Universal Connector for SAP 7.5.x Reference Guide

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Last updated: Oct 12, 2023
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Overview

Universal Connector for SAP is a command line application that controls background processing within an SAP system. This allows any computer on the network to manage SAP background processing tasks via the local command line.

You indicate to Universal Connector for SAP which SAP system to connect to and what background processing tasks to perform. Universal Connector for SAP connects to the SAP system and processes your request.

Universal Connector for SAP is part of Universal Agent, which provides command line interfaces to all of the major operating systems in your data center. That is, the remote operating system's command line interface is extended to the local operating system's command line interface. The remote and local systems can be running two different operating systems.

All of the Universal Agent components can interact with Universal Connector for SAP.

Universal Connector for SAP Functionality

Universal Connector for SAP provides the functionality to integrate SAP systems into both local administrative tools and enterprise system management infrastructures.

Specifically, Universal Connector for SAP allows you to:

  • Define SAP jobs using a job definition file or by copying existing jobs.
  • Modify SAP jobs using a job definition file.
  • Start SAP jobs.
  • Check the status of SAP jobs.
  • Retrieve the joblog of SAP jobs.
  • Retrieve the spoollists of SAP jobs.
  • Delete SAP jobs and their associated output.
  • Query jobs in the SAP system.
  • Define SAP variants using a variant definition file.
  • Modify SAP variants using a variant definition file.
  • Query variants in the SAP system.
  • Process/monitor Batch Input sessions.
  • Retrieve the SAP syslog.
  • Define SAP FS job networks to the SAP system using a definition file.
  • Start SAP FS job networks.
  • Check the status of SAP FS job networks.
  • Delete SAP FS job networks from the SAP system.
  • Export SAP calendars.
  • Interface with the MHP Communication Management product.

Universal Connector for SAP Communications

Universal Connector for SAP communicates with an SAP system using an SAP RFC connection. Through this RFC connection, Universal Connector for SAP utilizes SAP's external interfaces to perform background-processing tasks.

Supported SAP Versions

Universal Connector for SAP supports SAP 3.1G and above.

The following commands are not available when running Universal Connector for SAP against SAP 3.1 and 4.0 systems:

  • Purge
  • Display select
  • Target Server parameter for START and RUN commands

XBP 2.0 Support

Universal Connector for SAP supports the SAP XBP 2.0 interface. The XBP 2.0 interface introduces important new feature sets and many enhancements to basic functionality.

The following features are the most notable additions to the XBP 2.0 interface:

Parent / Child Functionality

This feature allows Universal Connector for SAP to identify the parent/child relationship between jobs and work with them accordingly. For example, monitoring a submitted job can now take into account the activity of all child jobs.

Job Intercept Functionality

This feature allows Universal Connector for SAP to define and modify criteria used by the SAP system to intercept jobs (prevent jobs from starting).

Raise Events Externally

This feature allows Universal Connector for SAP to trigger SAP events.

Important

Some features of the XBP 2.0 interface (parent/child and interception) may not be used by all SAP customers. Therefore, to prevent unnecessary use of resources, SAP provides a means to globally turn on and off these features. ABAP program INITXBP2 performs this function.

Parent/child functionality and job interception functionality are turned off by default. The SAP ABAP program INITXBP2 must be run before Universal Connector can use this functionality.

XBP 3.0 Support

Universal Connector for SAP supports the SAP XBP 3.0 interface. All functionality will go through the XBP 3.0 interface if it is available.

The following features are the most notable additions to the XBP 3.0 interface:

Application Information

This feature set includes the ability to retrieve application logs and application return codes for jobs on the SAP system.

Note

Not all jobs will create this information. The availability is dependent upon the functionality of the programs that are executed within the job on the SAP system.

SAP Factory Calendars

This feature involves the implementation of the BAPI_XBP_FACT_CALENDARS_GET function module.

SAP Holiday Calendars

This feature involves the implementation of the BAPI_XBP_HOL_CALENDARS_GET function module.

SAP User Authentication Requirements

Universal Connector for SAP requires a user ID defined in the SAP system for RFC logon/user authentication. The user ID used with Universal Connector for SAP requires certain SAP authorizations to perform tasks within the SAP system.

If the instance profile parameter auth/rfc_authority_check is set to 1, the system checks authorization for the function group of the RFC function module against the authorization object S_RFC. In this case, the following authorizations are required:

SAP 3.1 - 4.0

User IDs that will run Universal Connector for SAP should be assigned an authorization for the authorization object S_RFC with the following fields:

  • Type of RFC object to be protected (RFC_TYPE)=FUGR.
  • Name of the RFC object (RFC_NAME)=SXMI, SXJI, SQUE, STUS.
  • Activity (RFC_ACTVT)=16 (execute).

