Need clarifications in using push notifications

[former_member184739]

Hi All,

  I am working in a POC for one of the client to demonstrate push notifications from SAP backend. After doing some analysis i am ending up here to post some queries to get some piece of advise from experts.

Scenario : Whenever Business partner is created or changed need to notify the users ( Mobile : iOS/Android Desktop : Chrome browser).

System details :Our backend is SAP CRM with Netweaver release 7.4 SP7 and SAP Gateway is embedded over CRM(GW_FND).

Now if i want to implement push notifications i believe am having 2 options to develop this.

Solutions :

1.ABAP push channels (APC) as of SAP NW 7.4 SP5

2.SAP Gateway push notification framework

Please let me know which one to start with. Thanks for the help !!!

Regards

Prabaharan Asokan

[former_member184739]

Hi Experts,

I posted the similiar question in ABAP forum for knowing more about APC & Gateway notification capabilities as shown below.

@Gateway colleagues,

Please see the thread chain and could you please let us know what are the capabilities about APC, Gateway push notification features and additional notification possibilities implemented in Gateway using APC(PoC) . Thanks for the help.

Regards

Prabaharan Asokan

[Andre_Fischer]

Hi Prabaharan,

which type of notification you should use depends on your scenario / requirements.

The basic difference between the the notifications supported by SAP Gateway and the APC is that the notifications used by SAP Gateway are of an "offline" type while APC is more an "online" type of notification that can be used in realtime scenarios.

The reason is that in order to receive a notification via APC the user has to be logged on to the system while the notifications used by SAP Gateway are simply send via HTTP POST to some destination that has been specified by the user when he subscribed for being notified of changes.

If you want to use notifications in a mobile scenario you will also need a mobile platform such as SMP that takes the notification and sends it to the correct device.

Since you are using a platform that supports both types of notifications you have the choice .

Best Regards,

Andre

[former_member184739]

Hi Andre,

Thanks for the details. Really good piece of information. Here are my understandings and analysis to startwith going forward.

1.APC will work until user agent is active(logged) otherwise notification will be missed. So only for online scenarios as suggsted.

2.Could you please give more thoughts on "notifications used by SAP Gateway are of an "offline"  type  " ? Does this mean user goes offline and once return online will the notification pushed again ? An example or an use case would be ideal to hear from you.

3. There is no single mechanism to handle notification which can handle both mobile devices as well as desktop browsers(modern). However as of now we can make use of below frameworks.

APC(Web sockets) or Gateway notifications can be used to target desktop browsers provided the user agent is active. i.e.,Web page has to be open and the user is logged in.

Gateway push notifications along SAP Mobile platfom (Android (GCM), Apple (APNS), and Blackberry (BIS/BES) is suitable for mobile scenarios.

Also i came across this interesting article discussing about push notifications using Push API / Notifications API / Service workers for HTML5 browsers.This allow sending a push message and showing a notification regardless the web page is open or not.

http://updates.html5rocks.com/2015/03/push-notificatons-on-the-open-web#disqus_thread

I will do some reseach on these advanced topics and will try to integrate with SAP Gateway framework. Hopefully i will share my analysis  in 2 or 3 weeks.

Pleased suggest if you have any thoughts to share. Thanks for the help Andre.

Regards

Prabaharan Asokan

[former_member184739]

Hi Andre,

Did you have a chance to look on above reply from your response  and shed some lights for better clarifications ? Appreciate your help.

Regards

Prabaharan Asokan