Collaboration Technology Support Center Microsoft Collaboration Brief

Transcription

1 Collaboration Technology Support Center Microsoft Collaboration Brief September 2005 HOW TO INTEGRATE MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SERVER INTO SAP ENTERPRISE PORTAL Authors Robert Draken, Solution Architect, Comma Soft AG Christoph Vogt, Solution Architect, Comma Soft AG CTSC Editors Tilo Böttcher, Program Manager CTSC, Microsoft Corporation Jürgen Daiberl, Program Manager CTSC, Microsoft Corporation André Fischer, Project Manager CTSC, SAP AG Summary This whitepaper describes how Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 can be integrated into SAP Enterprise Portal (SAP EP) by using WebDAV today without extensions. Additionally, it will examine what possibilities arise from integrating this solution into SAP Enterprise Portal and what features can be used with the current software versions. Microsoft Exchange offers an excellent WebDAV implementation which can be used to integrate whole Public Folder trees or even user or resource mailboxes as repositories into SAP EP. All metadata can be accessed in read / write mode. Viewing Microsoft Exchange Server based content from SAP EP uses the same comfortable HTML presentation known from Outlook Web Access (OWA). As a result, Microsoft Exchange Server based content can not be modified by this HTML presentation because it is not running in the full context of OWA but only in a very limited context of SAP EP. Nevertheless, these restrictions could be abolished by developing a custom SAP EP based iview for rendering the Microsoft Exchange based content. 1

2 Applies to SAP NetWeaver 04 SAP Web Application Server 6.40, SP 9 SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0, SP 9 SAP Knowledge Management & Collaboration Component 6.0, SP 9 Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, SP 1 Keywords NetWeaver, Enterprise Portal, Exchange Server 2003, Integration, WebDAV Level of difficulty Technical consultants, Developers Contact This document is provided to you by the Collaboration Technology Support Center Microsoft, a joint team from SAP and Microsoft that drives interoperability. For feedback or questions you can contact the CTSC at ctsc@sap.com or ctsc@microsoft.com. Please check the.net interoperability area in the SAP Developer Network ( for any updates or further information. 2

3 This document is a common publication by SAP and Microsoft ( Co-Editors ) who have both contributed to its content and retain respective rights therein. The information contained in this document represents the current view of the Co-Editors on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because the Co-Editors must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of the Co-Editors, and the Co-Editors cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This document is for informational purposes only. NEITHER OF THE CO-EDITORS MAKES ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of the Co-Editors. Either Co-Editor may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from the respective Co-Editor(s), the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property. Unless otherwise noted, any example companies, organizations, products, domain names, addresses, logos, people, places and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, address, logo, person, place or event is intended or should be inferred Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved SAP AG. All rights reserved.microsoft, Windows, Outlook, and PowerPoint and other Microsoft products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. SAP, R/3, mysap, mysap.com, xapps, xapp, SAP NetWeaver, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serves informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. 3

4 Contents Authors...1 CTSC Editors...1 Summary...1 Applies to...2 Keywords...2 Level of difficulty...2 Contact...2 Contents...4 Introduction...5 Integrating Microsoft Exchange Server as a WebDAV-based Repository...5 Log on to the portal... 5 Create a HTTP system... 6 Create a WebDAV RM... 7 Authentication methods for SAP EP Individual User Mapping User Mapping for Systems Single Sign On How to define an user desktop...15 Creating a new iview Creating a new page Adding an iview to a page Adding a page to a page hierarchy Analysis of default Functionality...20 Default functionality of integrated Exchange repositories Limitations...24 References

