Author: Rudramani Pandey

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

This article will provide a step-by-step guide to enable the transactional behaviour of an application in SAP RAP.

1. Create data model with CDS views
2. Create Behavior Definition
3. Add transactional behaviour in Behavior Definition
4. Create OData service
   1. Create a Service Definition
   2. Expose CDS view
   3. Create Service Binding
   4. Publish OData service
5. Application preview

Create data model with CDS views

Procedure

1. Launch ADT (ABAP Development Tool).
2. Select package for your development.
3. Right-click on package and choose NEW > Other Repository Objects > Core Data Services > Data Definition.
4. Provide the details (Name, Description).
5. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
6. Select Finish.
7. Provide the data source name and add the elements in the CDS views.
8. Provide the root statement to the top node as shown below.
   
9. Similarly, create consumption views and add required annotations.

 

Result Screen

Figure 1: Interface view

Figure 2: Consumption view

Create Behavior Definition

Procedure

1. Right-click on root CDS view
2. Select New Behavior Definition
3. Provide the details (Name, Description).
4. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
5. Select Finish.

Add transactional behaviour in Behavior Definition

Add transactional behaviour to Behavior Definition as shown below.

Create OData service

a.       Create Service Definition

Procedure

1. Right-click on root CDS view
2. Select New Service Definition
3. Provide the details (Name, Description).
4. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
5. Select Finish.

b.      Expose CDS view

 

c.       Create Service Binding

Procedure

1. Right-click on Service Definition
2. Select New Service Binding
3. Provide the details (Name, Description).
4. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
5. Select Finish.

d.      Publish OData Service

Application Preview

 

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

SAP ABAP RAP provides the intrinsic approach to build SAP Fiori based applications that are optimized for S/4 HANA and can run over on-premise as well as on the cloud. In this article we will learn how to create a SAP ABAP RAP Project.

Prerequisites

Before we start with the development of our first project using SAP ABAP RAP, we need a few things ready:

SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment

You should have access to and an account for SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment.

Development Environment (IDE)

• Install ABAP Development Toolkit (ADT).

SAP recommends the latest version of the client installation. The download is available on https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/.

• Access to and an account for the relevant space in SAP Cloud Platform Cloud Foundry.

Authorization

To create development artifacts, you need to have a developer role in the ABAP environment.

Basic knowledge

• ABAP Core Data Services (CDS)
• ABAP Objects
• ABAP Syntax

Steps to create a SAP ABAP RAP Project

1. Create an ABAP CDS View enabled with OData. Follow the steps mentioned here. This ABAP CDS View can be either basic, composite or consumption based upon the use case. The basic view is just a simple view created based upon ABAP table, the composite views are the ones that are created using multiple basic views or existing composite views. The consumption is the one that is consumed by the Fiori Apps (other views too can be consumed, it is created with final annotations such that UI5 has to call just this view and not the others).
2. The very next thing that we create in ABAP RAP is a behavior definition. You can read the steps here. A behavior definition is an ABAP repository that represents the behavior of business objects in the context of SAP ABAP RAP. This is the place where we define the CRUD operations for the CDS Views.
3. The last and important step is behavior Implementation. The steps to implement the same is mentioned here. This is the place where business logics are written.

Thus in above steps we have created an ABAP CDS View, an ABAP OData, behavior definition and behavior Implementation.

That’s it, this is how we create a SAP ABAP RAP Project. In our next articles, we will show you the implementation, step by step.

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

Using persistent data sources, we are going to implement a query for the OData service to get an application with the read-only feature. This OData service will be consumed by the Fiori Element application.

This article will provide the step-by-step guide to build a read-only list reporting application.

