Understanding Business Intelligence

Though Business Intelligence is technology driven, it is more about Business requirements and less about technology.  BI Champion/ Sponsor in the organization defines the vision and mission.

The leader must have the ability to precisely define the Business intelligence requirements of the organization; the format of the reports; the relationship between the different data elements and version of the data to be used. The leaders need to specify how much history needs to be included; how often the data needs to be provided to the different stakeholders of the process.

BI is then driven by the business objective which may not necessarily always be to reduce the cost or increase the top line/ bottom line for an organization, but to use the data analysis in bringing efficiencies in the process or enhance the service experience for the customer.

The impetus for the BI initiative is the availability of data and technology for data analysis.  Ideally the organization should have at least two or three years of data in electronic format for meaningful analysis. The larger the volume of core data available in the systems, the more meaningful will be the output that can be expected from Business Intelligence.

However it must be recognized that data may not always be structured and data coming from multiple sources may not be in the same format. Data will have to be interpreted on the basis of logical assumptions and data gaps will have to be identified upfront so that changes can be made to business processes at the point of data capture.

The Management must be made aware that resource and time commitment for BI is much higher than resource commitment for IT projects and there must be a high level of management commitment to making the BI project a success.

1. Business leaders and IT analysts will have to allocate substantial amount of time to mapping business requirements to IT system capabilities both during the design and implementation phase of the project.  The leaders and IT developers will have to constantly interact for a proper representation of the Business questions in terms of analytical outputs.

2.      IT professionals involved in the process will have to explain to the Business leadership the nature and meaning of the data that is available in the systems. They will have to clarify how exceptions are to be handled by the leadership and also the limitations of the systems. The implication is that IT resources will also have to make a time commitment for BI.

3. Subject matter experts also have a significant role to play in Business Intelligence projects.  As ultimate users of the system, they are in the best position to test the outputs and validate the significance of the Queries and the outputs derived from such queries.  They have the experience and the ability to flag exceptions and help fix them.  This implies that subject matter experts too need to contribute a significant amount of time for the success of the project.  They may even need to join the project team on a full time basis during the testing phase.

The Project plan must reflect the level of business personnel who will be involved and the organization must be willing to release these people to join the project team as and when a request for their services is made.

It also follows that the project team and all those involved in BI must be open to learning and acquiring the skills that are essential for the effective functioning of the BI system that is being put in place.

Having said all this, it is necessary to point out that Business Intelligence cannot be a time bound project. Nor can the teams be disbanded with the first successful run of a data query or queries.

Query design, testing, redesign and use of new toolsets are inevitable. In short, BI is an evolving system that cannot be pinned down and bounded by traditional project management definitions.

The BI requirements change as business requirements evolve and change. No single requirement definition can be characterized as a permanent, unchanging requirement.  The Business leaders, IT analysts and Subject matter experts will have to be constantly engaged in designing and developing queries; testing the outputs on field formations; obtaining feedback on the usefulness or otherwise of the outputs and exceptions that need to be handled.  It is an iterative process.

It requires the institution of an agile system development and process management approach. Highly skilled personnel must constantly and continuously work together to deliver on the objectives of BI with little requirements being defined upfront with more requirements being designed and refined on the go.

Scope of work will have to be “time-boxed” to each cycle of the project and goals and objectives of each time box will have to be specified separately.  Cycles which cannot be completed within the time specified will have to be deferred and included as part of the future development cycles. As a result, traditional project management methodologies will fail.

Since change is the only constant in BI, definition of a change management strategy is an imperative. The strategy must be built around the recognition that Business requirements change, changing BI requirements/queries; resulting in a change in the type of toolsets used and the skillsets that are required by BI stakeholders.

It should be remembered that People are resistant to change. Consumers of BI reports are no exceptions. They need to be educated about the benefits of the exercise and the producers of the data must be aligned to ensure data quality is never compromised by placing appropriate controls in the systems.

Training needs must be studied, documented; trainings organized whenever there is a change in any one or more components that operationalize the Business Intelligence unit.

The organization must also recognize that reporting requirements and formats will change with every change in the BI requirement. All reporting formats cannot be axed at once and all reporting formats cannot change overnight. The change must be planned and initiated based on schedules that have been agreed upon by the different stakeholders.

Existing reports and tools should be retired gradually and transition periods must be orchestrated carefully and thoughtfully. Trainings must be organized to transition all stakeholders to the new formats.  Organization of workshops and change management seminars must be part and parcel of the Business Intelligence unit’s functioning.

Finally, it must be reiterated that BI is not a project. It is a program.  The solution must dovetail into the existing environment and reinforce the business processes that are in use.  Any data extraction exercise for BI must be done without disturbing the workflow in the organization or impacting the reliability of the information that is being gathered during business operations.

Architecture and Practical Application – BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite

Architecture for BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite

The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite implements a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) custom binding, which contains a single custom transport binding element that enables communication with an SAP system.

The SAP adapter is wrapped by the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK runtime and is exposed to applications through the WCF channel architecture. The SAP adapter communicates with the SAP system through either the 64-bit or 32-bit version of the SAP Unicode RFC SDK (librfc32u.dll).

The following figure shows the end-to-end architecture for solutions that are developed by using the SAP adapter.
SAP End-to-End Architecture
Consuming the Adapter

The SAP adapter exposes the SAP system as a WCF service to client applications. Client applications exchange SOAP messages with the SAP adapter through WCF channels to perform operations and to access data on the SAP system. The preceding figure shows four ways in which the SAP adapter can be consumed.

• Through a WCF channel application that performs operations on the SAP system by using the WCF channel model to exchange SOAP messages directly with the SAP adapter. For more information about developing solutions for the SAP adapter by using WCF channel model programming, see Developing Applications by Using the WCF Channel Model.

• Through a WCF service model application that calls methods on a WCF client to perform operations on the SAP system. A WCF client models the operations exposed by the SAP adapter as .NET methods. You can use the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK or the svcutil.exe tool to create a WCF client class from metadata exposed by the SAP adapter. For more information about WCF service model programming and the SAP adapter, see Developing Applications by Using the WCF Service Model.

