Add your custom BSP component as a link in a Work Center

Summary

A how to guide detailing steps to add your custom component as a custom work center or as a link in  a work center

Author(s):  

   Arun Prakash karuppanan
Company:     Accenture
Created on:    17 March 2010
Author(s) Bio
Arun prakash Karuppanan is a Senior SAP CRM  Developer in Accenture, India. 

Step 1 - Preparing your component for Exposure

Open your component in the BSP Workbench. If you have more than a window in your component, decide which all you wish to "expose". This tutorial uses a component with a single window. Edit the runtime repository, right click on "Component Interface" and add the window. Add inbound and outbound plugs as necessary. By doing this, you are exposing your component, thus making it reusable. The plugs added will act as entry and exit gates to your component. You may dedicate different plugs for different actions, say, display or edit or search. As you read on, you will see how exactly these plugs come into play.

   Step 2 - Register your component in the repository

Next up, you must make your component known to the system. In IMG configuration, navigate to "Define Work Area Component Repository" as shown below.

;

Create New entries as shown below.

Now, add the inbound plug info. For our purposes, we need not specify an outbound plug. 

Now, you may realize why we added the inbound plugs while specifying the component interface. Each inbound plug is attached with an action and you may write code in the plug, specific to the object action. Though the Target ID is mandatory, specifying inbound plug/object action is optional. While dynamically navigating to a component or loading  the component via work center link, the object action may be specified and the corresponding plug will be called. This will be explained in another wiki. 

Step 3 - Specify Navigation Bar Profile

 Go to the IMG node "Define Navigation Bar Profile" as shown below.

  

First, create a Logical Link as shown below. Specify Logical Link ID, use the Target ID that you created in Step 2. 
  

Next, create a "Work Center Link Group" .

Add logical links to the work center link group.

  
  

Next, choose an existing work center, for example, the "Sales Cycle" 

Assign the work center link group that you created below the work center.

 

 

Step 4 - Making the link available to business user profiles

In IMG, navigate to "Define Business Role" as shown below.

Select a business role, for example, "Sales Pro" 

   

Enable the Links

  

 

 

Test

  I messed up a bit with this screen shot. I forgot to take the screen cap before I rolled back the changes. I have altered the screen using MS paint, but rest assured that the link will show up. The final screen shot shows the loaded component in web ui. It is a test search page component. We have added the custom component as a link in an existing work center(Sales Cycle). However, you can create your own work center or make use of the standard work centers. For example to get the "group links", you may reuse the logical link id "WCACLACLA". You may need to tweak it though.