Sap business one software development kit overview

2006 English

Solution Development Guide: SAP® Business One Version Status Date

SAP AG Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16 69190 Walldorf Germany

SAP Business One Solution development cycle with SAP Business One SDK

Contents Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3

Overview .......................................................................................................................................3 SAP Business One Software Development Kit.............................................................................3

First steps........................................................................................................................................5 SAP Business One SDK – Packages ...........................................................................................5 SAP Business One SDK – Main Components..............................................................................5

UI API ........................................................................................................................................5 DI API ........................................................................................................................................6 DI Server ...................................................................................................................................6 User-Defined Objects (UDO).....................................................................................................6

Figure 1: SAP® Business One SDK Help Center.........................................................................7 SAP Business One SDK – License Types....................................................................................7 Training, Learning Material, and Consultant Certification.............................................................7 Namespace Registration...............................................................................................................8

Plan development project..............................................................................................................9 Development Guidelines...............................................................................................................9 Helpful Online Resources: Information, How-To, and Tips ..........................................................9

SAP Channel Partner Portal......................................................................................................9 SAP Channel Partner Solution Network....................................................................................9 SAP Service Marketplace........................................................................................................10 SAP Developer Network..........................................................................................................10

Develop Solution ..........................................................................................................................10 Helpful Online Resources: Coding and Support .........................................................................10

SAP Service Marketplace........................................................................................................10 SAP Developer Network..........................................................................................................10

Figure 3: SAP® Developer Network Home Page .......................................................................11 Available Tools............................................................................................................................11

Package and Deploy Solution .....................................................................................................13 Packaging ...................................................................................................................................13 Licensing .....................................................................................................................................14

Certify Solution .............................................................................................................................14 SAP Integration and Certification Center....................................................................................15

Prerequisite .............................................................................................................................15 Detail Information........................................................................................................................15

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Introduction This document is supposed to give partners initial guidance for their first development project based on SAP Business One. In addition to this document, you will find related information in the following locations:

• Online documentation for SAP Business One (available after installing the SAP Business One client application)

• Online documentation for SAP Business One Software Development Kit (SAP Business One SDK)

The SAP Business One SDK Help Center will be available to you after installing the package – or here on the SAP Developer Network site

• Peer-to-peer information in the Forums related to SAP Business One on SDN

• Screen design guidelines for SAP Business One (available in the documentation folder on the product CD and on SDN)

• License guide for SAP Business One (available in the documentation folder on the product CD)

• Other documentation related to SAP Business One and SAP Business One SDK on SAP Channel Partner Portal at http://cpsn-channel.sap.com/

Overview Before beginning add-on development, ISV partners must plan to get acquainted with and trained in using SAP Business One SDK. This document describes what you need to do and where to go before starting a development project, along with the following information:

• Where to find more advanced information for project planning

• Where to find information during the development phase

• How to deploy the solution to customers

• How to get your add-on solution certified by SAP

Please note that the SAP PartnerEdge program may include incentives for partners getting people trained and getting solutions certified etc. Please check with your channel manager for details.

SAP Business One Software Development Kit The SAP Business One SDK contains interfaces, sample code, documentation, and development aids. Using SAP Business One SDK requires programming of SAP Business One (not just customizing). SAP Business One SDK allows programmers to easily interface third-party applications with SAP Business One both on the database and user-interface level.

Some general details about SAP Business One SDK include the following:

• SAP Business One SDK is a supplementary product to SAP Business One, licensed separately.

• SAP Business One SDK is generally used solely by SAP partners. A customer will see the need to use SAP Business One SDK in-house only in very rare instances.

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http://cpsn-channel.sap.com/


• The necessary runtime version of SAP Business One SDK required to run a partner’s add-on

at a customer site is delivered by SAP free of charge with SAP Business One.

• Versions of SAP Business One SDK are aligned to SAP Business One core releases and support packages.

• SAP Business One SDK is forward-compatible to higher SAP Business One releases, meaning that SAP Business One SDK release X runs with SAP Business One release X or higher (X+1).

For full SAP Business One functionality, however, the respective SAP Business One client application is required.

