John Mutumba Bilay, Peter Gutsche, Volker Stiehl

Integration Advisor
from
SAP HANA® Cloud Integration
 This chapter will introduce you to the concepts and capabilities of
the Integration Advisor, which simplifies and improves the end-to-
end flow of a Business-to-Business (B2B) integration project.

Integration Advisor
Over the course of SAP HANA Cloud Integration, we introduced you to the
concepts and tools of SAP HCI. By following this approach, you have
gained solid knowledge about how to use SAP HCI for various integration
scenarios, mainly focusing on technical integration. However, SAP HCI
has even more to offer: we will now put additional focus on aspects that
gain importance when you deal with business-to-business (B2B) and
application-to-application (A2A) scenarios in the real world that come
with complex and large-size interfaces and data structures.

In this chapter the importance of business semantics in contrast to techni-

cal integrations will be highlighted. We will explain how to significantly
reduce the integration effort for B2B and A2A projects and how a new
service called the Integration Advisor can help collect the valuable knowl-
edge of completed integration projects for later use.

This chapter aims to give you a high-level overview of the Integration

Advisor, the underlying concepts, and the benefits you gain from using it.

To find out more about the Integration Advisor refer to the article by Gun-
ther Stuhec, found at: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-57724.

B2B Communication Basics

B2B integration projects are often accused of being incredibly complex,

because of the challenges that come to play when crossing organizational
boundaries, and the room these projects leave for misinterpretation of

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 2

 Integration Advisor

requirements or specifications. Two business partners usually work very

differently. They don’t describe their processes in the same manner and
their message structures differ. It requires a lot of effort for the involved
parties to understand each other’s message formats and come up with an
appropriate mapping specification. All of these challenges result in a
higher cost of ownership and make B2B integration projects time-con-
suming and expensive. B2B projects often eat up valuable resources that
might have been spent on core business tasks and innovative projects.
This is where tools like the Integration Advisor come in.

Common Issues and Typical Workflows of Integration Projects

Before going any further, we would like to introduce two terms to you.
The first is message implementation guideline (MIG). An MIG comprises
just the needed elements of a business message, their exact semantics, rep-
resentations, and usages, as well as the business-oriented rules for how
the elements relate to each other.

The second term is mapping guidelines (MAG). A MAG describes, in

human-readable form, the semantic matches between the elements of a
sender’s MIG and the receiver’s MIG, as well as the exact treatment of
values while mapping.

These two terms will be important for understanding B2B integration

considerations and how the Integration Advisor works.

A B2B integration project generally consists of requirement-related phases

and implementation-related phases. Some of these phases are listed below.

Requirement-related phases (also known as specification-related phases):

» Analyze/specify business requirement

» Select a B2B standard such as X.12 or UN/EDIFACT and write a message
implementation guideline (MIG) that is based on this B2B standard
» Share MIG with trading partners
» Negotiate, compare and write mapping guidelines (MAGs)

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 3

 Integration Advisor

Implementation-related phases are:

» Development and implementation mapping

» Deployment
» Simulation and testing
» Productive runtime
These phases have proven to be the most difficult and time-consuming
parts of B2B integration projects. They require even more time than the
technical implementation-related phases. According to a report from
Gartner:

Only 5% of the interface [between systems] is a function of the middleware

choice. The remaining 95% is a function of application semantics.

Each business partner generally uses a message implementation guideline

(MIG) to document all the needed fields, their semantics, and the busi-
ness-oriented rules needed for their organization. During the require-
ment-related phases, the B2B partners select the B2B standards they will
use during the project. Typically, the selected B2B standard covers sub-
stantially more than just the user-specific requirements, so the MIG has to
be tailored according individual business needs. Also constraints need to
be added in order to comply with both partners’ B2B integration require-
ments.

This is usually a very difficult job when you consider that different B2B
standards might be used for each organization’s MIG.

Before writing a MAG, you need to share your MIG with your trading
partners MIG (or your trading partner shares his MIGs with you so that
you can do a manual comparison with your own MIG).

When writing a MAG, a manual comparison is typically required in order

to identify gaps. During this step, you might also find out that something
is missing in your or trading partners MIG. As a consequence, a field
could be added or another field could be used in another context (mis-
used) or changed. Moreover, all these steps have to be aligned with the

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 4

 Integration Advisor

consumption/production side implemented in the associated business

application (as every field has to be implemented at the business applica-
tion, too).

Introduction to the Integration Advisor

All of these challenges and difficulties mean that it is essential for busi-
nesses to have technical solutions at hand that can bear some of the bur-
den of complex B2B integration. SAP has launched its new cloud-based
solution, called the Integration Advisor, to do just that. This service will
help you accomplish all the phases we have discussed so far.

