Setting up SAP Business Rules Service in the SAP BTP Cloud Foundry Environment using SAP Business Application Studio

[gregcarino]

Overview

This blog post will cover the step-by-step process for setting up SAP Business Rules in the SAP BTP Cloud Foundry (CF) environment using SAP Business Application Studio (BAS).

For simplicity, I will not go through fundamental topics such as Cloud Foundry, App Router, SAP Business Rules and BAS as these are already well covered in other blogs and documentations. (See References section).

 

In this sample scenario, I will be creating an application using BAS that will allow users to access the Business Rules service in the CF environment and let consuming applications (such as a REST client) call the Business Rules REST API to invoke the rules.

 

At a high-level, the following topics will be covered:

1. Enable SAP Business Rules service and BAS in the SAP BTP Cloud Foundry environment


2. Create Role Collections and assign to the user


3. Create a Business Rules service instance and service key


4. Create a project in BAS and configure Business Rules


5. Create a sample Business Rules project


6. Test the service with Postman

 

Prerequisites:

• You are a global administrator in your SAP BTP global account (required for subscriptions)


• You are an org and space member (required for configuring entitlements and creating service instances)


• You are a security administrator (required for role assignments/creation)

 

NOTE: I am using a production account in the Australia, Sydney (ap10) region.

1. Enable SAP Business Rules service and BAS in the SAP BTP Cloud Foundry environment

 

Configure Entitlement for the Business Rules Service

• Navigate to the organization > Entitlements > Configure Entitlements > Add Service Plan

 

• Select Business Rules Service and select a service plan (basic) > Add and Save

 

Subscribe to Business Application Studio

• Subscriptions > SAP Business Application Studio > Subscribe

2. Create Role Collections and assign to the User

 

Assign the relevant BAS Developer Role Collection 

• Security > Role Collections > Business_Application_Studio_Developer

 

 

• Edit > Add User (enter ID based on configured IdP. eg: email if using the default SAP ID service) > Save

 

Assign relevant  Business Rules Roles/Role Collection 

We need to add roles with the following application identifier: bpmrulebroker*.

There are two roles with such application identifier: RuleRepositorySuperUser and RuleRuntimeSuperUser.

There are two ways to assign these roles to your user:

1. If your account has a subscription to the Workflow Management service, these role collections will be automatically created. Assign your user to one of these role collections (if applicable):

 



 

2. Else, create a custom role collection and add the required roles (RuleRepositorySuperUser and RuleRuntimeSuperUser)

 

 

3. Create a Business Rules Service Instance and Service Key

 

Create a Business Rules Service instance

• Go to your space > Services > Service Instances > Create Instance

Service: Business Rules

Service Plan: basic

Instance Name: <any name>, in my case: businessrules

Leave Parameters blank (step 2), and 'Create Instance'

 

Create a service key for the created service instance

This service key will be used later to call the business rules API

• Open the created service instance > Service keys (Create) > Enter a Service Key Name > Create

 

• Open the created service key and copy the credentials in a separate file for now. We will use these credentials when testing the Business Rules service in Step 6.

 

4. Create a project in BAS and configure Business Rules

• Go to subscriptions > Business Application Studio > Go to Application

 

Create a new Fiori workspace

Create a project from a template

I will be using a standalone SAP Fiori Free Style Project to generate the boilerplate code for the application.

The most important configuration objects are the approuter (xs-app.json) and the mta.yaml. We will remove modules that are not required for this demo.

NOTE: This step can be done in a different way (eg: manual creation of objects from a basic MTA project template).

 

• In your empty workspace > Create new project from a template

 

• Select SAP Fiori Freestyle Project

Target Environment: Cloud Foundry

Template: SAPUI5 Application

Project Name: <any>, rulesmanager in my case

HTML5 application runtime: Standalone Approuter

HTML5 module name: <any>

Do you want to add authentication: Yes

Enter a namespace: <any valid namespace>

Enable Karma Test: No

View Name: <any>

Add data service: No

 

 

Configure the Business Rules service in the application

• After the project is created, open the mta.yaml file.

• Remove unrequired modules and resources (highlighted in yellow). You can also delete the generated HTML5 folder in the project

 

 

• Add the created Business Rules Service instance (businessrules, Step 3) as a required  resource

My mta.yaml file:

_schema-version: "3.2"

ID: rulesmanager

version: 0.0.1

modules:

- name: rulesmanager-approuter

  type: approuter.nodejs

  path: rulesmanager-approuter

  requires:

  - name: rulesmanager_html_repo_runtime

  - name: uaa_rulesmanager

  - name: businessrules

  parameters:

    disk-quota: 256M

    memory: 256M

resources:

- name: rulesmanager_html_repo_runtime

  type: org.cloudfoundry.managed-service

  parameters:

    service: html5-apps-repo

    service-plan: app-runtime

- name: uaa_rulesmanager

  type: com.sap.xs.uaa

  parameters:

    path: ./xs-security.json

    service: xsuaa

    service-name: rulesmanager-xsuaa-service

    service-plan: application

- name: businessrules

  type: org.cloudfoundry.existing-service

build-parameters:

  before-all:

  - builder: custom

    commands:

    - npm install

• Enter this configuration to the xs-app.json, of the approuter.

