Introducing the Tidal Automation Adapter for SAP

The integration of Tidal Automation (TA) with SAP allows you to schedule jobs in the SAP environment via TA. The TA SAP interface connects with the SAP system via a network connection managed by the SAP RFC (Remote Function Call) interface.

To facilitate job creation and control in the SAP environment, TA uses the methods provided by SAP BAPI functions called the XBP (eXternal Background Processing) API.

Java connector software provided by SAP, called the JCO 3.20 component, must be installed on the TA Master machine. SAP JCO 3.20 is necessary for a Java application (like TA) to work with SAP.

The Tidal Automation Adapter for SAP is part of the regular TA installation; however, it can only be used if the appropriate license is applied to TA. Though no additional installation is required, you must perform some configuration procedures.

Terms to Know

  • Application Server – A machine that runs an SAP task.

  • SAP Instance – A consolidation of many SAP objects and processes on one machine, used to process SAP transactions on one or more SAP application servers.

  • SAP Client – An independent participant in an SAP system.

  • SAP Object – An element of the SAP development environment, such as ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) programs or transaction definitions.

Minimum Software Requirements for TA Master

The minimum software releases for the TA SAP R/3 adapter implementation are:

  • SAP R/3 versions 4.5, 4.6C, 4.7x

  • SAP ERP 2004, 2005

  • SAP Basis 7.01, 7.02, 7.30, 7.1 PI, 7.4

  • SAP HANA 7.7

  • TA v6.0

  • SAP JCO 3.0.18

  • Business Warehouse (BW) 3.1 and 3.5

  • BI 7.0

  • Microsoft Visual C++ runtime components 2005 or above are required (for Windows installations) .

Refer the TA Compatibility Matrix for specific version support and a complete list of TA hardware and software requirements.

Importing SAP Factory Calendars into Tidal Automation

You may want to use the SAP factory calendars when defining the Tidal Automation Adapter for SAP jobs.

To use the SAP factory calendars in Tidal Automation, import the SAP factory calendars using the \IntegrationUtils\SAP Calendar Import Tool\SapCalendarImportTool.jar file available in the Tidal Automation Base Product software for your environment in the Tidal support portal. For more information about the tool, see the README.txt file in the IntegrationUtils\SAP Calendar Import Tool folder.