• Through a BizTalk port that is configured to use the BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter with the SAP Binding configured as the binding for the WCF-Custom transport type in a BizTalk Server application. The BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter enables communication between a BizTalk Server application and a WCF service.

The BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter supports custom WCF bindings through its WCF-Custom transport type, which enables you to configure any WCF binding exposed to the configuration system as the binding used by the BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter. For more information about how to use the SAP adapter in BizTalk Server solutions, see Developing BizTalk Applications. BizTalk transactions are supported by the BizTalk Layered Channel binding element which can be loaded by setting a binding property on the SAP Binding.

• Through an IIS-hosted Web service. In this scenario, the SAP adapter is exposed through a WCF Service proxy, which is hosted in IIS by using one of the standard WCF HTTP bindings.

• Through the .NET Framework Data Provider for mySAP Business Suite. The Data Provider for SAP runs on top of the SAP adapter and provides an ADO.NET interface to an SAP system.

The SAP adapter and the SAP RFC library are always hosted in-process with the application or service that consumes the adapter.

The SAP Adapter and WCF

WCF presents a programming model based on the exchange of SOAP messages over channels between clients and services. These messages are sent between endpoints exposed by a communicating client and service.

An endpoint consists of an endpoint address which specifies the location at which messages are received, a binding which specifies the communication protocols used to exchange messages, and a contract which specifies the operations and data types exposed by the endpoint.

A binding consists of one or more binding elements that stack on top of each other to define how messages are exchanged with the endpoint.

 

At a minimum, a binding must specify the transport and encoding used to exchange messages with the endpoint. Message exchange between endpoints occurs over a channel stack that is composed of one or more channels. Each channel is a concrete implementation of one of the binding elements in the binding configured for the endpoint.

For more information about WCF and the WCF programming model, see “Windows Communication Foundation” at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=89726.

The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite exposes a WCF custom binding, the SAP Binding (Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPBinding). By default, this binding contains a single custom transport binding element, the SAP Adapter Binding Element (Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPAdapter), which enables operations on an SAP system. When using the SAP adapter with BizTalk Server, you can set the EnableBizTalkCompatibilityMode binding property to load a custom binding element, the BizTalk Layered Channel Binding Element, on top of the SAP Adapter Binding Element. The BizTalk Layered Channel Binding Element is implemented internally by the SAP adapter and is not exposed outside the SAP Binding.

Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPBinding (the SAP Binding) and Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPAdapter (the SAP Adapter Binding Element) are public classes and are also exposed to the configuration system. Because the SAP Adapter Binding Element is exposed publicly, you can build your own custom WCF bindings capable of extending the functionality of the SAP adapter. For example, you could implement a custom binding to support Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) in a WCF channel or a WCF service model programming solution, to aggregate database operations into a single multifunction operation, or to perform schema transformation between operations implemented by a custom application and operations on the SAP system.

The SAP adapter is built on top of the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK and runs on top of the WCF LOB Adapter SDK runtime. The WCF LOB Adapter SDK provides a software framework and tooling infrastructure that the SAP adapter leverages to provide a rich set of features to users and adapter clients.

The Connection to the SAP System

The SAP adapter connects with the SAP system through the SAP Unicode RFC SDK Library (librfc32u.dll). The SAP adapter supports both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions of the SAP RFC SDK. The SAP RFC SDK enables external programs to call ABAP functions on a SAP system.

You establish a connection to an SAP system by providing a connection URI to the SAP adapter. The SAP adapter supports the following kinds of connections to an SAP system:
• An application host–based connection (A), in which the SAP adapter connects directly to an SAP application server.

• A load balancing connection (B), in which the SAP adapter connects to an SAP messaging server.

• A destination-based connection (D), in which the connection to the SAP system is specified by a destination in the saprfc.ini configuration file. A, B, and R type connections are supported.

• A listener connection (R), in which the adapter receives RFCs, tRFC and IDOCs through an RFC Destination on the SAP system that is specified by a listener host, a listener gateway service, and a listener program ID, either directly in the connection URI or by an R-based destination in the saprfc.ini configuration file.

Architecture for BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite

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The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite implements a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) custom binding, which contains a single custom transport binding element that enables communication with an SAP system. The SAP adapter is wrapped by the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK runtime and is exposed to applications through the WCF channel architecture. The SAP adapter communicates with the SAP system through either the 64-bit or 32-bit version of the SAP Unicode RFC SDK (librfc32u.dll). The following figure shows the end-to-end architecture for solutions that are developed by using the SAP adapter.
SAP End-to-End Architecture
Consuming the Adapter

The SAP adapter exposes the SAP system as a WCF service to client applications. Client applications exchange SOAP messages with the SAP adapter through WCF channels to perform operations and to access data on the SAP system. The preceding figure shows four ways in which the SAP adapter can be consumed.
• Through a WCF channel application that performs operations on the SAP system by using the WCF channel model to exchange SOAP messages directly with the SAP adapter. For more information about developing solutions for the SAP adapter by using WCF channel model programming, see Developing Applications by Using the WCF Channel Model.

• Through a WCF service model application that calls methods on a WCF client to perform operations on the SAP system. A WCF client models the operations exposed by the SAP adapter as .NET methods. You can use the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK or the svcutil.exe tool to create a WCF client class from metadata exposed by the SAP adapter. For more information about WCF service model programming and the SAP adapter, see Developing Applications by Using the WCF Service Model.

• Through a BizTalk port that is configured to use the BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter with the SAP Binding configured as the binding for the WCF-Custom transport type in a BizTalk Server application. The BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter enables communication between a BizTalk Server application and a WCF service.

The BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter supports custom WCF bindings through its WCF-Custom transport type, which enables you to configure any WCF binding exposed to the configuration system as the binding used by the BizTalk WCF-Custom adapter. For more information about how to use the SAP adapter in BizTalk Server solutions, see Developing BizTalk Applications.

BizTalk transactions are supported by the BizTalk Layered Channel binding element which can be loaded by setting a binding property on the SAP Binding.

