Calling IPC from a third party web application

[Former Member]

ISA, IPC experts,

We have CRM 4.0 with IPC 4.0. We are developing an in house web application in jsp/java for dealer orders. Our office staff uses CRM Online for Order Entry.

We want to use the existing pricing procedures in the IPC to derive the pricing for the web project so our user can see the price for a given product prior to placing the order in CRM.

How can we call IPC from a third party order software in java? prefereably without installing a standalone IPC (heard that IPC 5.0 may not support standalone mode)?

Can you help us with ways to call the IPC from our in house web application, or point us to some documentation about the ipc client layer?

Your help in this regard is highly appreciated.

Yanhui Yu

[Former Member]

Hi Yanjui,

if you have a CRM installation, an IPC is part of that installation. Connect your web application to that IPC. The IPC comes with its own web applications, which base on a package com.sap.spc.remote.client.object. These are APIs that you might consider using in your web application. The package should be documented with the API docs that come with your web apps, but I'm not sure about how this is delivered (sorry).

Concerning upgradability to CRM 5.0: The IPC there does not come as its own server anymore, but offers ABAP RFC functions that are actually implemented in Java using new Netweaver technology. The 5.0 RFCs are similar, but not identical to the old IPC commands / RFCs, so an upgrade is no problem, but some changes are required. The same applies for com.sap.spc.remote.client.object, which has changed a bit as a result of the changes in the IPC APIs below.

Alternatively to using com.sap.spc.remote.client.object, you might also try to directly call the RFC functions of the IPC server. Finding out what the various parameters that you have to pass do is not too tricky:

- in your IPC installation, a file <ipc>/lib/properties/servercommands.xml contains all RFCs that the IPC knows.

- for the RFC you want to use check the respective javaname in that file.

- for that javaname check class com.sap.spc.remote.server.command.<javaname> in the javadoc API Documentation that is part of your IPC installation. This will contain rather technical details on how to call the RFCs.

Please be aware that it's not an easy job providing all the data that IPC needs to do pricing.

I would recommend using the E-Commerce application which has done this job for you already.

Best regards,

Karlheinz

[Former Member]

Hi Karlheinz,

Appreciate this very helpful response. I want to reward it with a star, do you know how to do that?

And also two more questions (sorry I know so little):

1. Found the APIs for com.sap.spc.remote.client.object. The IPC gets many field values from the field catalog which CRM APAB fills with the values, since our own web project would not go through CRM first but need to get the price for a given product, what is the best way for the IPC to get these field values? Sorry if this question is too elementary.

2. regarding your suggestion at the end -- "I would recommend using the E-Commerce application which has done this job for you already.", Would the idea be to use the SAP E-Commerce application as a way to implement a price service, or as the framework for the whole third party ordering web application?

Thank you much,

Yanhui