ISA B2B Generic SAP R/3 Extensions

Question

Hi All,
I am just going through the ISA tutorials as described in the ISA Extension Guide.
Unfortunately there seems to be many problems with the Extensions Demo 5 which
could have partly been solved but right now it stucks at Extension Demo5 Approach 3.
I think this is more a general issue realted to how to use the generic SAP R/3
extensions.
The idea of this tutorial is to set the deliver block in R/3 for an order, so that the users
chose a delivery block ID depending on which the corresponding delivery block is then set on R/3 site.
Inside backendobject-config.xml is the following entry:
<config isa:extends="../config[@id='r3pidefault']">
      <businessObject type="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_CREATE" name="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_CREATE">
                                <params>
                                        <param name="fields" value="LIFSK,2"/>
                                </params>
      </businessObject>
      <businessObject type="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_READ" name="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_READ" >
                                <params>
                                        <param name="fields" value="LIFSK,2"/>
                                </params>
      </businessObject>
</config>
The structure VBAK contains the field LIFSK with the data element LIFSK which is
linked to the DLV_BLOCK field containing the actual delivery value of the sales
document (order).
I followed the instructions and created the append structure BAPE_VBAK that contains
component LIFSK of component type LIFSK.
Class Z_OrderR3 extends OrderR3 overwrites updateInBackend(SalesDocumentData posd, ...) method like:
//fetch the delivery id from the R/3 version of the document
if (isExistsInR3()){
    // DeliveryBlock.EXT_KEY_DELIVBLOCK_HEADER == LIFSK
    posd.getHeaderData().addExtensionData(DeliveryBlock.EXT_KEY_DELIVBLOCK_HEADER,
    getDocumentR3Status().getHeader().getExtensionData(DeliveryBlock.EXT_KEY_DELIVBLOCK_HEADER));
this code is never executed because isExistsInR3() returns false. If the if-statement is
deleted a null pointer exception is thrown by getDocumentR3Status(). I also tried this
code snipset in saveInBackend() which behaves alike.
So why does isExistsInR3() return fales? It should exist at that point of time. Shouldn't
it?
And what does "LIFSK,2" in backendobject-config.xml mean? Why is there ",2"?
Another thing is that reading the delivery block out of the R/3 also does not work.
If the user clicks on an order number within the ISA web-shop the method
Z_OrderR3.setDeliveryBlockText(SalesDocumentData ordr, ...) is called. There is this
code:
    HeaderData header = ordr.getHeaderData();
    //DeliveryBlock.EXT_KEY_DELIVBLOCK_HEADER == LIFSK
    (String) header.getExtensionData(DeliveryBlock.EXT_KEY_DELIVBLOCK_HEADER);
which returns null.
Any clue what is going wrong here? Could this be a bug or did I lose sight on sth?
We are using Web-As 6.20 and ISA 4.0 SP11.
Help is highly appreciated.
Best Regards and Thanks in Advance,
Martin Muellenberg

Answer 1

Hi Martin,
although I cannot determine the exact reason for your problems I can give some coding help on the items below, because from what I have seen the below code will never work...
First I see that you are extending the r3pidefault configuration, is this the configuration you are using, if not adjust to the appropriate one. If this is ok, then good work, I had a lot of problems one searching for this one...
in backend-object-config.xml you should have structures like:
<businessObject type="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_CREATE" name="EXTENSION_DOCUMENT_CREATE">
         <params>
                <param name="structure" value="BAPE_VBAK"/>
                <param name="fields" value="LIFSK,2"/>
         </params>
</businessObject>
where bape_vbak is the name of the structure in R/3 or CRM you wish to extend
you could also make a BAPE_VBAP for extensions at item level but I guess you will not be needing it here.
The LFISK ,2 means that an extensionfield exists in your R/3 structure BAPE_VBAK at that it has length 2. The fields of the extension structures always get passed on as strings and the same order and length should be maintained on the java and R/3 side. (in your case only 1 field so no problem).
Normally now for both your extended methods (there are 4 in total you extend only create and read) this field should be available and you can just access them on the appropriate header by :
String LFISK = (String)  <some header>.getExtensionData("LFISK");
<some header>.addExtensionData("LFISK", some string);
I hope this helps a little bit, I know the application is a little hard at first to get into,
if you keep having problems, post a copy of your extension structure as well so we can make a comparison.
Regards,
Allan