Punch-out Validate function in SRM 7.0

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are a supplier/distributer and many customers use punch-out to access our web shop. We are recently being told by some customers that have upgraded to SRM 7.0 that our Validate function is not compatible with SRM 7.0. For example one customer is saying that a hook_url is no longer sent and that we have to send the repsonse back direct to their SRM 7.0 server - what does that entail? I have tried to look for a specification but with no luck. Please can someone throw any light on the differences between SRM 7.0 and previous versions?

Kind regards,

Mark

[timea_geczi]

Hello Mark,

the main change with the introduction of SRM 7.0 was to use ABAP WebDynpro instead of ITS, like in earlier versions.

SAP note 1287412 describes the most important prerequisites of the OCI integration in SRM 7.0.

The main points for you as a catalog provider are:

1. OCI version 4.0 or higher is mandatory, for service hierarchy OCI 4.01 or 5.0.

...

4.  Catalog providers should comply with the specifications as defined in all OCI specifications while processing the following parameters:

HOOK_URL parameter (type Return URL)

This URL is used to return to SRM from the catalog application.
The value of this field is automatically filled at runtime by the procurement application.

The HOOK_URL can have a different name, but the type of this field must be set to Return URL. The HOOK_URL is encoded so that special characters such as ':' and '/' are represented by '%'  and the hex digits for the ASCII code of the characters. The encoding method is standard URL encoding. The catalog application is responsible for decoding this string into a valid URL. Note that
the catalog application must not make any assumptions about the HOOK_URL. For example, it cannot assume that a question mark is present to delineate the URL variables.

The complete HOOK_URL sent from SRM must be used to return the data.

Target

Specifies the frame to which a catalog is to return data in a frame-based environment.

Catalog providers must ensure that they post to a specific target which is defined and supplied by SRM. This can be verified in the "form tag" in the HTML that is sent by the catalog:

<form action="<Hook URL sent by SRM>" target="<value of
returntarget sent by SRM>" method="POST">

#

</form>

I hope this information helps you.

Best regards,

Timea