3011108 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Integration Monitoring

You operate SAP SuccessFactors and want to know about SAP Best Practice Cloud Operations. You want to establish efficient and effective Integration Monitoring of this cloud solution.

SAP SuccessFactors (SaaS)

You need to design, adjust, or otherwise establish Integration Monitoring for your SAP SuccessFactors environment.

SAP Best Practice Cloud Operations are not yet followed.

Integration Monitoring provides real-time monitoring of interfaces, calls and/or message flows, i.e. the handling of single message flows processed by SAP Cloud Platform Integration as well as peer-to-peer interface usage via REST Service or SOAP Service calls.

Goal

Ensure the healthiness of interfaces and interface steps of business services and detect anomalies of interface executions.

Background

Integration Monitoring helps to manage complex and integrated landscapes with millions of interfaces, calls and/or message flows. It covers the handling of single message flows processed by SAP Cloud Platform Integration, as well as peer-to-peer interface technologies as REST Service or Web Service calls on single execution level. In addition, the handling of integration exceptions related to SAP-based cloud products, such as SAP Cloud for Customers, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Ariba is necessary. Out-of-the-box visibility in SAP Cloud Platform Integration, SAP Process Integration and other orchestration platforms including related integration content is provided.

Integration Monitoring is evolving in the direction of end-to-end message flow monitoring. With the help of the SAP Passport we enable the horizontal correlation of integration artifacts to end-to-end message flows. This helps you to understand the root cause of a certain integration related issue by providing transparency following the complete flow. Integration Monitoring is relevant for cloud centric as well as for hybrid customers. It addresses the needs of LOB users as well as IT users (common language).

1 Integration with SAP SuccessFactors Cloud

SAP SuccessFactors Cloud Integrations can be built using the SuccessFactors Integration Center, SAP Cloud Platform Integration, SAP Process Integration/Process Orchestration, SAP One Master Data Integration Service, or other 3^rd party middleware.

No matter which integration is used, it falls to the customer to monitor the integration between SAP SuccessFactors and other applications. For cloud only customers the following monitoring tools available in SAP SuccessFactors can be used for this purpose.

For customers integrating SAP SuccessFactors with on-premise applications like SAP HCM the monitoring can be set up using SAP Solution Manager. This approach is described in the section ‘Integration Monitoring Tools in SAP Solution Manager.

1.1 Integration Monitoring Tools in SuccessFactors

1.1.1 OData Audit Log

The HXM Suite OData API is SuccessFactors Web Services API based on OData protocol intended to enable access to data in the SuccessFactors system. OData Audit Log can be used to monitor API calls to SuccessFactors for standard and 3^rd party integrations, and can be used to debug API issues. To access the OData Audit Log, go to the Admin Center > Odata Audit Log. The audit log will show the last 10,000 API calls to the system. You can use the session ID from the middleware to find a specific API call. For each call, you can view the SOAP or HTTP payload details. To view the payload information, in the log table select the button under the HTTP or REST columns. You can view the response and request for both failed and successful API calls. You can also download data from individual calls. See the following guide: SuccessFactors HCM Suite OData API: Developer Guide.

1.1.2 SFAPI Audit Log

SFAPI Audit Log can be used to monitor API calls to SuccessFactors Employee Central, and can be used to debug API issues. SFAPI is used for the Employee Central Compound Employee API (CE API) for extracting employee data and organizational assignments out of Employee Central. To access the SFAPI Audit Log, go to the Admin Center > SFAPI Audit Log. The audit log will show the last 10,000 API calls to the system. You can use the session ID from the middleware to find a specific API call. For each call, you can view the SOAP or HTTP payload details of the data sent. You can view the response and request for both failed and successful API calls. You can also download data from individual calls. See the following guide: SuccessFactors HCM Suite SFAPI: Developer Guide.

1.1.3. CPI Monitoring (for Middleware based integration)

For all Cloud Platform Integrations, including custom or standard iFlows, all monitoring would be performed from the SAP Cloud Platform.

1.2 Integration Monitoring Tools in SAP Solution Manager

Integration Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager offers a whole suite of tools to allow for end-to-end monitoring of an SAP SuccessFactors integration with an on-premise SAP HCM system.