• Through an IIS-hosted Web service. In this scenario, the SAP adapter is exposed through a WCF Service proxy, which is hosted in IIS by using one of the standard WCF HTTP bindings.

• Through the .NET Framework Data Provider for mySAP Business Suite. The Data Provider for SAP runs on top of the SAP adapter and provides an ADO.NET interface to an SAP system.

The SAP adapter and the SAP RFC library are always hosted in-process with the application or service that consumes the adapter.

The SAP Adapter and WCF

WCF presents a programming model based on the exchange of SOAP messages over channels between clients and services. These messages are sent between endpoints exposed by a communicating client and service.

An endpoint consists of an endpoint address which specifies the location at which messages are received, a binding which specifies the communication protocols used to exchange messages, and a contract which specifies the operations and data types exposed by the endpoint. A binding consists of one or more binding elements that stack on top of each other to define how messages are exchanged with the endpoint.

At a minimum, a binding must specify the transport and encoding used to exchange messages with the endpoint. Message exchange between endpoints occurs over a channel stack that is composed of one or more channels. Each channel is a concrete implementation of one of the binding elements in the binding configured for the endpoint.

For more information about WCF and the WCF programming model, see “Windows Communication Foundation” at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=89726.

The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite exposes a WCF custom binding, the SAP Binding (Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPBinding). By default, this binding contains a single custom transport binding element, the SAP Adapter Binding Element (Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPAdapter), which enables operations on an SAP system. When using the SAP adapter with BizTalk Server, you can set the EnableBizTalkCompatibilityMode binding property to load a custom binding element, the BizTalk Layered Channel Binding Element, on top of the SAP Adapter Binding Element. The BizTalk Layered Channel Binding Element is implemented internally by the SAP adapter and is not exposed outside the SAP Binding.

Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPBinding (the SAP Binding) and Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.SAPAdapter (the SAP Adapter Binding Element) are public classes and are also exposed to the configuration system. Because the SAP Adapter Binding Element is exposed publicly, you can build your own custom WCF bindings capable of extending the functionality of the SAP adapter. For example, you could implement a custom binding to support Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) in a WCF channel or a WCF service model programming solution, to aggregate database operations into a single multifunction operation, or to perform schema transformation between operations implemented by a custom application and operations on the SAP system.

The SAP adapter is built on top of the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK and runs on top of the WCF LOB Adapter SDK runtime. The WCF LOB Adapter SDK provides a software framework and tooling infrastructure that the SAP adapter leverages to provide a rich set of features to users and adapter clients.

The Connection to the SAP System

The SAP adapter connects with the SAP system through the SAP Unicode RFC SDK Library (librfc32u.dll). The SAP adapter supports both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions of the SAP RFC SDK. The SAP RFC SDK enables external programs to call ABAP functions on a SAP system.

You establish a connection to an SAP system by providing a connection URI to the SAP adapter. The SAP adapter supports the following kinds of connections to an SAP system:
• An application host–based connection (A), in which the SAP adapter connects directly to an SAP application server.

• A load balancing connection (B), in which the SAP adapter connects to an SAP messaging server.

• A destination-based connection (D), in which the connection to the SAP system is specified by a destination in the saprfc.ini configuration file. A, B, and R type connections are supported.

• A listener connection (R), in which the adapter receives RFCs, tRFC and IDOCs through an RFC Destination on the SAP system that is specified by a listener host, a listener gateway service, and a listener program ID, either directly in the connection URI or by an R-based destination in the saprfc.ini configuration file.

So – How Do I Use a Custom Web Part?

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This section provides information about using a custom Web Part with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. To use a custom Web Part, you must do the following:
1. Create a custom Web Part

1. Deploy the custom Web Part to a SharePoint portal

2. Configure the SharePoint portal to use the custom Web Part

Before You Begin

Before you create a custom Web Part:
• Publish the SAP artifacts as a WCF service. For more information, see Step 1: Publish the SAP Artifacts as a WCF Service in Tutorial 1: Presenting Data from an SAP System on a SharePoint Site.

• Create an application definition file for the SAP artifacts using the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. For more information, see Step 2: Create an Application Definition File for the SAP Artifacts in Tutorial 1: Presenting Data from an SAP System on a SharePoint Site.

Step 1: Create a custom Web Part

To create a custom Web Part using Visual Studio, do the following:
1. Start Visual Studio, and then create a project.

1. In the New Project dialog box, from the Project types pane, select Visual C#. From the Templates pane, select Class Library.

Specify a name and location for the solution. For this topic, specify CustomWebPart in the Name and Solution Name boxes. Specify a location, and then click OK.

Add a reference to the System.Web component into the project. Right-click the project name in Solution Explorer, and then click Add Reference. In the Add Reference dialog box, select System.Web in the .NET tab, and then click OK. The System.Web component contains the required namespace of System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.

Add the required code based on your issue in the project. For the code sample that is relevant to a certain issue, see “Issues Involving Custom Web Parts” in Considerations While Using the SAP Adapter with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Build the project. On successful build of the project, a .dll file, CustomWebPart.dll, will be generated in the /bin/Debug folder.

Only for 64-bit computer: Sign the CustomWebPart.dll file with a strong name before performing the following steps. Otherwise, you will not be able to import, and hence use the CustomWebPart.dll in the SharePoint portal in “Step 3: Configure the SharePoint Portal to use the custom Web Part.” For information about how to sign an assembly with a strong name, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=197171.

Step 2: Deploy the custom Web Part to a SharePoint Portal

You must do the following to make the CustomWebPart.dll file (custom Web Part) that is created in “Step 1: Create a custom Web Part” of this topic usable on the SharePoint portal:
• Copy the CustomWebPart.dll file to the bin folder of the SharePoint Portal: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server creates portals under the :\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories folder. A folder is created for each portal, and can be identified with the port number. You must copy the CustomWebPart.dll file created in “Step 1: Create a custom Web Part” of this topic to the :\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\bin folder. For example, if the port number of your SharePoint portal is 13614, you must copy the CustomWebPart.dll file to the :\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\13614\bin folder.