5 Introduction The goal of this document is a step-by-step description how to integrate Exchange based content as repositories into SAP Enterprise Portal (SAP EP). It is suited as well for readers who do and who do not have knowledge of SAP EP. The main section of the document will deal with administrative aspects and end user aspects of the process. It is described what steps an administrator has to take to provide access to a Exchange repository from within the administrative interface of SAP EP. Section How to define an user desktop then deals with the tasks needed to configure an end-user desktop that is able to display such repositories. As a result, the section Analysis of default Functionality describes what can be done with the default functionality of Microsoft Exchange and SAP EP and what needs an extension. Integrating Microsoft Exchange Server as a WebDAVbased Repository Even when considering only the repository manager (RM) part of the Content Management facilities of SAP EP, there are far too much configuration options to describe them all. Therefore, this document will only describe the options that are mandatory to setup WebDAV-based RMs for Exchange. Additionally this document will not deal with the necessary steps to configure a Single Sign On (SSO) scenario. Log on to the portal Naturally, the first step is to logon to the portal as in Figure 1. To do this, use the credentials as they were defined in the setup process for SAP EP. 5

6 Figure 1: Logon screen of SAP EP The portal will then display a default starting page as in Figure 2. Figure 2: View of the default starting page To configure SAP EP for WebDAV repositories, two steps have to be undertaken: first, for each server that is to be integrated, a HTTP system has to be defined. This entry will provide the most basic settings like the server URL and user settings. Based upon these systems the WebDAV RM will then be set up. Create a HTTP system The page to define the HTTP systems can be found in the menu System Administration System Configuration Knowledge Management Content Management Global Services System Landscape Definitions Systems HTTP System: Figure 3: View of configuration page for HTTP systems 6

7 To create a new HTTP system it is necessary to provide the values for the server URL and the system ID. 1 The latter can be chosen freely, it will be needed later for creating the corresponding RM. When the fields for user and password are left empty, SAP EP will use anonymous logon to access the foreign system. Otherwise, it will always use the credentials provided here. See Authentication methods for SAPEP for a more detailed description of the possible authentication methods. Figure 4: Creation of a new HTTP system Create a WebDAV RM After the creation of the new HTTP system, a new WebDAV-RM must be created. This can be achieved by navigating to the menu System Administration System Configuration Knowledge Management Content Management Repository Managers WebDAV Repository Figure 5: View of configuration page for WebDAV repositories To create a new WebDAV RM select New and enter the values for the name of the WebDAV RM, the prefix and the system ID: 1 Annotation: The creation or deletion of a system or RM will usually turn effective immediately whereas changes to already existing systems or RMs turn effective only after a restart of the portal. 7

8 Figure 6: Creation of a new WebDAV RM The name will only appear in the administrative listing, whereas the prefix must start with the character / (without the quotes) and will contain the string that is listed in the KM Content directory. The System ID finally determines the HTTP system this WebDAV RM will connect to. All other entries can remain unchanged to their default values. To review the successful creation of the WebDAV RMs and the underlying HTTP systems, navigate to Content Administration KM Content. This page contains a directory of all repositories of the SAP EP. If everything is configured right, the newly created repositories will be listed here: 8

9 Figure 7: Example view of the repository directory If the newly created repository is not displayed here, navigate to System Administration Monitoring Knowledge Management Component Monitor Repository Managers. A yellow triangle next to the left of an entry indicates a problem with the particular repository. To see further details of the problem, open the entry and browse to the entry with a red square next to it. Details of the problem can then be found in the Properties context menu and the Miscellaneous part of it, respectively. 9

10 Figure 8: Component Monitor - Problem details Authentication methods for SAP EP There are three main methods for authentication by SAP EP: individual user mapping, global user mapping for systems and Single Sign On (SSO). Theoretically, it would also be possible to use an anonymous login. The latter is the default configuration for HTTP systems whose user and password fields were left empty. Individual User Mapping An individual user mapping can be done for all three identification schemas a user can consist of: User mapping: each user is assigned its own credentials Group mapping: each group is assigned its own credentials Role mapping: each role is assigned its own credentials 10

