PROD, TEST or DEV? An Environment Bar, Shortcuts and Notes for SAP CPI Tenants

Most SAP Cloud Integration (SAP CPI) developers have a DEV, a TEST and a PROD tenant open in tabs that look exactly alike. The cost shows up on the day someone undeploys the wrong iFlow, or spends ten minutes finding the monitoring page they open every morning.

Kitegra adds a few workspace extras around the SAP Integration Suite designer to make that harder to get wrong: an environment bar and tab branding per tenant, monitoring links, a message lookup, notes, keyboard shortcuts and a remembered property pane size. This article explains each one, then the popup's list of your iFlows and the settings on the options page. None of them counts iFlows against your plan.

Tell PROD from TEST at a glance

Open an SAP page of the tenant, then the extension's popup, and choose Tools. Under This SAP tenant you set, for that tenant only:

• Environment: PROD, TEST or DEV, or From the hostname, which guesses it from the tenant's address.
• Label: the text on the bar, such as "PROD – EU".
• Show the environment bar on SAP's pages: a coloured bar across the top of every SAP page of the tenant.
• Header colour: the colour of SAP's own header, or SAP's colour to leave it.
• Tab icon in the environment's colour, so the tab is recognisable even when it is small.
• Tab title: a pattern with $iflow, $tenant, $env and $title (SAP's own title), such as $env · $iflow. Empty keeps SAP's title.

Signed in, the branding follows your Kitegra account to every computer.

Monitoring links and a message lookup

The same Tools view starts with a box for a Message ID (MPL ID). Paste the ID, or the whole "internal server error … MPL ID …" text a caller got back, and open the message in SAP's monitor or in Kitegra's log viewer. More on this in finding a message by its ID.

Below it are direct links to the tenant's monitoring pages: failed messages in the last hour, the message monitor, deployed content, Security Material, Keystore, connectivity tests, Data Stores, variables, message queues, number ranges, Partner Directory, user roles, message usage, system logs, message locks and design-time locks. The star next to a link pins it on top of the list, and your pins sync with your settings.

Notes for an iFlow, a tenant or everywhere

Notes keep what the iFlow itself cannot say: why it is built this way, what to watch, who to ask. Open Notes from the menu of the Kitegra box on an iFlow, or from the popup's Tools view. A note has three scopes:

• This iFlow: shown each time you open that iFlow. An iFlow with a note is marked "Has a note".
• This tenant: for everything on that tenant, such as a maintenance window.
• Everywhere: your own scratch pad.

Notes are written in Markdown, with a Preview, up to 8,000 characters each, and save as you type. On Starter, Pro and the team plans they sync between your computers; on Free they stay in this browser. Notes are not encrypted, so never put a password in one. On a team plan, the team's owner can see your notes in the Kitegra dashboard.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every shortcut is Alt+Shift with one letter or digit, and none runs while you type in a field. The defaults:

Change them on the options page under Keyboard shortcuts: click a box and press the new keys, or Backspace to remove one. Alt+Shift+T, I and A are refused, because Chrome and Edge use them. Suggestions in a field has no default; in any field you can complete, Ctrl+Space opens the list of suggestions. The popup's Tools view lists your current shortcuts.

The property pane's size

The property pane under the diagram opens at SAP's height each time you select a step. On the options page, under Property pane size, choose a height in pixels or a percent of the window instead. If you drag its edge, that size is kept until the pane opens again. Pause pane size in the Kitegra menu gives SAP back its own size until you resume.

Your iFlows in the popup

With the designer open, the popup lists the packages and iFlows of the SAP account signed in there: Recently opened first, then All packages. Search by name, filter by packages, iFlows or unlocked iFlows, or by when an iFlow was opened (any time or today). Each iFlow opens in a new tab, and Refresh reloads the open iFlow or package from SAP.

In a tab with no designer, the popup shows the SAP accounts saved on this computer as a tree: account, tenant, package and iFlow. Each iFlow keeps its own sample payload and API specification, which the Helper uses for XPath suggestions and request suggestions.

The Account view shows your plan and how many iFlows you have unlocked, the interface language (one of 15, or the same as the browser), and sign-in. An iFlow past your plan's limit shows a padlock in the designer and the popup, and the modules that count iFlows stay off on it until you sign in or upgrade. A tool that is part of a paid plan carries a badge with its plan; while Kitegra launches, it is open to everyone signed in.

The options page

Open it from the popup. Each change is saved at once, and open designer tabs use it right away.

• Suggestions: on or off, and whether the list opens by itself after $ or ${. When it does not, Ctrl+Space opens it.
• Expression check: the list of expressions that will be empty or fail, under the field you edit.
• Modules: switch the Helper, Message Monitor, iFlow Inspector, iFlow Docs or Toolbox off. It takes effect when the SAP page reloads.
• Actions that change the tenant: one switch hides Trace, Undeploy, Unlock and deleting a Data Store entry. See Undeploy, Unlock and Data Store.
• Keyboard shortcuts and Property pane size, as above.
• Sync: when you last synced, Sync now, and Delete synced data, which removes your settings from your Kitegra account and keeps them in this browser.
• Kitegra dashboard: Show my packages and iFlows in the Kitegra dashboard. It sends names and ids only, and it is on by default. On a team plan, your team's owner sees them too.
• Clear saved data: removes the cached iFlows and the package list in the popup. Nothing in SAP changes.

What syncs

Without an account, everything on this page stays in your browser. Signed in, your settings and shortcuts, notes, tenant branding, naming rules, design-check settings, snippets and HTTP Runner collections follow your Kitegra account. Auth values and secret variables are removed first. With the dashboard switch on, the names and ids of your packages and iFlows are sent too. Message content, scripts, mappings and credentials are never sent.

The workspace extras are on every plan. Syncing settings and notes starts on Starter. While Kitegra launches, every tool is open to everyone signed in, on the Free plan too. Compare the plans.

Try it in your next iFlow

Read what Kitegra adds around the SAP Integration Suite designer, or see its offline tools for payloads.

Frequently asked questions