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First steps To get started, you need the following prerequisites – after getting the software:

1. Get trained – Training via SAP Channel Partner Portal will enable you to architect and develop your solution based on the application programming interfaces (APIs) included in the SAP Business One SDK and the knowledge acquired in the training. More details follow in this section.

2. Get involved – We recommend joining the SAP Business One SDK developer community on SDN to discuss best practices and more. The forum is monitored and moderated by SAP solution management and development teams.

3. Get an SAP-unique development “namespace” – This namespace is a prefix you will need to register via SAP Service Marketplace. Using a namespace will prevent naming conflicts between different partner solutions at the customer site. More details follow in this section.

SAP Business One SDK – Packages Two packages comprise SAP Business One SDK, as follows:

• The SAP Business One SDK runtimes (APIs)

o Developers and customer use the identical set of components.

o The runtimes are installed together with the client or server tools.

o The data interface (DI API) provides access to SAP Business One data on an object level. It can be installed separately.

o The user interface API (UI API) provides access to SAP Business One screen objects, and is available only in conjunction with the SAP Business One product.

• The SAP Business One SDK development package (also known as “SDK Installation”)

o This package includes samples, utilities, tutorials, and help files (see Figure 1, which is a screen shot of the SAP Business One SDK Help Center).

o The package has been part of the product CD since 2005.

o The most recent SAP Business One SDK Help Center package can be found as a download on SDN.

All functional differences are handled via the SAP Business One SDK licensing mechanism. (For historical reasons, you might also find these names: “SDK development version,” “SDK implementation version,” “SDK runtime version.”)

SAP Business One SDK – Main Components The main components of SAP Business One SDK are as follows.

UI API The UI API provides programmatic access to windows, menus, and events in SAP Business One. The UI API allows you to create new windows, modify existing windows, add new business logic,

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add or modify application menus, and more. The API is exposed in the standard COM technique, which can easily be used in Microsoft .NET as well.

DI API The DI API provides a programmatic interface to SAP Business One through a set of fully functional business objects. The DI API gives you access to the business logic and data-access layers of SAP Business One. The API is exposed in the standard COM technique, which can easily be used in Microsoft .NET as well. Furthermore, a Java library is supplied for use in Java programming environments.

DI Server The DI Server is an extension of the DI API and supports all its objects. It is suitable where Web-services architecture is preferred. It is also intended for high-volume data integration, where numerous client connections must be managed simultaneously. The API is exposed in the industry-standard SOAP technique as a Microsoft Windows service.

User-Defined Objects (UDO) A unique feature allows you to link two user-defined tables quickly and easily to create a new business object in SAP Business One. While the particular features can be accessed through DI API and UI API, implementing a business object class in a DLL file enables you to override the basic business object behavior. For this purpose C++ header files and a C++ library are supplied.

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Figure 1: SAP® Business One SDK Help Center

SAP Business One SDK – License Types • SAP Business One SDK Implementation License

o Allows you to develop add-ons for customer-specific implementation (use of UI API only)

• SAP Business One SDK Development License

o Allows you to register a namespace at SAP (to be used for unique IDs, for example)

o Allows you to register a solution to reuse the SAP license mechanism

• SAP Business One SDK Development License and Add-On Solution License

o Allows you to use DI API and UI API

• Compatibility License for add-ons (planned to expire)

o Allows you to bypass the license mechanism in add-on code – for backward compatibility with older SAP Business One SDK versions installed and valid for a limited time

Please note:

For more details about licensing and SAP Business One SDK, please refer to the SAP Business One license guide (available in the documentation folder on the product CD) or visit the SAP Business One area on SAP Channel Partner Portal at channel.sap.com.

SAP Business One – including SAP Business One SDK – may be installed for a 31-day evaluation period. For details, please refer to the SAP Business One license guide.

Training, Learning Material, and Consultant Certification Before starting add-on solution development, you must get acquainted with and trained in using SAP Business One SDK. While SAP Business One SDK contains easy-to-learn interfaces, you should expect there to be some learning processes involved.

From the discussions in the SAP Business One forum on SDN, you can get an idea up front of what can be done easily and what will take more effort to accomplish.

Classroom learning material and e-learning are available through SAP Service Marketplace. (In SAP Channel Partner Portal, go to Education and from there to the Development Consultant area – see Figure 2.)