The Integration Advisor runs on top of SAP HCI and facilitates interface
design, mapping, integration implementation, and testing. The Integra-
tion Advisor brings automation, streamlining, and simplicity to the entire
end-to-end B2B integration process, from the requirement phase to the
productive runtime phase.

Using the Integration Advisor, different B2B partners can use a common
platform to derive MIGs and MAGs for their business scenarios based on
data provided by other users of the service. That is, the Integration Advi-
sor makes use of a crowd-sourcing approach: The more people have
already used the Integration Advisor, the higher the quality of the propos-
als you get from the Integration Advisor for your specific requirements.
We will discuss how this works further in a moment.

The Integration Advisor can also be used in combination with SAP HCI or
SAP Process Orchestration (SAP PO) to ease the difficulties of a B2B proj-
ect. Furthermore, the Integration Advisor can be leveraged by the Integra-
tion Content Catalog (see Chapter 3). The Integration Advisor fully sup-
ports the integration flow concept of SAP HCI for building B2B
integration processes. Together with the Integration Advisor, it is possi-
ble to automatically enrich integration flows with interface and message
mapping content in SAP HCI. The finalized integration projects with the

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 5

 Integration Advisor

enriched integration flows can be stored in the SAP HCI customer’s own
workspace.

Current Limitation
When reading the following sections of this chapter (in particular, the sec-
tion The Integration Advisor In Action), note the following limitation that
applies to the most current version of the Integration Advisor: The Integra-
tion Advisor currently supports only eight different ISO 20022 message
types. Therefore, it is only possible to create an MIG, based on one of those
eight different message types. It is not possible to create MAGs, because
there is currently no unlimited support of any other B2B standard. This is
because the standard content is not yet complete and all the required featu-
res are not yet supported. Therefore, if you buy a professional edition of the
Integration Advisor, you will only be able to create ISO 20022-based MIGs.
The section The Integration Advisor In Action is based on incomplete test
data, which has not been released. We have included it order to give you a
complete picture of the SAP HCI roadmap.

Overview of Integration Advisor Workflow

In this section, we would like to give a brief overview of the workflow
when using the Integration Advisor. Then, in the section The Integration
Advisor In Action you will learn how to use the Integration Advisor based
on an example.

The Integration Advisor allows you, in short, to do the following:

» Specify concrete message types for a B2B process by defining the

respective message implementation guidelines (MIGs).
» Specify mappings in detail by defining the associated mapping guide-
lines (MAGs).

The resulting mapping can be used directly in an integration flow map-

ping step.

When specifying MIGs and MAGs, you can rely on the anonymized data
of other users stored in the Integration Advisor's integration knowledge
base. First, the tool asks you to enter your business requirements using a

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 6

 Integration Advisor

set of elementary and simple filter criteria, and generates an initial pro-
posal for your MIG or MAG that might already fit your business require-
ments. Then, in an interactive mode, the tool allows you to refine the
definition of your MIGs and MAGs based on information such as how
often a specific message type element has been used by other users in the
specified business context, for example. This once more emphasizes the
crowd-sourcing aspect of the tool: the more people using the Integration
Advisor, the richer the content of its integration knowledge base, and the
higher the quality of the proposals provided by the Integration Advisor
and the results of your fine-tuning activities.

In more detail, creating a message implementation guideline (MIG) with

the Integration Advisor comprises the following steps:

1. Identify the requirements and business context

You first need to identify the business requirements. A simple search
form in the Integration Advisor allows you to enter context parame-
ters such as country or classification of the industry. You do not need
any knowledge about complex B2B standards to begin an integration
project.
2. Get a proposal
Based on the requirements you have entered, the Integration Advisor
searches in its integration knowledge base for the best fitting message
type with the click of a button.
3. Refine the definition of the message type
In the next step, you refine the definition of the message type by filter-
ing out the fields that are not relevant to your requirements. To do this,
the Integration Advisor searches its integration knowledge base for
information on how often a field has been used already by other users
of the Integration Advisor, within a specific business context. The dis-
played search result intuitively shows you how frequently a field has
been used in other Integration Advisor users' MIGs with comparable
search criteria. By applying an accuracy slider for each field, you can
quickly reduce the scope of the message type to a final selection of
fields, which most probably fit your initial requirements.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 7

 Integration Advisor

In more detail, creating a mapping guideline (MAG) comprises the follow-

ing steps:

1. You first select a source and a target message

This is the MIG you just created.
2. Refine the definition of the mapping type
Based on your input, the Integration Advisor searches for the best fit-
ting mapping. Also during this step, the crowd-sourcing approach
comes into play by indicating the relevance of a field mapping visually
by a quality parameter.
You can now very quickly decide whether an individual field mapping
should be included in the final MAG or not.

