Hi All,

The tips and tricks for today is for you want to start to developer for SAP Netweaver 7.3, if you have that desire then you should read the document below.

Link for document Performance Best Practices Guide for SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3

Following a very successful post I wrote on October 2009, I’ve decided to insist on a FAQ post format, since it seems to interest readers for being direct and straight to the point information. I’ve also collected some of the questions I received through SAPLAB, directly sent by people having questions or doubts on Portal related matters.

If you work with SAP Netweaver Portal implementations, the listed frequently asked questions might help you shortening your implementation times. I’ve collected some of the most common problems I’ve had while working with Portal, and hopefully provided some straight answers. Also, I’ve included some concepts which are best for you to learn sooner than later.

Please note that these topics are part of my personal experiences and are aimed to people starting off with Portal implementations. I’m also planning a series of other posts intended for more expert users . If you feel that you have complementary information or if you have a different perspective regarding something in this post, please comment on this post, ask away, share you knowledge and experience – it will be highly appreciated!

1. What’s the difference between SAP Enterprise Portal and SAP Netweaver Portal?

2. How can I check the installed version of ESS/MSS?

3. What checklist items should I follow to check an ESS Portal installation?

4. What are the main components of the SAP Netweaver Portal?

5. What’s the relation between the Netweaver Portal and the Universal Worklist (UWL)?

6. What’s the difference between a Portal role and an ERP role?

7. How does the Portal connect to the ERP?

8. What is Single Sign-On (SSO)?

9. How can I change a standard ESS application to meet my client’s own needs?

10. What is the Homepage Framework? Is it mandatory to use it?

11. Common issues and hints for ESS

12. I want to install my own local Portal. Where do I start?

13. I want to develop a custom Portal application. Should I use Web Dynpro or Visual Composer?

14. Can you provide a list of the most commonly used Portal acronyms?

15. Web Dynpro Java or ABAP?

1. What’s the difference between SAP Enterprise Portal and SAP Netweaver Portal?

Before SAP’s strategy turn towards the SAP Netweaver Architecture, what we commonly refer to as “SAP Portal” was called just that or SAP Enterprise Portal. It was just a way to identify this SAP standalone product that was capable (and still is) to connect with all kinds of external systems. These systems could be SAP modules or external systems built on different technologies, such as proprietary client systems or legacy systems. By shifting it’s strategy around Netweaver, SAP put the Portal inside the Netweaver platform, arranging its components in order to improve and simplify it’s communication with other systems, as well as harmonizing some of its core capabilities and re-utilize those of the Netweaver platform. In a daily basis, we just refer to it as SAP Portal and specify the version (e.g. Portal 6.0, Portal 7.0 or NW Portal).

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2. How can I check the installed version of ESS/MSS?

Take note of the following steps in order to find out if indeed you have the ESS and MSS components and in which versions do you have them. Please note that there are alternative ways to check this like, e.g., using the Visual Administrator tool. This is just a way that works for me because most of the times clients won’t allow access to the V.A. tool by external consultants.

• Logon the SAP Netweaver Application (Java) mainpage. The URL is similar to your Portal URL but you should remove the “/irj/portal“. The URL should look something like http://[host]:[port]. You will be asked for a username and password and provided that your user has the necessary permissions, you will be redirected to a page similar to the one below:



• Click on the System Information link as shown above
• The resulting main screen will already tell you something about the installed core versions



• Clink on the “all components” link to access the detailed components list
• For the ESS Business Packges and Components, the marked entries in the image below should be installed. You can also view the installed version in the respective column – e.g. BP_ERP5ESS is in version 1.41 SP4

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3. What checklist items should I follow to check an ESS Portal installation?

This must be one of the most asked topics in SDN and there are lots of references in the web. My first recommendation is that you start by reading my post “Employee Self-Services Initial Steps Wiki“. This “ESS Initial Steps” wiki intends to provide a hands-on initial contact with the ESS implementation.

You might also want to look into the SAP HCM Employee Self Service Wiki space.

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4. What are the main components of the SAP Netweaver Portal?

