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SAP ByDesign Connectivity Solutions

Query SAP ByDesign Data from Node.js



The API Server exposes Web services that allow connectivity to your data. Use the OData endpoint of the CData API Server to execute CRUD queries to SAP ByDesign data from Node.js.

The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for SAP ByDesign, exposes SAP ByDesign data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as an OData endpoint, which can be queried from Node.js using simple HTTP requests. This article shows how to use the API Server to request JSON-formatted SAP ByDesign data in Node.js.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure SAP ByDesign OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to SAP ByDesign

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for SAP ByDesign, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to SAP ByDesign by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

Set the following connection properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

  • Url: Set this to the Url of your SAP ByDesign site. For example, https://test.sapbydesign.com
  • User: Set this to the username of your account.
  • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
  • CustomService or AnalyticsService: Only one of these must be specified. If you have a custom service you want to retrieve data from, specify CustomService. If you want to retrieve the reports of a analytical service, specify AnalyticsService.
    If neither is specified, 'cc_home_analytics.svc' will used as a default for the AnalyticsService property. If you are not sure what service to specify, you can always query the Services view to list available services.

You can then choose the SAP ByDesign entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; all IP addresses except the local machine are restricted by default. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Consume SAP ByDesign OData Feeds from Node.js

OData feeds are easy to work with in Node.js. You can use the HTTP client in Node.js to request JSON-formatted data from the API Server's OData endpoint. After making the request, you can construct the body of the response and call the JSON.parse() function to parse it into records.

The code below will make an authenticated request for [Inventory Balance] data. The example URL below applies a simple filter that searches for records with a value of 1234567 in the ProductCategoryID column.

var http = require('http'); http.get({ protocol: "http:", hostname: "MyServer.com", port: MyPort, path: "/api.rsc/[Inventory Balance]?$filter=" + encodeURIComponent("ProductCategoryID eq '1234567'"), auth: 'MyUser:MyAuthtoken' }, function(res) { var body = ''; res.on('data', function(chunk) { body += chunk; }); res.on('end', function() { console.log(body); var jsonData = JSON.parse(body); }); }).on('error', function(e) { console.log("Error: ", e); });