Known LimitationsThere are a couple of known limitations in aqua4SAP due to the differences between aqua and SAP Solution Manager.
1 Status changes
SAP Solution Manager tracks several different statuses for incidents. There is the user status which is status in the Details area of an incident and there is a separate status tracked for each external service desk. By default, changing the status via the ICT_SERVICE_DESK API only changed the interface status for this external service desk but not the user status. It is possible to configure SAP Solution Manager to automatically update the user status when certain requests are received from an external service desk.
2 aqua workflow
SAP Solution Manager imposes a quite strict workflow on external service desks like aqua. Essentially, with each status change the responsibility for the next action is moved to other system. Hence, we provide a special workflow for aqua together with aqua4SAP to restrict the status changes. Deviating from this workflow, we most likely cause problems during the synchronization. The status should also not be changed as aqua4SAP identifies the statuses by name.
3 Enclosures and texts
aqua allows to edit or delete existing enclosure. On the other hand, SAP Solution Manager does not allow to edit or delete existing texts. Hence, when modifying or deleting an aqua enclosure, a sync error occurs. When fixing the sync error, aqua4SAP will recreate deleted enclosures and revert changes to existing enclosures.
aqua enclosures support rich text content and can contain images. On the other hand, SAP Solution Manager only supports plain text in its texts. Hence, any formatting in aqua enclosures is not synced to SAP Solution Manager. Images in enclosures are synced as separate attachments to SAP Solution Manager and a plain text reference to the image is added to the text in SAP Solution Manager.
It is possible to create an incident in SAP Solution Manager without any texts. When opening the corresponding aqua defect, aqua will automatically add an enclosure as soon as the defect is opened. After saving the defect, this new enclosure will be synced back to SAP Solution Manager.
4 Attachments
When only an attachment is added to an incident in SAP Solution Manager, this change is not synced to aqua. SAP Solution Manager does not consider this as a change. It is necessary to modify some other information in the incident to force the synchronization with aqua.
The name of the attachment in SAP must contain a valid file extension as aqua uses this extension to detect the file type. Please note, that it is not sufficient when the file name in SAP Solution Manager has a valid extension as only the name of the attachment and not the filename is synced.
SAP Solution Manager allows shows the technical user used by the sync to login to SAP as the creator of any attachments created by the sync.
5 Locking
Both aqua and SAP Solution Manager lock elements while they are edited. When an element is locked, aqua4SAP cannot perform any changes and therefore will skip the element during the synchronization. aqua4SAP will try again to synchronize the element in every sync interval.
Note that, the SAP Solution Manager continues to lock the element even after cancelling the editing of an incident. It is necessary to completely leave the incident page to release the lock.
6 Deleting aqua items and SAP Solution Manager incidents
aqua allows to delete items while it is not possible to delete incidents in SAP Solution Manager during normal operation. aqua4SAP detects when an aqua item has been deleted and then disables any further synchronization for this item and the corresponding SAP Solution Manager incident. It is not possible to synchronize the incident with another new aqua item afterwards as both aqua4SAP and also SAP Solution Manager itself remember that the incident has already been synchronized.
aqua4SAP is able to immediately detect deleted aqua items and will send a corresponding message to SAP Solution Manager. aqua4SAP is not able to detect that an aqua item has been moved out of the sync’s scope into another project (or folder when the sync is only configured for a certain folder). Hence, aqua4SAP will only detect this situation when trying to sync changes received SAP Solution Manager.
7 Deleting aqua items and SAP Solution Manager incidents
The SAP Collaboration data is currently not synchronized but the API allows partial access to this information.
8 Long names for items
When creating an item in aqua with a name, longer than 40 characters, the name is cut off in SAP.
9 Category in SAP item
When selecting a category in SAP Solution Manager, the sync is not working. Note, that the categorization schema in the sync error is SAP_SOLUTION_MANAGER_TEMPLATE but the categorization schema seen be the sync is BHYP_SOLUTION_MANAGER_MLC. This happens as the SMIN standard incident type has been copied to the incident type YBHY. The YBHY incident type is now the actively used incident type and only the categorization schema of this incident type can be used by the sync.
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