With the launch of Cloud Management Tools, we now have two new features that can be used instead of the SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit for convenient account management, such as managing global accounts, directories, subaccounts, entitlements, environment instances, multitenant application subscriptions, and users and their authorizations.

CLI(Command line interface) for Business Technology Platform
APIs(application programming interfaces) for Business Technology Platform

The CLI for business Technology Platform is an alternative to the cockpit that allows you to use the terminal to perform all account management operations on your global account, directories, and sub accounts.
Each command begins with the base call “btp” followed by a verb (the action), a group and object combination, and parameters.

The btp CLI uses this syntax:

For more details please check the blog post.

SAP Business Technology Platform provides core services APIs that allow you to execute administration duties such as creating or modifying subaccounts, monitoring use information, managing access, and managing service resources at the global account, directory, and subaccount level.

From account and product entitlement management to registration and provisioning of subscriptions for multitenant apps and services, each major service focuses on a distinct component of the platform.

To examine and check out the accessible APIs, go to this URL: api.sap.com

There are seven API packages available, each of which is provided by one of three major services: Cloud Management, User Data Management, or Service Management.

Visit help.sap.com for additional details.

For more details please check the blog post.

Motivation

Although the BTP cockpit and CLI are excellent choices for completing administrative tasks, an intellectually autonomous, programmable interface that can respond to pre-written keywords or BTP CLI commands in the same way that simple conversational agents can will aid in quick response and collaboration.

@btp a Slack app that uses SAP Provided Core Service APIs, demonstrates a new functionality on Slack channel that allows users to run btp cli commands to do administrative activities on the global account. Users can use btp cli commands to create or update subaccounts, monitor usage data, manage access, and manage service resources in a secure manner.

Architecture

Slack supports both Identity Provider (IDP) Initiated and Service Provider (SP) Initiated flow. Depending on your slack subscription, you can setup a connection for Slack with your own IDP.  In our case, we are utilising Azure AD(a cloud-based identity and access management service) to control user access and identity in Slack which allows users to log in using their Azure AD account and federation based on the SAML protocol. 
For further information, see slack-tutorial

SAP advises using SAP Cloud Identity Services – Identity Authentication as a hub for more flexible and demanding applications, especially if your business users are kept in different corporate identity providers.

Similarly, we may set up Azure AD as an identity provider (IdP) and SAP Cloud Identity Services – Identity Authentication as a proxy for the Business Technology Platform- Cloud Foundry environment tenant.This requires the exchange of SAML metadata on both sides with modifications of the user attributes.
For further information, see an excellent blog post. 

In this situation, we use a single IDP (Azure AD) for Slack and SAP Cloud Identity Services, and SAML Assertion is the link between the authentication of a user’s identity and the authorization to use core BTP services.

Refer to the following:

Application Video

Conclusion

So, let’s recap…@btp app performs commands and actions from slack. user with Global Account Administrator role can use it for convenient account management tasks and to automate these procedures. This app supports commands using the already familiar BTP CLI syntax that you can use from slack on desktop and mobile device. 

What’s next?

Well, that’s it from my side!

This is just an idea that came to me, and with the current solution approach, still I am in very initial phase with certain abstractions and limitations. Definitely i will share more details in my upcoming blog post.

In the meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedbacks. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog article; hopefully it was helpful.