2516640 - OData API throttling and call frequency restrictions - Learning

LMS Customers implementing our OData API often ask "How many calls can we make at any one time?" or "Are there any restrictions in place in the API?".

SuccessFactors Learning

We implement API Throttling and this applies to all calls within the API. Throttling places restrictions on the frequency of the requests made by the client and is a mechanism designed to protect SAP SuccessFactors Learning from increased traffic into public APIs. API throttling in SAP SuccessFactors Learning helps to regulate the API usage and prevents learning APIs from being overloaded. For all our latest Throttling limits, please review our latest version of OData API Guide on SAP Help portal.

Recommendations:

• Item, users, program, OData search web services are throttled to prevent parallel execution. To prevent parallel execution, those web services have a calling frequency of 500ms. If you call one, you must wait 500ms before making another call.
• Other APIs, such as our curriculum-service API (currently an available package in SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI) middleware tool), require them to be called less frequently before throttling is applied. From b2005 call frequency limit has changed from one call every 500ms (0.5 seconds) to one call every 5000ms (5 seconds) before we apply throttling.
• In later releases, SAP SuccessFactors Learning will begin enforcing additional throttling policies. To ensure your operations are not negatively impacted, please review the design of your clients to our web services. We recommend that you retrieve data page by page in sequential order.  

Guidelines:

• The SAP SuccessFactors Learning APIs are designed and built primarily to satisfy portal use cases. An example use case is supporting real-time end-user interactions and transactions via a UI-based portal / application that sits outside of and is integrated to SAP SuccessFactors Learning, such as displaying learning assignments on a client portal. The APIs are meant to allow for a different UI experience than the one provided by the SAP SuccessFactors suite, or to abstract specific data and interactions to a higher-level portal solution. They are not, however, designed for extracting or importing high-volume data from or to SAP SuccessFactors Learning.
  
  
• As such, the use of client applications or bots that make multiple calls on a continuous basis in order to extract or import data, or in order to conduct performance testing, can have unintended consequences and impact underlying resource availability, cause performance issues, and ultimately interrupt customer operations. As part of SAP Data Center security and performance monitoring, such activity may be detected as a potential Denial of Service (DoS) attack and blocked. SAP reserves the right to shut down these services if it’s determined that they are used in the aforementioned manner and cause disruptions to our datacenter operations. If this occurs, there is no guarantee that the services will be re-enabled. The disruptions in service and to the customers’ business operations may require a paid services engagement in order to correct any issues and to migrate to an SAP-approved solution.
  
  
• Much like companies provide methods of sending large files for which email was not designed, SAP offers data import and extract tools that are specifically designed to meet high-volume use cases. Please refer to the bottom of this guide for examples. We advise you to seek guidance from an SAP consultant, a certified (see below) implementation partner, your Preferred Success Customer Success Manager, or your Customer Engagement Executive who will be able to advise you on the right solution that meets your business need.

See References section below for related articles.

SuccessFactors; Learning; LMS; Web Services; OData; API, API Throtlling; Frequency , KBA , LOD-SF-LMS , Learning Management System , LOD-SF-LMS-ODA , Web Services OData , How To