According to SAP:

SAP NetWeaver Portal unifies key information and applications to give users a single view that spans IT silos and organizational boundaries. It allows you to take full advantage of all your information resources – and maximize the return on your IT investments. And, its predefined business content accelerates implementation and reduces the cost of integrating your existing systems.

Main and general components include:

• Portal-infrastructure management
• Collaboration
• Knowledge Management

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5. What’s the relation between the Netweaver Portal and the Universal Worklist (UWL)?

The Universal Worklist is for the Netweaver Portal what the SAP Business Workplace is for the ERP system. So if you want to enable any Workflow activities using the Portal, ESS and MSS, you will need to use the Universal Worklist so that users receive their tasks and act upon them. The UWL is tied to the backend using a Portal System connector which has to be configured before being able to use it. Many users complain about data refresh issues using the UWL. Even though SAP is aware of this and try to advise some workarounds, like the optimization of the delta pull mechanism, the UWL is still the main funcionality to deliver workitems and tasks to users in the Portal, coming from SAP Business Workflow or Guided Procedures tasks. The UWL is delivered with a standard configuration but usually SAP consultants customize it to meet the client’s and project requirements. See how to configure the UWL for Guided Procedures on Composition Environment.

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6. What’s the difference between a Portal role and an ERP role?

This question arises some doubts, mainly in beginners starting to work with Portal. The role assignment function in the portal allows role assignment to users and groups. These roles will reflect the user’s or group’s function within the company (example: ESS, MSS, HR Administrator, etc.). For a Portal user to run properly, the person resposible for User Management will have to assign both portal roles as well as ERP roles. There are, however, situations for which only an ERP role is assigned.

Portal roles define how portal content is grouped together and how it is displayed in the portal navigation area. By assigning a portal role to a user or group, you’ll define which content is available for a certain user or group.

ERP roles define a set of authorization objects. By assigning an ERP role to a user or group, you grant the set of authorizations that the role defines to the user or group. In the portal, SAP recommends that you work with portal roles.

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7. How does the Portal connect to the ERP?

The main Portal object which is needed for the Portal to connect to the ERP is what is commonly referred to as a System. Systems are PCD objects, such as folders, pages or iViews. What this means is that Systems must have a unique ID, a prefix (typically com.companyname) and a name. Systems have specific parameters that need to be configured, in order to enable the connection between the portal and the backend (ERP).  Ideally, you will have created a customer folder in the PCD and you should create any needed systems in a specific client folder, in a folder name such as “Systems”.

Systems can only be maintained using the System Landscape Editor, which is an option which is only available for the under System Administrator role.

Although systems can be transported through the portal transport mechanism, they don’t need to be and, in my opinion, they shouldn’t. This is because the systems that are accessed from a development portal are normally different to the systems accessed by QA and production portals – they connect to different backends!

If you’re creating you own portal applications, as soon as you deploy them into the server, you will then need to create an iView to contain the application. One of the iView parameters will be the System Alias, which is defined when creating the System itself. If you’re working with ESS and MSS applications, this means that your Portal Administrator should have already configured the necessary systems, which have a system alias defined, and which is referred to by each of the standard ESS and MSS iViews.

I recommend that you read this SAP wiki about connectivity and different variations on connecting different systems.

You can also read this SAP weblog with a step by step to connect the Portal to the ERP backend.

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8. What is Single Sign-On (SSO)?

SAP defines Single Sign-On (SSO) as the following:

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a key feature of the Enterprise Portal that eases user interaction with the many component systems available to the user in a portal environment. Once the user is authenticated to the enterprise portal, he or she can use the portal to access external applications. With SSO in the Enterprise Portal, the user can access different systems and applications without having to repeatedly enter his or her user information for authentication.

The Enterprise Portal SSO mechanism is available in two variants depending on security requirements and the supported external applications:

• SSO with SAP logon tickets
• SSO with user ID and password

Both variants eliminate the need for repeated logons to individual applications after the initial authentication at the enterprise portal. Whereas SSO with SAP logon tickets is based on a secure ticketing mechanism, SSO with user ID and password forwards the user’s logon data (user ID and password) to the systems that a user wants to call.