By storing the final MAG, you contribute to the Integration Advisors’

shared integration knowledge base and help increase the quality of
future MAG definitions. The final MAG can directly be used in a map-
ping step of an integration flow.

Now, let’s move on to a hands-on step-by-step guide on how to use the

Integration Advisor.

The Integration Advisor In Action

Now that you have read so much about Integration Advisor, you are prob-
ably eager to see it in action. We are going to use an example to show you
how you can benefit from the Integration Advisor. The goal is to establish
a B2B connection exchanging purchase orders between a car manufac-
turer located in Germany and a supplier. The car manufacturer runs a
classic SAP system sending IDocs, whereas the supplier expects the mes-
sage in EDIFACT format on an SFTP server. The resulting integration flow
is depicted in Figure 1.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 8

 Integration Advisor

Figure 1 Simple Integration Flow For Connecting The Car Manufacturer With The Supplier

You can identify the IDoc sender on the left and the SFTP receiver on the
right side of the flow. In between, the mapping step takes care of provid-
ing the right format to the supplier. The Integration Advisor will help us
now to create the following:

» The concrete input message by defining a respective Message Imple-

mentation Guideline (MIG).
» The (usually complex) mapping for our particular flow by defining the
associated Mapping Guideline (MAG).

This will take us just a few clicks. Let’s begin with the definition of the MIG.

Current Limitation
As mentioned above, the Integration Advisor currently supports only eight
different ISO 20022 message types. As a consequence, it is not possible to
create MAGs, because there is currently no unlimited support of any other
B2B standard.
When reading this section, be aware of the fact that you can only create ISO
20022-based MIGs.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 9

 Integration Advisor

Defining a Message Implementation Guideline

You will find the Integration Advisor embedded in SAP HCI’s Web UI as
part of defining the contents of an integration package. It is important to
switch to the Documents tab once you have opened the integration
package (Figure 2).

Integration Advisor
accessible on the
Documents tab

Figure 2 Adding a New Message Implementation Guideline

Switch to edit mode and click on the Add drop-down box and select Mes-
sage Implementation Guideline menu entry (see Figure 2) to open the
wizard for defining the input message of our scenario. If you don’t see the
Mapping Guideline and Message Implementation Guideline entries on
your tenant, you most probably haven’t licensed SAP HCI Professional
Edition. The Integration Advisor is activated in the Professional Edition
only.

The wizard will walk you through four basic steps (left bar of Figure 3).

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 10

 Integration Advisor

Figure 3 Selecting the Correct Template from the B2B Libraries

In the first step you have to assign the respective B2B library for the
incoming message. Ask yourself: is your message an ISO message, an
IDoc, or an EDIFACT message? In our case this question is easy to answer
and we select the SAP IDoc entry from the list (Figure 3). Once the entry
has been selected, you will automatically see a list of available IDoc mes-
sages in the library. From the list pick the document relevant for your sce-
nario. In our example, it is the ORDERS message (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Selecting Concrete IDoc Message

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 11

 Integration Advisor

Click on Next to proceed to the second step, which allows us to provide a

new name for the MIG we are going to create (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Providing A Name For The Incoming Message

Now comes one of the most important steps in MIG creation. This step
allows us to define the business context for which the new MIG is valid.
You can choose from four categories to select a value for the business con-
text:

» Business Process
» Countries
» Business Process Role
» Industry Classification
Figure 6 shows how to select the Industry Classification category and
Figure 7 depicts possible options within that category such as Travel
Agencies or Industrial Machinery.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 12

 Integration Advisor

Figure 6 Providing the Business Context

Figure 7 Choosing Industry Classifications

In order to make the business context as precise as possible, we recom-

mended that you combine values from different categories. Figure 8
shows how to combine values from the Industry Classification and the
Countries categories. By providing these values you achieve two goals:

1. The Integration Advisor can find the best fit for your given business
context while searching its integration knowledge base for messages
after you have finished the wizard.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 13

 Integration Advisor

2. Once you finish the definition of your new MIG, the business context
you have just defined will be associated with these categories, increas-
ing the accuracy of future searches.

Figure 8 Choosing Countries

Once you are done with the definition of the business context, you will
see a summary of your selections in the fourth step (Figure 9). Finalize the
wizard by clicking the Finish button.

Figure 9 Finished Business Context Definition

The Integration Advisor searches its integration knowledge base for the
best fit for the given search criteria. It shows you the structure of the

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 14

 Integration Advisor

found message including the fields, dependencies, and accuracies (Figure

10).

Figure 10 Dialog For Selecting Dedicated Fields From The IDoc

One of the most valuable features of the Integration Advisor is the use of
the Accuracy Filter shown at the top of Figure 10 and enlarged in Figure
11).