TipTip

Another way to find the folder location of your SharePoint portal is by using the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager window (Start > Run > inetmgr). Locate your SharePoint portal in the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager window ([computer_name] > Web Sites > [Portal-Name]), right-click, and then click Properties in the shortcut menu. In the properties dialog box of the SharePoint portal, click the Home Directory tab, and then select the Local path box.

• Add the Safe Control Entry in the web.config File: Because the CustomWebPart.dll file will be used on different computers and by multiple users, you must declare the file as “safe.” To do so, open the web.config file located in the SharePoint portal folder at :\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories. Under the section of the web.config file, add the following safe control entry:

◦On 32-bit computer:

Copy

 

◦On 64-bit computer:

Copy

 

Save the web.config file, and then close it.

Step 3: Configure the SharePoint portal to use the custom Web Part

You need to add the custom Web Part to the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Web Part Gallery, so that you can use it on your SharePoint portal. To do so:

1. Start SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Office Server, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

In the left navigation pane, click the name of the Shared Service Provider (SSP) to which you want to add the custom Web Part.

On the Shared Services Administration page, in the upper-right corner, click Site Actions, and then click Create.

On the Site Settings page, click Web Parts under the Galleries column.

On the Web Part Gallery page, to add the custom Web Part to the gallery, click New. At this point the custom Web Part is not available in the Web Part Gallery page.

On the New Web Parts page, locate CustomWebPart (name of the custom Web Part) in the list, select the check box on the left, and then click Populate Gallery on the top of the page. This will add the CustomWebPart entry in the Web Part Gallery page.

Now you can use the custom Web Part (CustomWebPart) to create Web Parts in your SharePoint portal. The custom Web Part (CustomWebPart) will appear under the Miscellaneous section in the Add Web Parts page.

 

BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite and the WCF LOB Adapter SDK

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The Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for mySAP Business Suite implements a set of core components that leverage functionality provided by the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Line of Business (LOB) Adapter SDK and provide connectivity to the SAP system through the SAP Unicode RFC SDK Library (librfc32u.dll).

The WCF LOB Adapter SDK serves as the software layer through which the SAP adapter interfaces with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and the RFC SDK serves as the layer through which the SAP adapter interfaces with the SAP system.

The following figure shows the relationships between the internal components of the SAP adapter and between these components and the RFC SDK.

See

 

SAP Weekend : Part 2 – Using the Microsoft BizTalk Server for B2B Integration with SharePoint

This is Part 2 of my past weekend’s activities with SharePoint and SAP Integration methods.

 

In this post I am looking at how to use the BizTalk Adapter with SharePoint

 

Topics

• Abstract
• Goal
• Business Scenario
• Environment
• Document Flow
• Integration Steps
• .NET Support
• Summary

 

Abstract

In the past few years, the whole perspective of doing business has been moved towards implementing Enterprise Resource Planning Systems for the key areas like marketing, sales and manufacturing operations. Today most of the large organizations which deal with all major world markets, heavily rely on such key areas.

Operational Systems of any organization can be achieved from its worldwide network of marketing teams as well as from manufacturing and distribution techniques. In order to provide customers with realistic information, each of these systems need to be integrated as part of the larger enterprise.

This ultimately results into efficient enterprise overall, providing more reliable information and better customer service. This paper addresses the integration of Biztalk Server and Enterprise Resource Planning System and the need for their integration and their role in the current E-Business scenario.

 

Goal

There are several key business drivers like customers and partners that need to communicate on different fronts for successful business relationship. To achieve this communication, various systems need to get integrated that lead to evaluate and develop B2B Integration Capability and E–Business strategy. This improves the quality of business information at its disposal—to improve delivery times, costs, and offer customers a higher level of overall service.

To provide B2B capabilities, there is a need to give access to the business application data, providing partners with the ability to execute global business transactions. Facing internal integration and business–to–business (B2B) challenges on a global scale, organization needs to look for required solution.

To integrate the worldwide marketing, manufacturing and distribution facilities based on core ERP with variety of information systems, organization needs to come up with strategic deployment of integration technology products and integration service capabilities.

 

Business Scenario

Now take the example of this ABC Manufacturing Company: whose success is the strength of its European-wide trading relationships. Company recognizes the need to strengthen these relationships by processing orders faster and more efficiently than ever before.

The company needed a new platform that could integrate orders from several countries, accepting payments in multiple currencies and translating measurements according to each country’s standards. Now, the bottom line for ABC’s e-strategy was to accelerate order processing. To achieve this: the basic necessity was to eliminate the multiple collections of data and the use of invalid data.

By using less paper, ABC would cut processing costs and speed up the information flow. Keeping this long term goal in mind, ABC Manufacturing Company can now think of integrating its four key countries into a new business-to-business (B2B) platform.

 

Here is another example of this XYZ Marketing Company. Users visit on this company’s website to explore a variety of products for its thousands of customers all over the world. Now this company always understood that they could offer greater benefits to customers if they could more efficiently integrate their customers’ back-end systems. With such integration, customers could enjoy the advantages of highly efficient e-commerce sites, where a visitor on the Web could place an order that would flow smoothly from the website to the customer’s order entry system.

 

Some of those back-end order entry systems are built on the latest, most sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on the market, while others are built on legacy systems that have never been upgraded. Different customers requires information formatted in different ways, but XYZ has no elegant way to transform the information coming out of website to meet customer needs. With the traditional approach:

For each new e-commerce customer on the site, XYZ’s staff needs to work for significant amounts of time creating a transformation application that would facilitate the exchange of information. But with better approach: XYZ needs a robust messaging solution that would provide the flexibility and agility to meet a range of customer needs quickly and effectively. Now again XYZ can think of integrating Customer Backend Systems with the help of business-to-business (B2B) platform.

 

Environment

Many large scale organizations maintain a centralized SAP environment as its core enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The SAP system is used for the management and processing of all global business processes and practices. B2B integration mainly relies on the asynchronous messaging, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and XML document transformation mechanisms to facilitate the transformation and exchange of information between any ERP System and other applications including legacy systems.

