Externalize Parameters, Copy Step Settings and Import APIs from SAP Business Accelerator Hub in SAP CPI

Some of the slowest work in an SAP Cloud Integration (SAP CPI) iFlow is not the logic. It is typing the same receiver address into three tenants, copying ten Content Modifier rows by hand from one iFlow to another, rebuilding an OData query you wrote last month, or downloading an API specification just to know an entity set's fields.

Kitegra's Helper now has tools for each of these, next to the SAP Integration Suite designer: Externalize Parameters, step settings copy and paste with OData query templates, an import from SAP Business Accelerator Hub, an XPath check against your sample payload, and Arrange for Message Mapping expressions. This article explains what each one does, when it changes your iFlow, and what it keeps.

Externalize Parameters in one step

An address written straight into a receiver channel means editing the iFlow itself each time it moves from DEV to QA to PROD. SAP's answer is an externalized parameter: {{Receiver_OData_Address}} in the field, with its value set per tenant in Configure. Externalize Parameters does the typing for you.

Open an iFlow, press Edit in SAP, and choose Externalize Parameters in the Kitegra menu. The panel lists the fixed values that usually differ between tenants:

• Addresses: URLs, hosts, endpoints, paths, directories and WSDLs. These are ticked for you, except proxy addresses and ProcessDirect or JMS addresses.
• Other values: queue and Data Store names, OData paths and queries, timeouts, credential names and aliases, and ports.
• Constants in Content Modifier and Write Variables tables.

Each value gets a proposed name such as Receiver_OData_Address, made from the participant and the field, which you can change. Values that are already {{…}} or ${…} are shown as such. Click Externalize, and the ticked fields become parameters in the open iFlow. Nothing is saved until you save the iFlow in SAP.

After a run, Undo puts the previous values back, and Copy current values copies each parameter with the value it replaced: after deploying, SAP asks for each value in Configure, and you paste them there. The last ten runs per iFlow are kept for Undo. The iFlow Inspector's design checks point to this tool when a receiver's address is written into the iFlow.

Copy a step's settings into another step or iFlow

Choose Step settings copy & paste in the Kitegra menu, select a step on the diagram (or choose it in the panel), and click Copy settings. The copy holds the step's headers, exchange properties and adapter fields. The panel keeps your last ten copies, newest first, for every tenant and iFlow in this browser.

To paste, press Edit in SAP, select the target step and click Paste into. Before it writes, the panel lists the fields that will change. For each table you choose Keep, Append rows (adds only the copied rows that are missing) or Replace rows. A copy goes only into the same kind of step, and it can go into another iFlow, except an EDMX path and script fields, which name files of the iFlow they come from. Undo puts back what the last paste changed.

OData query templates

The same panel keeps OData query templates. Select an OData receiver channel whose query you have built, click Save query as template and give it a name. A template keeps the operation, the resource path and the query options such as $select, $filter and $expand. Later, in edit mode, select another OData receiver and click Apply. Saving under an existing name replaces that template. For the options themselves, see OData receiver query options.

Copies and templates stay in this browser's extension storage. They are not synced to your Kitegra account and never sent anywhere.

Import an API from SAP Business Accelerator Hub

The Helper suggests OData entity sets and fields from an EDMX, and HTTP paths from an OpenAPI file. With the Hub import you no longer need to download that file first. In the extension's popup, open an iFlow's page with its Sample payload and API specification, and find Import from SAP Business Accelerator Hub.

1. The first time, click Allow access: the browser asks once for access to api.sap.com. Kitegra does not have it until you agree.
2. Search for an API, for example API_PRODUCT_SRV. Searching needs no sign-in.
3. Click Import. Downloading the specification needs your api.sap.com sign-in in this browser; if you are not signed in, the panel says so and opens the Hub.

An OData API's entity sets and fields are then suggested in that iFlow's OData receivers that have no EDMX of their own. A REST API's paths are suggested in HTTP fields, as if you had loaded the file, which the OpenAPI and Postman article describes. The specification is kept per iFlow, in this browser only, up to 8 MB, and Remove deletes it.

XPath checked against your sample payload

With a sample payload saved for the iFlow, the Helper already suggests XPath paths from it. Now it also checks the XPath you typed. When no node of the sample matches, a warning under the field says "No node in the sample payload matches this XPath." When one does, an info line shows the value it found.

The check covers XPath rows in Content Modifier headers and properties and in Write Variables, XML Router conditions and XPath splitters. It runs only where the saved sample is really what reaches that step: an XML sample with only steps before it that keep the body, or a JSON sample after one JSON to XML Converter. It stays quiet in Local Integration Processes, Exception Subprocesses and for XPaths built with ${…} or {{…}}, so a warning means a real mismatch.

Arrange a Message Mapping expression

A Message Mapping expression with a dozen functions soon becomes a knot of crossing lines. On the expression canvas, an Arrange button now sits next to SAP's own buttons. It lays the nodes out from the source fields to the target. In edit mode, Save keeps the layout and the undo button next to it puts it back; in view mode it only helps you read, and the layout is gone when SAP draws the expression again. Nothing is saved or sent to SAP. The iFlow diagram has its own Arrange button too, in edit mode, with Undo.

What changes in your iFlow

Externalize Parameters, paste and Apply template write into the iFlow open in the designer, in edit mode only, and the designer shows the iFlow as changed. They never save or deploy: you save in SAP, or Discard to drop the change. Every one of these tools can be switched off on its own on the options page, under Tools; it disappears from the designer at once. Externalize, step copy and paste and the Hub import are part of the paid plans, with a few uses on Free; the XPath check and Arrange are free. While Kitegra launches, every tool is open to everyone signed in. Compare the plans.

Try it in your next iFlow

Read what Kitegra adds around the SAP Integration Suite designer, or what it does after you press Deploy.

Frequently asked questions