Viewing SAP Netweaver Gateway Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for SAP Netweaver Gateway, you gain access to live SAP Netweaver Gateway data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update SAP Netweaver Gateway data. This article will walk through connecting to SAP Netweaver Gateway using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to SAP Netweaver Gateway

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

SAP Gateway allows both basic and OAuth 2.0 authentication. You can use basic authentication to connect to your own account, or you can use OAuth to enable other users to retrieve data from your service with their accounts. In addition to authenticating, set the following connection properties to access SAP Gateway tables.

• Url: Set this to the URL of your environment, or to the full URL of the service. For example, the full URL might appear as: https://sapes5.sapdevcenter.com/sap/opu/odata/IWBEP/GWSAMPLE_BASIC/. In this example, the environment URL would just be: https://sapes5.sapdevcenter.com.
• Namespace: Set the appropriate Service Namespace. In the example above, IWBEP is the namespace. It is optional if the full URL to the service is specified.
• Service: Set this to the service you want to retrieve data from. In the example above, the service is GWSAMPLE_BASIC. It is not required if the full URL is specified.

Authenticate via Basic Authentication

In basic authentication, you use your login credentials to connect. Set the following properties:

• User: This is the username you use to log in to SAP Gateway.
• Password: This is the password you use to log in to SAP Gateway.

Authenticate via OAuth Authentication

You can connect to SAP Gateway using the embedded OAuth connectivity (without setting any additional authentication connection properties). When you connect, the OAuth endpoint opens in your browser. Log in and grant permissions to complete the OAuth process. See the OAuth section in the online Help documentation for more information on other OAuth authentication flows.

Connecting to SAP Netweaver Gateway Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying SAP Netweaver Gateway data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for SAP Netweaver Gateway and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for SAP Netweaver Gateway.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: SalesOrderLineItems) onto the form.

8. Select the SalesOrderLineItemsTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the SalesOrderLineItems data.