Hi Muni,
Based on recommendations provided in SAP Help materials for "Integration Add-On for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors HCM Suite" in part of employee data replication (refer to SuccessFactors Integration: Employee Data Replication - Integration Add-On for SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors HCM Suite …), usage of RH_SFI_SYNCHRONIZE_EMPL_DATA is a preferred option in comparison with RH_SFI_TRIGGER_EMPL_DATA_REPL. RH_SFI_SYNCHRONIZE_EMPL_DATA provides features for delta extraction and integration with SuccessFactors not only via files, but also via middleware (both are not available in RH_SFI_TRIGGER_EMPL_DATA_REPL).
You are right, usage of RH_SFI_SYNCHRONIZE_EMPL_DATA in combination with middleware based integration will involve three interfaces:
- SFSFSessionHandlingLoginQueryResult_Out - to login to SuccessFactors and obtain a session ID;
- SFSFUserUpsertRequestConfirmation_Out - to transmit extracted employee data;
- SFSFSessionHandlingLogoutQueryResult_Out - to log off from SuccessFactors.
All these interfaces are provided as a part of SAP add-on for integration between HCM and SuccessFactors, and RH_SFI_TRIGGER_EMPL_DATA_REPL implements calls of these three interfaces in required sequence (SFSFSessionHandlingLoginQueryResult_Out, followed by SFSFUserUpsertRequestConfirmation_Out and SFSFSessionHandlingLogoutQueryResult_Out), and since login and logout interfaces are very lightweight, they shouldn't bring much overhead to entire integration.
You are correct: not all scenarios which are currently delivered in SAP add-on content, make use of SuccessFactors adapter currently, so drawback is necessity of usage of Axis adapter for quite a lot of them at the moment, if we would like to utilize SAP standard configuration as much possible.
In my opinion, even though usage of Axis based solution requires extra overhead related to deployment of Axis libraries and involves two extra interfaces, I would prefer that one in order to make use of SAP standard configuration scenarios delivered in add-on as much as possible - at least for current being, until they are not migrated to SuccessFactors adapter. If some time in the future they will be complemented or replaced by those using SuccessFactors adapter and delivered in SAP add-on, I would definitely prefer SuccessFactors adapter based rather than Axis adapter based. File based integration is the least preferred method by me in this particular scenario between discussed three options.
Regards,
Vadim