Int4 IFTT – IDoc interfaces

Introduction

Int4 IFTT supports various interface types that can be tested in terms of SAP End-to-End testing. Synchronous and asynchronous, AIF, CPI, IDoc Interfaces and many more options to fill specific requirements. In this article, I would like to explain functional and technical details about testing IDoc interfaces using Int4 IFTT.

Int4 IFTT enables testing of standard IDoc interfaces as well as custom ones.

Configuration

In this section, I will show you in detail how to perform configuration steps required to test IDoc interfaces. The main step in the process is to create a Configuration (Automation) Object which is a
base object that stores all the rules for a single application interface to be tested.

We can divide IDoc interfaces into two groups depending on their directions:

The configuration looks very similar for both types. In this article, I will create a Configuration Object for an Inbound IDoc interface (IDoc ORDERS05).

Steps:

1. Navigate to Int4 IFTT Mass changes of configuration (tcode /int4/iftt_conf_mass) and click on the New Entries button. Enter object definition ID and description.

2. Provide IDoc details in the Service Interface Name column. Name of an IDoc interface should be a combination of IDoc message type, basic type and extension separated by a dot (.). You can find those details in the IDoc’s control record:

Therefore, in the above case you should enter ORDERS.ORDERS05 in the Service Interface

Name column, as below:

3. Navigate to the Variables section and define suitable variables. For our IDoc we need to define a variable for a Purchase Order number. Add new entry and provide Variable Name and Description and save your data:

4. Next, select the line with the variable you have just defined and go to the Variable processing section. In this step we need to define how the variable should be processed by Int4 IFTT.

To find more details about Variable processing please follow the article of my colleague, Konstantinos Tsakalos – Int4 IFTT variables explained.

In our scenario, we define two actions for PO variable:

5. Our next step is to define Database Comparision rules. In INT4 IFTT you validate the actual posted data in the SAP database tables (or even custom ones) by comparing its database entries. You can find more details about Database Comparision rules in our recent Int4 Blog, here: Database comparison rule explained.

As we are testing ORDERS05 IDoc, our goal is to compare the final document which will be posted at the end of the process – a Sales Order. Therefore, we need to compare tables connected to Sales Orders (for example VBAK, VBAP). Add tables which data you wish to compare. The tables are processed in sequence based on Step number.

6. After populating the table names with the additional parameters, save your entries, select the table you want to configure and double click on Selection Criteria. In our example, we want to fetch the data from table VBAK based on BSTNK (PO Number) field. We will use PO variable which will contain the actual test case PO number (that is the variable we defined in Step 3.).

Define Selection Criteria for the rest of your tables. For VBAP table we need to fetch the data based on the actual database values of the parent step. We will reference to the VBELN field of the Parent Table (VBAK). In this case, the criteria should be set as follows:

7. Select table from DB Comparison rule section and navigate to Comparison details. Now you define table fields which should be compared during test execution. You can define a Rule which would be applied when compared data is different or empty. Sample data for VBAK table:

8. Our last step is a definition of the Number range used in Step 4 – as we used option to Generate value from number range. Enter the Number range name (we used PO1), specify a meaningful prefix and define low and high values. Save your data.

After completion of the above steps we are ready to test our IDoc interface. It is possible to define additional steps like Matching Criteria/Data scrambling rules and few more – you can find information about these options in our blogs.

Test Case creation

To test an Interface, we need to create a test case. Go to the Int4 IFTT Cockpit (tcode/int4/iftt_tcockpit) and switch to Edit mode. Navigate to the desired folder and add new test case.

Fill in Test Case details: description, Interface Type (6 for Inbound IDoc and 7 for Outbound IDoc) and enter the Configuration Object name you have created in the previous section. At last, we need
to specify an IDOC number of the original IDoc which was already successfully processed and posted in Backend:

Save and execute your test case. An execution report will be displayed:

You can display detailed execution report by clicking on the Test Case name. SAP Backend Document validation will be displayed with the database entries comparison (for the original IDoc and the newly created one during Int4 IFTT test):

Summary

I hope with the help of this blog, you will be able to test your IDoc interfaces quickly and effectively. Since Int4 IFTT tests is based on comparing entries in the database, we can easily add custom tables to the configuration or even test a completely custom IDoc processing. Do not forget to check out the rest of our Int4 blogs and learn more interesting features of Int4 IFTT. If you want to find out more about this (or other) Int4 IFTT features, just book a consultation with the product demo or contact us.