Setting up Communication Management

To consume and test SAP S/4HANA Cloud OData APIs and integrate your solution with other systems, you must set up the communication management.

As an administrator, you must define the following settings in Communication Management apps:

• Communication User

• Communication System

• Communication Arrangement

You need the Administrator role to use the Communication Management apps.

A communication user enables the integration with other solutions. To be able to post data, the solutions must authenticate themselves using the communication user and password that you created. The communication users are assigned to the communication system you want to use. You can create and manage communication users for different integration scenarios with other solutions using the Maintain Communication Users app.

You can use the Maintain Communication Users app to

• Create, delete, or edit a user
• Lock or unlock a user
• Display communication systems that use the selected communication user
• Display communication arrangements for the systems that use the selected communication user

The communication system represents the communication partner within a communication. For inbound communication, this is the system that calls services provided by your system. For outbound communication, this is the system that provides services called by your system. You can create new communication systems using the Communication Systems app, which you can later use to establish communication arrangements. To enable communication between different systems, you must register the systems in the Communication Systems app.

You can use the Communication Systems to

• Create or delete communication systems.
• Display detailed information about existing communication systems.

You can display communication scenarios used for integrations using the Display Communication Scenarios app. A communication scenario bundles inbound and outbound communication design-time artifacts. Since it allows communication between systems, each communication arrangement must be based on a communication scenario. For all standard sourcing and procurement APIs, SAP S/4HANA Cloud provides predefined communication scenarios. For instance, Purchase Order Integration (SAP_COM_0053) communication scenario enables you to retrieve purchase orders in an API call, which can be consumed by external applications to integrate with purchase order processing in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

You can use the Display Communication Scenarios app to

• Display all available communication scenarios.
• Display scenario details and properties.
• Display supported inbound authentication methods and inbound services used in a communication scenario.
• Display supported outbound authentication methods, certificates, and outbound services used in a communication scenario.
• Download certificates for specific purposes.
• Display communication arrangements in which a communication scenario is used.
• Create a new communication arrangement based on a communication scenario.

The communication arrangement defines which system (communication system) and which user (communication user) can call which APIs (communication scenarios). You can create and edit communication arrangements using the Communication Arrangements app. The system provides communication scenarios for inbound and outbound communication that you can use to create communication arrangements.

You can use the Communication Arrangements app to

• Display all existing communication arrangements.
• Display detailed information for the selected communication arrangement.
• Create, delete, or edit communication arrangements.
• Select the required communication system (user information and authentication method are filled in automatically when you select a communication system)

If you are developing an application that will be hosted on SAP BTP, you can create the integration setup using the SAP Fiori app Maintain Extensions on SAP BTP.

When you create a new extension using the integration token from the SAP BTP, the system generates the required communication setup which is required for the integration. You can view the automatically created communication system, user, and arrangement under the corresponding SAP Fiori apps.

You can learn more about developing applications using APIs and get hands-on experience with SAP Tutorials for Developers: API