viewing IXOS images via the UWL

[Mikko Mäki-Rahkola]

Hi Karl,
I remember bumping into the same problem a while ago so here are my comments..

I assume you are using a before method IMAGE-DISPLAY or similar on the
task to display the invoice image just before launching a FI
transaction, correct? If yes, the reason why you're most likely to get
the error is because ITS isn't set up correctly.

But don't worry about this problem - ITS and SAP GUI for HTML
(=webgui) based work item execution with a separate invoice image
display will not meet your requirements even though it would be set
up. The reason for this is that ITS/SAP GUI for HTML doesn't support
multiple sessions which you require in order to display the invoice
image in the first session and the transaction in the other session.
OSS confirmed this to me last autumn in a customer message.

So you're basically left with two alternative options:
1. SAP GUI for Windows
- in this option you will have to visualize(=display) the work item in
the UWL with SAP GUI for Windows. This means that when you execute the
work item SAP GUI for Windows is launched within the next step in
another window (depending on your config) and you will get two SAP GUI
sessions open, one with the transaction and the second with the
invoice image.
- in order to accomplish this, you need to adjust the UWL item type
configuration for the task you are executing. Basically the only thing
required is setting the GuiType property to WinGui so it will launch
wingui instead of webgui. For more details on this, please see the UWL
config on help.sap.com and especially
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/af/ce571400fa458a8ad8936fdd49d75a/frameset.htm

2. Direct IXOS lookup
- here you would have a custom action defined for the UWL item which
would launch the invoice image with a separate click in another window
and the transaction itself would be launched with wingui/webgui in
another window when executing the work item
- the drawback is that this is more difficult and IXOS may not support
it at all (not sure since I haven't worked with it that much) but
basically here UWL would directly call the invoice image in IXOS
without a roundtrip to SAP ERP
- what this requires is
 1. IXOS for example exposing the invoice image display through an
HTTP interface meaning that you could display any stored invoice image
by calling a specific URL with correct parameters and
 2. the UWL configured to have a custom defined action against your
task and the action to launch a URL with parameters (e.g. invoice
image ID) fetched from the work item container

A third option may also be to create a custom transaction which would
show the transaction next to the invoice image, all in one session.
But this would of course require quite a bit of effort especially
compared to the options above which can be done in hours instead of
days or weeks.

Hope this helps,

Mikko Mäki-Rahkola
Nobultec Ltd

> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:47:31 +1100
> From: "Nietz, Karl K" <Karl.Nietz at BHPBilliton.com>
> Subject: viewing IXOS images via the UWL
> To: <sap-wug at mit.edu>
> Message-ID:
>        <5372E2FBE781494DA8D1D34E71BC73177A02F2 at ENTMEL-XCH05.apac.ent.bhpbilliton.net>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> Hi,
>
> We have scanned IXOS images (invoices etc) attached to workitems in a
> backend 4.7 system.  These are created via the ArchiveLink technology
> using transaction OAWD.
>
> We can see the workitems rendered in the Universal Worklist successfully
> but when we attempt to execute a workitem where the IXOS image is
> displayed, or click on the hotlink attachment for the IXOS image, an
> error occurs.  It seems that the IXOS viewer cannot be started-up from
> within the UWL.
>
> Is it possible to configure the UWL or ITS so that IXOS documents can be
> viewed in the UWL?
>
> Karl Nietz
> Workflow Support Team Leader
> CSC Melbourne
> Ph:   61 3 86951157
> Mob: 61 434 181303