You need to carry out the following steps before you can use the ERP MA configuration tool.

1. Identify the connection string and credentials required to connect to your SAP environment. You need to use credentials that have permission to call the BAPIs configured for your ERP MA.
   
   
2. Identify what object types will be managed by the ERP MA.
   
   
3. For each object type, identify which operations will be supported. Operations include standard FIM operations (full import, delta import, password set, etc) and custom operations. Custom operations (such as GetDetails) are sub-operations which can be called from the FIM standard operations.
   
   
4. For each operation, identify the functions to be called as a part of the operation. For the ERP MA, functions correspond to the BAPIs that are exposed via RFC in your environment. You can use the Search feature on the Select Functions screen to see what BAPIs are available in your environment.
   
   
5. For each function included in the configuration, you will need to specify additional information about the function parameters. Specifically:
   
   
   • Alias\Reference: Each function may have input and output parameters. If an operation includes multiple functions, the output of the first function may be the input to the second function. The referenced value indicates from where an input parameter is populated. The alias value indicates where the out parameter for a function is used in a subsequent operation.
     
     
   • Definition attribute: Each object type contains a definition attribute\anchor. The definition attribute is used to indicate which parameter for a function defines the object type. There may be a single definition attribute per operation. Not every operation requires a definition attribute.
     
     
   • Pagination attribute: If an input parameter is used as an input for a wildcard search, you may need to break up the search into multiple calls. In this case, you need to indicate that the attribute will be used for pagination. See How To Configure Paginated Imports for more details.
     
     
   • Error attribute: If an output parameter is used to indicate an error, the parameter indicates error setting should be selected. See How To Configure Error Handling for more details.
     
     
   • Change refs structures: For each info type for which data is updated, there is a corresponding change-ref needs to be identified.
     
     
6. Identity information about your SAP implementation including the code page for your SAP environment, the Date-Time format for your SAP environment, and the password policy for your SAP environment. A password policy only needs to be specified if you are using the ERP MA to create users.
   
   

The first time you connect to a SAPR3 server, a discovery cache file will be created, after which all subsequent configuration will rely on this cache file for saving and generating the output files needed to configure and run the ERP MA.

The typical process for creating a configuration is the following five steps:

1. Creating the CS object type to be managed.
   
   
2. Identifying, adding and configuring the functions needed to execute an operation. This includes defining any alias that may be needed.
   
   
3. Defining and mapping the CS attributes being manage to the proper function/parameter(s).
   
   
4. Setting an anchor for each CS object type in your configuration. This can only be done after the object types and attribute have been configured.
   
   
5. Setting any server specific settings the MA needs to know, such as date formatting and tim zones.
   
   

When you configure a parameter, you will need to specify if the parameter is a definition attribute, if the parameter is a return value (used to indicate errors), and\or if the parameter requires paginated values. Paginated values may be required as part of the configuration for Full Import of data from SAP HR. Typically a BAPI is used to return all the active employees. If a wildcard is used as a filter when retrieving data from SAP, the BAPI may time-out before returning any data. To prevent this error, a pagination search is used you use used paginated imports. See How To Configure Paginated Imports for more information.

The ERP MA ships with a sample ERP MA configuration file that works with SAP 4.7. The sample configuration file supports the following operations for users and employees: Full Import, Export-Add, Export-Update, and Export-Delete. In addition, it supports Password Set for users.

The ERP Configuration Tool supports the creation of user-defined operations. User defined operation cannot be called directly from FIM, but must be called from one of the FIM operations (add, replace, delete, full). You may also save and re-use these pre-configured functions via the Configuration Tool.