11 For each mapping type the usual credentials information, i.e. username and password, have to be supplied. The configuration for a user mapping consists of two steps: first, a system template has to be defined and based on such a template a system within the system landscape has to be created. To create the system template, complete the following procedure. For a more detailed description see [SAPCSPSL]. Since, the documentation was not updated yet this procedure is based on the older version NetWeaver 04 SP 6, therefore, there may be differences to the current software releases. Log on to the portal with the role system administrator. From the top-level navigation bar, choose System Administration System Configuration. From the detailed navigation area, choose System Landscape. From the portal content catalog, choose Templates Template System Landscapes. Use the secondary mouse button to click on Template System Landscapes. This opens the context menu. Choose New From PAR System. In the system wizard, select com.sap.km.cm.repository.manager and click on Next. Select the portal component KMWebDAV_System. Click on Next and enter the required data. Systemname = KMWebDAV_System System ID = KMWebDAV_System Choose Save as system template and click on Next. Then click on Finish. The property editor opens for the KMWebDAV System. In the property editor, scroll down and select the parameter User Mapping Type. You can use the parameters to define whether only administrators, only users, or both are able to enter their user data in the portal for user mapping (see Specifying User Mapping). You should normally choose admin, user. Click on Save in the upper part of the property editor. Check that a folder with the name KMSystems exists under Portal Content. If not, use the secondary mouse button to click on Portal Content, and choose New folder. In the dialog box, enter the name KMSystems. You create future WebDAV systems for KM in this folder (see Creating a System in the Portal System Landscape). After creating the system template, the system itself must be created and configured. To do this, the following procedure must be completed: 1. From the top-level navigation bar, choose System Administration System Configuration. From the detailed navigation area, choose System Landscape. 2. From the portal content catalog, choose Portal Content KMSystems. 11

12 3. Use the secondary mouse button to click on KMSystems and choose New System. 4. Select the required system and click on Next. 5. Enter a system name and ID. Select Save As System. Choose Next. In the next screen, choose Finish. 6. In the next screen, call up the system alias editor by choosing System Alias Editor in the dropdown box. 7. Enter an alias for the system. Note that the alias has to tally with the system ID that you specified in the CM system landscape definition. Click on New, Save and Close. After creating the system, the proper user mapping can be completed. To do so, navigate to User Administration User Mapping. Within this page choose the user, group or role that is to be modified and select Edit. The credentials for the entity can be entered on the right part of the page. User Mapping for Systems A user mapping that is based on a whole (HTTP) system is far less complex. To apply such a user mapping create the appropriate HTTP system as it is described in section Create a HTTP System. After entering the name and URL for the system, click on Advanced Options. This will unhide the options for the user name and password combination. Provide the correct values for these fields in order to activate a global user mapping that is always carried out when any user will access this system. Single Sign On A detailed description of how to configure SAP EP and the Windows part for usage of SSO would go beyond the scope of this whitepaper. Therefore, only the rough procedure will be outlined in this section. For detailed information, see [SAPSSOMS] and especially [SAPSSOSBSG] or SAP note Use this note also for obtaining the necessary software. For the SSO component to work accurately, the following prerequisites have to be fulfilled: The target forest and domain must be configured to Windows 2003 Native Mode. Both the forest and the domain have to be configured separately to run at the native functional domain level! There must be the possibility to map the SAP user IDs to Windows accounts in a unique way. This can be done by using the same naming conventions for the Windows account name and the SAP user ID or by storing the SAP user ID in one of the Windows accounts properties. The procedure will then consist of the following steps: Extract the software package to a local directory and include it in the PATH variable. Restart the server to activate the changes. 12

13 Download the digital certificate of the SAP EP to the target machine (this should be a file called verfify.pse) Configure the SSO filter by editing the file SSO2KerbMap.ini. Be sure to include the filename for the path value of verfify.pse. Configure the application pool of the target application to run under Local System. Configure the target application to use Integrated Windows Authentication. Install the SSO2KerbMap.dll as a filter on the website the target application runs on. Be sure that its filter status is green and that is listed before the target application: Figure 9: View of the ISAPI filter configuration Configure the Delegation option of the target application server by adding the SPN of the target computer. Be sure to select only Use any authentication protocol and to enter the HOST type of the target server: 13

