsten_ziegler · ‎2015 Sep 22

Time for another edition of my digest blog series for SAP Decision Service Management (DSM) and Business Rule Framework plus (BRFplus). This edition contains enough content for at least two blogs. Obviously, I should have published another edition earlier but I was too busy working on a new book.

Automating Rate Updates in DSM and BRFplus

A very nice and instructive document provided by SAP Mentor jocelyn.dart: “When using business rules to provide more flexible, adaptable, and provable replacements for traditional Z tables, Decision Tables provide an easy way to hold periodic rates that change over time. Typically these rates are updated annually, e.g. indexed by an inflation factor. The DSM / BRFplus API provides a convenient way to update rates automatically, avoiding data entry errors and minimizing work for rule owners. We demonstrate how to update a Decision Table holding such rates using the DSM / BRFplus API.”

There is a MONSTER in my Pocket!

paul.hardy2 wrote a book about ABAP-related topics. The title of the blog is maybe not what you expected from an SAP Press book. At any rate, it also deals with BRFplus. I had the pleasure of supporting him by adding my input and reviewing some parts of the book. I can tell you that the examples in the book are somewhat … hmm, how should I put this, … let’s agree on unexpected.

BRF+ Theme change

Not much to add about this blog from manchikantikrishna. The title is more than clear. Should you ever come across a new SAP standard theme that you do not like, you learn how to deal with it here.

How To: DSM-Decision Service Management / BRFplus in BW-IP

Every thought about using NW DSM or BRFplus in BW integrated planning? This is how you do it. hans-georg.beuter was a former BRFplus developer before he joined the Planning team.

Expand your toolbox

I talk to stefan.weisenberger every now and then about rules because of the Mill and Mining industry’s growing need to modernize IT. Business rules seem to be an important factor and especially the integration of the rules approach into the existing products and into variant configuration is a subject that creates quite some interest, also outside of Mill and Mining. Recently, Stefan created two blog posts about this to demonstrate what is possible:

Enhancing DSM Service Import and Deployment

“How to use the DSM Deployment Exit to extend the DSM service import and/or deployment process to perform additional activities.” SAP Mentor jocelyn.dart and BRFplus support team architect shweta.rshanbhag have worked out a great description of a scenario in which the DSM Deployment Exit is used to import the service administrative data into the managed system, so that the new lean trace can be displayed directly in the managed system.

Some interesting improvements in BRFplus and SAP DSM

A blog I recently wrote about some of the great work done by the support team: Improved code generation, support of HTML-formatted emails and performance improvements in activating and saving objects.

Thank you, contributors!

There would be no community without contributors. Time to thank the folks that run the BRFplus community.

A new book about DSM and BRFplus (in German)

It was a lot of work but as a team of authors I think we managed it well. With pride I blogged about the new book. Writing is all done now and the final polishing will make it shine even more. Benefit from the knowledge of the authors. You won’t find a better source of information – guaranteed!

Ensuring Rule Modeling Guidelines with BRFplus/DSM

christian.lechnerhas made a very interesting point in his blog: Can we use the BRFplus application exit to use BRFplus to check BRFplus, e.g. enforcing guidelines on rules design. It may sound a bit complicated on first read but I find this a brilliant thought and in his blog, Christian shows us how to do it. There are many good reasons why his name is on the cover of the new book. This blog is one of them. :smile:

Use of Formal Language as Challenge in the Design Process of Rule Systems

In his blog, SAP mentor tobias.trapp sheds some light on the process that is often referred to as rule harvesting. As usual he does not stop at the surface and he also gives some good tips. Tobias has proven in countless contributions that he is a thought leader – and not only for the business rules approach. I was happy to work with him on the new book.

BRFplus - a hidden gem within your SAP system

A very good blog by Anton Karnaukhov. The title says it all.

Michal’s Tips: AIF 3.0 value mappings integrated with BRFPlus/DSM

SAP Mentor michal.krawczyk2 shows how to use business rules in Application Interface Framework (AIF). The blog is short but sweet. It’s as easy as pie to integrate the two.

BRFplus: a ferramenta que todo profissional SAP deve conhecer

Do you want information about BRFplus in Portuguese? Are you a BRFplus guru who wants to improve your Portuguese language skills? Fábio Pagoti’s blog will help you in either case.

Creating Decision Table in BRFplus

A simple tutorial with many screenshots by Manish Kumar.

Prozessautomatisierung mit BRFplus

AOK Systems has used DSM/BRFplus to automate processes and run them in them in background for better scalability and control. Learn more about the solution in the presentation. Unfortunately, it is avaialbe in German only.

tobias.trapp and daniel.ridder of AOK Systems (both are also the authors of the new BRFplus book) helped to make this a really appealing solution. Maybe with the help of DSM/BRFplus, we will see AOK Systems go global someday. :lol:

User Access Review - Custom User Agent using BRF+

madhusap shares his experience from a GRC project in which the client's requirement was to send the User Access Review Workflow to the User for review in the first stage and then to the manager for review. As they couldn’t find a solution in the SAP standard, they developed one with BRFplus. And even better, he is sharing his knowledge with the community!

New classroom training for DSM and BRFplus

We did a major overhaul of the training material that resulted in a new 3-day classroom training. Look for code DSM100. Find out more about it on the training home page. If there is no training planned in or near your area, please do not hesitate to contact SAP. In the past we have given training courses for companies or even set up open training courses. The last time I held a course, we had to find a bigger room to cope with the demand.

YouTube Tutorials for BRFplus

BRF Plus tutorial (by João Sousa)
The BRFplus tutorial shows you how to create a rule to determine a purchase order approval strategy based on the purchasing group and net value of the purchase order.
BRFPlus - Part 1 - Create Function Module
This video demonstrates how to create the function module to be used in the BRFplus rule with a Procedure Call, for the Access Control HR Triggers function.
BRFPlus - Part 2 - Create BRFPlus Application
This video demostrates how to create and configure the BRFplus Application with Procedure Call, to be used in HR Triggers.
BRFPlus - Part 3 - Map the BRFPlus Function ID in SPRO
This video demonstrates how to map the newly created BRFPlus rule into SPRO configuration.

I need you …

…to help me find important news about DSM and BRFplus. With the growing number of new projects, there are lots of job postings and other stuff out there. This makes it more and more challenging for me to create this compilation. If you think I’ve left out an article, blog, or document in my digest, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will add it to the next edition.