Get Started with the SAP API Business Hub

Follow the link to the SAP API Business Hub.

The SAP API Business Hub (henceforth referred to as the Hub) contains valuable information on APIs of course, but there is other content also available, such as Business Processes, Events, CDS Views and more.

On the SAP API Business Hub homepage, select Content Types > APIs to see the available API content.

This will take you to the APIs section on the homepage. Select View More to see all available APIs and packages.

This will take you to the API content listing on the SAP API Business Hub.

Pay particular attention to the icons used here - there are API packages denoted by one particular icon, and individual APIs within a package, denoted by a different icon. Select an API package from the list to see both icons in use. For example, selecting the SAP Cloud Platform Integration API package reveals individual APIs within.

As an alternative to exploring and navigating the content on the Hub, there is a search facility on the homepage. Use the “SAP API Business Hub” link in the very top left of the page to return to the homepage where you’ll see the search box. Search for SuccessFactors to find all the SuccessFactors related content.

This will bring up all the Hub content relating to SuccessFactors, including APIs and API packages. You may wish to experiment with refining the search results using the checkboxes on the left hand side to specify API and API Package types only.

Find and select the SAP SuccessFactors Foundation/Platform API package.

This will bring up the SAP SuccessFactors Foundation/Platform API package detail, showing the APIs available.

Let’s drill down one level further and select a particular API in this package - the User Management API.

An API package contains one or more APIs, and an API itself can contain one or more endpoints (also known as resources), organised into groups. Take a look at the endpoints in the User Management API you’ve just selected, and you’ll see that there are three groups of endpoints - User, User Permissions and Service Operations - shown on the left hand side.

The API page will most likely have opened displaying the expanded detail of the first operation / endpoint combination in the first group, in this case the GET operation on the /User endpoint. While exploring all the endpoints you may wish to collapse the information, which you can do by selecting the GET operation to toggle the display. The screenshot above shows the collapsed endpoints within the User group.

Take a minute to explore the API and understand how endpoints are organized into groups, and what operations are available on which endpoints.

The Hub offers a test facility for APIs. In order to take advantage of this, you need to log on. Select Log On at the top of the page.

Once logged on, when looking at the details for an operation / endpoint combination, you will see a Try Out button.

Selecting this will open any parameters in that section for input. Make sure you select the GET /Users operation / endpoint to try out within the User Management API.

Calling the GET operation on the /User endpoint will return a list of users from SuccessFactors. The $top parameter can be used to retrieve only the first n results once all the other filtering is done. Specify a value of 20 for this parameter.

We can use the $select parameter to restrict the properties returned. Select firstName, jobTitle and lastName from the list.

Use the control key on Windows, or the command key on macOS to be able to select multiple entries.

Finally, use the $filter parameter to include an OData filter expression to limit the results - specify firstName eq 'Amy'.

When you’re ready, select Execute at the bottom of the documentation for that method.

Below the Execute button, you will see details of the call that was made on your behalf. This includes the entire URL of the request, along with the response headers and body. The SuccessFactors system used in this particular test is a sandbox system with a limited amount of data.

Feel free to explore other endpoints in this User Management API.