You must configure the SAP JCo adapter in Rational® Developer before using these
instructions. If you see the following error message when you try to use the
SAP wizards:

your adapter may
be missing or not configured correctly.
For more information, refer
to Setting up SAP development environments.
These instructions will guide you through the process of connecting
to an SAP source and specifying either a BAPI or RFM data object for use in
your application. To build a command that invokes BAPI, you must know the
name of the business object and the name of the method within that object.
- Open a Faces JSP file.
- From the Data palette, click on either SAP BAPI or SAP
RFM and drag it to the JSP file. The Create EIS SDO Object
wizard will open.
- In the Name field, type the name of your SDO. If you want to reuse
existing mediator or metadata information, follow the substeps below; otherwise,
click Next.
- If you check the box labeled Retrieve and existing record
from scope, you can use this wizard to retrieve an existing SAP object
from one of the scopes. You must specify both a key name and a scope from
which to retrieve. You must also check the box labeled Reuse metadata definition
from an existing record or record list and specify the mediator metadata
file. Once you enter this information and click Next,
you will be taken to a page that displays the schema of the data graph that
is a result of interpreting the mediator metadata. On that page, you must
select the root feature of the SDO object.
- If you only want to reuse information from a previously created
object, check the box labeled Reuse metadata definition from an existing
record or record list. This will populate the rest of the wizard pages
with information collected from the metadata file such as target business
functions, selected fields, etc. Note: you will need to have imported
the existing metadata file into the project before you can select it via the
wizard.
- In the Select server connection page, choose a connection from
the drop-down menu. If you do not have an existing connection, do the following:
- Click Browse.
- In the Browse Connections dialogue box, click Add.
- In the Create or Edit a Connection dialogue box, enter the values
necessary to make a connection to your SAP database server. To enter the SAP
host information necessary for the Details field, click Assemble.
- Click OK.
- In the Browse Connections dialogue box, make sure that your
new connection is highlighted; then click OK to return to the Select
Server Connection page.
- After establishing the server connection, select the main function:
- If using the BAPI interface, you start with searching the target business
object.
- If using the RFM interface, you can search by the method name or a method
group name,
Enter the necessary information and click Search. Resulting
business objects or methods will appear in the window below.
- Expand a business object or method and select one of its components
to access. Click Next.
- In the Select Fields dialogue box, accept the default fields by
clicking All; otherwise check the fields that you want to set. Click Next. Required fields are automatically set by the wizard and cannot be changed.
- If the main function needs to work in coordination with a pre or
post function, use the following sub-steps in the Select Pre and Post Functions
window . Otherwise, click Next.
- To set pre and post functions, search in the same manner that
you searched for main functions (described in step 6). The
tree will come up with business objects and methods.
- To set the pre and post-functions, click the appropriate button:
- Pre-function -

- Post-function -

(For example, when using BAPI_ADDRESSEMP_CREATE to create an address
record for an employee, you will need to acquire a lock on the Employee record
before the create. Then, drop the lock. In this scenario, the BAPI_EMPLOYEE_ENQUEUE
is the pre-function and BAPI_EMPLOYEE_DEQUEUE is the post-function.)
- In the Configure Mappings page, map the parameter field that uniquely
identifies the main function's target record to the parameter field that uniquely
identifies the pre or post function's target record. To set the proper mapping
to the main function, click the corresponding table cells of the pre or post-function
columns; then click Next.
- In the Configure Help Values page, the wizard automatically finds
out which of the main function's parameter fields need help values and lists
them in this table. Each row in the table corresponds to one help values mediator.
Use this page to configure the filter criteria of each help value mediator.
The options are as follows:
Mediator |
Description |
Selection Field |
Click this to choose the
parameter field on the help values data object that will be used to configure
the filter criteria |
External Name |
This is an alias that you
set for the internal field corresponding to the one selected in the "Selection
Field" cell. It is used in the help values SDO object to identify this field. |
Sign |
Choose either Inclusive (I) or Exclusive
(E) from the drop-down menu. Inclusive (I) - the matched help values
will be included in the retrieval result. Exclusive (E) - the matched
help values will be excluded in the retrieval result. |
Operator |
Click this field to select an
operator for comparison from the drop-down menu. |
If you skip the configuration in this page, ALL the help values defined
for a particular field will be retrieved.
- Click Finish. The metadata will be saved
to be used at runtime. The SDO data object(s) will be created for the JSP
page.
The SDO objects will show up in the "Page Data" view to use with JSF
UI creation and configuration.
Editing your SAP SDO
To make changes to the metadata
for the SAP mediator you just created, follow these steps:
- In the Page Data view, right-click on your SAP mediator node and select Configure.

- This will activate the SAP mediator wizard that corresponds to this record
node.