1. Create data model with CDS views.
2. Add associations to CDS views for navigation purpose.
3. Add relevant annotations.
4. Changing UI field labels and description
5. Create OData service
   1. Create a Service Definition
   2. Expose CDS views
   3. Create Service Binding
   4. Publish OData service
6. Application preview

Create data model with CDS views

Procedure

1. Launch ADT (ABAP Development Tool).
2. Select package for your development.
3. Right-click on package and choose NEW > Other Repository Objects > Core Data Services > Data Definition.
4. Provide the details (Name, Description).
   
5. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
6. Select Finish.

Result Screen

An inactive version of the data definition is created. You need to provide the data source name and add the elements in the CDS views. Similarly, create all the required CDS views.

Figure 2: Generated Template code

 

Add associations to CDS views for navigation purpose

1. Define association and cardinality
   
2. Define mapping condition
   
3. Add association element list in CDS view
   

Add relevant annotations

Add required annotations to fields (see the below figure).

Changing UI field labels and description

UI field labels and description allows you to customize your UI application. You can add text annotation (@ObjectModel.text.association:'<_AssocToTextProvider>’),value help (@Consumption.valueHelpDefinition: [{ entity: { name: ‘<target_view>’ , element: ‘<target_element>’ }}]), search capability ( @Search.searchable: true ) and as many functionality to your field element.

Create OData service

a.       Create a service definition

In service definition, we will expose our data models.

Procedure

1. Launch ADT (ABAP Development Tool).
2. Select package for your development.
3. Right-click on package and choose NEW > Other Repository Objects > Business Service > Service Definition.
4. Provide the details (Name, Description).
   
5. Select Next and provide the Transport Request number.
6. Select Finish.

 

b.      Expose CDS views

In service definition, add the CDS view that you want to expose to UI. You can provide an alias also for the same. Once the CDS views are exposed, activate the service definition.

c.       Create Service Binding

In service definition, we will expose our data models.

Procedure

1. Launch ADT (ABAP Development Tool).
2. Select package for your development.
3. Right-click on the package and choose NEW > Other Repository Objects > Business Service > Service Binding.
4. Provide the details (Name, Description).
   
5. Select Next and provide Transport Request number.
6. Select Finish.

When you open the created service binding from editor you can see the below screen. As soon as the service binding is created, it is registered in your local system.

Activate the service binding and it is ready for consumption.

d.      Publish OData service

Once you activate the service binding, the OData service is published and is activated in SAP Gateway. Now it can be consumed by UI5 application.

The service URL on the right side will provide the metadata information of OData service. Preview button will navigate you to the resulting UI service.

Application preview

The resulting UI5 application will look like this:

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

SAP ABAP CDS View is used for defining and consuming semantic data models on standard tables or dictionary views. The abbreviation for CDS is Core Data Services. Although SE11 dictionary view and CDS views both create database views at the backend, the ABAP CDS view supersedes the dictionary view in so many ways.

Difference between dictionary view and CDS View

Dictionary View	CDS View
Can be created from SAP GUI or Eclipse.	Can only be created from Eclipse or SAP HANA Studio.
Cannot define Annotations.	Annotations are provided to enrich metadata.
Aggregation is not possible.	Can provide Aggregation function.
Grouping is not possible.	Grouping can be provided.
Join can be used.	Join and Union both can be used
	Case Expressions can be used.
	Input parameters can be allowed for filtering data and column calculations
	Operators can be used.

CDS view Types

There are three different VDM view types:

• Basic view
• Composite view
• Consumption view

Figure 1: CDS view types

1.      Basic View

VDM Basic views are created on the top of DDIC tables or views. It is the only view that interacts directly with the database.

Annotation: @VDM.Viewtype : #BASIC

Properties for Basic View:

1. Basic views can directly access the database tables and other basic views.
2. They have an association with other basic views.
3. Free of redundancies.
4. They expose all business data.

 

2.      Composite view

The composite view is created on top of the VDM Basic view. It interacts with Basic views for the result set and does not interact with the database directly.

