Sap Tech Ed06 Asug Wf

Developing Cross-System Workflow Applications with Wf-XML

Speaker Information Daniel J Rempe Systems Analyst, University of Nebraska Edwin Mukusha Business Technologies Lead, University of Nebraska

Learning Objectives As a result of this workshop, you will be able to: Understand the concept and syntax of Wf-XML Learn the essential steps to setup the Workflow environment for web activities Develop workflows that accomplish tasks across related systems

Server Configuration Workflow Setup Wf-XML At Run Time Wf-XML Document Overview Communicating With Non-SAP Systems

Creating a Service Alias in transaction SICF Open path default_host/sap/bc Right click on workflow_xml and choose “New Sub-Element” Enter the name of your alias Click the radio button “Reference to an existing service”

Setting Service Parameters (1) Enter a description in the provided space Enter a userid and password for handling incoming requests Modify security settings as necessary

Setting Service Parameters (2) Find the path to the workflow_xml node as before and click on it Press the save button

Activating alias link in SICF Right click on your new alias and choose “Activate Link”

Determining HTTP Port Number and Host Name Open transaction SMICM Use the menu path Goto->Parameters->Display Find the parameter icm/server_port_ x containing the port number for the HTTP protocol Find the parameter icm/host_name_full to determine the server’s host name

Setting handler for workflows in SWR_WEBSERVER Enter your hostname and port as a URL in the web server address box Enter the path to your SICF service, which should be SAP/BC/ WORKFLOW_XML/ Alias Name /? Test the URL by pressing the button next to the URL at the bottom

Container interface for remote workflow You will need to be familiar with the container elements in the workflow you are calling

Remote workflow template The remote workflow in this example will wait ten seconds before changing the value of a return element It is necessary that some processing time occur for the document interchange to be successful

Container interface for reference workflow The reference workflow is a template in the calling system that refers to the remote workflow Elements which need to be exchanged with the remote workflow must share the same definition in the reference workflow

Reference Workflow Template It is not necessary that the reference workflow contain any steps Any steps included in the reference template will not actually be run on the calling system

Creating a Web Activity The web activity contains a URL that calls a workflow on another system Transfer Format indicates the specification used to exchange information between systems “ Wait For Feedback”, when checked, will cause the calling workflow to wait until the remote workflow finishes before it completes

Using the URL Wizard The URL wizard generates a URL for calling the remote system based on the information you enter

Adding an alias to the URL The wizard will not add your alias name from SICF to the generated URL. For instance, in this link: HTTP://uncsuns.nebraska.edu:8199/SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?~localkey=WS91000004 The alias needs to be added in this manner: HTTP://.....WORKFLOW_XML/ WF_XML_ALIAS /?~localkey.....

Adding the Reference Workflow Add the reference workflow created earlier in the provided space Binding elements to the reference workflow is done on the Call tab

Viewing progress in the Workflow Log The remote workflow’s overall progress will be shown if the Wait For Feedback box was checked on the calling system Specific steps within the remote workflow are not shown

Viewing XML files with transaction SWXML Transaction SWXML provides a report of Wf-XML documents sent or received by the system The report organizes groups of documents by Work Item ID

Wf-XML documents are stored using the SAP Business Document Service OAOR does not allow selection by date/time as SWXML does View documents in transaction OAOR (BDS)

Wf-XML is a standard published by the Workflow Management Coalition to enable interoperability between systems that use Workflow This presentation uses version 1.1 of the Wf-XML standard. The full specification of this standard can be downloaded at: http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/Wf-XML-11.pdf The Wf-XML version is specified while creating the Web Activity step in the Workflow Builder Wf-XML Specification

This process shows a two-way communication process between systems A Request is made by the initiating system, which is immediately acknowledged by a Response from the receiving system The receiving system sends its own Request upon completing its task, which is acknowledged by a Response from the initiator System Interaction Source: http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/Wf-XML-11.pdf

A CreateProcessInstance interchange is initiated when instructing a remote system to perform a particular workflow task A ProcessInstanceStateChanged interchange is done whenever the state of the remote workflow changes (for example, when it is complete) System Interaction (2) Source: http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/Wf-XML-11.pdf