In case you need to know and understand the necessary steps to configure SSO, please read my post Configure Single Sign-On (SSO) on the Portal and the ERP.

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9. How can I change a standard ESS application to meet my client’s own needs?

Well, this is a hot topic on SDN. I must say that I’ve had lots of challenges regarding this matter, due to clients requirements and short time to develop. In terms of WebDynpro Java, there is more than one way to change ESS and MSS standard applications, as well as some workarounds. In my experience, the most controlled and effective way to do this is using the Netweaver Developer Infrastructure (NWDI) as a kind of middle-ware and access the ESS and MSS applications source code directly. This versioning system allows developers to import ESS and MSS software components into their own desktops as local projects. Once here, they can work on them, doing the necessary changes. When they want to see the changes, they will generally check-in their development activities (NWDI transport requests) and view them directly in the Developement Portal. There are several key points to have in mind when performing changes to standard ESS and MSS applications, using NWDI:

• Start by understanding very well how each application is built; not all of them are clear, they can include comments in german or indian and they sometimes use external Development Components and use the Floorplan Manager (FPM), which isn’t clear to everybody;
• The NWDI doesn’t know how to manage a new Support Package implementation along with your own changes. Please be aware that whenever a new Support Package is installed, all your custom coding, bindings, context elements, model changes, etc. will be overwritten. A good and thorough documentation will help you manage these challenges;
• Make sure to trace the boundaries between your job and technical tasks that will need to be performed in NWDI. Usually the client wraps everything in a global “Portal” subject, and you’ll be responsible for everything. A good basis team which is able to solve issues with NWDI is also a plus.

Besides this technique, there are also other ways to change ESS and MSS standard applications. In terms of Webdynpro Java, here’s some that I’ve came across:

• Using the FPM personalization feature to hide or enable/disable fields (limited). The Floorplan manager (FPM) is a central part of the ESS and MSS applications. Any WebDynpro application that implements FPM is known as a FPM Application.
• Enhancing the ESS applications’ User Interface (UI) without modifying the source code, by using table/view V_T588UICONVCLAS (conversion classes);

I recommend that you read further:

• NWDI/JDI Cookbook
• iView Personalization
• ESS Personal Information UI enhancement without modification
  

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10. What is the Self-Services Homepage? Is it mandatory to use it?

First of all let me clarify that the Self-Services Homepage isn’t mandatory at all. You can build your company’s portal the way you want it. However, the Self-Services Homepage is a smart and good looking way to group several ESS applications. The Self-Services Homepage enables you to create overview pages, which allow your employees to access the self-service applications (services) with greater ease and improved usability. These overview pages group and describe the individual services and contain hyperlinks with which your employees can start the services – usually WebDynpro applications.

The Self-Services Homepage offers the following functions for adjusting the overview pages to suit your self-service applications or for creating your own overview pages:

• Replace pictogram (graphics) on area group pages and area pages;
• Enter long area descriptions
• Creating Customer-Specific Areas with Services
• Hide areas included in the standard system
• Add services to an area included in the standard system
• Hide services included in the standard system

I recommend that you read further:

• Self-Services official SAP Help (ehp4)
• Rapid Portal Content Creation using the Homepage Framework
• How to Map the Relationship Between SAP Enterprise Portal and Homepage Framework for Employee Self Service (ESS)
• How to Add Custom Area Page to Overview Page in ESS
• How to Create Custom Overview Page in ESS

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11. Common issues and hints for ESS

There is a great SAP weblog, created by Márcio Leoni, which covers known issues and very good hints on ESS. Please click here to learn about common issues and hints for ESS.

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12. I want to install my own local Portal. Where do I start?

Please read my post Install a Local SAP Netweaver Developer Workplace.

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13. I want to develop a custom Portal application. Should I use Web Dynpro or Visual Composer?

It depends on how far you want to go. Consider using Visual Composer if you:

• need a simple application to display information about your employees or outstanding orders;
• have little time to implement and want a rapid solution available in your SAP Portal;
• have little technical knowledge and feel more comfortable working with a visual tool;
• don’t predict a very large number of users accessing the application.

