March 20, 2015 (/blog/2015/3/9/brfplus-a-hidden-gem-within-your- Archive

sap-system)
July 2020 (/blog/?month=july-
BRFplus - a hidden gem within your 2020&view=calendar)

SAP system (/blog/2015/3/9/brfplus-a- May 2020 (/blog/?

month=may-
hidden-gem-within-your-sap-system) 2020&view=calendar)

Anton Karnaukhov (/blog/category/Anton+Karnaukhov) April 2020 (/blog/?

month=april-
2020&view=calendar)
No matter how much one tries to minimize customization in an SAP
February 2020 (/blog/?
system some volume of custom business logic is usually
month=february-
unavoidable. Historically this meant introducing custom ABAP
2020&view=calendar)
syntax in various user-exists, enhancements, BAdI's and custom
programs. Given the complex and interdependent nature of an SAP July 2017 (/blog/?month=july-

system, it becomes imperative to carefully manage such ABAP-based 2017&view=calendar)

customization in order to ensure that business logic is in sync across June 2017 (/blog/?
various functional areas and is not duplicated. That's where SAP month=june-
Business Rules Framework Plus (BRFplus) comes into play - a fairly 2017&view=calendar)
new piece of functionality from SAP that makes it possible to December 2016 (/blog/?
manage all of your custom business logic in a single place and in a month=december-
re-usable way. 2016&view=calendar)

March 2015 (/blog/?

In general, BRFplus functionality is available on any SAP NetWeaver
month=march-
based system at the appropriate enhancement pack level. To quickly
2015&view=calendar)
check if it is available in your system simply try running the BRFplus
Workbench application via transaction code BRFPLUS or BRF+. If February 2015 (/blog/?

you are presented with a web application in a new browser window, month=february-

then you are basically set to utilize BRFplus in your environment. 2015&view=calendar)

September 2014 (/blog/?

It is worth noting that in 2013 SAP released a solution called
month=september-
Decision Service Management (DSM), which builds on top of
2014&view=calendar)
BRFplus and adds some new capabilities. Most notably DSM allows
May 2014 (/blog/?
central business rule management across many different SAP
month=may-
systems and instances. The following SAP document
2014&view=calendar)
(http://www.google.com/url?
 April 2014 (/blog/?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url
month=april-
=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sdn.sap.com%2Firj%2Fscn%2Findex%3Fri
2014&view=calendar)
d%3D%2Flibrary%2Fuuid%2F504e33c1-b6f9-2f10-df95-
f74f9aaaf748%26overridelayout%3Dtrue&ei=AhMGVbOkI8HZoAT0 June 2013 (/blog/?

54EI&usg=AFQjCNFMoFZbTS52QNqSuYJaZU7t6qgpAg&bvm=bv.88 month=june-

198703,d.cGU) provides a great list of frequently asked questions in 2013&view=calendar)

regards to DSM as well as DSM vs. BRFplus comparison. However, March 2013 (/blog/?
DSM requires additional licensing from SAP, whereas BRFplus is month=march-
typically available for use with existing SAP licensing that is in 2013&view=calendar)
place. We find that for most SAP customers DSM is a bit of an September 2012 (/blog/?
overkill and BRFplus is the way to go. month=september-
2012&view=calendar)
So now that you know a little about the history of BRFplus, what can
August 2012 (/blog/?
you actually use it for? Here are some examples from the real world
month=august-
where we've utilized BRFplus to meet business requirements:
2012&view=calendar)
Logo determination on output forms June 2012 (/blog/?
Default priority and deadline determination on service month=june-
notification documents 2012&view=calendar)
Default plant determination during sales order entry
May 2012 (/blog/?
Custom carrier determination in SAP Transportation
month=may-
Management
2012&view=calendar)

From a technical point of view, the most common use case for
BRFplus that we run into is the implementation of custom business Ta g s
logic in user-exits and enhancements. In fact, nowadays BRFplus is
our default approach for implementing custom business logic in
Kanban (/blog/?tag=Kanban)
such context, which can be described at a high-level with 2 steps:
S4/HANA (/blog/?
1. Creating a function within BRFplus that takes certain inputs, tag=S4%2FHANA)
processes them through the necessary business logic, and then Sapphire (/blog/?
produces the derived outputs tag=Sapphire)
2. Calling the BRFplus function created in prior step via ABAP in Strategy (/blog/?tag=Strategy)
a user-exit, enhancement, BAdI, custom program, etc.
Tools (/blog/?tag=Tools)

