Understanding Business Add-ins (BADI)

By Vikram Chellappa

Basic concept

SAP has introduced new enhancement technique Business Add-ins from release 4.6A.

Business Add-in is the new enhancement technique based on ABAP Objects. BADI is an exit
point in a source that allows specific industry sectors, partners, and customers to attach
additional software to standard SAP source code with out modifying the original object.

The users of Business Add-ins can customize the logic according to requirement or they can use
the standard logic one available.

SAP guarantees the upward compatibility of all Business Add-in interfaces. Release upgrades do
not affect enhancement calls from within the standard software nor do they affect the validity of
call interfaces.

Basic skills required

• Work Experience/Knowledge on ABAP Objects (Object orientation of ABAP) is

mandatory.
• Experience on SAP enhancement technique.

BADI in detail

Business Add-ins infrastructure is multi-level system landscape (SAP, partner, customer

solutions, as well as country versions, and industry solutions). Definitions and implementations of
Business Add-ins at each level within system infrastructure.

Different Views

The different views of the BADI’s are:

1. Definition view, Application Programmer can predefine the exit points in

the source in which specific industry sector customers can attach
additional software to standard SAP source code with out having to modify
the original object.
2. Implementation view, the users of Business Add-ins can customize the
logic they need or use a standard logic if available.

Architecture
User defined BADI’s:

i. First define a Business Add-In, application developer creates an interface for the add-in.
ii. Enhancement management creates an adapter class that implements the interface and
thus provides the interface for implementation by the customer, partner and so on.
iii. The programmer/developer creates an instance of the adapter class in the application
program and calls the corresponding method at the appropriate time.

Standard BADI’s:

i. For Standard Business Add-ins, the interface and adapter class will be predefined by
SAP. The adapter class that implements the interface and provides the interface for
implementation by the customer, partner specific to business.

Each Business Add-in will have one interface and an adapter class that implements interface.
Depending on the business requirement user will implement the interface. The generated class
(Adapter class) has the following tasks:

1. Control, the adapter class calls the active implementations

2. Filtering, If the Add-in has to be executed under certain conditions, then the adapter
class ensures that only certain implementations will be executed.

Technical Details

a. BAdIs are contained in the system and are fully operational as of Release 4.6B. SAP
creates Add-ins for specific programs, menus, and screen enhancements for standard
R/3 applications. This Add-ins doesn’t contain any functionality. Instead you can add-on
functionality onto these hooks.
b. Customers can find the enhancements in their system in the
implementation guide and in the component hierarchy. If customer wishes
to use a Business Add-in, he has to first create an implementation. The
 customer must implement the methods and the enhancements, and
afterwards activate the implementation of the enhancement. The
enhancement’s active components are then called at runtime.
c. Business Add-in contains an interface and other additional components such as function
codes for menu enhancements. Business Add-ins also includes enhancements for
screens. The enhancement, interface and generated classes are all located in the
appropriate application development namespace. Business Add-in implementations are
created in the respective implementation namespace.