How to build perfect SAP Integration using Xtract Universal and Kettle

In this blog I will show how to use Kettle to run SAP extractions created with Xtract Universal to load it into an Oracle Database. Xtract Universal is an SAP connector by Theobald Software, a leading vendor of SAP Integration products. Xtract Universal supports integration of your SAP data in the most different target systems, like SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, Teradata, flat files and others – fast, straight-forward and user-friendly. Kettle (aka Pentaho Data Integration (PDI)) is an open source data integration (ETL) engine that allows the user to define data integration jobs and transformations.

Extracting an Open Hub Destination based on InfoObject from SAP BW with SSIS / Xtract IS into SQL Server

In the following tutorial (pdf) I show how to create an Open Hub Service (OHS) destination and a Data Transer Process (DTP) on SAP BW 7.3 based on InfoObject Texts. After that I create a Process chain to execute the Data Transfer Process.

In the second step I use the Xtract IS OHS component within the Server Server Integration Services (SSIS) to extract the OHS Destination from BW and to load to a SQL Server table.

Links:
OHS with Xtract IS (pdf)
http://www.theobald-software.com/download/xtractis/ClickThroughXtractISOHS.pdf Xtract IS:
http://www.theobald-software.com/en/products/xtractis.htm 
SAP Open Hub Service:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/ce/c2463c6796e61ce10000000a114084/frameset.htm

A BDC Sample with Visual Studio connecting SAP using ERPConnect Services Runtime

This sample is a Visual Studio 2012 solution that creates a BDC / BCS model (external content type) in SharePoint connected to SAP using ERPConnect Services Runtime (ECS).

Activating Datasources in the SAP OLTP System

To be able to extract OLTP Datasources from SAP ERP, you first of all have to activate the relevant DataSources in the SAP OLTP system. After activating the DataSources you can extract data from all the active DataSources using the DeltaQ component.

Thoses steps have to be carried out in the SAP ERP system (OLTP). No SAP BW system is required.

How to use an SQL Configuration Table with Xtract IS

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) provides package configurations that you can use to update the values of properties at run time.

In this blog I will show how to store your package configuration in an SQL table. In my sample I will use Xtract IS to load the SAP table T001 for company codes using a where statement. The goal is to use the SQL configuration table to update the value of the where statement and the value of the SAP connection string.

How to schedule Xtract Universal extractions to load data from SAP

Xtract Universal supports integration of your SAP data in the most different target systems. After creating an extraction (Refer to the online help), you can run an extraction by just calling the correspondent URL that can be found in the Run Dialog (e.g. http://nbelzein:8065/?name=plants)

 

In this blog I will show you how to schedule the run of the Xtract Universal extractions that is as easy as calling a URL. Xtract Universal delivers the command tool XtractUniversalCmd.exe (to be found in the installation folder, e.g. C:\Program Files\XtractUniversal) to run an extraction using the cmd. We will use this approach to schedule an extraction with the windows Task Scheduler and the SQL Server Agent.