Trace an SAP CPI Message Step by Step Without Leaving the iFlow Designer

When an iFlow returns the wrong result, the question is almost always the same: what did the message look like just before the step that went wrong? SAP Cloud Integration (SAP CPI) can answer it, but only for messages processed with the log level TRACE, and the answer is in the monitor, several screens away from the diagram you are editing.

This article explains what a trace records, how to read one in SAP's own monitor, and how to follow the same trace on the diagram, step by step, with Kitegra.

What a trace records

Every message leaves a message processing log (MPL): its status, its start and end, and the steps it ran. The iFlow's log level decides how much detail goes into it.

Trace content is meant for investigation, not for archiving. SAP keeps it for about an hour, and the TRACE level itself drops back after about 10 minutes, so the message you want to read has to run shortly after TRACE is set. Because it stores real payloads in the tenant, use it on test data where you can, and follow your company's rules in production. Why TRACE switches itself off explains the limits.

Reading a trace in SAP's monitor

1. In the monitor, open Manage Integration Content, select the deployed iFlow and set its log level to Trace.
2. Send the message again within the next few minutes.
3. Open the message in Monitor Message Processing and follow its trace link to the message processing run.
4. Select a step on the run's diagram and open its message content: headers, properties and payload.

This works, but each look at a step takes a few clicks, the run's diagram is not the one you are editing, and after 10 minutes the log level has to be set again.

Turn TRACE on from the designer

With Kitegra, open the iFlow in the designer, click the "Kitegra" button in the diagram toolbar and choose Messages (or press Alt+Shift+M). The panel lists the iFlow's last messages on the runtime you choose, grouped by day, with status, start time and duration. Traced messages carry a TRACE mark, and new ones flash when they arrive.

The switch in the panel reads "Trace: off". One click sets the iFlow's log level to TRACE, and the switch shows "Trace: on" with a minute count. While it is on and you work in the iFlow, the extension sets TRACE again before SAP drops it; it stops renewing 20 minutes after your last activity. Off puts back the log level the iFlow had before.

Trace is one of the four actions that change your tenant, and like the others it runs only when you click it.

Follow the message on the diagram

1. Send the message, or wait for the next one. It appears at the top of the Messages panel.
2. On a traced message, choose "On diagram". The steps it passed are coloured, a failed step is marked, and the steps it did not reach are dimmed.
3. Click a coloured step. The "Content before step" panel shows the Body, Headers and Exchange properties as they were before that step, the step's Log, and the Error when the step failed.
4. Use Previous and Next to walk the steps in the order they ran. A step that ran more than once, in a Splitter or a loop, shows each run, for example "Run 2 of 3 of this step".
5. When you are done, choose "Clear the diagram marks".

If the message ran without TRACE, the panel says so: SAP keeps a message's body and headers only when it runs with TRACE, and only for about an hour.

Work with what you find

• The payload viewer shows a body Pretty or on One line, can Wrap lines and Search, and lets you Copy or Download it.
• "Compare with the next step" opens two bodies side by side in Payload compare, so you can see exactly what a step changed.
• Timing colours the steps by how long they took, from fastest (green) to slowest (red); hover a step for its time.
• On a long run, "Steps read" sets how many steps are read for that iFlow, or All.
• For a failed message, the Summary tab says where it failed and, for known errors, "What it usually means:".

To open a message you know by its ID, from this or any other iFlow of the tenant, see finding an SAP CPI message by Message ID or Correlation ID.

How Kitegra helps

The Message Monitor is one of the five areas of the Kitegra. Trace content is customer data: the extension shows it in the page and lets you download a body, but never stores it, syncs it or sends it to Kitegra.

The Helper, Message Monitor, iFlow Inspector and iFlow Docs each count the iFlows you use them on: 5 per module without an account, 50 on the Free plan, 100 on Starter and 300 on Pro; Business has no limit. The Toolbox and the workspace extras are free. Compare the plans.

Try it in your next iFlow

Read what Kitegra adds around the SAP Integration Suite designer, or see it next to its modules.

Frequently asked questions