{

    "welcomeFile": "comsapbpmrule.ruleeditor/index.html",

    "authenticationMethod": "route",

    "routes": [

    ]

}

 

Build and Deploy the Application

 

• Right click on the mta.yaml file > Build MTA

 

• Set the correct target CF space. To set the the correct space, run cf login in the BAS terminal or use the highlighted shortcut below.

 

• Once the build is complete and the correct target has been set, open the mta_archives folder and deploy the generated MTAR archive to the CF space.
  

After deployment, check Applications in the space and open the newly created application.

You should be able to see the Business Rules landing page.

 

 

5. Create a sample Business Rules project

Next, we will create sample Business Rules project. This is not the focus of the blog so I will just provide a summary of the steps required and some screenshots for reference.

I have create a simplified version off this great blog by  muralidaran.shanmugham2 so if the objects/scenario look the same, it's because they are 🙂

The service we will be creating will read a User's organization and return the Approver details based on the decision table.

Procedure:

1. Create a project


2. Create data objects (ie. define input/output structure)


3. Create a rules service (which reference the data objects)


4. Create rules/decision tables


5. Create rulesets (and assign rules)

 

Create data objects (ie. define input/output structure)

 

 

NOTE: after creation each object must be Validated and Activated (ie: Status = Active).

 

Create a rules service (which assign the data objects as Input or Result)

 

Create rules/decision tables

eg: if organization of the User is C then the approver group is SCPGroupC and the approver name is ApproverC

Create rulesets (and assign rules and rule service) 

 

 

After creating and activating all the entities, Activate the whole project.

 

 

6. Test the service with Postman

Once the Business Rules project is activated, we can test the rules service using a REST client such as Postman.

To do this, we will need the service key credentials which we created in Step 3.

NOTE: any value enclosed in <> should be taken in the service key credentials.

 

Operation: POST

URL: <rule_runtime_url>/rules-service/rest/v2/workingset-rule-services

 

Authorization

Type: OAuth 2.0

Token Name: any

Grant Type: Client Credentials

Access Token URL: <url>/oauth/token

Client ID: <clientid>

Client Secret: <clientsecret>

Client Authentication: Send as Basic Auth header

Get a new Access Token and use it

 

Body

{

  "RuleServiceId": "5641e858cf2341e6b380849d47aed340",

  "Vocabulary": [

    {

      "User": {

        "organization" : "C"

      }

    }

  ]

}

where

• "User" and "organization" is the Input structure and attribute respectively.


• RuleServiceId: ID of the rule service. (Add the ID to the visible columns as this is not visible by default)

 

Result:

As you can see, when we pass a User with 'C' as organization, we get the expected Approver per the decision table.

Hooray!

 

Alternatively, you can also use API Business Hub to test your business rules service as outlined in this guide.

 

References

Business Rules Documentation

App router overview

SAP Business Application Studio

Implementing a user self-registration scenario using Workflow and Business rules in SAP Cloud Platfo...

SAP Cloud Foundry Fundamentals

 

[manish_sethi]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for sharing the information, it was really helpful.

I have 2 follow-on question on Business Rules :

• Can the Business Rules be directly deployed on SAP Hana Cloud instance


• Can Business Rules be used in a multi-tenant context i.e. in a SAAS application the business rules created by a user gets deployed to the tenant schema only.

 

It would be great if you could share some info/literature on the above queries, Thanks in advance.

 

Regards,

Manish

[showkath_naseem]

Thanks @greg_carino

Just a note about Setp4 : Explanation of a Blog About Accessing the Business Rules Editor UI in BTP CF Environment

Note: Deprecated Approach [Step4]

The blog post suggests creating a project in SAP Business Application Studio [BAS] and configuring Business Rules, but this approach is no longer necessary since the implementation of Workflow Management. Apart from this rest of Blog post useful to understand BRF Concepts .

The blog was written to address a previous issue where it was impossible to access the business rules editor UI in the BTP CF environment when the service existed independently before it was incorporated into the Workflow Management system. At the time when the business rules feature was initially introduced to the cloud foundry environment, the UI editor was not accessible, which prompted the writing of the blog. However, with the implementation of Workflow Management, accessing the UI editor is now straightforward, rendering the method detailed in the blog unnecessary.