Consider using WebDynpro if you:

• plan to develop a more complex and robust application, with transactional purpose;
• have a technical team and skill-set comprising of WebDynpro Java, WebDynpro ABAP, Java, Netweaver Portal and knowledge of the MVC (Model View Control) paradigm;
• predict a large number of users working with the portal;
• have already planned you SAP Portal Project carefully;

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14. Can you provide a list of the most commonly used Portal acronyms?

This is yet another challenge. I will update this ASAP!

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15. Web Dynpro Java or ABAP?

In the past years, SAP Portal and Web Dynpro for Java set as a strategic user interface technology for SAP NetWeaver 04.

With Web Dynpro, you build professional, highly interactive, Web-based, and accessible user interfaces for business applications. Using the Portal, you provide role-based, secure access to any kind of information (structured or unstructured), services and applications via a Web browser. In SAP NetWeaver, these two technologies converge, enabling you to run Web Dynpro-designed content in iViews from within the portal.

In order to create portal content, different tools are available for different professional roles and objectives. The wizards and templates included with the Portal Content Studio are specially suited for content administrators, while the Portal Development Kit (PDK) for Java is geared to J2EE developers. Recently, WebDynpro ABAP has become more and more the most used paradigm for developing portal applications. Web Dynpro is best suited for business application developers. In what relates to WebDynpro Java, working from the Eclipse-based SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, business application developers need Java and ABAP skills to leverage this programming model. From a WebDynpro ABAP perspective, developers must have an advanced knowledge in ABAP as well as the Model View Controller (MVC) paradigm, in order to be able to use it with full capacity.

Bottom line is, in my opini0n, if you’re aiming to learn WebDynpro, I would bet in WebDynpro ABAP.Most of the recent SAP Business aligned with EHP4 are being developed in WebDynpro ABAP. A major plus is that you will work from within SE80 and will use the well known transport system, instead of the NWDI.

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Hope this post is useful for you. Please comment!

There are several ways to bring data to Manager Self-Services (MSS) that serve any business purpose. You can use the out-of-the-box services that are shipped with the MSS business package. You can start tweaking the configuration or you can also create new services from scratch that are tailored to your business needs.  In most cases the given opportunities to tweak a configuration are not sufficient or simply not available and applications totally built from scratch are often not covered by the budgets available. But sometimes you can find both in one single tool – the generic iView. This simple service allows you to compile data in a tailored way, feed MSS and make managers happy.

Now I mentioned it – generic iView. What is that? A generic iView is a service that allows you  to display data that has been compiled by a SAP query on the SAP Netweaver Portal. The vehicle for the data generation is the  SAP Query tool. Application champions in SAP HR are probably already familiar with this powerful tool that is already available in the SAP R3 box. You don’t need to buy it. The same applies to the generic iView. It’s for free, you just need to use it.

Now we arrived at the point were you are probably raising the question – how can I use it, what do I need to get it done? In the following section I will try to provide you with a proper answer and a clear how-to guide.

First of all you need to know the basic components of this tool.  Basically you need to take care about three essential steps:

1. Create a custom variant for the generic iView service
2. Create or define SAP queries that suit your business need
3. Prepare the portal content and attach it to MSS

Before we start we need to check the pre-requisites – basically the authorizations you have on your SAP system. In order to perform the steps mentioned above you need at least the following authorizations:

ERP System (or Backend): Adequate profile to work with SAP query and read HR data.

Portal: Content Administrator and Self-Service Administrator roles.

Now you are well prepared to continue.  Please follow the instructions below:

• Log in to your SAP portal.
• Go to Self-Service Administrator > Portal Content > Content provided by SAP > srvconfig
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Generic iView > FPM Applications

• Right mouse click on Generic iView Test Application and press Copy




• Go to your customer name space on the portal content directory and Paste as Deltalink (very important)
• Right mouse click on the pasted application and select Change ID
• Enter a new name, ID and prefix for the application (very important)
• Save your changes
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Generic iView > FPM Views




• Repeat steps 4. and 5. for all view objects
• Go to folder com.sap.pct.erp.srvconfig.mss > Team Viewer > FPM Views
• Repeat steps 4. and 5. for all view objects

Now the first Part of the endeavor “generic iView” has been accomplished. More to come in the near future. I hope you will come back and follow up on this hopefully interesting article.

