B2B data exchange using Trading Partner Management(TPM) in SAP CPI

[SusmitaM]

 

Introduction

Hello Everyone!!

This is my first blog post and I will be guiding you on how we can build a connection and interchange messages between Company and our Trading Partners using Trading Partner Management capability which is recently added in SAP Integration suite.

B2B scenarios are complex as there are message interchanges involved between your Company and your Trading Partner. Some of the examples of message exchange are

• Purchase Order (PO)


• Purchase Order Response


• Invoice and


• Dispatch

One Trading Partner may need PO whereas other Trading Partner may need dispatch details. TPM maintains the messages that goes back and forth between your partners. In order to Interchange messages securely between Partners, different kinds of Parameters, Certificates and Keys are used. Therefore, there should be a connection between your Source side (Company) and Target side (Trading Partner).

Integration Advisor (IA) and Trading Partner (TPM) are the design type tools to maintain B2B Integration content scenarios that you have defined with your trading partners.

 

Trading Partner Management (TPM) - Idea of the trading partner management system is to maintain all the reusable pieces in a central place that you and your partner look frequently; Such as the Company Profile, Trading Partner Profiles (TPPs), user of their systems, identifiers, kind of communication parameters, kind of communication channels, kind of supported B2B standards and other things that are necessary to build the Trading partner Agreements. You can create the same kind of profile for all your Trading Partners. It defines and identifies different kinds of messages, communication protocols, communication channels, standards that are followed across the partners.

 

Trading Partner Agreement Templates (TPA) - Before building an Agreement, you have to build the Trading Partner Agreement Templates. Then, you can use it for other partners.

It defines the Trading partner Agreement, B2B scenario, type of message you want to exchange between you and your trading partner. Once Agreement is done, it pushes the agreement to Partner Directory. Partner Directories are part of cloud integration.

 

How does TPA work - Agreement is a key part of trading partner management system that covers B2B scenario. Data will be exchanged between different channels in two way transactions, INBOUND and OUTBOUND. Receiving data from Trading Partner is called as INBOUND and sending data from Company to Partner known as OUTBOUND.

 

For Trading Partner and Company profiles, four major things are important.

 

1. Identifier - (Sender Identifier & Receiver Identifier)


2. System - Which is connected to whole scenario (SAP S4/HANA Cloud)


3. Interchange B2B format - S4 HANA SOAP API& Version


4. Communication Protocol - SOAP Address

As we know, we have to define the below details in order to build a communication between You as Company and your Trading Partners.

 

1. Define the Company details

 

Fill the Contacts details

 

Fill the Identifier details with correct System name and version

 

Fill the Business Context with Business process, Business Process Role, Industry classification, product classification and Country

 

Fill the System details - select Type system and Purpose from the drop down.Inside the System select the B2B standard that your Partner follows.

 

Once System details are defined, go to “Communication” tab and select the communication channel using which you exchange your data

 

2. Define the Trading Partner details

 

 

Fill the Contacts details

 

Fill the Identifier details with correct System name and version

 

Fill the Business Context with Business process, Business Process Role, Industry classification, product classification and Country

 

Fill the System details - select Type system  and Purpose from the drop down

 

3. Agreement Templates

Once Company and Trading Partner details are filled, these will be reflected in Agreement Templates with Company as Initiator and Partner as Reactor.

 

All the details will be reflected under Overview of Agreement Template

 

Under B2B Scenarios of Trading Partner Agreement Template, the detailed flow between Sender and Receiver along with the Communication channel details, Interchange Type System and Mapping from IA will be reflected.

 

You can check how the Message Implementation guideline looks like in Partner Side and also the Mapping guidelines coming from IA for that specific requirement.

 

4. Agreements

 Under agreement tab, you can view both the Company and Partner details.

 

After all the details are updated successfully between Company and Partner, click on Active button and then Status will change to ‘Active’ and huge set of parameters will be pushed to Partner Directory.

 

Partner Directory(PD) is a database table which stores the Trading Partner Identifiers, Parameter ID and value. Information, value and parameter Ids are provided inside the Generic Integration flow. We can then process the data in integration flow via PD.

 

*ImageSource - https://blogs.sap.com/2021/12/17/announcement-sap-trading-partner-management-and-b2b-monitoring-bran...

Generic Integration Flow is divided into 3 parts:

1. Sender Communication Flow


2. Interchange Processing Flow - Transform from the Source structure to the Target structure


3. Receiver Communication Flow (sends to receiver via defined adapter)

*ImageSource - https://blogs.sap.com/2021/12/17/announcement-sap-trading-partner-management-and-b2b-monitoring-bran...

Go to Monitor Level of B2B Scenario

All the details that we have maintained at partner level will be displayed at B2B Monitor tab.

Conclusion :

 This blog helps you to create Company profile, Partner profile, Agreement templates and    Agreements between different partners for any B2B scenarios.

TPM Capabilities extend the B2B offering within Integration suite to cover specific B2B scenarios for different partners with different standards like X12, EDIFACT or IDoc and different communication protocols in a very quick and efficient manner.

 

Reference Link:

https://blogs.sap.com/2021/12/17/announcement-sap-trading-partner-management-and-b2b-monitoring-bran...

https://api.sap.com/package/CloudIntegrationTradingPartnerManagement/integrationflow

 

Please follow the below blogs:

- To know more about Integration suite

https://community.sap.com/topics/integration-suite

-  To post and answer questions

https://answers.sap.com/tags/73554900100800003241

-  To read about other blog post

https://blogs.sap.com/tags/73554900100800003241/

 

Happy reading...

