Create Action Project in Lobby

1. Download and extract Open API Specification zip file for Sales Order (A2X) API in your local file system.

Open API specification of 2.x or 3.x or higher is needed for creating action project. For APIs that are available in SAP API Business Hub, you can directly download the specification from the API overview section. For example: The API specification that will be used for sales order creation in this exercise is downloaded from here.

1. Open SAP Build Lobby with your username and password:

   • then click Create.

   

2. In the popup, click Build an Automated Process and then select Actions.

   

3. In the popup, do the following:

   • Enter the Project Name as Sales Order.
   • Enter the Short Description as API to create sales order in S/4HANA cloud system.
   • Click to Browse the open specification file downloaded in step above.
   • Click Create.
   

4. Wait for the action project to be created in the Lobby.

   

1. Once the action project is created, the action editor will automatically open. In the popup, you have to select POST method of /A_SalesOrder API. You can either directly search from the given list of APIs or follow the steps below:

   • Select filter option.
   
   • Select Request Type >> POST and click OK.
   

   • From the filtered list of APIs, select POST option for /A_SalesOrder API.

   • Click Add.

   

2. Action editor will be opened with the selected APIs which can be further configured based on the requirements:

   • To update the project name, click on the pencil icon next to the project name.

     This action project name will help you search your action project from your API list, once published in action repository.

   
   • Change the name to Create a sales order.
   • Once done, select check icon to submit the changes.
   

3. Now, you will update the input/output fields of the action project to keep only the mandatory fields that are needed to create the sales order. To select the Input fields, do the following:

   • Sort Key in ascending order by clicking on the key column and select the Sort Ascending option.

   
   • Select All the fields by clicking on the checkbox of Key column.
   • Uncheck the following fields so that they are added as Input.

   Keys selected as Input
   DistributionChannel
   OrganizationDivision
   PurchaseOrderByCustomer
   SalesOrderType
   SalesOrganization
   SoldToParty

   • Click cross to delete rest of the unwanted fields.
   
   • In the confirmation popup, click Remove.
   

   If you get message like The following parameter(s) can’t be added because they have unsupported definition in the pop up then scroll down to add the individual attributes.

   
   • Enter the default value for each of the input fields.

   Keys selected as Input	Value
   DistributionChannel	10
   OrganizationDivision	00
   PurchaseOrderByCustomer	any name of your choice
   SalesOrderType	OR
   SalesOrganization	1710
   SoldToParty	17100006

   Use can also change Labels of the fields.

   
   • Save the changes.

   If you get Gateway Timeout issue while saving, then close the error dialog and refresh the browser.

   If you see that changes are not saved, then try saving again and refreshing the browser.

4. As S/4HANA APIs need CSRF token, click … of the POST API on the left panel and select Enable X-CSRF.

   
   • In the popup, enter / and click Add X-CSRF.

   Action project uses Destination service to execute the API. In the destination you have already create the URL Path as https://my-api.s4hana.cloud.sap/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_SALES_ORDER_SRV to call the API. So, while configuring XSRF token path you do not have to enter any explicit path rather use standard URL configured in the destination.

   

5. With this you have configured the action project name, XSRF token and API input fields. Save the work.

   

6. Similarly, configure the output fields. Do the following:

   • Click Output tab.
   • Sort the keys in Ascending Order.
   • Select all the keys.
   • Uncheck the following keys that are needed as Output:

   Keys selected as Output
   CreatedByUser
   CreationDate
   DistributionChannel
   OrganizationDivision
   PurchaseOrderByCustomer
   RequestedDeliveryDate
   SalesOrder
   SalesOrderDate
   SalesOrderType
   SalesOrganization
   SoldToParty
   TotalNetAmount

   • Click cross to delete rest of the unwanted output fields.

   • Save the changes.

   

   If you get Gateway Timeout issue while saving, then close the error dialog and refresh the browser.

   If you see that changes are not saved, then try saving again and refreshing the browser.

1. Once the action project is configured and saved, it is time to test the changes and output. To test the API, do the following:
   • Click Test tab.
   • Select Destination option under Connectivity.
   • Select S4HANACloud from the dropdown options.

   The destinations are fetched from the SAP Business Technology Platform. The selected destination is already created in the account configured for this workshop.

   Notice that the input value is already picked from the default value entered while configuring the action project.

   • Click Test.
   
   • Once the execution is successful, you see 201 Created response with the details of the new sales order being created in the backend S/4HANA Cloud system.
   

You will now release the action project to create version(s) and then publish a selected version in the action repository. It is then these published actions that can be used in different processes and applications to connect to external systems.

• To release a version of the action project, click Release from top-right corner.

• In the release popup, enter the Release Notes of your choice and click Release.

Notice the version of the project. It is in majorVersionNumber.minorVersionNumber.patchNumber format.

Once the action project is released, you can the publish any release version of the action by clicking Publish to Library from top-right corner.

With this you have successfully completed creating, configuring, releasing and publishing of action project. Now you will use these published actions to connect process to external systems via APIs.