For business document routing, transformation, and tracking, existing SAP-XML/EDI technology road map needs XML service engine. This will allow development of complex set of mappings from and to SAP to meet internal and external XML/EDI technology and business strategy. Microsoft BizTalk Server is the best choice to handle the data interchange and mapping requirements. BizTalk Server has the most comprehensive development and management support among business-to-business platforms. Microsoft BizTalk Server and BizTalk XML Framework version 2.0 with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) version 1.1 provide precisely the kind of messaging solution that is needed to facilitate integration with cost effective manner.

 

Document Flow

Friends, now let’s look at the actual flow of document from Source System to Customer Target System using BizTalk Server. When a document is created, it is sent to a TCP/IP-based Application Linking and Enabling (ALE) port—a BizTalk-based receive function that is used for XML conversion. Then the document passes the XML to a processing script (VBScript) that is running as a BizTalk Application Integration Component (AIC). The following figure shows how BizTalk Server acts as a hub between applications that reside in two different organizations:

The data is serialized to the customer/vendor XML format using the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) generated from the BizTalk Mapper using a BizTalk channel. The XML document is sent using synchronous Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) or another requested transport protocol such as the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), as specified by the customer.

The following figure shows steps for XML document transformation:

The total serialized XML result is passed back to the processing script that is running as a BizTalk AIC. An XML “receipt” document then is created and submitted to another BizTalk channel that serializes the XML status document into a SAP IDOC status message. Finally, a Remote Function Call (RFC) is triggered to the SAP instance/client using a compiled C++/VB program to update the SAP IDOC status record. A complete loop of document reconciliation is achieved. If the status is not successful, an e-mail message is created and sent to one of the Support Teams that own the customer/vendor business XML/EDI transactions so that the conflict can be resolved. All of this happens instantaneously in a completely event-driven infrastructure between SAP and BizTalk.

Integration Steps

Let’s talk about a very popular Order Entry and tracking scenario while discussing integration hereafter. The following sections describe the high-level steps required to transmit order information from Order Processing pipeline Component into the SAP/R3 application, and to receive order status update information from the SAP/R3 application.

The integration of AFS purchase order reception with SAP is achieved using the BizTalk Adapter for SAP (BTS-SAP). The IDOC handler is used by the BizTalk Adapter to provide the transactional support for bridging tRFC (Transactional Remote Function Calls) to MSMQ DTC (Distributed Transaction Coordinator). The IDOC handler is a COM object that processes IDOC documents sent from SAP through the Com4ABAP service, and ensures their successful arrival at the appropriate MSMQ destination. The handler supports the methods defined by the SAP tRFC protocol. When integrating purchase order reception with the SAP/R3 application, BizTalk Server (BTS) provides the transformation and messaging functionality, and the BizTalk Adapter for SAP provides the transport and routing functionality.

The following two sequential steps indicate how the whole integration takes place:

• Purchase order reception integration
• Order Status Update Integration

Purchase Order Reception Integration

1. Suppose a new pipeline component is added to the Order Processing pipeline. This component creates an XML document that is equivalent to the OrderForm object that is passed through the pipeline. This XML purchase order is in Commerce Server Order XML v1.0 format, and once created, is sent to a special Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) queue created specifically for this purpose.Writing the order from the pipeline to MSMQ:>

   The first step in sending order data to the SAP/R3 application involves building a new pipeline component to run within the Order Processing pipeline. This component must perform the following two tasks:

   A] Make an XML-formatted copy of the OrderForm object that is passing through the order processing pipeline. The GenerateXMLForDictionaryUsingSchema method of the DictionaryXMLTransforms object is used to create the copy.

    

   Private Function IPipelineComponent_Execute(ByVal objOrderForm As Object, _
       ByVal objContext As Object, ByVal lFlags As Long) As Long
   
   On Error GoTo ERROR_Execute
   
   Dim oXMLTransforms As Object
   Dim oXMLSchema As Object
   Dim oOrderFormXML As Object
   
   ' Return 1 for Success.
   IPipelineComponent_Execute = 1
   
   ' Create a DictionaryXMLTransforms object.
   Set oXMLTransforms = CreateObject("Commerce.DictionaryXMLTransforms")
   
   ' Create a PO schema object.
   Set oXMLSchema = oXMLTransforms.GetXMLFromFile(sSchemaLocation)
   
   ' Create an XML version of the order form.
   Set oOrderFormXML = oXMLTransforms.GenerateXMLForDictionaryUsingSchema_
       (objOrderForm, oXMLSchema)
   
   WritePO2MSMQ sQueueName, oOrderFormXML.xml, PO_TO_ERP_QUEUE_LABEL, _
       sBTSServerName, AFS_PO_MAXTIMETOREACHQUEUE
   
   Exit Function
   
   ERROR_Execute:
   App.LogEvent "QueuePO.CQueuePO -> Execute Error: " & _
   vbCrLf & Err.Description, vbLogEventTypeError
   
   ' Set warning level.
   IPipelineComponent_Execute = 2
   Resume Next
   
   End Function

   B] Send the newly created XML order document to the MSMQ queue defined for this purpose.

    

   Option Explicit
   
   ' MSMQ constants.
   