Annotation: @VDM.Viewtype : #COMPOSITE

Properties of Composite View:

1. They can access other Composite views but not database tables.
2. They can have an association with other composite views and basic views.
3. Redundancies might be possible.
4. They should be reusable.

 

3.      Consumption view

The consumption views are built on top of Interface views. By the name Consumption, we can assume that this view is meant to be consumed by SAP UI5 through OData, Analytical queries, Transactional service models.

Annotation: @VDM.Viewtype : #CONSUMPTION

How to create CDS views in ADT?

To create a CDS view follow the below steps:

1. Navigate to New ABAP Repository.
   
2. Select Data Definition.
   
3. Provide Package, Name, Description of CDS view.
4. Now from the given options, select Define View.
   
5. Define data source name, SQL view name, required annotations and other properties.
   
6. Define data selection Query.
   
7. Save and activate.

How to view the data from CDS Views?

1. In the DDL source object, navigate to your CDS view.
2. Right-click and select OPEN DATA PREVIEW. Also, you can open the CDS view and press F8 to view the data.
3. The output will show you the retrieved data from CDS View.

Tutorial Video

You can watch the video below to learn implementation:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwWbauSyD4s[/embedyt]

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

In this section, we will explain the concept of unmanaged implementation and the development tasks required for enabling transactional processing in business objects integrating existing business logic.

In an unmanaged implementation, it is required to implement all the business operations (Create, Update, Delete) in specified behavior definition before implementing it manually. In the managed scenario, on the other hand, the behavior definition is itself capable to obtain a ready-to run business objects.  We do not need to explicitly implement the CUD operations.

Architectural Overview

The underlying scenario reuses the existing business logic which manages business data.

Architectural Overview: Integration of Existing Application Logic

Development Process Overview

The development of RAP based business services by integrating the transactional behavior of existing business objects requires to perform following steps:

1. Defining CDS Data Model and Business Object Structure

The structure of a business object consists of a tree of entities where each entity is linked using associations. The root entity represents the top node of a business object and hence it is a very important part of the business object structure. The root entity is indicated in the source code of the CDS data definition using the keyword ROOT.

2. Defining and implementing transactional behavior of the business object

The operations provided by the business object is defined in the Behavior Definition.  It contains all the entities of root and their supported business operations like Create, Update, Delete, Actions with dedicated input and output.

The class pool referring to behavior definition contains the implementation of all the operations. The implementation is roughly divided into two phases: Interaction and save phase.

3. Exposing relevant application artifacts for OData service enablement

The behavior relevant to specific UI services is projected in Projection Behavior Definition. The relevant artifacts must be exposed to OData.  The projection is implemented into two artifacts: service definition and service binding.

Service definition exposes the relevant data model and behavior and service binding implements specific protocol and service to be offered to the customer.

4. Testing OData/UI services

It provides the option to PUBLISH the service. Once you publish it, it can be consumed by the OData client.  To test the application within the ABAP development environment you can use the feature PREVIEW provided by the service binding editor.

 

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

Let us consider we have been given a green field and asked us to develop a villa from scratch with our own customization. So, what steps will be involved in it? We need to design the floor-plan of the villa, the sections we want to include in the house like pool area, a garden, a jogging track etc. And we will proceed with selecting materials, selecting vendors, enforcing conciliation and orders and many more steps. Similarly, the RAP’s managed scenario provides the greenfield development for our business object.

In the managed scenario, the implementations of behavioral elements like Create/Update/Delete are managed by the RAP framework itself. However, to implement complex logic like validations, determination or some sort of actions (Submit, Approval, Reject etc) on the business entity, you need to add the ABAP logic for it in implementing classes.

How to implement managed scenario?

Pre-requisite: Create CDS views.

Steps:

1. Right-click on root CDS view and select NEW BEHAVIOUR DEFINITION.
2. Add package details, description.
3. Select implementation type MANAGED. This is most important part of creating the managed implementation.
4. Click on Next and then click on Finish.