Figure 11 Using The Accuracy Filter For Reducing The Number Of Fields

By moving the slider to the right, you increase the accuracy level for the
found fields. Accuracy for a field here means how well a field fits to the
given search criteria, especially considering the business context. If a field
has been used frequently in MIGs with comparable search criteria, the
respective accuracy level is higher compared to a field that is rarely used.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 15

 Integration Advisor

Consequently, by moving the slider to the right and increasing the accu-
racy level, you eliminate fields from the original MIG which don’t fulfill
the accuracy requirements. Hence, you are able to concentrate on fields
that play an important role in a given business context.

Once the slider has been applied, you can select the fields which should
be part of your own, newly-created MIG. Figure 12 depicts the list of
fields after adjusting the accuracy level. In the Accuracy column you can
easily identify how well a field fits your needs by color (green, blue, and
orange for example) and the number of colored bars. By selecting the
checkbox in front of each field you influence whether a field ends up in
the new MIG or not. In Figure 12 all fields have been selected. Once you
are done with your selection, click on Save to add your MIG to the Inte-
gration Advisor’s integration knowledge base. This concludes the creation
of a new message implementation guideline.

Figure 12 Selecting The Fields For The Incoming Message

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 16

 Integration Advisor

Defining a Mapping Guideline

We continue our journey with the creation of a new mapping guideline
(MAG). We start like we did while creating an MIG, by switching to the
Documents tab of our integration package and choosing Add 폷 Mapping
Guideline from the respective drop-down menu (Figure 13).

Figure 13 Adding A Mapping Guideline

Again, a four step wizard opens starting with a dialog box to provide a
unique name for your new MAG (Figure 14). Continue by clicking the
Next button.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 17

 Integration Advisor

Figure 14 Providing The Mapping Guideline’s Name

During the second and third step you need to select the structures of the
source (second step) and the target message (third step). A free-text search
field allows you to narrow down your search for each of the messages. In
our example, we want to forward an incoming IDoc order to an SFTP
server using the EDIFACT structure. Respective screenshots depicted in
Figure 15 for the source and Figure 16 for the target message explain how
to apply the search field correctly to get the appropriate proposals.

Figure 15 Searching And Selecting The Source Message

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 18

 Integration Advisor

Figure 16 Searching And Selecting The Target Message

On the fourth and last wizard step you can review your parameters before
you hand over your request to the Integration Advisor in order to find the
best fit for the given data. Click on Finish to start the search (Figure 17).

Figure 17 Reviewing The Chosen Parameters

Once the search finishes, you will get a mapping proposal, as depicted in
Figure 18.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 19

 Integration Advisor

Figure 18 Reviewing The Proposed Mappings

Switch to the Mapping Entities tab to verify and select the mappings
you’d like to apply for your concrete scenario (Figure 19).

The relevance of a mapping is visually represented by colored bars in the

Quality column of Figure 19. By checking the respective checkbox in
front of the mapping, you add it to the MAG you are currently defining.
You will automatically see a visual representation of the mapping in the
upper part of the screen by lines connecting the two fields of the source
and target messages. Once you finish your selection of appropriate field
mappings, store the MAG in Integration Advisor’s integration knowledge
base by clicking the Save button (Figure 19). This mapping can now be
applied in the mapping step of our initial scenario depicted in Figure 1.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 20

 Integration Advisor

Figure 19 Selecting The Mappings For Your Particular Integration Flow

Summary

In this chapter you learned about the challenges commonly encountered

in B2B integration projects and how the Integration Advisor can help to
solve these difficulties in B2B projects. In essence, we can summarize the
following key aspects of using Integration Advisor:

» It allows you to exchange electronic business documents with your

business partners and work collaboratively on them.
» It enables you to communicate and integrate with business partners by
letting you create, design, and specify message implementation guide-
lines (MIG) in the context of your business scenarios.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 21

 Integration Advisor

» It provides intuitive mapping suggestions to you based on the analysis

of your business scenarios.

By using the Integration Advisor, B2B implementation projects can be

accelerated significantly. At the same time valuable knowledge will be
conserved for future comparable projects due to the Integration Advisor’s
crowd-sourcing approach. Although the Integration Advisor’s functional-
ity was mainly motivated by typical B2B integration challenges, we can
identify similar problems in today’s application-to-application (A2A)
implementations. As the Integration Advisor’s concepts are rather
generic, the solution also contributes to streamlined implementations of
A2A integrations. At the end of the chapter you saw the Integration Advi-
sor in action and implemented a small scenario exchanging order docu-
ments between business partners.

© Rheinwerk Publishing, Boston 2016 22