   ' Access modes.
   Const MQ_RECEIVE_ACCESS = 1
   Const MQ_SEND_ACCESS = 2
   Const MQ_PEEK_ACCESS = 32
   
   ' Sharing modes. Const MQ_DENY_NONE = 0
   Const MQ_DENY_RECEIVE_SHARE = 1
   
   ' Transaction options. Const MQ_NO_TRANSACTION = 0
   Const MQ_MTS_TRANSACTION = 1
   Const MQ_XA_TRANSACTION = 2
   Const MQ_SINGLE_MESSAGE = 3
   
   ' Error messages.
   Const MQ_ERROR_QUEUE_NOT_EXIST = -1072824317
   
   ' MQ Message ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
   Const MQMSG_ACKNOWLEDGMENT_FULL_REACH_QUEUE = 5
   Const MQMSG_ACKNOWLEDGMENT_FULL_RECEIVE = 14
   Const DEFAULT_MAX_TIME_TO_REACH_QUEUE = 20
   ' MQ Message ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
   Const MQMSG_ACKNOWLEDGMENT_FULL_REACH_QUEUE = 5
   Const MQMSG_ACKNOWLEDGMENT_FULL_RECEIVE = 14
   
   Function WritePO2MSMQ(sQueueName As String, sMsgBody As String, _
       sMsgLabel As String, sServerName As String, _
       Optional MaxTimeToReachQueue As Variant) As Long
   
   Dim lMaxTime As Long
   
   If IsMissing(MaxTimeToReachQueue) Then
   lMaxTime = DEFAULT_MAX_TIME_TO_REACH_QUEUE
   Else
   lMaxTime = MaxTimeToReachQueue
   End If
   
   Dim objQueueInfo As MSMQ.MSMQQueueInfo
   Dim objQueue As MSMQ.MSMQQueue, objAdminQueue As MSMQ.MSMQQueue
   Dim objQueueMsg As MSMQ.MSMQMessage
   
   On Error GoTo MSMQ_Error
   
   Set objQueueInfo = New MSMQ.MSMQQueueInfo
   objQueueInfo.FormatName = "DIRECT=OS:" & sServerName & "\PRIVATE$\" & sQueueName
   
   Set objQueue = objQueueInfo.Open(MQ_SEND_ACCESS, MQ_DENY_NONE)
   
   Set objQueueMsg = New MSMQ.MSMQMessage
   
   objQueueMsg.Label = sMsgLabel ' Set the message label property
   objQueueMsg.Body = sMsgBody ' Set the message body property
   objQueueMsg.Ack = MQMSG_ACKNOWLEDGMENT_FULL_REACH_QUEUE
   objQueueMsg.MaxTimeToReachQueue = lMaxTime
   
   objQueueMsg.send objQueue, MQ_SINGLE_MESSAGE
   
   objQueue.Close
   
   On Error Resume Next
   Set objQueueMsg = Nothing
   Set objQueue = Nothing
   Set objQueueInfo = Nothing
   
   Exit Function
   
   MSMQ_Error:
   App.LogEvent "Error in WritePO2MSMQ: " & Error
   Resume Next
   
   End Function
   

2. A BTS MSMQ receive function picks up the document from the MSMQ queue and sends it to a BTS channel that has been configured for this purpose. Receiving the XML order from MSMQ: The second step in sending order data to the SAP/R3 application involves BTS receiving the order data from the MSMQ queue into which it was placed at the end of the first step. You must configure a BTS MSMQ receive function to monitor the MSMQ queue to which the XML order was sent in the previous step. This receive function forwards the XML message to the configured BTS channel for transformation.
3. The third step in sending order data to the SAP/R3 application involves BTS transforming the order data from Commerce Server Order XML v1.0 format into ORDERS01 IDOC format. A BTS channel must be configured to perform this transformation. After the transformation is complete, the BTS channel sends the resulting ORDERS01 IDOC message to the corresponding BTS messaging port. The BTS messaging port is configured to send the transformed message to an MSMQ queue called the 840 Queue. Once the message is placed in this queue, the BizTalk Adapter for SAP is responsible for further processing. 
4. BizTalk Adapter for SAP sends the ORDERS01document to the DCOM Connector (Get more information on DCOM Connector from www.sap.com/bapi), which writes the order to the SAP/R3 application. The DCOM Connector is an SAP software product that provides a mechanism to send data to, and receive data from, an SAP system. When an IDOC message is placed in the 840 Queue, the DOM Connector retrieves the message and sends it to SAP for processing. Although this processing is in the domain of the BizTalk Adapter for SAP, the steps involved are reviewed here as background information:
   • Determine the version of the IDOC schema in use and generate a BizTalk Server document specification.
   • Create a routing key from the contents of the Control Record of the IDOC schema.
   • Request a SAP Destination from the Manager Data Store given the constructed routing key.
   • Submit the IDOC message to the SAP System using the DCOM Connector 4.6D Submit functionality.

Order Status Update Integration

Order status update integration can be achieved by providing a mechanism for sending information about updates made within the SAP/R3 application back to the Commerce Server order system.

The following sequence of steps describes such a mechanism:

1. BizTalk Adapter for SAP processing:
   After a user has updated a purchase order using the SAP client, and the IDOC has been submitted to the appropriate tRFC port, the BizTalk Adapter for SAP uses the DCOM connector to send the resulting information to the 840 Queue, packaged as an ORDERS01 IDOC message. The 840 Queue is an MSMQ queue into which the BizTalk Adapter for SAP places IDOC messages so that they can be retrieved and processed by interested parties. This process is within the domain of the BizTalk Adapter for SAP, and is used by this solution to achieve the order update integration.
2. Receiving the ORDERS01 IDOC message from MSMQ:
   The second step in updating order status from the SAP/R3 application involves BTS receiving ORDERS01 IDOC message from the MSMQ queue (840 Queue) into which it was placed at the end of the first step. You must configure a BTS MSMQ receive function to monitor the 840 Queue into which the XML order status message was placed. This receive function must be configured to forward the XML message to the configured BTS channel for transformation.
3. Transforming the order update from IDOC format:
   Using a BTS MSMQ receive function, the document is retrieved and passed to a BTS transformation channel. The BTS channel transforms the ORDERS01 IDOC message into Commerce Server Order XML v1.0 format, and then forwards it to the corresponding BTS messaging port. You must configure a BTS channel to perform this transformation.The following BizTalk Server (BTS) map demonstrates in the prototyping of this solution for transforming an SAP ORDERS01 IDOC message into an XML document in Commerce Server Order XML v1.0 format. It allows a change to an order in the SAP/R3 application to be reflected in the Commerce Server orders database.

   This map used in the prototype only maps the order ID, demonstrating how the order in the SAP/R3 application can be synchronized with the order in the Commerce Server orders database. The mapping of other fields is specific to a particular implementation, and was not done for the prototype.