About the author

Christian Popa (cristego) is a SAP HCM, Self-Services (XSS) and Netweaver Portal Expert, having several years of experience in Global IT and SAP Projects. Click here to view Christian’s full profile.

This SAP How-to guide provides recommendations for improving the performance of Knowledge Management (KM) in SAP NetWeaver 2004. You will be able to find information on performance-optimized KM configuration, implementation tips, cross points with other Netweaver components, such as TREX, and it also includes a Q&A section.

Get it in PDF, just click on the download link below.

This how-to tutorial explains the TREX Basis Installation as well as the some post configuration activities, needed for the TREX to work. SAP NetWeaver Search and Classification (TREX) finds information in both structured and unstructured data. TREX provides SAP applications with services for searching and classifying large collections of documents and for searching and aggregating business objects. For those who want to know TREX in more detail, I recommend that you start by the SAP Help page available here.

Please note that this tutorial covers the installation of TREX on a 32 Bit Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition with SP1 and IIS installed and running.

Additional prerequisites that were in place before installing TREX:

• The server where TREX was installed had a 4GB RAM Memory.
• The installed TREX version was 7.0.25 based on Netweaver 7.0 SR2.

Some points to take into consideration before starting:

• In order to create a search and classification engine for SAP ERP, BW and the Enterprise Portal, TREX 7.0 was installed on a separate stand alone server.
• Both the ABAP stack as well as the Java stack were required for the installation process.
• The TREX server is part of the Netweaver 2004s SR2 framework. At the time of this installation, the windows 64-bit X86 version was only available to ramp up customers. So the 32 bit version was considered.
• This installation was performed using the SAP NetWeaver 2004s Standalone Engine Search and Classification (TREX) Single Host.

TREX Installation Steps

1. Login with the xyzADM account where xyz represents the SID (e.g. N20ADM).

2. Install the 32 BIT JDK, using all default installation values. The version used for this installation was Java 2 SDK Standard Edition version 1.4.2_14.

3. Set the JAVA_HOME system variable with the location of the JDK installation (e.g. c:\java_142_14\bin).

4. Copy the TREX installation files and NW2004s master disk into a new windows 32 bit server named: rrispdt01 (in separate directories). You should do this using a USB file copy and locate all files in: D:\TREX_Install_Files. Consider the following files/directories: SAP Netweaver 2004s SR2 (TREX 7.0) DVD and Netweaver Master Install Zip file.

5. Run file R3Dllins.exe. Click OK when you’re prompted if you want to modify system files.

6. Run SAPinst.exe to start the installation process.

7. If you’re performing a first installation, select TREX global file system with the first TREX instance. Follow the steps below to install TREX:

8. Choose a New installation (if it is in fact a new installation):

9. Select the “Typical” installation and click next.

10. Enter the SID (it must be the same SID as done in the Netweaver Developer Workplace/Portal installation) and select the installation drive (Typically E:))

11. Enter your Password - the same password as your xyzADM password:

12. Enter the password for the xyzADM account and enter a password for the SAP System Service user account.  To avoid confusion, I suggest using the same password for both:

13.Check the chosen settings in the summary screen and click Start:

14. If everything goes well we you will receive a success message. All phases should clear with a green icon.

Post Installation Tasks and Procedures

After the above desired successful TREX installation, all you’ll have is a “floating” TREX. I say floating because TREX still won’t be connected to the Portal. So the first step will be to connect TREX to the existing  Portal instance.

Test the TREX Servers

1. Log on with the user xyzADM and open a command line.

2. Browse to the following directory: <disk_drive>:\usr\sap\trex_<instance_number>\python_support.

3. Type trexsettings.bat in the command line and hit enter to execute the batch file.

4. Execute python script: runInstallationTest.py. This script will carry out the following tests:

• Delete test indexes that were generated for a previous script run;
• Create a test index;
• Index documents;
• Test search functions:  exact, error-tolerant (fuzzy), and linguistic searches; and search using boolean operators such as AND and OR.

