SAP Jam Collaboration Integration Scenarios

Business Object and External Object

There are specific characteristics that distinguish the business object from the external object although the terms are sometimes found to be used interchangeably. Understanding their distinctions is relevant to understanding the SAP Jam integration process.

A business object is a business entity from a source application that is the focus of a collaboration activity between parties with a vested interest in the business object. For security reasons, the business object is never directly exposed to the collaboration platform. Rather, information about how this object can be retrieved from its back-end system is provided to the collaboration platform upon validation of appropriate authentication credentials. In this context, the business object is the entity for which information is retrieved from the back-end system through an application OData service. As soon as the object is exposed to the collaboration components and the collaboration platform, it becomes known as the external object.

Application Layer on the Front-End Server

The front-end server application layer is the element that provides the OData service definition for the business object to the front-end application. It provides the parameters for the external object that are used by the collaboration components. In the SAP Fiori architecture, the application must pass parameters for the external object to the footer bar. The footer bar in turn creates instances of the SMI collaboration components that will eventually connect to the collaboration platform.

Application Layer on the Back-End Server

The back-end server application layer contains both the source (internal) and the target (external) OData services that provide information about the business objects to the collaboration platform. It also provides the Business Add-In (BAdI) implementations you need to map keys, collection names, or annotations between an internal and an external service.

Social Media Integration Layer

The Social Media Integration layer is responsible for enabling the connection between the application and the collaboration platform, as well as for providing a mechanism that allows SAP Jam functionality to be accessed through its APIs. The Social Media Integration layer is composed of two main parts:

• The Social Media Integration (SMI) collaboration components

  The SMI collaboration components, along with the OData service layer, are responsible for providing the SAPUI5 components for collaboration as well as the OData service. This layer consumes functionality within the ABAP SMI layer that allows it to retrieve the required customizations and service mappings, and to consume the API on the collaboration platform.

• The ABAP SMI library

  The ABAP SMI provides the customization required to establish connectivity between the front-end server and the social media collaboration platform, as well as the customization and BAdI definitions required for service mapping from internal to external application OData services. It is also responsible for the functionality that allows the consumption of APIs on the collaboration platform.

Collaboration Platform

The collaboration platform provides the API for social media and business collaboration operations. It is also provides the functionality and configuration needed to access external applications and retrieve business information from the objects stored in the back-end system. Since SAP Jam is currently the only supported collaboration platform, the terms 'SAP Jam' and 'collaboration platform' are often used interchangeably.