SAP And SharePoint Integration Using .NET

Contents

• Introduction
• Pre-requisites
• Procedure
  
  • Web.config 2
  • User_Control.cs 2
    
    • Fetch Data from SAP 2
    • Submit the data to SAP 3
      
• Exceptions Expected and solution to it 4

Introduction

There can be a scenario where we need to fetch data from SAP and submit the updates to SAP using the functions given by the SAP team from the SharePoint screen.

To enable the preceding we will be writing .Net code using NCo3015_Net40_x64 MSI.

Pre-requisites

1. Ensure the following ports are opened from the entore SharePoint front end and app servers to the SAP Server:
   
   3200, 3201, 3300, 3301, 3600, 3601
   
   
2. SQL port 1433 to be opened between SharePoint front end and app servers to SQL Server.
   
   
3. Download SAP NCO 3.0 package (NCo3015_Net40_x64 MSI) and install it on all servers (Development, UAT, Production [Front End, App, Distributed Cache and and so on (if any) servers]). Once installed, the following folder would be created and four DLL files are copied to that
   
   C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP\SAP_DotNetConnector3_Net40_x64

Procedure

1. Open Visual Studio 2012.
   
   
2. Create an Empty SharePoint Project.
   
   
3. Add a User Control then call the user control in the Visual Web Part.
   
   
4. Copy the four DLL files from C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP\SAP_DotNetConnector3_Net40_x64 to the application's bin folder (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\Virtualdirectories\<Port Number>\bin).
   
   
5. Add a reference of sapnco.dll and sapnco_utils.dll to the project from the bin folder.
   
   
6. Write code in the User Control. The following code will only connect to SAP and fetch/submit the data. No Business logic is covered here.
   
   
7. Deploy / Public the WSP file on the App server (or respective server) and web application.

Web config

Add the following entry in the appsettings of the web.config file location at the application bin folder (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\Virtualdirectories\<Port Number>\web.config).

Note: For production, these entries are required on all Front End server's web.config file.

<add key="SAPIP" value="XX.XXX.XX.XX" />
<add key="SAPUSERID" value="XXXX" />
<add key="SAPPWD" value="XXXX" />
<add key="SYSTEMNO" value="XX" />

User_control.cs

Fetch data from SAP

//Create RFC Config parameter object and bind the parameters
RfcConfigParameters rfc = new RfcConfigParameters();
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Name, "mySapName");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.AppServerHost, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPIP"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Client, "700");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.User, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPUSERID"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Password, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPPWD"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.SystemNumber, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SYSTEMNO"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Language, "EN");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.PoolSize, "5");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.PeakConnectionsLimit, "10");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.ConnectionIdleTimeout, "500");

//Create Destination, Repository and Function objects and bind the values accordingly
RfcDestination rfcDest = RfcDestinationManager.GetDestination(rfc);
RfcRepository rfcRep = rfcDest.Repository;
IRfcFunction function = rfcRep.CreateFunction("<<SAP Function Name>>");

//Create a table object to hold the value set received from SAP
IRfcTable UserInfo = function.GetTable("<<SAP Table to Read>>");

//pass the fields with values to be filtered from the result set
function.SetValue("Field1", txtTextBox.ValidationDate);
function.SetValue("Field2", Page.Request.QueryString["xxx"].ToString());
function.SetValue("Field3", txtTextBox3.Text.ToString());

//Invoke the SAP function to update the result table with filtered values.
function.Invoke(rfcDest);
//UserInfo Table has filtered values which can be mapped to DataTable or any other object as per the requirement

Submit the data to SAP

RfcConfigParameters rfc = new RfcConfigParameters();
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Name, "mySapName");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.AppServerHost, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPIP"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Client, "700");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.User, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPUSERID"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Password, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SAPPWD"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.SystemNumber, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SYSTEMNO"].ToString());
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.Language, "EN");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.PoolSize, "5");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.PeakConnectionsLimit, "10");
rfc.Add(RfcConfigParameters.ConnectionIdleTimeout, "500");
RfcDestination rfcDest = RfcDestinationManager.GetDestination(rfc);
RfcRepository rfcRep = rfcDest.Repository;
IRfcFunction function = rfcRep.CreateFunction("<<SAP submit Function Name>>");
IRfcTable table = function.GetTable("<<SAP Table to update>>");

DataTable dtmodified = (DataTable)Session["xxxxx"];

foreach (DataRow row in dtmodified.Rows)
{
   table.Append();
   table.SetValue("field1", “Value1”);
   table.SetValue("field2", “Value2”);
   // set the value of all required fields with respective values
   table.SetValue("field_n", “Value_n”);
}

function.Invoke(rfcDest);

Exceptions expected and solution to it

1. Could not load a file or assembly sapnco.dll / sapnco_utils.dll.
   
   Solution
   
   Ensure to copy the four DLLs from C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP\SAP_DotNetConnector3_Net40_x64 to the application bin folder (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\Virtualdirectories\<Port Number>\bin).
   
   
2. SharePoint 2013 layouts pages breaking with "Exception 'Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.DataCacheException: ErrorCode:SubStatus:The request timed out".
   
   Solution
   
   Run the following Power Shell script to increase the response time.
   
   First run the following commands to see the health of the distributed cache that includes the status.
   

   $SPFarm = Get-SPFarm
   $cacheClusterName = "SPDistributedCacheCluster_" + $SPFarm.Id.ToString()
   $cacheClusterManager = [Microsoft.SharePoint.DistributedCaching.Utilities.SPDistributedCacheClusterInfoManager]::Local
   $cacheClusterInfo = $cacheClusterManager.GetSPDistributedCacheClusterInfo($cacheClusterName)
   $cacheClusterInfo

   To resolve the issue, suggested to run following Power Shell commands that increase the distributed cache time out values to 10 seconds.
   

   $settings = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache
   $settings.ChannelOpenTimeOut =10000
   $settings.RequestTimeout=10000
   Set-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache -DistributedCacheClientSettings $settings
   $settingsverify = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache
   $settingsverify
   
   $settingsa = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache
   $settingsa.ChannelOpenTimeOut = 10000
   $settingsa.RequestTimeout=10000
   Set-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache -DistributedCacheClientSettings $settingsa
   $settingsaverify = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache
   $settingsaverify
   
   $set = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache
   $set.MaxBufferSize = 33554432
   Set-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache -DistributedCacheClientSettings $set
   Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedViewStateCache
   
   $set = Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache
   $set.MaxBufferSize = 33554432
   Set-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache -DistributedCacheClientSettings $set
   Get-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting -ContainerType DistributedLogonTokenCache

3. SAP.Middleware.Connector.RfsCommunicationException: Location CPIC (TCP/IP) on the local host with Unicode Error Partner "xx.xxx.xx.xxx:3301" not reached time. Connection timeout counter.
   
   Solution
   
   Ensure the following ports are opened from the Front End, App Servers to the SAP Server.
   
   3200, 3201, 3300, 3301, 3600, 3601