Aug 1, 2021
Using Microsoft Teams to share SAP IBP Planning views
SAP Integrated Business Planning helps you to create planning views to show demand, supply, inventory, capacity, to name a few. These views can be created using an Excel Plugin. A Web based planning view is also available from the SAP IBP’s cockpit. This planning view is often used as a reference for internal discussions, sharing ideas or even for cross team collaboration within a company. Since, Microsoft teams is often used as a collaboration platform for teams to stay organized and have conversations, it make real sense to enable these planning views to be shared via Channels in Microsoft Teams.
In this blog, I like to share with you how we are able to visualize web based planning views from SAP IBP directly inside Microsoft Teams using an App which you can create on your own.
This blog describes a set of steps which you can follow to build your own Microsoft Teams and SAP IBP.
Prerequisites
a. Make sure that you have a Microsoft Teams account where you can create and install your own apps. You may also try out the Evaluation account Microsoft provides.
b. The domain *.teams.microsoft.com and *.scmibp.ondemand.com must be white listed on your SAP IBP Backend.
c. We would create a Microsoft Teams app using the App Studio which is also an app available via the Teams Store. You can search for App Studio in your Teams Store and install it on your account in Teams.
d. Create a Web based planning view inside SAP IBP.
Inside the Teams App we would create a personal tab which is going to help us display the Planning view from IBP. This teams app would make the necessary calls to the SAP IBP backend. Since these calls are made from a different domain other than the Fiori User interface, we need to white list the teams.microsoft.com domain inside SAP IBP for allowing cross origin domain requests.
Step 1
After you have installed the App Studio, Open it and go ahead to create a new Teams app. In the Manifest Editor, fill in the app details such as a name, description, developer company details, package, and version numbers. You might add all the details requested in that form. You also need two images for branding your app. You can select a logo from your company for that. Teams require a 192x192 and a 32x32 size images to represent your app as an icon.
Step 2
The Capabilities section contains four items — Tabs, Bots, Connectors and Messaging extensions. We will create a Personal tab for our use here. Click on the Tabs section and then on “Add a personal tab”. This would bring a new pop-up screen which can be used to define the tab contents. The Content URL should point to the SAP IBP Web based planning view URL. Imagine it looks something like this,
https://<tenant>.scmibp.ondemand.com/ui#IBPWebBasedPlanningView-manage&/Object/<UI GUID>&List
This URL can be seen on the address bar in SAP IBP when you open the Web based planning view. It is possible to add filters such as an account ID, it is also possible to remove the Fiori tool bar from the top using a few URL attributes as filters.
For our learning, we will create two Personal tabs, one without the filter and the one with the filter. The above URL could be the contents of a Tab without any filters. It could show the planning view version as well as scenarios. The below URL would show the same planning view filtered for a specific account or customer id.
https://<tenant>.scmibp.ondemand.com/ui?c4c=true&accountID=<acc id>#IBPWebBasedPlanningView-manage&/Object/<UI GUID>&List
Step 3
Once the App capabilities are defined, you can go to the finish section and select the “Domains and permissions” item. Under the title Valid domains, add the following domains *.accounts.sap.com and *.scmibp.ondemand.com for whitelisting your backend call backs.
Step 4
The “Test and distribute” section would help you decide what you like to do with your app. You can install it on your Teams account for your own testing. You can download the app as a ZIP file and send it to an admin to get this installed on your behalf or you can publish this app on your Microsoft Teams tenant. If you have enough permissions, you can already install it and view the app. This would show the details of your app, install it and open the app on your Microsoft Teams.
At this stage, your new Teams app is ready and installed. You can see the Web based planning view from SAP IBP inside your Teams app when you navigate to that tab you have created.
I hope you would be able to redo this exercise on your Teams account with SAP IBP. As a next step you can also share this view across your organization once your app is published. I would be delighted to hear how you have build your app, please share it via the comments section below.
Domnic Savio Benedict
Foundation & Integration, SAP IBP
