Question from a rookie

[Former Member]

Hi friends,

Been looking at the forum for the last 3 days and there is a lot of info to digest.  Wanted to see if someone can point me somewhere where I can find on how to get started. 

I have been doing SAP for the last 15 yrs mostly doing ABAP and functional work.  I need an understanding on what it takes to build a simple app on an android device that triggers a custom transaction (ZFB05 - Lets say it pulls a list of FI documents).

I know it can be easily done in R/3 but doing a little custom program to read BKPF, BSEG etc and compile the list of documents based on selection criteria and list them out on the screen.

But how do we do it for a Mobile app ?  Any help is highly appreciated..

best regards

Prashant

[Former Member]

Srinivas & Ryan,

First of all, thanks so much for your responses and sorry for being away from the forum for a few days.. 

Lets go further into option 2 since it may be the popular one (at least from what I can tell)...

Lets say I create a function module in R/3 and make it RFC enabled.  This function would have the import parameters that would be from the selection criteria. And running it in R/3 will give me the desired results.  Now, what are the hardware/software requirements for option 2 ?  SUP ? middleware ?  And where is the screen built (R/3 or SUP or something else ?).

Ryan-

Like your option too but not sure if the guys I am helping out, have Netweaver Portal on 7.3.  I need to check.  but my question still is, about steps on  designing the screen somewhere and installing it on the phone and connecting it to netweaver etc..  sorry .. more  questions..

thanks in advance..

Prashant

[Ryan-Crosby]

Hi Prashant,

If you find they have Netweaver Portal 7.3 and would like to consider trying Portal on Device then there are no screens to install.  Everything is managed via HTTP request/response cycle so it's like viewing any old web page.  This site has a wealth of information on using jQuery mobile: http://jquerymobile.com/test/index.html

Regards,

Ryan Crosby

[Former Member]

Hi Prashant,

If I understand correctly at the end you want a simple which can get the data from a BAPI, let's say a custom BAPI, there are three ways you could go for

1 . Expose it as a webservice  and consume it from the android device.(cons: not so secured)

2.  Using SUP, where you could create a MBO (Mobile Business Object) out of an RFC/BAPI, and deploy the project in unwired server (a middleware) and make use of the generated code which can be used in the native application developement

3. Using Netweaver Gateway, in netweaver gateway you convert an RFC/BAPI as a oData Service (REST based) at Netweaver Gateway, any device should be able to talk to, SUP you can have it optional

Option 2. or 3 are highly recomened for any SAP Integration with Mobile

That was a very basic summery as there are lot information which is available  here

As you would like to use selection criteria, probably you could go for option 2  community for netweaver gateway is at http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-gateway

Thanks and Regards,

Srinivas Divakarla

[Ryan-Crosby]

Hi Prashant,

There is an option 4 if you have a Netweaver portal running 7.3 SP7 or higher.  Expose an application in the portal as an iView (using the portal on device framework) that goes to the R/3 backend to retrieve the data via a BAPI through webservice or an RFC.  I've been prototyping some work in here and it's easy enough to expose an almost native looking application using JSP/servlets to generate the HTML5 on the client device.

Regards,

Ryan Crosby