SAP Build Process Automation - Consume ODATA APIs ...
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There are multiple ways to consume actions not available in the store in the SAP Build Process Automation .
S/4 HANA On-Premise or ECC based Custom Odata services can be accessed by the below two ways with the Core Clean principle using the Side-by-Side Extension scenarios
I have explored the different possibilities to expose the S/4 HANA On-Premise Custom OData services to the SAP Build platform since there are challenges exposing the Odata directly from S/4 HANA On-Premise to SAP build
How to create actions on the SAP build ?
SAP BTP ABAP RAP ( RESTful ABAP Programming Model )using the side-by-side extension scenario :
Create a Custom Entity and call either the backend RFC function modules or API classes from SAP S/4 HANA to perform the functionality
With reference to your comment "there are challenges exposing the Odata directly from S/4 HANA On-Premise to SAP build", it would be helpful for context if you could elaborate on what these challenges were and how they led you to the RAP solution.
I like the use of actions in your solution to allow modular reuse of CRUD operations. What do you think about the use of the Call Web Service with Destination activity as described in the following tutorial?
yes this could be one alternative however this is not a clean core approach my focus was more on side-side extensions so that this can work irrespective of the backend systems for custom Odata services
Can you clarify why the approach in the tutorial is not a "clean core" approach? Doesn't the tutorial approach keep the core clean by creating a solution on SAP BTP and integrating it with the exposed on-premise API?
Understood. My point was that even when using the released API classes or CDS views for CRUD operations, they are still exposed as OData services which could be consumed via the Call Web Service with Destination activity of SAP Build Process Automation instead of Actions, right?
The more blogs of this type (SAP Build integration with On Premise - ECC or S/4) are created, the more people like me who are learning SAP Build will be grateful.
I imagine I can use this same idea by creating actions in the SAP Build App (instead of SAP Build Process Automation), right?
You can use actions in SAP Build Apps? I thought Actions were artifacts consumed in SAP Build Process Automation ... it would make sense to make them available in both tools, but how do you do that in SAP Build Apps?
While converting ODATA service to open API using https://convert.odata-openapi.net/ , in my case after entering the meta data and clicking on convert , nothing really happens. The result is blank. Is there any step that I may be missing or any specific format.
Please let me know if I am missing anything here or if there is an issue with the metadata.
No, unfortunately not yet this way. However, if you have subscription to integration suite, you can convert the ODATA services to API's with Open API specification using API Management . It can then be used in SPA as actions.
In your backend system launch transaction /IWFND/GW_CLIENT -> Metadata -> Display in Browser
Save your xml with extension .edmx and load this file like action.
It is not needed anymore to either convert EDMX to Open API specification or even to upload EDMX specification. With the new product features, Build Actions can be created directly from a destination pointing to the odata service.