14 Figure 10: View of the delegation configuration To enable SAP EP to send the necessary SAP EP SSO tickets, select Same User Domain for the corresponding HTTP system: Figure 11: View of the HTTP system configuration 14

15 How to define an user desktop The pages a user of SAP EP can see in its portal are defined by the roles the user belongs to. Each role can be assigned to one or multiple sets of page hierarchies. The process and the possibilities that come with this definition are far beyond the scope of this paper. This section will thus describe the creation and configuration of a single page that is able to contain iviews that view WebDAV repositories. The steps needed to define such a page are threefold: first, the needed iview must be defined. Then this iview can be added to a newly created page. This page can then in turn be added to a page hierarchy. Creating a new iview The type of iview used for our purpose will be a standard out-of-the-box KM Navigation iview. Such an iview allows navigating through all repositories defined in the SAP EP, including the WebDAV repositories created earlier. To create the iview navigate to Content Administration Portal Content. Now browse the portal catalog to Portal Content Portal Users Standard Portal Users and click on New iview from the context menu of Standard Portal: 15

16 Figure 12: Creating a new iview Fill in a name and a unique ID for the new iview. The name of the iview will later be displayed in the portal catalog. Then click on Next and Finish. Now open the object by either using Edit Object from the context menu of the iview or using the option Open the object for editing after clicking Finish. The only setting needed to change in the configuration is the path the iview should start with. To configure this setting click on Show all at the pull-down menu Property: 16

17 Figure 13: Editing the iview to configure the path setting Now scroll down to the key Path to Initially Displayed Folder, enter the needed path and save the modified iview: Figure 14: Entry for the root path of the iview It is also recommended to change the layout of the iview from a fixed height to Automatic to account for lists of different sizes. To do so, open the object for editing and choose Appearance Size from the Property Category pull-down menu. Creating a new page Although it is not mandatory needed, a new page for the display of the iviews will be created. If there is already a page that will contain the iviews step over this section and continue with section Adding a page to a page hierarchy. To create the new page, navigate to Content Administration Portal Content. Now browse the portal catalog to Portal Content Portal Users Standard Portal Users and click on New Page from the context menu of Standard Portal Users: 17

18 Figure 15: Creating a new page The Page Wizard will then present a list of templates that can be chosen for the new page. Select Default Page Template and click on Next. On step 2 of the wizard, provide a name and a unique ID for the new page. The following step consists of selecting layouts that will be available for the page. The page can later be changed to another layout selected here. Select any layouts you think of as appropriate and continue. The final step presents a summary of the new page. Adding an iview to a page Open the designated page for the iview for editing as described above. The page will open with a view of the page content. Each object that is contained within the page will be listed in a table. To add the newly created iview, select it in the portal catalog. Use the context menu of the object to choose Add iview to page Delta Link. This will create a link to the iview in the page opened beforehand. To change the layout of the page, use the Page Layout option of the page object: 18

19 Figure 16: Adding the iview to a page Adding a page to a page hierarchy Users will be able to see the page configured in the steps up to here after the page is added to the page hierarchy of a role they belong to. Therefore, the final step consists of adding the page to an appropriate page hierarchy. Start with opening the object Standard User Role for editing. It can be found in the portal catalog at Portal Content Portal Users Standard Portal Users Standard User Role. To add the new page, mark the first entry called Home. Then use the context menu of the new page and select Add Page to Role Delta Link. This will add the new page to new pages a standard user will see when he logs on: 19

