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Introduction: You can find a description of this phase in section Phase 1 (Introduction). See also section SAP.

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Note: The SAP service must be licensed and activated on the Integration Server to use this Input Agent. Please contact our support or sales staff.

Data from an SAP system is read and transferred to the profile. A remote function call (RFC) is called on the SAP System and data is exchanged via a defined interface. For a detailed description, see SAP RFC.

(1) The SAP alias of the connected system (see configuration file ./etc/sap.xml).

(2) The name of the function module to be called on the SAP system.

(3) The data supplied by the RFC call can be processed by Lobster_data in the formats CSV, FIXRECORD, SAPXML or XML. See also (6). The received data are not IDoc files. Note: If you are using output format SAPXML, 'deep data types' in the response of the RFC/BAPI can also be parsed and processed. In particular, these are tables in the EXPORT parameters, tables in tables or String/XSTRING parameters, as well as the CHANGING parameters. Disadvantage: The creation of the source structure from the RFC (6) fails or is incorrect. Solution: Start a job and then create the source structure from the received response of the RFC (backup file).

(4) Defines the maximum waiting time of Lobster_data for a response from the SAP system. If no data has arrived until then, the job terminates with an error message.

(5) Lobster_data queries the SAP system for Fields, Structures and Tables (7) of the specified function module.

(6) Creates a source structure for the mapping in phase 3 from the structures and tables of the function module.

(7) Here the fields, structures and tables can be filled with data for the call.