Smart Synchronization
Use
Smart Synchronization provides tools for system administrators and developers of mobile applications. It contains the following parts:
· Administration Toolkit
In the administration toolkit you as system administrator can configure what data of a mobile application should be synchronized. You can also control the runtime behavior of the replication processes, monitor sent messages, analyze any problems that occurred and clean up data. For more information, see Administration Toolkit and Configuration of Smart Synchronization.
· Development Toolkit
The development toolkit provides tools to enable development of the data model for mobile applications based on Smart Synchronization. Each application-specific data model that is defined and generated with this development toolkit consists of one or more synchronizer business objects (SyncBO). The SyncBOs are the foundation of all synchronization processes initiated in Smart Synchronization. For more information, see Development Toolkit.
Features
Data Assignment
The data assignment function allows you to assign SyncBO instances to mobile devices. Using this function each mobile device receives exactly the set of application data that the end user needs for his daily work. This configuration requires no coding.
For each SyncBO the administrator configures data assignment rules that govern whether or not a SyncBO instance is synchronized to a mobile device. These rules can be specified for
· Individual mobile devices
· Groups of mobile devices
· All mobile devices
The filter values are assigned to the fields contained in the SyncBO definition.
Data Assignment with Dependencies between SyncBOs
In combination with data assignment using data assignment rules, administrators can define the selection of data to be dependent on the rules for other SyncBOs. There are two options:
· The referenced SyncBO controls which data is downloaded by the referencing SyncBO.
The filter for the SyncBO that is referenced is defined. The reference causes this filter to also have an effect on the data downloaded by the referencing SyncBO.
The sales order SyncBO references the customer data SyncBO since a data field is filled there using the customer data SyncBO.
For the customer data SyncBO, the administrator defined that only data belonging to sales organization 01 should be downloaded to device A.
The sales order SyncBO only downloads data for the entries belonging to sales organization 01.
· The referencing SyncBO controls which data is downloaded by the referenced SyncBO.
The filter is defined in the SyncBO that references another SyncBO. The reference causes this filter to also have an effect on the data downloaded by the referenced SyncBO.
The sales order SyncBO references the customer data SyncBO since a data field is filled there using the customer data SyncBO.
For the sales order SyncBO, the administrator defines that only data with material number PRODUCT01should be downloaded to device B.
The customer data SyncBO only downloads data for the customers that have sales orders with material number PRODUCT01.
Data Assignment with Application-Specific Logic
If you use synchronization type 2-Way, in which synchronization is performed explicitly for each device, you can select data for a specific user and use application-specific logic with the function module for editing data from the backend.
Delta Management
Smart Synchronization keeps track of the state of data on all mobile devices. This means that Smart Synchronization can compute the data changes made on the mobile device or in the application back end and ensures that only the changes are exchanged during synchronization. In this way Smart Synchronization optimizes the synchronization process and minimizes synchronization time.
The delta data can also be determined without synchronizing with the mobile device. Relevant data is hereby determined and edited by the server. It can be transferred to the mobile device without delay with the next synchronization.
Conflict Management
A conflict occurs if a user of a mobile device modifies a particular data record on the mobile device without knowing that changes were made to that same data record or the same row within a data record in the application back end. Smart Synchronization can be configured so that conflicts are determined at either data record level or row level.
When a conflict is detected, Smart Synchronization terminates the updating process in the back end and returns the following information to the mobile device for further handling:
· Current state of the data record on the back-end system.
· Exact data that was originally sent from the mobile device
· Text information indicating that a conflict situation was detected
How such results are handled on the mobile device depends on the mobile application. You can configure the behavior, see Mobile Component Descriptor. By default, Smart Synchronization overwrites the data on the mobile device with the latest state of the data record in the application back end.
If an error occurs when processing a message from a mobile device, the processing of subsequent messages is only blocked if the incorrect message is relevant for the subsequent message. This is the case, for example, if the incorrect message is referenced in the subsequent message.
Error Handling During Synchronization
Errors can occur when uploading or downloading during the synchronization process. The system detects these errors, and there are mechanisms for processing these errors on both the mobile device and the server. You can configure the behavior, see Mobile Component Descriptor.
Smart Synchronization differentiates between synchronization errors and synchronization conflicts, and handles them differently.
Possible errors are:
· Application errors that are normally returned by the BAPI wrapper functions
This also includes authorization errors, which are classified as application errors by the SAP MI Server Component, since there is no application-specific authorization check.
· Framework errors
· System errors
This includes, for example, RFC connection errors.
Data Replication
Smart Synchronization allows data to be replicated with SyncBOs. The replicators that are created copy the necessary data from the back-end system to the SAP MI Server Component. The replicated data is saved in the replication database. It is used as the main repository for data synchronization with the mobile devices.