This is a CreateProcessInstance.Request document. It was automatically generated by the Workflow system in the previous example CreateProcessInstance - Request

This is a CreateProcessInstance.Response document. It is returned immediately from the called system in acknowledgement of the Request document CreateProcessInstance - Response The MIME type of the returned document MUST BE text/xml . Any other type will cause the originating workflow to end in error

In this example, an Apache web server runs a Perl script at a given URL which responds with a Wf-XML document Interfacing With Foreign Systems #!c:/perl/bin/Perl.exe ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time); print "Content-type: text/xml\n\n"; print "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\" ?>\n"; print " <WfMessage xmlns=\"http://www.wmfc.org/standards/docs/Wf-XML\" Version=\"1.1\">\n"; print " <WfMessageHeader>\n"; print " <Response />\n"; print " <Key>Apache Transaction - Free Text 1</Key>\n"; print " </WfMessageHeader>\n"; print " <WfMessageBody>\n"; print " <CreateProcessInstance.Response>\n"; print " <ProcessInstanceKey>Apache Transaction - Free Text 2</ProcessInstanceKey>\n"; print " <ContextData>\n"; print " <Name>Date</Name><Value>$mon/$mday/$year</Value>\n"; print " <Name>Time</Name><Value>$hour:$min:$sec</Value>\n"; print " <Return>\n"; print " <Success />\n"; print " <Message>\n"; print " <Number>ZH999</Number>\n"; print " <Text>& & & &</Text>\n"; print " <V1>The method was executed successfully</V1>\n"; print " </Message>\n"; print " </Return>\n";

Here, a Lotus Notes server runs an agent which attempts to create a calendar entry document before returning a Wf-XML document The document returned is dependent upon whether the agent was able to accomplish its task Interfacing With Foreign Systems (2) public class JavaAgent extends AgentBase { public void NotesMain() { try { ... creating calendar entry in Notes printXMLDocument(notes_doc.getUniversalID()); } catch(NotesException e) { createErrorDocument(e.text, 1); } }

Interfacing With Foreign Systems (3) private void createErrorDocument(String msg, int type) { try { notes_doc = sapleave_db.createDocument(); notes_doc.replaceItemValue("Form", "Incoming"); notes_doc.replaceItemValue("Error", new Integer(type)); notes_doc.save(); printXMLDocument(notes_doc.getUniversalID()); } catch (NotesException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } private void printXMLDocument(String id) { try { pw.println("Content-type: text/xml"); pw.println("<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\" ?>"); pw.println("<WfMessage xmlns=\"http://www.wmfc.org/standards/docs/Wf-XML\" Version=\"1.1\">"); pw.println("<WfMessageBody>"); … . Context Data of Response Document pw.println("</WfMessageBody>"); pw.println("</WfMessage>"); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } }

Summary Wf-XML enables systems to communicate and manage wokflow tasks using a standard XML-based syntax SAP’s Workflow Builder automatically handles the specifics of Wf-XML interaction using the Workflow Container and the Business Document Service The SAP Workflow runtime environment provides interfaces for administration and troubleshooting of remote workflow tasks Non-SAP systems can easily communicate with R/3 systems using the same document structure

Transaction Reference SICF – HTTP Service Hierarchy Maintenance (setup of workflow_xml node) SWR_WEBSERVER – Setup of web server callback URL SWXML – Selection Report for XML Documents OAOR – Business Document Navigator

Further Information  Public Web: http://www.wfmc.org – Workflow Management Coalition www.sdn.sap.com - SAP Developers‘ Network  Related Workshops/Lectures at SAP TechEd ’05 EPI104 – Interoperability SAP NetWeaver–IBM WebSphere, Lotus, and Tivoli EPI200 - ASUG Workflow/Webflow SIG Community: Tips, Tricks and Information Sharing Session  Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) www.asug.com

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION ! QUESTIONS – SUGGESTIONS – DISCUSSION

Feedback Please complete your session evaluation. Be courteous — deposit your trash, and do not take the handouts for the following session. Thank You !

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Sap Tech Ed06 Asug Wf

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