Classroom material and registration for classroom training can be found under a direct link. For e-learning go to the certification curriculum and check out the contents of the learning

map. Please note that you may earn Value Points in the SAP PartnerEdge program when your employees are trained. Please check with your channel manager for details.

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Figure 2: SAP® Business One Development Consultant Curriculum Information

After completing the training sessions, developers can take the certification exam to assess their knowledge. Please contact your local SAP channel manager for assistance where the certification can be performed. While the exam is based on multiple-choice questions regarding application features as well, the majority is about the SAP Business One SDK components and their use.

In addition, we strongly recommend that you learn how to use the customization capabilities of SAP Business One. This is covered in the solution consultant learning map, which is offered in parallel to the development consultant learning map. We recommend that at least one person in your company should have these skills, regardless of whether you plan to supply larger solutions as an ISV or to supply functionality in simpler add-ons.

Namespace Registration To prevent conflicts with other solutions using the SAP Business One APIs that may be installed at a customer site, you must use a prefix for any “object” in your add-on. This prefix is called a “namespace.” The namespace ensures unique names.

Example: Trini & Mart Inc. has registered namespace “TMI” then uses “TMI” followed by the delimiter “_”, for an additional table, for instance (“TMI_MyTable” as a table name).

Go to channel.sap.com/namespaces to register a namespace.

Please note the following:

• An SAP Business One SDK development license is a prerequisite to register a namespace.

• Namespace “XX_” can be used for customer-specific implementation projects.

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• Information about where to use the namespace is available in the SAP Business One

SDK help files (the SAP Business One SDK Help Center) and additional documentation. (For details, see the section “Related Documents” in the folder on the product CD or find it on SDN.)

Plan development project

Development Guidelines SAP Business One SDK documentation provides screen design guidelines for designing the GUI of fully integrated add-on solutions, as mentioned in the section “Related Documents” (see folder on the product CD or find it on SDN). Additional development guidelines are part of the SAP Business One SDK help files.

Helpful Online Resources: Information, How-To, and Tips

SAP Channel Partner Portal

In the SAP Business One area of SAP Channel Partner Portal, the section Develop My Solution contains helpful information for many purposes regarding the development of your solution.

The SAP Support Portal service publishes information regarding specific problems or bugs and official information about the development tools supported (channel.sap.com/notes).

The Support Services area for SAP Business One in SAP Channel Partner Portal includes even more details regarding features of SAP Business One and how to use them (channel.sap.com/ knowledge). The SAP Business One Discussion Forum (cpsn-channel.sap.com/businessoneforum) is a platform for SAP Business One partners as well as SAP employees for discussing all matters and issues regarding the sales and implementation cycle of SAP Business One. The discussion forum will enable you to do the following:

• Get into contact with other forum participants

• Exchange experiences with other SAP channel partners

• Address questions to the partner community and local product experts

• Exchange information with other members

In addition, there is a link to the Globalization Knowledge Base, a Microsoft Excel tool that shows differences between localizations directly in the Support Services area in the portal.

SAP Channel Partner Solution Network

Available partner solutions are listed in the solution directory on SAP Channel Partner Solution Network, which you can access from SAP Channel Partner Portal by clicking Partner Networking. Every ISV is strongly encouraged to list its solutions on this site and to maintain the listing. SAP Channel Partner Solution Network is the main vehicle for partners and SAP channel managers to find out about your solution; without a listing, it may not be considered for possible customer engagements.

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http://cpsn-channel.sap.com/businessoneforum


SAP Service Marketplace

Once your registration is complete, one person in your organization will receive login information to SAP Service Marketplace. Additional information about developing solution add-ons is also available on SAP Service Marketplace.

SAP Developer Network

SAP Developer Network offers free access for anyone interested in SAP software development techniques and interfaces. Check it out at www.sdn.sap.com.

The developer area for SAP Business One on SDN is the entry point to more detailed documentation written for a developer audience. The SAP Business One team publishes and posts articles and white papers on SDN to facilitate your architectural decisions and speed up your development by describing the steps involved in covering a specific scenario. We also invite partner developers to contribute or to write Weblogs for SDN where they can share their experiences. In the SAP Business One discussion forum, you can get advice from experienced developers, from other ISVs, and from the SAP solution management team.

