Web Transaction Programming

Interaction Between the ITS and SAP System

If you set up Web pages containing URLs, which link to the SAP system, and a Web user makes a request by selecting one of these links, the request is processed as follows.

1. User starts a transaction in the Web browser.

2. The Web browser passes the request to the Web server component ICM (Internet Communication Manager) of the SAP system.

3. The ICM forwards the request to the ICF (Internet Communication Framework).

4. Due to the service name within the URL the ICF decides which handler class has to be used to process the request. The request then will be passed to the SAP system component ITS.

5. Since the ITS functions as a normal SAP GUI when communicating with SAP system, it uses the DIAG protocol as the transmission channel for data exchange.

6. As a response, SAP system sends the screen output to the ITS, which converts the data to HTML format, and returns it via ICM to the Web browser, where it is displayed as an HTML page.

Web Transaction Implementation

To implement a Web transaction, you must:

• Create a transaction in SAP system

• Enable the SAP transaction for Internet use

  To do this, you must create the necessary files required by the ITS to drive the transaction. These files make up an ITS service and consist of:

  • An ITS service description

  • A set of HTML templates (one for each SAP system screen)

  • Language resource files (optional)

  • Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) files (optional)

    MIME files include graphics, images, sound, and video files.

  When generating the HTML templates that correspond to Web transaction screens, additional HTMLBusiness statements will be inserted into the standard HTML code by the SE80. HTMLBusiness is an SAP-specific macro language for handling data transfer between SAP system screens and HTML pages. At runtime, the ITS executes these extra statements to create the finished HTML pages to run the Web transaction.

Web transactions must satisfy special requirements regarding:

• Screen design

  Since HTML (on the Internet side) and ABAP (on the SAP system side) offer different programming features, some objects used in ABAP programs or on SAP system screens are not supported by HTML, so you have to adapt the HTML code accordingly.

• User authorizations

Apart from exchanging data between the Internet and the SAP system, and converting HTML to SAP system screen data and vice versa, the ITS also performs system administration functions.