 

< xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform' 
xmlns:msxsl='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt' xmlns:var='urn:var' 
xmlns:user='urn:user' exclude-result-prefixes='msxsl var user' 
version='1.0'>
< xsl:output method='xml' omit-xml-declaration='yes' />
< xsl:template match='/'>
< xsl:apply-templates select='ORDERS01'/>
< /xsl:template>
< xsl:template match='ORDERS01'>
< orderform>

'Connection from source node "BELNR" to destination node "OrderID"

< xsl:if test='E2EDK02/@BELNR'>
< xsl:attribute name='OrderID'>
; < xsl:value-of select='E2EDK02/@BELNR'/>
< /xsl:attribute>
< /xsl:if>
< /orderform>
< /xsl:template>
< /xsl:stylesheet>

The BTS message port posts the transformed order update document to the configured ASP page for further processing. The configured ASP page retrieves the message posted to it and uses the Commerce Server OrderGroupManager and OrderGroup objects to update the order status information in the Commerce Server orders database.

Updating the Commerce Server order system:
The fourth step in updating order status from the SAP/R3 application involves updating the Commerce Server order system to reflect the change in status. This is accomplished by adding the page _OrderStatusUpdate.asp to the AFS Solution Site and configuring the BTS messaging port to post the transformed XML document to that page. The update is performed using the Commerce Server OrderGroupManager and OrderGroup objects.

 

The routine ProcessOrderStatus is the primary routine in the page. It uses the DOM and XPath to extract enough information to find the appropriate order using the OrderGroupManager object. Once the correct order is located, it is loaded into an OrderGroup object so that any of the entries in the OrderGroup object can be updated as needed.

The following code implements page _OrderStatusUpdate.asp:

 

< %@ Language="VBScript" %>

< % 
const TEMPORARY_FOLDER = 2

call Main()

Sub Main()
call ProcessOrderStatus( ParseRequestForm() )
End Sub

Sub ProcessOrderStatus(sDocument)

Dim oOrderGroupMgr 
Dim oOrderGroup 
Dim rs
Dim sPONum
Dim oAttr 
Dim vResult
Dim vTracking 
Dim oXML
Dim dictConfig
Dim oElement

Set oOrderGroupMgr = Server.CreateObject("CS_Req.OrderGroupManager")
Set oOrderGroup = Server.CreateObject("CS_Req.OrderGroup")

Set oXML = Server.CreateObject("MSXML.DOMDocument")
oXML.async = False

If oXML.loadXML (sDocument) Then

' Get the orderform element.
Set oElement = oXML.selectSingleNode("/orderform")

' Get the poNum.
sPONum = oElement.getAttribute("OrderID")

Set dictConfig = Application("MSCSAppConfig").GetOptionsDictionary("")

' Use ordergroupmgr to find the order by OrderID.
oOrderGroupMgr.Initialize (dictConfig.s_CatalogConnectionString)
Set rs = oOrderGroupMgr.Find(Array("order_requisition_number='" sPONum & "'"), _
    Array(""), Array(""))

If rs.EOF And rs.BOF Then
'Create a new one. - Not implemented in this version.
Else
' Edit the current one.
oOrderGroup.Initialize dictConfig.s_CatalogConnectionString, rs("User_ID")

' Load the found order.
oOrderGroup.LoadOrder rs("ordergroup_id")

' For the purposes of prototype, we only update the status
oOrderGroup.Value.order_status_code = 2 ' 2 = Saved order

' Save it
vResult = oOrderGroup.SaveAsOrder(vTracking)

End If
Else
WriteError "Unable to load received XML into DOM."
End If

End Sub Function ParseRequestForm()

Dim PostedDocument
Dim ContentType
Dim CharSet
Dim EntityBody
Dim Stream
Dim StartPos
Dim EndPos

ContentType = Request.ServerVariables( "CONTENT_TYPE" )

' Determine request entity body character set (default to us-ascii).
CharSet = "us-ascii"
StartPos = InStr( 1, ContentType, "CharSet=""", 1)
If (StartPos > 0 ) then
StartPos = StartPos + Len("CharSet=""")
EndPos = InStr( StartPos, ContentType, """",1 )
CharSet = Mid (ContentType, StartPos, EndPos - StartPos )
End If

' Check for multipart MIME message.
PostedDocument = ""

if ( ContentType = "" or Request.TotalBytes = 0) then

' Content-Type is required as well as an entity body.
Response.Status = "406 Not Acceptable"
Response.Write "Content-type or Entity body is missing" & VbCrlf
Response.Write "Message headers follow below:" & VbCrlf
Response.Write Request.ServerVariables("ALL_RAW") & VbCrlf
Response.End
Else
If ( InStr( 1,ContentType,"multipart/" ) >

.NET Support

This Multi-Tier Application Environment can be implemented successfully with the help of Web portal which utilizes the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server model. The Microsoft BizTalk Server Toolkit for Microsoft .NET provides the ability to leverage the power of XML Web services and Visual Studio .NET to build dynamic, transaction-based, fault-tolerant systems with full access to existing applications.

Summary

Microsoft BizTalk Server can help organizations quickly establish and manage Internet relationships with other organizations. It makes it possible for them to automate document interchange with any other organization, regardless of the conversion requirements and data formats used. This provides a cost-effective approach for integrating business processes across large Enterprises Resource Planning Systems. Integration process designed to facilitate collaborative e-commerce business processes. The process includes a document interchange engine, a business process execution engine, and a set of business document and server management tools. In addition, a business document editor and mapper tools are provided for managing trading partner relationships, administering server clusters, and tracking transactions.

References

• www.microsoft.com/biztalk
• MSDN

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Must have Tool for BizTalk : Introduction to BizTalk 360

BizTalk 360 was announced for public technology preview yesterday, you can read more about it here http://www.biztalk360.com

Why BizTalk 360?

