Introduction to Business Object Processing

Framework (BOPF)
Wouldn't you like to streamline and simplify the development process for your business applications?
Then you should get to know more about BOPF, our infrastructure for developing business objects that is
available for the SAP Business Suite. With the Business Object Processing Framework, you will save time
during the development cycle because you don't have to implement all the technical details yourself - details
such as authorization control, low-level transaction handling, buffer management, provisioning of consumer
API, or business logic orchestration. Using the model-driven approach in BOPF, you can instead focus your
attention more on the actual business requirements themselves.

What does BOPF stand for?

The Business Object Processing Framework is an ABAP OO-based framework that provides a set of
generic services and functionalities to speed up, standardize, and modularize your development. BOPF
manages the entire life cycle of your business objects and covers all aspects of your business application
development. Instead of expending effort for developing an application infrastructure, the developer can focus
on the individual business logic. Using BOPF, you get the whole application infrastructure and integration of
various components for free. This allows you to rapidly build applications on a stable and customer-proved
infrastructure.

Who uses BOPF?

BOPF is not really a new framework. In fact, it is well established and broadly used in multiple
SAP ByDesign and SAP Business Suite applications and products for example, Transportation
Management (TM), Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S), SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management,
SAP Management of Change, SAP Quality Issue Management, to name but a few. Apart from its
use in SAP internal development, BOPF is also used in customer development projects.

How can SAP customers use BOPF?

Due to increased interest, BOPF is also used in SAP customer development projects. It is released with SAP
Business Suite EHP5 SP11, SAP Business Suite EHP6 SP05, and SAP Business Suite EHP7. However, it is
not available in the SAP NetWeaver standalone system, but only in the Business Suite Foundation layer, so
that every SAP Business Suite customer can use it for their own development projects.

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

What are the main components of the application

infrastructure?
With BOPF, you have a framework at your disposal with which you can seamlessly integrate different
components of business applications. You can use them out-of-the-box. The advantages of using BOPF are
thus obvious:
When using BOPF you dont have to care about the development of adapters or integration layers
to consume the following components:

Figure: BOPF acts as a bridging unit between various components

User Interfaces and Consumption

Dynpro

BOPF provides a standard interface for consumption

by the classic Dynpro UI.

Web Dynpro / Floor Plan Manager (FPM)

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The generation and configuration of complex user

interfaces has never been as easy as it is today with
the FPM. FPM is implemented as a Web Dynpro
component and can be easily integrated with BOPF.
BOPF provides configurable and codeless integration
of FPM and enables you to seamlessly consume the
services of BOPF Business Objects in a modificationfree environment.
More: Floorplan Manager for Web Dynpro ABAP and
Web Dynpro ABAP on SCN

SAPUI5

SAPUI5 is designed for building lightweight UIs for

casual use.
More: UI Developer Center on SCN

Gateway (OData)

SAP NetWeaver Gateway is a technology that

provides a convenient way to connect devices,
environments, and platforms to SAP software based
on market standards. The BOPF integration of the
Gateway is based on REST and OData standards.
More: SAP NetWeaver Gateway on SCN

Business Object Layer & GenIL

The Business Object Layer (BOL) provides a generic

API for accessing business data.
The Generic Interaction Layer (GenIL) enables
uniform access to business data using a stateless
request/response format. BOPF provides adapters for
BOL and GenIL integration.
More: SAP CRM on SCN

Process Integration

Post Processing Workflow

With BOPF BOs, you can integrate business

processes using the Post Processing Workflow.

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

More: Post Processing Framework (PPF) (on SCN )

Infrastructure Component

Archive Development Kit

(ADK)

With ADK you archive not only table records but also
business instances. Using BOPF you can select
which BO instances have to be archived and then
trigger the archiving process for them.
More: Archive Development Kit on the SAP help
portal

Change Documents

BOPF uses the SAP NetWeaver Change Documents

solution for recording changes on business object
data.
More: Change Documents on the SAP help portal

Application Logging

Application logging is used to record particular events

during the execution of an application so that you can
reconstruct them later, if necessary.
In BOPF, application logging is integrated with the
help of the Application Log BO. This business object
supports you when reading or writing applicationspecific log messages.
More: Application Log - Guidelines for Developers on
the SAP help portal

Enterprise Search

The search service of SAP NetWeaver provides

a framework for enterprise-wide indexing of and
searching for structured (business objects) and
unstructured data (documents).
BOPF design time provides you with a convenient
way for enabling BOPF business objects for
Enterprise Search. Using an existing BO model, you
have the option of importing the BO data and, in this

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

way, creating a corresponding Enterprise Search

model.
More: Enterprise Search on SCN

Business Rules Framework plus (BRF+)

BRF+ is a rule engine. It provides a comprehensive

API and user interface for defining and processing
business rules and expressions.
With a BOPF-specific expression type, it is possible
to create BO data retrieval expressions in BRF+.
These expressions make data of BOs available in
BRF+ environments that support any kind of rule
processing.
More: Business Rule Framework plus on SCN

What are the elements of the programming model?