5. The results will be displayed at the end of the script run. You’ll see the test calls and the respective statuses (OK or Failed).

6. When you run the script for the first time, the call “Delete Index” will display the status Failed. This is caused by the fact that no existing text index to be deleted existed. If this is the only line with the status Failed, the test was successful.

Point the Application Servers to the TREX instances

1. Access the Portal server file system and start the offline Config Tool.

2. Once in the Config Tool, navigate to Global Instance > Services > trex.serviceNameserver.address enter the following tcpip://<FQDN>:30001.

3. The next entry should be nameserver.backupserverlist. Type the following entry: tcpip://<FQDN>:30001.

4. Go back to the TREX server and open the TREX admin tool (you should now be able to access it). Confirm that you can see the Servers as online.

Recently I’ve found a Wiki in SDN which I think has a great potential. First of all, you need to have a clear notion of the Wiki Concept. According to Wikipedia:

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.

Most wikis serve a specific purpose, and off topic material is promptly removed by the user community. Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept all sorts of content without rigid rules as to how the content should be organized.

Being that said, there are numerous wikis sitting in SDN. And since ESS is a very hot topic, it is a good idea to highlight this one.

The “ESS Initial Steps” wiki was originally created by Stuart Campbell. The beauty of the wikis is that any interested user can edit the information on it, obviously with the objective of enriching it or completing it further. Note that for SAP SDN wikis you’ll need to have a valid SAP issued user to be able to edit and save the information in the wikis.

The “ESS Initial Steps” wiki intends to provide a hands-on initial contact with the ESS implementation. It starts of listing the core components information, links/urls to the SAP Help pages, the ESS architecture, the ESS Homepage Framework concept, and so on.

If you’re involved in Employee Self-Services and Portal projects, go along and visit this wiki. You can think about contributing and improving it.

Here’s the link:
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/ERPHCM/Initial+Steps+in+ESS

Note: you should also read SAP Note 1007341 – SAP ERP 2004/2005 – supported ESS/MSS system landscapes.

The SAP Enterprise Portal offers a mechanism called Session Release Notification. This feature is used by SAP applications running inside the portal to close their sessions in case the user closes the browser window, navigates away from the application or logs-off from the SAP Portal. This SAP standard how-to guide explains what you must do to accomplish this mechanism for your own custom developed applications integrated into the portal.

This how-to coveres the following Netweaver releases:

• SAP Netweaver 7.0
• SAP Netweaver Composition Environment 7.1 and 7.2

SAP describes this how-to guide’s Business Scenario as following:

One reason to use the SAP Enterprise Portal is the easy integration of state full (existing) Web Applications into the Portal.
When integrating state-full applications you always face the problem, that the application is not notified if the user navigates away or even closes the browser window. All Web Applications face this problem, since they are based on the stateless HTTP protocol. Nearly all state full applications keep session data on the server side and release those resources after a predefined timeout. The servlet container for example releases session data by default after 30 minutes inactivity. As a consequence there is a delay between the user action (e.g. the user has closed the browser) and the release of the corresponding session data on the server side.

This delay can cause the following problems:

• “Dead State” remains on the server and blocks resources (memory) until timeout.
• Server scalability and performance get worse due to the load which is caused by this “Death State”
• Application locks may lead to deadlocks, when the same or different users accessing the same shared resources.

If you use SAP technology to build your Web Applications and run them in the portal, they automatically include a feature called Session Release Notification, which informs the external content server if the user

• navigates away
• closes the browser window
• logs-off the portal

The following SAP technologies use this Session Release Notification out of the box without the need to do/implement anything.

• ITS based applications
• BSP (Business Server Pages)
• Web Dynpro (ABAP and Java)

However if you have build your applications using non SAP technologies, your content server will not get notified automatically.

This How-to guide shows how you integrate external applications into the portal which will be notified when the user navigates away closes the browser or logs-off the portal.

Get it in PDF, just click on the download link below.

Have you ever been confused and never-ending googling the web looking for the right versions of whatever Portal Business Packages? I have. So after some back and forth, SDN, Google, etc.

