Connection to SAP TREX or Another External Search Engine

Use

SAP Retrieval and Classification (SAP TREX) is a powerful SAP external search engine that is used in many SAP applications. Technically speaking, SAP TREX belongs to SAP Enterprise Portal , but can also be installed as an individual component.

In addition to the normal database search, VMS provides a generic interface through which you can connect VMS to any external search engine you choose. Based on this generic interface, VMS also provides an interface adapted to suit SAP’s search engine SAP TREX. The search via an external search engine or SAP TREX substantially increases performance in the vehicle search , above all when the number of vehicles to be searched is very large.

The framework provided by the Search Engine Service (SES), which is part of SAP NetWeaver 2004s, is used to connect to SAP TREX.

The SES central workbench is used to:

  • Manage and monitor the download of objects to SAP TREX

  • Manage indexes

  • Specify the RFC destination for SAP TREX server for a business object

  • Schedule and execute jobs for delta download of vehicles

If Customizing settings are made in SES for the object VMSVEHICLE, the vehicles are searched with SAP TREX using the SES. The transaction used is SES_ADMIN.

If SES is not used, the connection takes place technically through the BAdIs VLC_EXTSE_SEARCH Vehicle Search Using External Search Engine and VLC_SE_DELTA_LOAD Delta Load to External Search Engine. In the standard system, the BAdIs are empty and VMS is not connected to any search. Both of the above-mentioned BAdIs have an example implementation with a commentary and example coding for an initial load report.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites mentioned here refer only to the connection of SAP TREX.

  • You have installed SAP TREX 6.0 or higher.

    Note Note

    For more information, see SAP Service Marketplace at Start of the navigation path service.sap.com\instguides Next navigation step SAP NetWeaver Next navigation step SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (2004s ) Next navigation step Installation Next navigation step Installation Next navigation step Standalone Engines Next navigation step SAP NetWeaver Search and Classification TREX End of the navigation path

    End of the note.

  • You have connected VMS to SAP TREX.

  • You have implemented BAdIs VLC_EXTSE_SEARCH and VLC_SE_DELTA_LOAD, and programmed and executed a report for the initial load if SES is not used.

  • In Customizing for VMS under Start of the navigation path Vehicle Search Next navigation step Define Fields for TREX Download End of the navigation path , you have entered the vehicle data that you want to be transferred. All the fields from the vehicle table VLCVEHICLE and customer-specific data from APPEND structures are counted as potential vehicle data. The configuration data is basically always transferred and does not have to be selected separately.

Features

  • You can connect VMS to the SAP search engine SAP TREX or also to any other external search engine you like.

  • You can download vehicle data, configuration data and also customer-specific data to the search engine and thus make it available for the fast search for vehicles. This means that you can freely define which search criteria you want to add to the fast search.

    In the first instance, the interface provides all the configuration data and vehicles data. You should restrict the maximum amount of data to a reasonable amount in order to retain the performance advantage that the external search engine offers.

  • All the vehicles are downloaded to the search engine for the first time in the initial load. All the changed data and all the vehicles created after the initial load are transferred automatically and continually in the delta load. If SES is used change pointer is written to the database and changes are picked up and transferred to SAP TREX through a background job. If SES is not used, you can use a BAdI to define, according to your own requirements, which data is to be relevant to the search engine (see above).

  • If you have connected VMS to an external search engine, the system first executes the search in this search engine. Then it transfers the hit list to the normal database for further processing.

  • Using SES administration workbench you can create, activate or deactivate search index. If SES is not used, you can decide yourself which vehicles or vehicle models you want to assign to which search index in the external search engine, and in this way you can find your own optimal solution for increasing performance.

    All the vehicles that you want to include in the same search should be in the same search index. You can create several search indexes, for example, a search index for each model family. However, a cross-model-family search would then no longer be possible.

    Caution Caution

    There are the following restrictions in the use of SAP TREX:

    If you want to work with selection criteria with intervals, due to technical restrictions, the search is automatically transferred to the normal database search and not to SAP TREX.

    SAP TREX only supports a search with exact attributes and not fuzzy searches.

    End of the caution.