Extended Configuration Management (XCM) 

Use

You use the Extended Configuration Management (XCM) Administration tool to configure Web applications, once you have installed the Web components. You use it to make configuration settings needed at runtime.

The CRM Web applications are used in the following scenarios:

●      CRM Web Channel

●      ERP E-Commerce

●      Web Auctions: Selling via eBay in CRM and ERP

●      Web Auctions. Auctioning via Web Shop

●      Partner Channel Management

●      Interaction Center WebClient

●      Interaction Center Workforce Management

●      Internet Customer Self-Service

●      SAF

You only have to set up XCM configuration settings for those Web applications that are relevant to the scenarios and processes you are using.

The XCM user interface is used for Java-side configuration of the Web application. You have to maintain two setting types in XCM:

●      General Settings

Once set, these settings are valid for the whole Web application. These settings are located in the XCM tool under Start ® General Settings ®Customer.

●      Additional Web application configuration settings

Web applications can have multiple configurations with different settings. Depending on the configuration used, the application behaves differently at runtime. Yu can define a default configuration or select the configuration to be used at runtime.

Not all applications support multiple application configurations. Some only support general settings.

Some Web applications can run different configurations in different client sessions simultaneously.

Each Web application provides one or more predefined (SAP) configurations, which you can find under Start ® Application Configurations ® SAP. You create a new customer configuration based on these predefined configurations and adjust it to your requirements. You then find your customer configuration under Start ® Application Configurations ®Customer. Each customer configuration contains:

○       A configuration name

○       Base configurations (from SAP on which you base your configuration)

○       A number of configuration parameters with associated values which you adjust.

The combination of these two setting types represent the final Web application configuration.

Procedure

The following steps explain how to configure a Web application in XCM, assuming you have deployed the application.

Starting XCM

...

       1.      You access the XCM tool at: http://<host>:<port>/<web app name>/admin/xcm/init.do

You can also start XCM in accessibility mode (according to Section 508 Rehabilitation Act) at the following URL: http://<host>:<port>/<web app name>/admin/xcm/init.do?sap-accessibility=x

       2.      Provide a user and password. If you are logging on for the first time use the Administrator user. the password you defined during the installation of NetWeaver

We recommend you create new users with lesser rights than the Administrator fort he administration of Web applications. See the SAP CRM Security Guide section E-Commerce for further details.

       3.      When the application opens a closed control tree is displayed on the left of the screen. A screen containing help information is displayed to the right.

You can use edit (change settings) or display (see settings) mode in XCM. You use the button in the top right hand corner of the screen to change between modes. When you switch to edit mode a DB lock is set meaning that only this user can edit the settings at one time. The lock is released once the user switches back to display mode or after session timeout (default timeout is 30mins).

Printable Help

There is a printable help function for the application configuration and components. You access it by selecting Help in the header area of the main XCM Admin window. Within the documentation hyperlinks provide links to more detailed information. The documentation displays the general settings separately.

General Settings

You set the general settings and they are valid for the whole Web application. Proceed as follows:

       1.      Choose the Edit mode and select Start ® General Settings ® Customer. The system displays the available nodes categorizing the general settings. Depending on the application you will have one or more tree nodes. For information on the possible settings, see the printable help information.

       2.      Expand a configuration node and select the right hand configuration node to see possible configuration parameters in the right hand window.

       3.      Select a parameter and enter the settings values that meet your requirements. Each parameter contains a help description for information on what you need to enter.

Some parameters have default values set. When you change the values of these default parameters the system will mark them orange. You can revert back to the original default entry by selecting R (revert).

       4.      Select Save Configuration.

If your Web application does not support multiple configurations, you are now finished with the General Settings section. You can return to display mode and restart the Web application to activate your changes.

If your application does support multiple configurations, see the section below Multiple Application Configurations.

Multiple Application Configurations

Once you have set the General Settings you can now configure the various configurations that you need.

Delivered SAP Configuration

You need to find out which SAP application configurations are delivered. In more complex applications, for example CRM Web Channel, there are several pre-configured applications. In simpler applications, for example the User Management application, there are normally fewer, or only one, applications configurations. You display the list in the pre-configured scenarios under Start ® Application Configurations ® SAP in the control tree. Look through the configurations and choose the one that most suits your requirements.

