Troubleshooting Guide - Web Services ABAP

Welcome to the Web Services ABAP Troubleshooting Guide!

What is a Web Service?

A Web service is a modularized, executable unit. It can be called in heterogeneous system landscapes and is not restricted to a single host system. Each output is determined based on the given input parameters. This output is then passed back to the caller. For example, Web services can serve to perform a credit card check, convert a currency amount, send a price query to a provider, or simply to place an order.

To read more about Web Services and how they can be used in SAP NetWeaver systems, visit the following WIKI page: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/moWvC

SAP as Provider

A BAPI, Function Module or a Function Group can be exposed as Web Service in SAP. Using the ABAP WS framework is an easy way to provide access to services from external applications - or other SAP system. First a Service Definition has to be created from the object, then a runtime configuration (Endpoint/Binding) should be configured in transaction SOAMANAGER. SAP generates the WSDL for the services. Using this file the consumer can connect to the ABAP system's webservice. Click the following link, if something went wrong:

Troubleshooting guide to create, configure and call Web services provided by SAP

SAP as Consumer

When SAP is the consumer of a Webservice, a WSDL (Webservice Description Language) file is required to connect to this service. First a Consumer Proxy has to be created, then a Logical Port in transaction SOAMANAGER. After these it is possible to execute a call to the Webservice. Click the following link, if something went wrong:

Troubleshooting guide to create, configure and call Consumer Proxies

If the proxy is based on an ESR (Enterprise Services Repository),  the process is different. Find the troubleshooting for this scenario here:

Troubleshooting proxy generation

Tracing tools

• • SRT_UTIL - The best tracing tool for Webservices is transaction SRT_UTIL. See documentation.
  • ICM trace - Often it's necessary to analyse the problem in the ICM trace, especially if SRT_UTIL is not available. See How to create a Level 3 ICM Trace.

Further content resources

• • ABAP Webservices WIKI*

  • Service-Oriented Architecture Space* on SCN (blogs, documents, discussion)

  • SAP Notes

  • SAP Help Portal*

    *Search providers (eg. Google) can search within the contents

Can't find solution? Important information for opening a Customer incident

If you cannot find a solution in any of above places and decide to open an incident for SAP Product Support, include the following details, attachments to speed up the process.

• • SAP_BASIS release + SP level of the affected system
  • Step-by-step screenshots of your actions, which lead to the problem, error
  • Level 3 ICM trace - In case of any scenarios, where HTTP communication is involved
  • WSDL file - including all imported schemas - of the external service in a zip archive (in case of consuming external services)
    

Important: WSADMIN, WSCONFIG, (LPCONFIG) are obsolete transactions! Please use SE80 and SOAMANAGER transactions.

Open connection to the system also helps the processor to provide a quicker solution.

• • R/3 connection is always necessary, if SAP needs to log in
  • Provide a user, which has enough authorization to replicate the issue
  • HTTP connection is necessary to access SOAMANAGER and execute services. If you face problem with these, open HTTP connection as well.