Points to consider

1. It is available only on S/4 HANA Cloud.
2. The framework will handle the CRUD operations by itself.
3. It is more like BOPF where we are responsible to define what tables should be updated at the end.
4. You can implement DETERMINATIONS, VALIDATIONS, and ACTIONS by adding logic in implementing class.
5. The managed scenario does not support LATE NUMBERING. Late numbering refers to the late number assignment of primary key fields. The final value is assigned just before the data is saved to the database. We will learn more about in unmanaged scenario of RAP.
6. We implement EARLY NUMBERING in the managed scenario. Using early numbering will draw the UUID automatically during the CREATE request by RAP runtime.
   Early numbering is only possible with the key field of type raw(16) (UUID) of the business object.

7. The early numbering should be defined at BEHAVIOUR DEFINITION level.
8. Actions: Instance factory actions are not supported.

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

In the previous lesson, we discussed creating CDS views. Now, the next artifact to create after CDS View is Behavior Definition. But first, we will understand what is a general understanding of behavior definition from a simple visual.

Carefully observe the dog clips.

We can clearly see the actions performed by a dog by just observing the clipart. These actions can also be termed as the behavior of a dog which it performs as per the situation. Similarly, for our business objects, we need to decide and define how the CDS view should behave according to requirements.

Definition

A behavior definition is an ABAP repository that represents the behavior of business objects in the context of SAP ABAP RAP.

Properties

1. The root entity can have at most one Behavior definition defined to it.
2. The behavior definition specifies the child entities of the root.
3. The implementation of behavior definition is performed in Behavior Implementation Class.

How to create a Behavior Definition?

To create the behavior definition, follow the below steps:

1. Right-click on Interface view and select New Behavior Definition.

2. Provide Description, Package details and Implementation type. The most important part while creating the behavior definition is a selection of the Implementation type. This implementation type will define the scenarios you are working on: Managed or Unmanaged Scenario.
   Here, we have selected the Managed Scenario.

3. Select Transport Request.
4. And now our behavior definition is created.

Here we have defined the simple operations CREATE, UPDATE, DELETE. We would be making use of these operations in our application.

As we are working on Managed scenario here, we don’t have to write explicit EML’s (Entity Manipulation Language) to perform these operations. This will be handled by the system. But when an Unmanaged scenario comes into the picture, we need to explicitly handle the business logic in Behavior Implementation.

We will dig deep into it in later articles.

5. Save and activate.

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

Once we provided the behavior of our business object in Behavior Definition, we also need to add logic to it. The logic part is done in the class, here we call it Behavior Implementation class.  A behavior definition can have one or many implementation classes (a 1: n relationship).

So, the next inline artifact to create is Behavior Implementation. The transactional behavior of business objects can be implemented in one or more global classes.

Let’s say you want to create a record in the database. You enter the data in UI and click create button. The moment you press the create button, UI data will be pushed to buffer and, from buffer it will be committed to database or rollback with proper validations. (For details on Business Object Runtime click here ).

Definition

The Behavior Implementation is an ABAP class that implements the business object’s behavior.

How to create Behavior Implementation?

Follow the below steps to create Behavior Implementation:

1. Once Behavior Definition is created. Right-click on Behavior Definition and select New Behavior Implementation.
2. Provide the package details: name, description, package details. Click Finish.

 

3. The new Behavior Implementation is created and is added to the corresponding folder in Project Explorer.
4. The two local classes will be automatically generated: lcl_handler and lcl_saver.

lcl_handler: This local class will be called in the Interaction phase. It contains the methods, actions, determinations which we have defined in our Behavior Definition of the business object.

lcl_saver: This class will be called in the Save sequence phase. It contains the methods for our save sequence. There are some set of pre-defined methods which will be called to persist our data to the database.

The local class implementation will be different for the managed and unmanaged transactional scenarios. We will learn this in our next articles.