Develop Solution

Helpful Online Resources: Coding and Support

SAP Service Marketplace In the Support area in SAP Service Marketplace, you can report issues, bugs, and questions to SAP regarding the application and the SAP Business One SDK. See channel.sap.com/sbo/support.

SAP Developer Network

In addition to the option to report issues on SAP Support Portal, the SAP Business One partner developer community is quite active in the SAP Business One forum on SDN (see www.sdn.sap.com). You may consult the experts there at any time – usually getting a response in less than two hours.

SDN is accessible to anyone. In addition to the developer area, which will guide you to downloads and articles, there is a public forum where any interested party can read the posts, post a question, or reply. You do need to apply for registration, which is free. Besides support from SAP, you can reach out to the developer community or receive assistance from the SAP Business One technical staff via the forum.

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www.sdn.sap.com

www.sdn.sap.com


Figure 3: SAP® Developer Network Home Page

Available Tools A tool called Screenpainter is shipped with the SAP Business One product that allows defining screens to be displayed in SAP Business One graphically. Please note that Screenpainter provides only the functions to define a screen layout. Any additional handling, including adding a menu item in SAP Business One, displaying the screen, and handling further events, must be done in add-on code.

The SAP Business One development environment (B1DE) consists mostly of add-ins for Microsoft Developer Studio .NET. Used together with Screenpainter, the B1DE might speed up development significantly. The B1DE is provided through SDN including source code and some basic framework, but does not encompass service through SAP Support Portal.

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Figure 1: B1DE SAP® Business One Development Environment Tools.

The SAP Business One test environment (B1TE) is a suite of profiling and checking tools for transactions on business objects, add-on forms, and usage of the APIs in case you use Microsoft .NET. You will certainly find the test environment helpful in your QA procedures – or simply use it to find issues in your code. Please note that the tools are used for solution certification, provided through SDN, and include source code – but they do not encompass service through SAP Support Portal.

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Figure 4: B1TE SAP® Business One Test Environment Tools

Package and Deploy Solution

Packaging Depending on the architecture of an add-on solution – especially if it uses UI API – some prerequisites exist for building a setup. Please see the information in the SAP Business One SDK Help Center (Packaging and Deployment) and the training material for details. In addition, please determine what information should be provided to customers with the solution. Details can be found in the certification requirements and the SAP Business One SDK Help Center.

Please note that B1DE provides a wizard for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET to set up a packaging project and create a ready-to-go installation package.

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Figure 5: SAP® Business One Development Environment Installer Wizard

Licensing Please note that you can reuse the license mechanism of SAP Business One for your partner solutions. There is no need to develop a license check mechanism. Please check the following for the latest information:

• The license guide for SAP Business One (available in the documentation folder on the product CD or on SDN)

• The SAP Business One license key request page on SAP Channel Partner Portal

Check with your SAP channel manager for further assistance.

Certify Solution The goal of solution certification is to ensure the same ease of use and maintenance as for the SAP Business One solution itself.

Partners with certified integrations enjoy the following benefits: • An official SAP integration certificate • Listing in SAP’s online SME solution database • Use of certification logo for the integration to SAP Business One Please note that you may earn Value Points in the SAP PartnerEdge program when your solution is certified. Please check with your channel manager for details.

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SAP Integration and Certification Center Third-party software integrations to all SAP products (including SAP Business One) are certified by the SAP Integration and Certification Center (SAP ICC) locations. Around the world, there are three different locations responsible for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific (APA).

Your integration must be certified by the SAP ICC location responsible for the country in which your main agreement relating to SAP Business One was executed.

The certification process can be summarized in the following steps: 1. Inquiry 2. Certification contract 3. Preparation for the test 4. Certification test 5. Certificate

Prerequisite

You must have a signed partner contract and have an SAP partner number.

Detail Information For details, go to the SAP ICC area on SDN for the SAP Business One solution certification at www.sdn.sap.com.

SAP Integration and Certification Center (under Quick Links)

Integration scenarios (alphabetical)

B1-SDK

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These materials are subject to change without notice. These materials are provided by SAP AG and its affiliated companies (“SAP Group”) for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP Group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP Group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.

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Sap business one software development kit overview

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