These applications are:

• Exception Management: Used to collect exceptions occurring in SAP Cloud Services like SAP SuccessFactors and SAP on-premise systems in the global exception store in SAP Solution Manager
• Interface and Connection Monitoring: Used to monitor point-to-point interfaces between SAP systems, SAP public cloud services and non-SAP systems. Interface and Connection Monitoring is also used to monitor the collected exceptions in Exception Management and create alerts based on the exceptions in the global exception store
• PI Monitoring: Used to monitor the components, channels and messages in an SAP Process Integration or SAP Process Orchestration domain. SAP PI/PO can be used for the integration of SAP public cloud services and SAP on-premise systems.

All application mentioned above integrate with the SAP Solution Manager Unified Alert Inbox and Notification Management. Using SAP Solution Manager to monitor the integrations in your SAP SuccessFactors hybrid solution allows for automatic, pro-active monitoring with one central monitoring system. This approach is preferable to the use of multiple, manual monitoring applications or transactions.

When it comes to the integration of SAP SuccessFactors with SAP in-premise applications like SAP HR or SAP ERP there are different technologies that can be used for the integration.

The following graphic shows some possible integrations and the relevant monitoring key figures. Customers can use a combination of all three solutions, e.g. FTP replication for Talent Management and SAP PI pass-through with SAP CPI for Employee Central master data replication.

Figure 1: Selected Integration Options for SAP SuccessFactors

To identify which monitoring objects/key figures need to be implemented, the customer needs to know two things:

1. Which functionalities in SAP SuccessFactors are in use in your organization?
2. How does each of the functionalities integrate with other components?

The integration solution determines which interfaces need to be monitored technically, e.g. it would not make sense to monitor FTP files, if the integration is done using SAP Cloud Platform Integration and SAP PI. The functionalities used determine which exception related key figures are relevant, e.g. a customer that is not using Talent Management will have little success monitoring Talent Management KPIs. For Integration Monitoring the relevant key figures are monitored using the application "Interface and Connection Monitoring" in SAP Solution Manager.

The key figures are part of so-called Interface Channels. Each interface Channel has a type, i.e. RFC, Web Service, Cloud etc. The setup of the different interface channel types differs by type. Please refer to the documentation provided in the SAP Solution Manager Expert Portal for the technical setup of the monitoring for each channel type. For general information about Integration Monitoring, refer to SAP Help Portal.

The following table contains key figures relevant for different SAP SuccessFactors integrations, the description of the collected key figure and for which functionalities / integrations they are relevant. The columns 'Interface Channel Type' indicates in which interface channel the key figure can be found. Please follow the documentation provided above for the detailed setup of each channel type. Choose the key figures based on your integration solution and the functions used in SAP SuccessFactors.

While there are specific web services, IDoc types and Application Log entries used for the integration with SAP SuccessFactors, the specifics depend on the technical integration type and the integrated data at the customer. Different integration types and data will write different kind of log messages and use different web service endpoints.

To find out which filter values must be used during the setup if the key figures above, you can either check the corresponding transactions in the managed SAP HCM system:

• IDocs: WE05
• PI messages via ABAP proxy: SXMB_MONI
• Web Service messages: SRT_MONI
• Web Service exceptions: SRT_LOG
• Application Log messages: SLG1
• RFC destinations: SM59 (under subtree HTTP Connections to External Server (G))

Or you can refer to the Integration Scenario Finder to find the documents that describe your integration.

Knowledge base Articles:

• 3011146 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Organizational Model
• 3011117 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Business Process Monitoring
• 3011164 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Application Monitoring and Metering
• 3011095 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Synthetic User Monitoring
• 3011109 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: System Health Monitoring
• 3011155 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Event & Alert Management and case Management
• 3011096 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Business Process Analytics and Improvement
• 3011156 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Technical Analytics and Improvement
• 3011147 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Job Management
• 3011128 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Mass Processing Runtime Management
• 3011148 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Workflow Management
• 3011149 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Data Management
• 3011110 - SAP SuccessFactors Operations Best Practice: Integration with 3rd Party Tools and Systems

OCC; Operations Control Center; CCOE; Customer Center of Expertise; E2EHO; SFSF; SuccessFactors; Cloud Operations; Cloud Monitoring; Integration Monitoring; Interface Monitoring; Exception Management , KBA , XX-SER-MCC , Mission Control Center - Knowledge Management , How To