SAP 4.5 (and Higher)

User IDs that will run Universal Connector for SAP should be assigned an authorization for the authorization object S_RFC with the following fields:

  • Type of RFC object to be protected (RFC_TYPE)=FUGR.
  • Name of the RFC object (RFC_NAME)=SXMI, SXBP, SQUE, STUS.
  • Activity (RFC_ACTVT)=16 (execute).

RFC Connection Types

Universal Connector for SAP communicates with SAP systems using the SAP RFC communication protocol. The connection parameters required to establish an RFC connection can be referenced from stored values in SAP RFC configuration files or supplied directly on the command line (bypassing the need for an RFC configuration file).

For command line-based connections, Universal Connector for SAP supports Type A (specific application server) and Type B (load balancing) RFC connections.

Supported SAP RFC Library Versions

Universal Connector for SAP supports the latest version of SAP NetWeaver RFC (750 at the time of writing). While Universal Connector for SAP currently works with older RFC versions, some features are not available on these versions. For example, sending an email notification after a job has finished is a feature that Universal Connector for SAP does not support on any RFC version below 750 and if attempted on an RFC version below 750 a warning message will be printed and no email will be sent.

Business Warehouse Support in Universal Connector for SAP

Universal Connector for SAP provides functionality that enables the external automation of work in the SAP Business Warehouse system. Functionality is available for working with both Process Chains and InfoPackages.

Process Chains

Process Chain functionality consists of the following set of commands:

  • Display list of process chains on the SAP system matching specified criteria.
  • Display Process Chain (schedule view and instance view).
  • Display Process Chain start condition.
  • Display Process Chain log.
  • Display Process Chain status.
  • Run Process Chains.
  • Start Process Chains.
  • Monitor Process Chains to completion.
  • Return status log and output from Process Chain execution.
  • Restart failed Process Chains.
  • Interrupt Process Chains.

Process Chain Monitoring

When Universal Connector for SAP is instructed to monitor a process chain, it will detect all processes associated with the chain. Any sub-chains that are started as a result of the monitored chain execution will be evaluated and monitored to completion.

Optionally, Universal Connector for SAP will detect the XBP-based jobs that are executed to process the work of the Process Chain processes. If XBP jobs are monitored, the monitoring can be extended to any child jobs that may be started by the parent XBP jobs. Also, if XBP jobs are monitored, the exit statuses for those jobs are incorporated into the exit code processing for the entire Process Chain.

As Process Chain processes and XBP jobs complete, the associated logs and output can optionally be printed. Each asset (Process Chain process logs, XBP job logs, XBP spooled output) can be turned on/off individually.

Finally, when the Process Chain monitoring is complete, the Process Chain log is optionally printed and the exit code of the Universal Connector for SAP instance is set to an appropriate value associated with the state of the Process Chain.

InfoPackages

InfoPackage functionality consists of the following set of commands:

  • Display list of InfoPackages on the SAP system matching specified criteria.
  • Display InfoPackage status.
  • Run InfoPackages.
  • Start InfoPackages.
  • Monitor InfoPackage executions to completion.

InfoPackage Monitoring

Infopackage monitoring relies exclusively on the functionality exposed by the SAP BW-SCH interface. Universal Connector for SAP does not monitor backing XBP jobs for InfoPackage executions.

It should be noted that the InfoPackage functionality described in this section is specific to the InfoPackage scheduler (transaction RSA1). InfoPackages executed as processes in a Process Chain (transaction RSPC) will be monitored in the fashion described in Process Chains. Specifically, when executed as processes in Process Chains, the backing XBP jobs associated with InfoPackage processing can optionally be monitored.

Job ID Requirement for Universal Connector for SAP Commands

Universal Connector for SAP supports automatically selecting an appropriate model job from an SAP system without requiring a job ID on the command line for the following commands:

SAP jobs are uniquely identified by a job name/job ID pair. When these commands are issued without supplying a job ID, Universal Connector for SAP will evaluate available jobs on the SAP system and make an appropriate selection (if possible).

Two Universal Connector for SAP configuration options control model job selection when a job ID is not provided:

Note

By default, model job selection is restricted to jobs owned by the SAP logon user provided for the command. However, you can use the USER_NAME configuration option (-selusername) to override this behavior.

The value for USER_NAME can be either a specific SAP user name or a mask used to match multiple user names. For example:

  • Specifying -selusername SMITH would restrict model job selection to jobs owned by user SMITH.
  • Specifying -selusername QA* would restrict model job selection to jobs owned by users user IDs that begin with QA.
  • Specifying -selusername * would select model jobs without restricting by owner.

Detailed Information

The following pages provide additional detailed information for Universal Connector for SAP:

Universal Connector for SAP Examples

See Remote Execution for SAP Systems for examples of how to implement remote execution for SAP via Universal Connector for SAP.

See Universal Data Mover - Remote Execution for SAP Systems for examples of how to implement remote execution for SAP systems via Universal Data Mover.