It is important to note that using the aforementioned approach you ASUG (/blog/?tag=ASUG)
are still required to write some ABAP to make the call to a BRFplus CIO (/blog/?tag=CIO)
function. The difference is that, generally speaking, the ABAP Consulting (/blog/?
syntax is only responsible for making the call to BRFplus and no tag=Consulting)
actual business logic is specified directly via ABAP. Why is this an
Digital (/blog/?tag=Digital)
advantage you might ask?
Digital Strategy (/blog/?
BRFplus functions are easily re-usable, which greatly reduces tag=Digital+Strategy)
the amount of duplicated business logic in your system. Digital Transformation
BRFplus contains a large library of expressions that greatly (/blog/?
speed up the development process for mapping business rules, tag=Digital+Transformation)
especially if those rules are complex. Something that might Transportation Management
 take you days or even weeks to write in ABAP from scratch can (/blog/?
be quickly modeled within BRFplus using one of many tag=Transportation+Management)
expressions.
Agile (/blog/?tag=Agile)
All of your custom business logic can be seen in a single place -
SAP (/blog/?tag=SAP)
BRFplus transaction. You don't need to hunt around the vast
number of programs, exits and enhancements to be able to
make adjustments to existing business rules. Authors
Simple adjustments to existing business rules can be made by
non-technical staff, without any need for ABAP changes. Anton Karnaukhov (/blog/?
author=53180b2ce4b01a2dce57748f)
The last point is worth elaborating on. SAP often likes to advertise
BRFplus as a tool that will replace ABAP developers with business Eric Vota (/blog/?

users that can maintain their own logic. That is a bit of an author=5d719ed85d2fb30001ec1b8d

exaggeration (sorry, SAP). In reality, the actual creation of BRFplus Mike O'Dell (/blog/?
elements (functions, expressions, etc.) is still a fairly technical author=53273e2ee4b053d9b3037fb9
exercise. Many SAP professionals without a technical background
will more than likely find it challenging to learn all of the ins and
outs of BRFplus. Understanding of such basic programming
concepts as variables and loops becomes a huge advantage when
working with BRFplus, even though you are creating those objects
with a click of a mouse as opposed writing ABAP. But steep learning
curve aside, with enough time and effort it is certainly possible for
SAP functional analysts to become proficient in BRFplus, without
having to depend on developers to build complex custom business
logic. However, business users are another matter entirely. It is
certainly possible for business users to do some trivial adjustments,
such as changing values in an existing decision table. But the great
majority of changes within BRFplus will need to be done by
members of the IT team.

There are many great features within BRFplus that truly make it an
excellent business rules framework.

ex p r e s s i o n s

In many ways expressions are what make BRFplus so appealing in

the first place. These are pre-packaged logical objects that greatly
speed up the modeling of business rules within the BRFplus
environment. Although there are many different kinds of
expressions supported in BRFplus, the one that seems to receive the
most use is a Decision Table. For those of you familiar with the
condition technique in SAP ECC, decision tables will have a familiar
feel, although they actually provide much more extensive
functionality. In addition to being able to search the table from top
to bottom until a marching record is found, you can also maintain
input values as ranges, sets of multiple values, leave them blank to
represent any value, as well as use many other logical operators.
 BRFplus Decision Table

customizing and master data applications

One of the really neat features of BRFplus is ability to create both

Customizing and Master Data applications. Customizing
applications require the use of SAP transports in order to move the
changes between SAP systems, whereas master data applications
allow the changes to be made directly in each SAP system and client.
This becomes especially useful when you have master data values,
such as customer, material, vendor numbers, etc., as part of your
business logic. Keep in mind that since in most cases BRFplus
functions are called via ABAP, the functions themselves will need to
reside under a customizing application. But these customizing-level
functions are then able to utilize expressions (such as decision
tables) that reside under other master data-level applications. In a
nutshell, you are able to mix the use of customizing and master data
BRFplus objects in a single business rule.

user interface

Most of the modeling within BRFplus is done via a "point and click"
User Interface, accessible via transaction code BRFPLUS. You are
able to create new objects by simply right-clicking on a node on the
left side of the screen and choosing the appropriate item from the
contextual menu.

api

You can also interact with BRFplus through an API. This means that
not only can you create and update BRFplus object via transaction
BRFPLUS but you can also do so via standard delivered ABAP classes
and methods. For example, in one of the scenarios we needed to
store the average price of diesel fuel in the US in a BRFplus decision
table. We were able to create a custom ABAP program that looked
up the price of diesel for the prior week via a public web services and
updated the BRFplus decision table on our end via the BRFplus API.

web services

BRFplus functions can be easily exposed as web services. This

means that you can consume BRFplus business logic in both SAP
and non-SAP applications.

H E L P E R TO O L S

BRFplus comes with a large number of tools that help you develop,
export/import, check and troubleshoot BRFplus objects. Some of
these tools are accessible from menus of the BRFPLUS transaction,
but the easiest way to see all of them is by executing program
FDT_HELPERS via transaction code SE38. You will save yourself a lot
of time in the future, by getting familiar with these tools earlier on.
For example, one of the tools available allows you to quickly identify
and resolve most issues associated with transporting BRFplus
objects between systems.

BRFplus Helper Tools

In summary, BRFplus is a tool that is available to the great majority

of SAP customers without any additional licensing requirements.
We encourage you to check it out and start using BRFplus for your
custom business logic needs.

Tagged: SAP (/blog/tag/SAP)

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Ankur Sharma 4 years ago · 0 Likes

Good article to give overview/introduction of BRF+.

Appreciate the efforts of authors.

yogesh 5 years ago · 0 Likes

Very good Article ! Thanks !

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