There is one common problem across all the BizTalk customers. i.e there is no proper support tool for BizTalk. It’s a reality people are more passionate and interested in designing, architecting and developing the software and not enough attention is given to the afterlife of that application once it reaches production. It’s very important to focus on a production application, which represents customers business and credibility. BizTalk 360 is all about managing that application that’s in production. There are some of common problems most of the BizTalk server customers face, BizTalk 360 tries to address them

Introduction

BizTalk 360 is a web based rich internet application built using Microsoft Silverlight and WCF. Web based application means, you can centrally deploy it and no necessity to install all the BizTalk administration components on individual support persons desktop. Also, it comes with rich authorization module, which allows to give fine grained authorization to support people. No more remote desktop (RDP) access to all production servers, restrict users to only few BizTalk applications, or even provide only read-only access in the environment. The choice is yours.

Let’s see some brief introduction to some of the key modules of BizTalk 360

BizTalk Environment Dashboard

This is the home screen of the application, as soon as you access an environment, you are presented with the environment dashboard showing various part of the system and their health status.It shows the number of applications, number of hosts, number of message boxes etc. in the environment. The green and red represents their respective health status, red is error, green is healthy. If there are any suspended instances in the environment, a red bar will appear with the count of total suspended instances and the last suspended date time.

BizTalk Application Dashboard

BizTalk application dashboard provides a single view into a particular BizTalk applications. The artifact headings are colour coded to represent their overall health. If there are suspended instances it will be highlighted on the dashboard.

Diagrammatic representation of Send Port

A picture is worth more than 1000 words, BizTalk 360 come with diagrammatic representation of send ports (only send ports for V1, road map to include other artifacts like orchestrations, receive ports etc)

Artifact Properties

BizTalk 360 allows to view the properties of all the BizTalk artifacts like send port, receive port, receive location, map, schema, application, pipeline, etc

Governance/Auditing

Lack of tooling around “who did what” in the system is the number one challenge. In a production application it’s vital to log this information for various reason. BizTalk 360 handles it seamlessly and provides views out of the box to see this information in your fingertips.

User Access Policy

If you are running one of your “AAA” rated application on BizTalk server, you want to control the user access in a fine grained way. You don’t want one of your junior analyst supporting the application to have administrator rights on production environment. You want to control things like

• Giving only read-only access to certain people,
• Blocking certain areas of the application like, not allowing user to suspend/terminate instances,
• Restricting users to only few BizTalk applications etc.
• Restricting users from starting/stopping application artifacts like (send port, receive location, orchestration) and host instances etc.

BizTalk 360 takes care of all these requirements seamlessly with a full admin panel to control it, and also audit it.

Topology

BizTalk server is targeted for enterprise customers, so a typical BizTalk environment will have at least 4 servers (2 BizTalk, 2 SQL) in most of the cases
to support high availability. It’s vital to know your topology any time without digging through out of sync Visio documents. BizTalk 360 provides a graphical view of your topology dynamically generated from your environment.

Advanced Event Viewer

One of the other problem application support people face maintaining BizTalk production environment is probing through various event logs across multiple servers in the group to diagnose problems. This is both time consuming and also a security risk allowing support people to have full access to the servers. BizTalk 360 tackles this issue by providing a centralized event viewer functionality. It understand the topology of the environment, pulls all the event log information and presents it in a central place. The query builder is powerful as shown in the above picture.

Business Activity Monitoring portal

BizTalk 360 also comes with a simple BAM portal, which allows users to get to BAM data from a single UI. Users can search for activities, see permission and activities time window. BizTalk 360 utilizes the security mechanism provided by BizTalk BAM infrastructure, hence this will nicely complement your existing BAM investment.

Host Container View

BizTalk host is a logical container for various BizTalk artifacts. When it comes to scalability, administrator normally create multiple host and host instances and deploy them in various BizTalk servers.  BizTalk 360 provides a Host Dashboard, which allow users to see what’s running inside the host (host instance) at any point in time. From the above picture you can see it list the orchestrations, send port and receive ports that run inside a particular host.

 

BizTalk Server Characteristics

In a typical production BizTalk environment you’ll have 2 or more servers performing various activities like sending, receive, processing and tracking based on your requirements.

BizTalk 360′s BizTalk Server dashboard provides the characteristics of that server and it clearly shows “how the server is been utilized”. Apart from this the server dash board shows various other things like host instances running in the server, event viewer data, whether its web server etc.

 

Advanced Windows User/Role based Authorization

Define your own NT roles and dictate how user can access the environment.

 

Restrict users/groups to limited applications

You may want to restrict users to certain application(s) in a shared environment.

 

Restricted view for certain users/groups

Make the environment look as simple as what’s shown here. Just couple of applications with Topology. It’s fully customizable.

 

Read-Only Access

Note there are no buttons to start/stop.. anything in the Send port

 

Super User View

Of course super users and user with correct rights can start/stop…

 

Restriction to resume/terminate instances

You don’t want all of your support staff to resume/terminate instances. What happens if someone termintated that $1million worth message.

 

Restricted access to messages

Are you dealing with confidential messages (Health record, multi million $$ deals etc), you don’t want all your support people to view it right. Then please restrict it!

 

Query Service Instances

 

Rich Query Builder

Build your complex queries using the user friendly query builder.

 

Query Results (with KB)

See the service instance details with the ability to resume/terminate the instance. A knowledgebase article can be attached any service instance with error code.

 

Service Instance Details

Service Detail window will show the complete details of the service instance like error information, messages referenced etc.

 

 

 

Prepackaged Queries

BizTalk360 comes with a set of useful admin queries out of the box. We will be adding more queries in the upcoming releases.

 

Add/Modify/View/Delete Custom SQL Queries

Administrators normally keep a bunch of SQL queries in their toolbelt for some of their regular operations. With BizTalk360 they are managed completely within the UI. Only SELECT statements are allowed; the system will reject any other statements like INSERT or UPDATE

 

Execute SQL Queries within the UI

Users don’t need to have access to external SQL tools like SQL Management Studio to run the custom queries. They can execute and see results directly from within the UI. This avoids giving rights for the users to various SQL servers.

 

Permission

Super-user at the flick of a button can either grant or revoke permissions to manage / execute custom SQL queries for users.