20 Figure 17: Adding a page to a user role To review the successful creation of the iview, its corresponding page and the correct appearance, create a user who is member of the Every User Role and log on with this user. The new page should appear in the menu bar. <von Commasoft> Figure 18: The result with a new page viewing a WSS-based WebDAV repository Analysis of default Functionality Due to the nature of WebDAV and its underlying XML, the integrated repositories will always be presented as a collection of documents, no matter what their proper content is like. The very reason of this behavior is the separation of content, i.e. the data, and its representation. WebDAV was designed as a means to access and modify the data layer of repositories, not the representation. The representation in turn can be accessed by using HTML methods such as the classic GET command. This allows the particular repository to return the HTML code describing the representation of the document. The result of this separation will thus be the afore mentioned display of repositories as document lists even if the content is of a more or less unsuited kind. Only when accessing the documents by clicking on their hyperlink (and as such they are displayed) a GET will be executed and in the following the returned HTML code or the document itself will be displayed. This allows for a seemingly rich integration of Exchange, e.g. calendar entries, whereas the drawback of this behavior is the out-of-place execution of the included active code parts of a page such as scripts. These parts will not meet their 20

21 requirements for a faultless execution and therefore fail to run. As a result, the display of such rich integration will be feasible but it will not be possible to actual work with it. A resort out of this dilemma may be an iview with its own rendering engine. Such an iview could leverage the results of a WebDAV repository and display the results within its own embedded HTML based environment. Changes to an element would then be propagated to the underlying WebDAV repository by using PROPPATCH. Default functionality of integrated Exchange repositories WebDAV is the underlying base for Outlook Web Access (OWA), the web-based frontend for Exchange. It is possible to access all types of public folders: s Calendar Contacts Journal Notes Tasks Figure 19: View of Exchange Public Folders in SAP EP The information of an item can be accessed by two ways: first, one can simply click on an item. After such an action, a GET will be performed and the resulting HTML code will be displayed just as OWA would. It is, however, not possible to edit the item in that way because the included JavaScript code is not able to run correctly: 21

22 Figure 20: View of an example item The second way is to use the properties that are returned by WebDAV. These are accessible by using the Properties menu of an entry in SAP EP. In this way, the properties are also modifiable because changes to them are written to Exchange by using PROPPATCH. The main disadvantage of this approach is the nearly non-existent user friendliness. A user must know which attribute one has to change for accomplishing a certain task. 22

23 Figure 21: WebDAV properties of the example item Table 1 shows a summary of the default functionality which is provided by Microsoft Exchange. The columns titled with GUI of SAP EP show the accessibility and functionality of WebDAV-based repository managers when they are accessed exclusively through SAP EP as described above. The columns titled GUI of OWA describe the possibilities when SAP EP is only used for listing the items of a repository and the content of the items is accessed after clicking on an item, thereby using the interface of OWA. 23

24 GUI of SAP EP GUI of OWA; accessed from SAP EP View Modify View Modify s Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Calendar Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Contacts Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Journal Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Notes Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Tasks Yes (Yes) 2 (Yes) 3 No Table 1: Summary of default functionality of Microsoft Exchange Limitations Please be aware of some limitations which are already mentioned in the sections above. These apply in particular to the usage of SSO, modifying metadata for Exchange based content with the default HTML presentation. References [SAPCWST]: Creating the WebDAV System Template; SAP AG. < 2cd/frameset.htm> [SAPCSPSL]: Creating a System in the Portal System Landscape; SAP AG. < 2cd/frameset.htm> [SAPSSOMS]: Using SAP Logon Tickets for Single Sign on to Microsoft based web applications; André Fischer, Michael Sambeth, SAP AG. [SAPSSOSBSG]: SSO22KerbMap ISAPI Module, Step-by-Step Guide; SAP AG. SAP Online Help 2 Each and every property that is needed for a certain task has to be changed manually; this won t be an acceptable or user friendly solution for customers. 3 A path to a possible attachment is displayed but the attachment will be inaccessible. 24