I finally found a useful excel sheet, updated and posted by SAP. For me it was definitely a breakthrough. Plain truth, I miss the old Portal Content Portfolio, where we could browse for existing Business Packages, lookup the diferent versions and see what was the backend limitations and requirements. Unfortunately SAP redesigned the Content Portfolio and now you have to look up this kind of information in the Marketplace. This is ok but I’ve experienced that in case your SAP user doesn’t have enough privileges, you end up in a blank page.

A good complement tool is the Product Availability Matrix, which will also help you understand which versions are compatible with one another.

Using this Excel sheet, you can search for your required Business Package, as well as it’s version, shipped with release, description, link for details on help.sap.com and even the OSS Notes useful to read further.

So, all things said, here goes this bit of useful information:

Link to this official SAP tool – Click here.

In alternative, you can access the SDN website and browse to SAP NetWeaver Capabilities > User Productivity > Portal and Collaboration.

To make things easier, you can also download the zip file from the link below. The file contains an excel sheet with the most recent business packages (e.g. for ERP starting with SAP ERP 6.0) delivered by SAP.

This section contains available tools for SAP NetWeaver Portal only. Please access our Download page in order to download SAP NetWeaver Main Releases or SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment.

Downloadable Tools for SAP Portal

SAP Portal Development Kit for Microsoft.NET (PDK for .NET) is a self-contained set of tools that enables developing, running and administrating portal applications for SAP NetWeaver Portal on the Microsoft .NET platform. Using PDK for .NET allows organizations to leverage their existing investments in the Microsoft .NET technology and developers’ skills, as well as take advantage of the SAP NetWeaver technology.

Use the BusinessObjects XI 3.0 Java Portal Integration Kit to integrate content directly with your Java based corporate portal. It provides business users with a personalized, single, secure view of corporate information while reducing training and education costs.

You can use the features of the Business Intelligence Documents portlet to browse your list of documents, navigate to folders and categories, and access the content directly from your system. If you are enabled by your Web Site Creator, you can also create a personalized list that contains only the documents that you want to view.

Use the BusinessObjects XI Release 1 SharePoint 2003 Portal Integration Kit to integrate content directly with your .NET based corporate portal. It provides business users with a personalized, single, secure view of corporate information.

The BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2 Portal Integration Kit – JAAS SSO Enablement Extensions let you leverage single sign-on (SSO) on your BEA WebLogic Server. The JAAS SSO Enablement Extensions let you automatically authenticate and sign-on users to the BusinessObjects Enterprise system, giving them an appropriate amount of access to the reports and objects on the BusinessObjects Enterprise system, including their Inbox and Favorites folder and their own personalized reports, without requiring them to enter their credentials again.

In case you successfully installed your local SAP Portal, you’ll have to fine tune it by performing some additional steps. One of those steps is applying a license key, based on your local computer hardware key. Otherwise, your installation will only work for about 90 days or so. So, follow the steps shown below to be able to achieve this.

1. Run a command prompt as SAP admin user (<sysid>adm user). Alternative, you can also logon to Windows using your <sysid>adm user and then executing the command prompt using “Run command > cmd.exe”:

2. In the command prompt, execute command saplicense -get. The system will return the hardware key corresponding to your local computer:

3. You must now e-mail this hardware key to your basis personnel, in order for them to create and validate the installation in the landscape for your local instance. You should receive a license.txt file.

4. After receiving it, logon to the Visual Administrator tool and browse to Server > Services > Licensing Adapter. Install the license from the local drive.

5. You should now be able to use your installation without restrictions.

Lots of portal projects primarily focus on providing a pure technical portal platform. Thus strategic aspects are often neglected although the reach of a portal implementation throughout the company is quite big. There are usually many touch points with other teams, departments and technical components. This could be for example the different business units, works council / HR, user management or security and network team.

Based on various customer projects, this SAP standard presentation aims at providing some general information and guidance for successfully implementing an enterprise portal. Starting with a clear vision and strategy, we show how you can define step-by-step a clear roadmap including the concrete work packages.

The main target group for this presentation are IT project managers that would like to deepen their knowledge and become experts in portal projects.