Create a Customer Application Configuration

Once you have selected the configuration that suits your needs go to Edit mode.

       1.      Enter a configuration Name and choose Create.

       2.      Configure the application configuration by associating configuration data with the configuration parameters. There is a description for the scenario of each configuration parameter in the last column of the parameter table.

During installation, only those parameters (mandatory) are displayed that are needed to get the application running. Optional parameters can be viewed and edited by selecting Display Advanced Settings.

Configure a Customer Application Configuration

Once you have created the application configuration you need to configure it by changing the parameter values.

       1.      Select Configuration Documentation to see a list of the parameters to be configured.

       2.      Select a parameter and use the dropdown list box to assign a value. You can display a description of possible values by selecting the ? help button next to the drop down list box. If there is more details description for a parameter an additional ? button is displayed. 

       3.      There are two value types:

○       Static Values

Values that can be selected from a dropdown list box.

These values do not have a button in the Component Configuration column.

○       Values based on Component Configuration

You first have to configure a component, for example a connection to your SAP CRM system, before assign the configured value to the parameter. These parameters have a button in the Component Configuration column. For example the jco button for configuring connection parameters to the SAP system.

If no value is assigned to these parameters you have to create a new component configuration. For more information see the section Creating a New Component Configuration.

If a value is assigned, it is most likely you will not have to change anything during the installation.

Creating a New Component Configuration

A component is an independently configurable part of the application (for example the jco component which enables connections between the SAP system and the Web application). A component can have several configurations, for example to different systems and clients. You assign one of the component configurations to the parameter in the application configuration. We recommend you create the component configuration at the same time as you set up the application configuration.

       1.      Select an empty entry in the dropdown list box for the parameter or choose create component configuration. The system switches to the component creation screen. The correct component, for example jco, is selected automatically and the system display a description of the use of the component.

       2.      Enter a name for the component configuration (for example Q5C_505 for the Q5C system with client 505) and choose Create. The application switches to the component configuration parameters screen.

       3.      Select a base configuration from the Base Configuration dropdown list box. A description is displayed using the ? button.

       4.      Enter values for the component configuration parameter and choose Save Configuration. Test your values in the Configuration Test area.

Testing a Component Configuration

Once you have created the component configuration, save it and test it as follows.

       1.      Select the test from the Select Test dropdown list box for the configuration. You can see a description by selecting the ? button.

       2.      Choose Run Test.

       3.      The system displays the test results in a new window. A red traffic light indicates the test failed and you must redo the configuration. A green traffic light indicates the test  was successful.

       4.      Return to the application configuration, by selecting Back to Application Configuration and select the newly created configuration from the dropdown list box and assign it to the scenario parameter.

Define a Default Application Configuration

You normally carry out this step after assigning values to all configuration parameters. If you have only one application configuration, the system will use it automatically when you start the application. If you have more than one application configuration you must select the Default Configuration checkbox for one of the configurations, so that the system will run this one as default when you start the application.

A green icon in the control tree indicates the default configuration.

Save the Application Configuration

Once you have assigned values to all your application configuration parameters you have to save it.

       1.      Select Save Configuration.

       2.      Check the option Active Configuration. If you do not check this field the configuration will be disabled and won’t run when you start the application. If you uncheck this box you determine that the configuration is disabled.

A red icon indicates the configuration is disabled.

       3.      The system saves the new application configuration to the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 and it can then be displayed in the customers part of the control tree in XCM.

Activating the Application Configuration

Before a new application configuration can become active you have to stop and restart the Web application or, alternatively, restart the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 server.

       1.      Start the J2EE Visual Administrator.

       2.      Connect to the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 server.

       3.      Choose Server node ® open services node ® Select deploy service ® application and stop and start the Web application.

For more information, see the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 configuration documentation in SAP Solution Manager.

Running the Web Application

When you run the Web application the system needs to know which application configuration to use if there is more than one. You can set this up in one of three ways:

●      Use the default configuration. Simply start the application and the configuration you set as default will be used. If you have just one configuration this will automatically be the default. For example if you want to call up the default configuration for the b2b Web shop the URL will look as follows: http://<host>:<port>/b2b/b2b/init.do.