5. Write business logic in respective classes.
6. Save and activate the class.

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

SAP has introduced various programming models helping the organizations via development of efficient applications that meets their business needs. Over time, with changing requirements and technologies, these programming models have evolved from DYNPRO and list programming models for SAP GUI based applications to WEB DYNPRO model for web-based applications and thereafter to SAP ABAP programming model for SAP Fiori.

While SAP ABAP programming model for SAP Fiori is a key advantage in terms of evolving landscape, flexibility and efficient modelling for SAP Fiori, SAP HANA; lacks certain criteria like simplicity and typed access to business entities which seems to be the basic need for application development. Here RAP, a new programming model by SAP, fills the gap.

SAP ABAP RAP provides the intrinsic approach to build SAP Fiori based applications that are optimized for S/4 HANA and can run over on-premise as well as on the cloud.

Every year, more than 1 million custom objects are created by various industries using SAP ABAP technology. All these custom objects starts as a fresh requirement and needs the same monotonous approach of development. SAP hence came up with a new framework in SAP ABAP which focuses upon the individual business logic, rather than expending efforts on the development of application infrastructure. This framework in known as Business Object Processing Framework or SAP BOPF.

What is SAP BOPF?

SAP BOPF is an Object Oriented ABAP based framework that provides a set of generic services and functionalities that helps to standardize, modularize and speed up the development process. A BOPF is capable of managing the entire life cycle of business objects as well as covers all the aspects of the business application development.

In simple words, BOPF replaces the work of SE24 class builder with all the custom CRUD operation. It acts as the transaction/application layer in SAP architecture. With the help of ABAP CDS (Core Data Services) it can be exposed directly over HTTPS and used via UI5 Applications.

What is SAP ABAP RAP?

SAP ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP) was introduced by SAP Cloud Platform ABAP environment and is available with 1808 release and higher.

The RESTful Application Programming model is built on the top of the semantic data model (CDS) and the transactional services are exposed in behaviour definition and implementation in implementing behaviour class. It also allows adapting the existing applications to be modelled which is intended to be used over a long time.  You can start from scratch (greenfield implementation) or you can reuse existing business logic (brownfield implementation).

One can develop the following end-to-end scenarios:

• SAP Fiori service
• Service consumption
• Web APIs

 

Difference between SAP BOPF and SAP RAP

Comparison	SAP BOPF	SAP RAP
Type of Service	Only on Premise Service.	Both on Premise and Cloud Services.
Technology	SAP on Premise Stack (HANA DB, ABAP CDS, SEGW).	SAP CDS and SAP ABAP (or ABAP on Cloud).
Data Base	The data base can be only on Premise.	The data base can be either SAP conventional S4HANA or HANA Database (on cloud).
Application Layer	Application layer can be only ABAP.	Application layer is ABAP and ABAP on Cloud.
Frontend	UI development is not supported, APIs are also not generated directly, relies on CDS.	Only APIs are generated, UI development is not part of RAP architecture.
Deployment	It can be deployed only on Premise using Transport Request. But the UI application consuming the services generated by SAP RAP can be deployed over either Neo or Cloud Foundry or even ABAP Repository.	The RAP is hosted via ABAP on cloud, which can be also only deployed over cloud foundry. But the UI application consuming the services generated by SAP RAP can be deployed over either Neo or Cloud Foundry.
ABAP Reports Support	BOPF is solely used for Fiori Elements based development.	The services generated by SAP RAP can be used directly in ABAP Reports via Entity Manipulation Language (EML).
OData Support	SAP BOPF only supports OData V2.	You can create both OData V2 and V4 services.
Development IDE	BOPF is developed using ABAP Wizard and SAP on Premise GUI. The CDS linked with BOPF is developed using HANA Studio/Eclipse.	SAP RAP can be developed using HANA Studio/Eclipse in case of on-premise as well as ABAP on cloud.
CDS Annotation	The Parent and Child relationship in BOPF is defined at the bottom part of the ABAP CDS where we declare the Associations.	The annotations of ABAP CDS are not required anymore as the RAP does not need to create the BOPF like framework in the background with the help of these Annotations.

