Complement the native internal Process Integration (PI) scheduler and use a Workload Automation on Cloud application to automate and control starting and stopping communication channels, as well as verifying the status of channels.

Any business that involves transactions between business partners such as receiving orders, handling shipments, sending invoices, and receiving payments, needs to be able to exchange information that spans multiple applications, geographies, and differing systems across business partners. The most optimal result is a transaction that is executed smoothly from start to finish, as if it were processed by a single system.

Business scenario

A bank handles the purchase and sale of shares of stock throughout the day during the hours in which the Stock Exchange is open. Orders for shares arrive in the format of comma-separated values (CSV) files and are converted into records in the database queue. The bank uses the SAP PI channel application to open the PI communication channels at the start of each day when the Stock Exchange opens, and then closes the channel at closing time. When the channel is closed, any orders made after that time are queued until the next business day.

With the Workload Automation on Cloud SAP PI Channel application, the bank can easily control when channels are opened and closed. It can schedule the opening of the channel from Monday to Friday at 9:30 a.m. and the closing of the channel at 4:30 p.m. each day. It can even skip weekends and holidays or any other days declared as non-working days so that the channels are opened only when the Stock Exchange is open for business. If necessary, should an unexpected event force the Stock Exchange to close, the bank has the added capability of being able to quickly close the channel, on demand, even from a remote location through a simple tap on a mobile device.