Overview

  • All your Robotic process automation jobs, their environment backlogs and status can now be monitored via SAP Cloud ALM Platform.
  • By integrating SAP Intelligent RPA with SAP Cloud ALM, an administrator can monitor unattended jobs, API triggered jobs, and the environment backlog in the Cloud Factory.
  • SAP Cloud ALM receives information from SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation by using a dedicated destination, which must be configured in the BTP Cockpit. This blogpost will take you through the process of CALM configuration and steps that you need to perform.

Scope & Benefits

  • For Business continuity it needs to be ensured that all automations are running successfully on desired time and data should be processed without errors and warnings.
  • Job & Automation Monitoring feature in SAP Cloud ALM shall help IT and Business users to understand the success of the automation processes they are responsible for, across all involved cloud services and systems.
  • The purpose is to provide transparency about the current status of automation processes regarding execution status, application status, start, delay and run time.
  • It supports the monitoring of automation processes that run on the different platforms with a unified user experience using a common look-and-feel and handling pattern.
  • Admins can visualize automation process performance and disruptions.
  • Identifies automations that produce exceptions or show exceptional behavior regarding runtime and delay.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite for using SAP intelligent Robotic Process Automation with Operation Automation are the following. Make sure that you have:

  • enabled access to SAP Intelligent RPA APIs and are aware of the service key properties client id, client secret, uri, url in section uaa .
  • created an API key for each SAP intelligent RPA environment in which SAP Cloud ALM shall trigger automations. The API key needs to have the following scopes active: environment_read, trigger_read, trigger_execute.
  • ensure that you have OAuth2ClientCredientials, token and url of your SAP Cloud ALM instance.

Main Steps for Configuration

1. Configuring SAP Cloud ALM Integration

The following procedures will take you through the process of configuring destination in BTP cockpit:

In the BTP Cockpit

  1. Open the Connectivity drop down menu in the navigation bar at the top of the screen.
    Click Destinations.
    The Destinations page opens.
  2. Click New Destination.

    A blank template opens at the bottom of the page.

  3. Enter Name as process_automation_alm.
  4. Enter the URL given in your service key instance in the cockpit in the URL box.
  5. Choose the authentication OAuth2ClientCredientials.
  6. Enter your Tenant URL + /oauth/token at the end, in the Token Service URL box.
  7. Click Save.

In the Cloud Factory

  1. Open the Configuration drop down menu in the navigation bar at the top of the screen.

    Select Destinations.

  2. Click the Add Destinations button.

    The Add Destinations window pops-up.
  3. Find your previously created destination and click the checkbox next to its name.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Select which environment you would like to add the destination by selecting it in the drop down menu. Or you can add it to all environments, which will include all existing environments, and any new environment created later.
  6. Click Add.

2. Activate Monitoring

  1. Click on the drop-down menu next to Configuration and select SAP Cloud ALM.
  2. Enter your SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation tenant ID as the service name.
  3. Click Save.
  4. Click Register.

Now you should be able to see the Service in Landscape Management app of SAP Cloud ALM.

3. Define an endpoint to the SAP intelligent RPA service subaccount

An end point in SAP Cloud ALM Landscape Management pointing to the SAP intelligent RPA service in the remote sub account is required to request the list of defined automations, trigger a new automation and check the status of executed automation jobs. Proceed as follows to create the endpoint:

  1. Open SAP Cloud ALM Landscape Management
  2. Select the relevant cloud service of type “SAP intelligent Robotic Process Automation”
  3. Select the endpoints tab
  4. Select Add
  5. Enter the following data & Click Save.

Use Case:  Operation Automation
Root Url: <uri> (overwrite existing data if required)
Authentication type:  OAuth2ClientCredentials
Client ID: <clientid>
Client secret: <clientsecret>
Token Service URL: <url>/oauth/token
API Key: <API Key of the environment>

4. Register operation flow definitions

The registration step is required to make the relevant automations  known to SAP Cloud ALM for Operations as Operation Flows.

Perform the following for each automation that should be triggered manually or automatically from SAP Cloud ALM for Operations.

  1. Select the operation automation tile
  2. Select “Register Operation Flow –> SAP intelligent RPA”
  3. Choose the right endpoint from the value help
  4. Select the trigger id that should be triggered from SAP Cloud ALM
  5. Assign a use case corresponding to the planned usage of this operation flow Example: If the operation flow resolves problems or alerts detected by Integration Monitoring, assign Integration Monitoring.
  6. Select Ok

As a result, the new automation / trigger  will appear in the list of registered operation flows.

5. Job Monitoring Configuration

In this section, you need to select the jobs you want to monitor in SAP Cloud ALM, as by default job execution data is not sent to SAP Cloud ALM.

Once you have selected one or more jobs, click Save.

Note : A selected job will be visible in SAP Cloud ALM as soon as it has been executed.

You can also check the Select new jobs automatically option to automatically send new job execution data to SAP Cloud ALM. If you check this option, you no longer need to select each new job individually to send its data to SAP Cloud ALM.

6. Health Monitoring Configuration

To monitor distribution in an environment you need to select the distribution KPI for the environment you want to monitor. By default, distribution related KPIs are not sent to SAP Cloud ALM.

Distribution KPIs selected by environment. Once the distribution KPI is selected for one or several environments, SAP Cloud ALM service will receive information each 5 minutes:

Conclusion

Here, I conclude that with the help of SAP Cloud ALM, one can ensure business continuity by proactively monitoring automation jobs centrally across all RPA tenants or entire organization landscape.
And it provides a unified user experience using a common look-and-feel and handling pattern.

Hope you have enjoyed this blogpost !! Follow me for more such posts.

Sara Sampaio

Sara Sampaio

Author Since: March 10, 2022

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