 

References

Read more about SAP BOPF on its official documentation: https://help.sap.com/doc/cfa481e73ceb433894f4eed7f685ff79/1511%20002/en-US/frameset.htm?frameset.htm

Learn about SAP BOPF on GoCoding tutorials: https://gocoding.org/sap-bopf-business-object-processing-framework/

Read more about SAP RAP on its official documentation: https://help.sap.com/viewer/923180ddb98240829d935862025004d6/Cloud/en-US/289477a81eec4d4e84c0302fb6835035.html

Learn about SAP RAP on GoCoding tutorials: https://gocoding.org/sap-abap-rap/

Preface – This post is part of the SAP ABAP RAP series.

Introduction

SAP has introduced various programming models helping the organizations via development of efficient applications that meets their business needs. Over time, with changing requirements and technologies, these programming models have evolved from DYNPRO and list programming models for SAP GUI based applications to WEB DYNPRO model for web-based applications and thereafter to SAP ABAP programming model for SAP Fiori.

While SAP ABAP programming model for SAP Fiori is a key advantage in terms of evolving landscape, flexibility and efficient modelling for SAP Fiori, SAP HANA; lacks certain criteria like simplicity and typed access to business entities which seems to be the basic need for application development. Here RAP, a new programming model by SAP, fills the gap.

SAP ABAP RAP provides the intrinsic approach to build SAP Fiori based applications that are optimized for S/4 HANA and can run over on-premise as well as on the cloud.

What is ABAP on Cloud?

SAP now provides an option to create an instance of ABAP on cloud foundry. This instance is known as ABAP environment. This instance lets you to create extensions for ABAP based products so that you can extend your existing ABAP based code to cloud. The IDE used for writing ABAP on cloud is eclipse of SAP HANA Studio.
You can perform following activities using ABAP on cloud:

• Expose OData services
• Perform RFC calls via Cloud Connector in SAP Cloud platform
• Consume External services
• Create ABAP cloud project with ADT that can be connected to ABAP system
• Use Software Component Lifecycle Management in place of git
• Deploy your application in the ABAP Environment

What is SAP RAP?

SAP ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP) was introduced by SAP Cloud Platform ABAP environment and is available with 1808 release and higher.

The RESTful Application Programming model is built on the top of the semantic data model (CDS) and the transactional services are exposed in behaviour definition and implementation in implementing behaviour class. It also allows adapting the existing applications to be modelled which is intended to be used over a long time.  You can start from scratch (greenfield implementation) or you can reuse existing business logic (brownfield implementation).

One can develop the following end-to-end scenarios:

• SAP Fiori service
• Service consumption
• Web APIs

Difference between ABAP on Cloud and SAP RAP

ABAP on Cloud	SAP RAP
ABAP on Cloud is PaaS (Platform as a Service) which provides option to extend ABAP code in cloud.	SAP RAP is a model based Architecture that is used to create services in on-premise and cloud.
ABAP on Cloud is used by SAP RAP for Cloud Services.	SAP RAP utilizes ABAP on Cloud to create cloud based services.
ABAP on Cloud is a PaaS.	SAP RAP is a framework.
It supports only Cloud.	It supports both Cloud and On Premise.

 

References

Read more about SAP ABAP on Cloud via its official documentation: https://help.sap.com/viewer/65de2977205c403bbc107264b8eccf4b/Cloud/en-US/11d62652aa2b4600a0fa136de0789648.html

Read more about SAP RAP on its official documentation: https://help.sap.com/viewer/923180ddb98240829d935862025004d6/Cloud/en-US/289477a81eec4d4e84c0302fb6835035.html

Learn about SAP RAP on GoCoding tutorials: https://gocoding.org/sap-abap-rap/