Integrating WebDynpros to CRM WebUI - impossible?

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

My client is upgrading from PCUI (CRM 5.0) to WebUI (CRM 5.2). We have a WebDynpro (using ABAP) application that lists out sales orders for various customers. On clicking a Sales order #, the application used to pull up the PCUI view of the sales order. We would like to retain the WebDynpro and integrate it with the WebUI framework to accomplish the same functionality. (i.e to deploy the WebDynpro within the WebUI framework and have the ability to navigate in and out Sales order WebUI component from the WebDynpro).

My developers tell me that there is no simple means to integrate the WebDynpro to the WebUI framework and that we will have redevelop the entire application in WebUI from scratch. I find this hard to believe.

Is this experience or is there a pragmatic solution to integrate WebDynpros with WebUI? If so, what is the technical solution? I did search this forum and internet but could not find any answers so far.

Cheers,

Arun K

[TomVanDoo]

Hi Arun,

I tried the very same. Integrating a WebDynpro into CRM 5.2 WebUi is possible, but it costs a lot of effort and it's not a pretty solution. The way you could work is provide a new view with an iframe in which you embed the webdynpro.

This in itself is already a dirty solution, but if you also want interaction between the WebUI and the Dynpro, it becomes even worse.

Navigating directly between the dynpro and the bsp is not possible. You can however dispatch your WD actions to the BSP actions via Javascript urls href="Javascript(top.document.getElementById('buttonid').click())".

for this you will need invisible buttons in your BSP view that will continue the event handling.

parameters have to be passed via the application server (or via the javascript)

As you can tell, this is a really sloppy solution and will cost you probably more time than just creating a BSP from scratch and using that one.

Greets,

[Former Member]

Hi Arun,

Not sure if this forum would fetch you the right answers.

But from what I have an understanding about how CRM 2007 works, it is a framework which is a combination of BSP layered on WebDynpro architecture. The idea is to have the flexibility of BSP and the power of WebDynpro.

Now one way to 'resue' the webdynpro application is to use the Navigation links in transaction CRMC_UI_NBLINKS. This should be possible since both these applications reside within the same ES repository and require the same authentication for access.

But by doing this, we loose out on the very essence of why we need to remodel applications using CRM WebUI. We would no longer be able to make use of the configuration capability provided by WebUI to render UIs. Thus you would not be able to harness the UI prowess of CRM WebUI in the screen that lists out the Sales Orders. But if that never was your intention in the first place, then you are good to go.

Once you are successful in associating the WD application via the URL launcher, you would still need to build the URL to navigate from the Sales order link to the the subsequent screen (whcih I believe would be the revamped screen from PCUI to WebUI) . This, in my opinion should not be difficult, since :

1) the navigation mechansims is similar in WebDynpro and CRM WebUI

2) There is a provision to build URLs using classes/methods provided in the CRM WebUI framework, I am unsure of the method/class names, but they do exist.

I would not vouch for everything that I have mentioned since its purely conceptual. I have just applied the concepts I am aware of in this situation.

But the bottom line is...Its not impossible and having to start from scratch is definetely an overstatement. However, the way to achieve it completely depends on the nature of your requirement. If deploying tha WD application within WebUI and navigation is the only concern, then it is definetely possible.

Best Regards,

Rashmi.