itelligence India

Brief Walk-Through of
BRF+

27-June-2019
 Agenda
 Introduction
 Workbench
 Basic Concepts
 S/4 HANA Output management using BRF+
 Issue IDOC’s with BRF+ Output
 Call back class
 CDS Views ( Purchase Order related)
 Issues encountered
 Technical lookouts

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 Introduction
 What?
 BRF+ is a rule management engine in the ABAP environment.

 It describes operations, definitions and constraints that apply to organizations.

 BRF+ UI consists of a workbench that enables you to maintain your business rules.

 Why?
 Business Rule is a statement which defines or constraints aspects of business.

 Aims at empowerment of business users change and organize business rules directly.

 How?
 Transaction code: BRF+ /BRF Plus /FDT_Workbench.

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 Workbench
 It is a web-enabled rule authoring and management tool.

 It provides an environment for maintenance, testing and management of business rule

content in BRF+

 SAP_BC_FDT_ADMINISTRATOR is the role for BRF+ Administrator.

 It requires ICF to be setup and activated in the system.

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 Workbench
 Transaction code : FDT_Workbench/BRF/BRF+

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 Workbench

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 Workbench

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 Basic Concepts

 Application

 Data Object

 Function

 Rule

 Ruleset

 Expression

 Action

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 Business rule workflow

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 BRF+ Application IN ABAP

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 Output Management – BRF +
 With SAP S/4 HANA there is new output management approach in the form of BRF+ with
the target architecture based on Adobe document server and Adobe forms only.

 Configuration for Output management is done with the below steps or Views

 SPRO->Cross-Apps->

 Output Control

 SM30 Views

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 Advantages
 Output management in SAP S/4 HANA includes Cloud qualities such as

 Extensibility Enablement

 Multi-Tenancy enablement

 Modification free configuration

 Simplified output management that allows to send multiple messages to multiple

recipients using multi channels at the same time.

Printer – Using the Spool

Email – Allows flexible configuration of sender and recipients as well as use of

email templates.

XML – Integration with Ariba Network

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 Disadvantages
 Output management for SAP S/4 HANA only supports the Pure output channels.

 BRF+ cannot be used if one of the following NAST transmission mediums is required
 8 – Special Function
 9 – Events (SAP Business Workflow)
 A – Distribution (ALE)

 T – Tasks (SAP Business Workflow) – refer SAP Note: 2267376

To switch back to NACE configuration use the SM30 view APOC_I_OBJ_TYPEV to change
the activation mode.

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 TCODE: OPD
Output Parameter Determination

 SPRO – > Cross-Application Components -> Output Control -> Define Business Rules
for Output Determination (Transaction: OPD)

 In this Customizing activity, you can define how the system determines output
parameters during document processing. You can define business rules for the
determination of output parameters, such as output types, recipients, and form
templates.

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 After Clicking the above TCODE ->

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  Output determination is performed in document based on determination rules defined
for Output type, receiver role, channel, form template, receiver email address and email
template withe status as ‘In Preparation’. Default data can be changed in the document.

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 Steps to execute
 Go to transaction VF02

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 Goto -> Header -> Output or CLICK SHIFT+F8

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 Select output

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 Click on Display PDF Document

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 Issue IDOC’s using BRF+ Output
 Requirement: To issue Out bound invoice IDOC’s, the output type should be configured with
IDOC channel as shown below.

 SM30 View: APOC_C_CHANNELV

Configure the output type to the billing document as shown below and save the document.

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 Issue IDOC’s using BRF+ Output
 Trigger the Outbound Invoice IDOC using the Transaction VF31F as shown below and
execute with input:

IDOC generated: Here we are avoiding traditional RSNAST00 Program to generate IDOC’s

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 Call Back Class
 Call back class is used to retrieve the business data and act accordingly to the
requirement.

 Requirement: To determine the Sender email address

implement the method ‘GET_DATA_FOR_ROLE’, ‘GET_DATA_FOR_SENDER’ to use

standard CDS view ‘I_PurchaseOrderEnhanced’, ‘I_PurchasingGroup’ to fetch more details
on document (in this case Purchase Order)

Also changed view ‘M_V_Purchord_Output_Params’ to include association on

ZUSERDETAILS structure to get user details for email address in ‘CHECK_AUTHORITY’
method.

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 CDS Views to consider
 M_V_PURCHORD_OUTPUT_PARAMS - Paramters for Purchase Order Output Determination

 I_PurchaseOrderEnhanced – Purchase Order enhanced

 I_PurchasingGroup – Purchasing Group

 I_PURCHASEORDER – Purchase Order

 ZPUR_OP_PARAM (Custom)- PO Output Parameters CDS Context

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 Issues encountered
 One of the common issues with the BRF+ configuration of form output is

 No data on the form output – Doesn’t mean the data rendering issue (Print program
doesn’t trigger in this case) from the ABAP perspective but mostly dealt with functional
configuration changes on form type as highlighted.

 This is because the PDF type Adobe document supported by ADS. Currently supporting
PDF with no fragments.

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 Issues encountered
 Functionality to resend the output is hardcoded for BILLING_DOCUMENT output type.

 Resend outputs was not allowed due to the hardcode in the standard FM:
APOC_OR_ISSUE_OUTPUT.

 Work around: We copied the standard FM to ‘Z’ to comment the part of code and called
the same in the standard FM within an Enhancement implementation.

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 Technical Look outs
 To debug the print program for the document with the output type, follow the below
steps.

 Activate the update debugging in debugger settings.

 Standard function module APOC_OR_ISSUE_OUTPUT is called to generate outputs, place

your break point at render_document method as shown below.

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 Technical Look outs
 Internally this standard FM APOC_OR_ISSUE_OUTPUT, access business object
APOC_OUTPUT_REQUEST with retrieve (item), retieve_by_association (item_email).

 Normal CRUD operations are performed on the business object to either

create/read/update/delete an entry from the backend tables as shown below.

 This is similar to the NAST table that we have with NACE configuration

 Check application log “OUTPUT_CONTROL” for any error messages.

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 Thank you

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