Fast track your SAP IBP Real time integration jour...

MichaelMack

Learn how to use the Cloud Integration Automation Service (CIAS) tool to configure SAP IBP Real time integration with SAP ECC or SAP S/4 HANA in a few easy steps.

Why is that relevant?

A faster, easier, and less error-prone setup of your RTI integration scenario.
A shorter time-to-value for your SAP IBP solution, as one customer reported getting a test setup up and running for full cycle real-time integration in 6 hours, compared to several days or weeks with the traditional method.
An interactive and user-friendly experience, with precise information, logging, and troubleshooting capabilities. Another customer praised CIAS for its "fast config, very easy to follow, no need to read long documents."

What is it?

The Cloud Integration Automation Service (CIAS) tool is a voluntary service that provides guided workflows for the configuration of SAP Integration scenarios. CIAS is available at no additional fee, if you have an SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Cloud Foundry account or an SAP Cloud Integration account, and system instances of licensed SAP cloud products that are in scope of the integration scenarios.

CIAS offers many benefits over the traditional integration methods that rely on written documentation, such as integration guides, help pages, or blog posts. With CIAS, you can enjoy the following features:

Standardized workflows that have the same look and feel for all scenarios
Role based execution that assigns tasks to the right person based on role assignments
System landscape information that is available as a drop-down list from known customer SAP systems
Partially automated tasks that reduce the manual work that comes with the configuration
Integrated parameter management that allows data to be entered once and reused throughout the workflow
Traceability of activity that stores information on who did what steps during the integration setup
Summary of the completed workflow tasks can be easily generated in PDF format and attached to the project documentation.

How to configure Real Time Integration between SAP IBP and SAP S/4HANA using CIAS

Now, let’s learn how to use CIAS to configure a real time integration scenario between SAP Integrated Business Planning and SAP ECC or S/4 HANA . This scenario enables you to synchronize master data and transactional data between the two systems, and to run planning processes in SAP Integrated Business Planning based on the data from SAP ECC or SAP S/4 HANA

Step 1: Subscribe to CIAS

The first step is to subscribe to CIAS in the Service Marketplace of your SAP Business Technology Platform Cockpit. You can do this by following the steps described in this blog post.

Hint: Don’t forget to assign roles and users

Before you can start, you need to assign the appropriate roles and users to the CIAS tenant. This step is important because it determines who can access and manage the integration content in CIAS. On the BTP Cockpit navigate to Security -> Role Collections make sure you have assigned the roles

Add users to the different roles by clicking on a row

After successful subscription, you can access the CIAS Launchpad directly from your SAP BTP Cockpit.

Step 2: Select the integration scenario

On the CIAS Launchpad, click on the “Plan for Integration” tile. You will see a list of all available solutions and scenarios that are supported by CIAS. You can filter the list by solution, scenario type, or keyword. In this example, we will select the "Configuring RTI Connectivity in SAP IBP ".

After this, you will see a brief description of the scenario. Click on the button to select systems.

Step 3: Generate the workflow

The next step is to generate the workflow that will guide you through the configuration steps. You will need to provide some basic information, such as your SAP BTP account, your SAP Cloud Integration tenant, your SAP Integrated Business Planning tenant, and your SAP ECC or SAP S/4 HANA system. These systems and tenants are known from the framework and can be selected directly from the drop-down lists.

Hint:

No worries, if the IBP system or other systems are not selectable. You can later on manually add or change them.

After entering the required information, click on the “Generate Workflow” button. You will see a confirmation message and a link to access your workflow. Click on the link to open the workflow in a new tab.

Step 4: Execute the workflow

The final step is to execute the workflow that you have generated. You will see a list of tasks that are assigned to different roles and users.

Each task has a status, a description, a link to the relevant documentation, and a button to execute the task. Some tasks are automated and can be executed with one click. Other tasks require manual input or configuration steps. You can enter the data or parameters for each task in the fields provided. You can also reuse the data that you have entered in previous tasks by clicking on the “Reuse Data” button.

After completing each task, you can mark it as done by clicking on the “Mark as Done” button. You can also track the progress of the workflow by looking at the percentage bar at the top of the screen. You can also see the history of the tasks that have been executed by clicking on the “Show History” button.

Once you have completed all the tasks in the workflow, you will see a message that congratulates you on successfully configuring the integration scenario. You can also test the integration scenario by following the steps in the documentation link.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have shown you how to use the Cloud Integration Automation Service (CIAS) tool to configure a real time integration scenario between SAP Integrated Business Planning and SAP ECC or SAP S/4 HANA. We have demonstrated how CIAS can help you to achieve a faster, easier, and less error prone setup of your integration scenarios.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you and learn from your experience. Happy integrating!