The business objects are the basic units of the BOPF-based programming model. Business applications
or processes operate on certain business objects. A business object is represented as a hierarchical tree
of nodes. A single node includes a set of semantically related business object data and the corresponding
business logic. On the technical level, each node is implemented with a regular Dictionary table, where each
node instance corresponds to a single table entry (table rows). Nodes, attributes, and alternative keys set up
the data part of a business object. Again from a technical viewpoint, attributes form the columns of the table. A
node serves as an anchor point for connecting the business logic of the business object.
For each node, several types of entities can be defined to form the specific business logic part of a business
object.

Node Entity

is used ...

Action

to implement a service (operation or behavior) of a

business object. An action is explicitly triggered by a
service consumer, such as the user interface.

Determination

to provide functions that are automatically executed

as soon as certain trigger conditions are fulfilled. A
determination is triggered internally due to changes
made to the instance of a business object.

Validation

to either validate whether a specific action can

be executed on a specific node instance (action

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

validations) or whether a set of node instances is

consistent (consistency validations).
Query

to search for business object instances that meet

certain search criteria.

Authorization Check

to provide an authorization concept for BO nodes (for

their data and for the operations on their data).

Association

to connect business object instances that are located

on different nodes.

Figure: Business object metadata model

What kind of development environment is available for BOPF?

Tool Support

Features

SAP Internal Design Time Tools (BOBF)

These are internal SAP tools and utilities that

provide developers with a comprehensive feature

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

set for building BO-centered applications for SAP

Business Suite.

BO Builder (BOB)

This tool targets simple enhancement scenarios.

Customers can enhance SAP business objects and
also create their own simple business objects in
the customer namespace. The creation of business
objects, nodes, actions, determinations, queries, or
validations is extensively supported by wizard-driven
tools and utilities.
BO Builder is available through SAP GUI and is
released for customers with SAP Business Suite
EHP5 upwards
.

BO Builder for eXperts (BOBX)

This tool targets experienced BOPF developers.

It also provides SAP Business Suite customers with a
comprehensive feature set for building BO-centered
applications so that they can use it for their own
development projects.
BO Builder for eXperts is available through SAP GUI
and is released for customers with SAP Business
Suite EHP6 upward.

(Eclipse-Based) ABAP Development Tools for BOPF

With SAP Business Suite EHP7 a new Eclipse-based

client application
will be provided as part of an ABAP Development
Tools installation. This set of tools runs on top of
the Eclipse-based ABAP IDE and is aimed at
supporting all kinds of BO-centric use cases: it allows
both the creation of new BOPF-applications and the
enhancement of existing ones.

BO Builder Test Environment (BOBT)

Starting from development environment, you can

always test the current range of functions of each
business object (or enhancement).

BO-Specific Debugging

Debugging on the business object entities level

enables you to speed up the troubleshooting process:

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Introduction to Business Object Processing Framework (BOPF)

You can set breakpoints for entities such as actions,

determinations, and validations. Furthermore, you
have the option of setting watchpoints for certain
activities on the nodes (for example, to update a
particular node attribute).

Integrated BO Test Infrastructure

BOPF supports test automation and test-driven

development. From the outset, you can apply ABAP
unit tests to test isolated units of business objects,
such as actions, validations, or determinations. In
addition, with the scenario testing function, you can
extend the tests to processes that consist of several
steps.

NOTE
As a SAP customer, you can use the BO Builder (BOB), the BO Builder for eXperts (BOBX), or the Eclipsebased client for the development of your own business objects. Here, you will benefit from that interoperability
is ensured between these development tools. So you can, for example, create new business objects in the
BOB tool and then edit them in another tool on.

How to get started?

Getting Started with BOPF guides you through all the steps required to create from
scratch your first business object and to implement a basic operation using the BOPF API.
Read the related blogs posts on SCN:
Navigating the BOPF: Part 2 - Business Object Overview
Navigating the BOPF: Part 3 - Working with the BOPF API
Navigating the BOPF: Part 4 - Advanced BOPF API Features
Navigating the BOPF: Part 5 - Enhancement Techniques
Navigating the BOPF: Part 6 - Testing & UI Integration

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