●      Specify the application configuration name as a request parameter. In this case you run the application using a different application configuration to the default. You pass the name of the application configuration sing the request parameter configuration.xcm when calling the application. The scenario name is case sensitive. For example if you want to call up the application configuration myB2BCRM the URL will look as follows: http://<host>:<port>/b2b/b2b/init.do?configuration.xm=myB2BCRM

●      Display a start up page containing links to all active configurations and starting the specific application configuration by using the link.

The start page is disabled after installation. You enable it using the following XCM parameter: Start ® General Settings ® <Web application name> ® show.start.jsp.

Uploading and Downloading XCM Settings

You can up and download application configurations. In XCM navigate to Start ® XCM Settings and you can view the upload and download sections. Each section refers to two objects:

●      Component configuration data

●      Application configuration data

These two objects make up the application configurations of a Web application.

Downloading XCM Configurations

This enables you to download XCM configuration form the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 database to XML files. Proceed as follows:

       1.      Select the download button for the component configuration data file. The system generates a file named config-data.xml containing all component configuration data saved for the Web application.

       2.      Select the download button for the application configuration data file. The system generates a file named scenario-config.xml containing all application configuration data saved for the Web application.

Uploading XCM Configurations

This function enables you to upload XCM configuration data from XML files to the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 server. Proceed as follows:

       1.      Select the Edit button.

       2.      The system displays two file input fields in the upload section.

       3.      Specify the config-data.xml (component configuration) and scenario-config.xml (application configuration) files, with complete file system paths for both files, and select Upload.

For the b2b and b2c Web applications in SAP E-Commerce the XCM administration tool provides a switch to a separate maintenance view for the IPC-specific part of the application (see IPC Switch for XCM Configuration of SAP E-Commerce below). When switching to IPC you can up and download the IPC application and component configurations. The IPC application configuration file is ipcscenario-config.xml, the component configuration file is ipcconfig-data.xml.

 

If you intend to transport XCM when doing a system copy within the CRM 5.0 release, refer to the chapter Data Storage Security in the CRM Security Guide for E-Commerce.In addition to the XCM data you have to also transport encryption keys used in Secure Storage of the SAP Web AS Java 7.0 engine.

 

Web applications based on CRM 4.0 do not save XCM settings in a database and they do not support the upload and download functionality described in this section. In CRM 4.0 the XCM settings are saved as XML files (config-data.xml for component configuration and scenario-config.xml for application configurations) in a dedicated directory of the J2EE servers file system. You can find the location of the files in XCM Administration under Start ® Options. You can upload these configuration files from CRM 4.0 to CRM 5.0 during an upgrade.

After migrating XCM settings from an older to a newer Web application version you must check if any of the customer-made XCM settings are obsolete see Indication of Obsolete XCM settings below). The new version may require you to change or give you the option of maintaining additional XCM settings. You add these settings manually, as described in the section Configure a Customer Application Configuration above.

 

Indication of Obsolete XCM Settings

After migrating XCM settings from and older to a newer Web application version, some settings may mo longer be supported in the new version. If these settings were customer-made, meaning they have been changed from their SAP delivered default values, the system will mark them as obsolete by highlighting them in yellow. The following parameters can be specified as obsolete:

●      Application configurations (marked with an exclamation mark on yellow background)

●      Application configuration parameters (highlighted in yellow)

●      Components (marked with an exclamation mark on yellow background)

●      Component configurations (marked with an exclamation mark on yellow background)

●      Component parameters (highlighted in yellow)

IPC Switch for XCM Configuration of SAP E-Commerce

The SAP E-Commerce B2B and B2C Web applications each support two application configurations that must be maintained separately:

●      The E-Commerce application configuration, which allows the configuration of the overall application

●      The IPC application configuration, which allows additional configuration of the IPC-specific part of the application.

When you start the XCM administration tool for B2B or B2C a dropdown list box is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. This dropdown list box enables you to switch between the maintenance views for the E-Commerce and IPC application configurations. All features of the XCM Administration tool, that is application configuration maintenance and their upload and download, can be used separately for both the E-Commerce and IPC application configurations.