Your valuable comments will be appreciated.Please do like, share and comment if you find it helpful.

 

 

[sumandeep1234]

HI Susmita,

Thanks for sharing this blog. I was looking for a blog on TPM. It's very helpful.

 

Regards,

Suman

[former_member791832]

Hi Susmita,

In the present B2B scenario, TPM has gained so much traction and this detailed blog post has helped in a much better understanding.

 

Thanks!

 

Regards,

Ramya

[SusmitaM]

Thank you Suman

[SusmitaM]

Thank you Ramya

[VijayKonam]

Hello Susmita,

I deployed an agreement and the PD is populated with the metadata for the partner. Where I lost was, how the delivered content for SAP CI (iFlows) is able to identify the partner. I was testing with sender IDoc to partner over AS2 or IDoc XML (SOAP). However, the iflow fails where is creates a random partner id (GUID) and fails to fetch the actual partner details. The missing piece is how the iFlow finds the target partner from the sender IDoc to fetch the target configuration parameters to execute the mapping and call the target service. Will dig through, but just thought of asking. Thanks.

[VijayKonam]

@sriprasad.shivarambhat - Any advice is appreciated

[philippeaddor]

Susmita,

You don't describe how to actually configure the transaction in step 3. The graphical representation of it doesn't offer me any possibilities for configuration of the channel, mapping etc.

SAP Help also doesn't help much. It says "Select a value from the drop-down list for the field Communication". However, I don't get any drop down when clicking onto the Communication step. Is that a bug? 

Thanks

Philippe 

[philippeaddor]

Never mind, I've already answered my question by myself. It was just a display issue in the browser I've opened the page in an incognito window (deleting cookies/cache would do the same) and now the drop downs get displayed below the graphical flow after I click on a step.

Your screenshot above is unfortunately lacking the lower part. So I attach one from my side here in case somebody else is looking for that too.

[rasjoshi]

Hi Philippe,

I am not able to select MIG and MAG in my B2B Scenario. I tried in incognito mode but didnt help me.

Do you think I am missing any configurations? I have open question with this regards.

https://answers.sap.com/questions/13833199/missing-mig-and-mag-while-creating-b2b-scenario-in.html

BR,

RJ

[philippeaddor]

Hi Rashmi,

I don't see any issues on my tenant. But in your case, I would also say it seems to be a bug, according to your screenshot.

Br,

Philippe

[rasjoshi]

Thanks Philippe, raised issue to SAP.

 

BR,

RJ

[virendrasriva]

Thanks Susmita. Very helpful blog 🙂

 

BR

Veeru

[ddmail]

How to transport Trading partner configuration to production ?

[mohan_reddy1]

Hi Vijay,

I do have similar requirements and partners(30+) would like to connect via AS2 to CPI(Generic ilfow with unique AS2 endpoint/One Common AS2 endpoint in CPI) is there any new offerings from SAP which replacing Partner directory to enable Authentication ? Any suggestions and Thanks in advance.

[VijayKonam]

Partner Directory is never an authentication system. They always have to authenticate against SAP-IS. The current TPM iflows allow one single AS2 URL to be used by all the partners. You have to just configure the agreements and maintain the user id (service-key) allotted to that partner in cockpit. Should be pretty straight forward as long as your agreement is correctly mapped from external AS2 to internal BP IDs.

[mohan_reddy1]

Thanks a lot Vijay for sharing details. On PD(partner directory) i understood this way where partner info(certificates and related info) stored here and this enables to fetch the partner info when AS2 request arrives to hit the iflow. is that correct?

I believe you refer to  TPM flows which is  standard outofbox solutions using Integration advisory(IA) ?

 

[VijayKonam]

Yes and Yes.

[mohan_reddy1]

Ok . My Business use case is to use CPI(Custom Iflow with unique AS2 endpoint via Certificate Authen) as a connection gateway to accept the request from several partners and to send this request to ERP via SAP PO(All mappings/validations in PO)

Partner(s)---->CPI--->SAP PO--->ERP

can i ask your  personal email to discuss with you ?

[VijayKonam]

Why PO? Why custom mapping? Each customer can have separate certificate so that you can authenticate them on SAP-IS CI.  Let the TPM flows handle mappings and send to ERP on-premise.

[mohan_reddy1]

Thanks Vijay.

In the existing Landscape partners connected to PO via basic auth with the AS2 endpoint and this has impact with the existing flows by switching to certi auth and with this challenge we were switching to CPI where partners authenticate using CPI as connection gateway and to pass the edi request asis to SAP PO for mapping/validation.

what is SAP IS CI?

[VijayKonam]

SAP IS - CI SAP Integration Suite - Cloud Integration

All you need is a passthrough iFlow in that case. AS2 to AS2 in CPI. Nothing else. No TPM no OOTB iFlows of TPM. simple passthrough AS2.

[mohan_reddy1]

Ok Thanks. so to achieve this i define a custom iflow(with unique AS2 endpoint) to make the partners onboarding easier and partners trying to connect certi Auth with common AS2 CPI endpoint.

with the stated design i face a challenge to establish connectivity in the AS2 sender channel in CPI.

any thoughts how to maintain several partner certificates in the iflow to make authentication/sign/decryp working.

Appreciate your feedback!!

 

[mohan_reddy1]

Any thoughts with the below reqmnts? Appreciate your reply and comments. Thankyou.

[donepuna]

Transport is not available at present, have to configure it manually in Production.

[eklian]

Is transport and import/export on the roadmap?