Click here to download the “Planning a Sucessful SAP Netweaver Portal” presentation (approx. 800 KBytes)

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This was something that I was meaning to do a long time ago – installing my own local SAP Portal, so I can deploy and test my applications whenever I want, without having to go through the NWDI server. I finally had the time and resources to do it, so let me share this experience with you. Even though the steps are pretty comprehensive and straightforward, things might get messy if you fail some requirements or initial preparation tasks. I highly recommend the reading of the installation information in https://websmp201.sap-ag.de/nw04installation. You should also take a deeper look into the Master Guide and the Technical Infrastructure Guide.

Assuming that you have the necessary hardware requirements to install a local SAP Portal, there are also some prerequisites that you must comply to be able to finish it successfully:

• You must have the Developer Workplace source files (typically it will contain a sub-directory named IM_WINDOWS_I386, in case you intend to install it in a Windows based PC as I did);
• You must have all the necessary files for the Netweaver 2004s SR2 Kernel for Windows. You can get these files in http://service.sap.com/swdc. Note that your OSS User must have privileges to be able to download them;
• You also need a full version of the Max DB database 7.6.xx. You can also use SQL Server as your database;
• I recommend that you have a separate copy of the Netweaver Developer Studio (NWDS) on the same stack level on which you intend to upgrade your Developer Workplace and the ESS/MSS Business Packages (in case you install them);
• You must install the Java Software Development Kit 1.4.2_xx (I installed 1.4.2_09). After installing, do not forget to disable automatic updates right upon installation. There are known issues with versions 1.5.x.
• A local instance ID must be obtained from your basis team. For this purpose, the instance ID referenced in this post is N21.

Installing the Netweaver Developer Workplace

1. Start by installing the Java Software Development Kit 1.4.2_xx (I installed 1.4.2_09). Typically, Java will be installed in a new directory called, e.g., c:\j2sdk1.4.2_09;

2. Create a new system variable called JAVA_HOME and set it’s value as c:\j2sdk1.4.2_09\bin;

3. You should create a new administrator user for your local PC, called [Instance Number]adm. In this case, N21ADM;

4. I had some issues with the anti-virus, so I disabled it during the installation;

5. If you use a VPN to connect to your ERP backend system, be sure to connect to it so that you have a valid IP address during the process;

6. Run file sapinst.exe, which should be located in the developer workplace installation directory – ..\IM_WINDOWS_I386;

7. Follow the steps described on the following screenshots:

8. You must specify a Police Archive, which can be downloaded from the locations below

9. Specify the instance ID and the installation drive

10. Define a master password. This will be the portal user “Administrator” password, as well as the Visual Administrator password

11. Define a password for the windows account users. This will be the windows user “[InstanceID]adm” password

12. Define the Database parameters. In this case, it’s the same ID as defined for the Instance ID (N21)

13. Enter the locations of the necessary software packages. First the RDMS MaxDB

14. Next the UC Kernel, for the Netweaver 2004s SR2

15. For the time being, select “No SLD destination”. The SLD configuration will be done later.

16. Select the location for the Netweaver Developer Studio (NWDS) installation

17. Hit Start

18. If no errors occur, hopefully your installation will end with lots of green checks and a message of success confirming it. you can now check if your local Portal is working.

19. To test your local Portal, first you must start the J2EE engine. You should have the SAP Management Console (MMC) icon on your desktop

20. Start your instance and verify that all processes are running – all green

21. Access the Portal on http://localhost:50000/irj/portal

22. Logon using user “Administrator” and the same password you’ve defined in step 10. You should be able to login and view the Portal running.

So I have my local SAP Portal running! What’s next?

Right now you have an almost standalone local SAP Portal. In order to use it properly, you still have several configurations to perform. Here are some of the most important

1. Get your license key

2. Configure the System Landscape Directory (SLD)

3. Configure the Single Sign-On

4. Create the necessary Java Connectors (JCO)

5. Deploy any existing custom applications (Web Dynpro)

6. Install the ESS and MSS Business Packages

After you performed these steps, you will be able to run ESS and MSS applications on your local Portal, provided that the user credentials are valid and that you’re connected to the backend system when you run it.

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