SAP Business ByDesign connection setup

This guide connects a SAP Business ByDesign tenant to LinkyFlow. It takes two steps: upload the OData services of the domains you use into your tenant, then add the connection with the tenant URL, a username and a password.

Requirements

• A SAP Business ByDesign tenant, for example https://my123456.sapbydesign.com
• A user allowed to manage OData services, for Step 1
• A business user of the tenant for the connection, holding the work centres of the domains you use (General Ledger, Purchasing, Sales, Logistics, Production, Project Management…)

Step 1 — Upload the OData services into your tenant

LinkyFlow reads and writes through custom OData services that you create on your tenant from files, one per business domain. Upload only the domains you use — a domain you do not upload is simply not available on the connection.

| Domain | File | What it gives access to | | --- | --- | --- | | Finance | lf_finance.xml | Journal entries (create, simulate, submit, post, cancel), posted accounting documents, bank accounts and statements, payments, companies, cost and profit centres | | Purchasing | lf_purchase.xml | Purchase orders and their approval, goods and service receipts, supplier invoices and their exceptions, suppliers | | Sales and service | lf_sales.xml | Leads, opportunities, quotes, sales orders, invoice requests, customer invoices, service requests, orders and confirmations, customers | | Logistics | lf_logistics.xml | Materials, sites, inbound and outbound deliveries, stock movements, customer returns | | Production | lf_production.xml | Production orders and their outputs, planning orders, requisitions | | Projects | lf_project.xml | Projects, tasks, time sheets, employees |

For each file:

1. Download it from the table above.
2. In SAP Business ByDesign, open the work center Application and User Management, view OData Services.
3. Show the Custom OData Services and upload the file.
4. Keep the name the file gives the service (lf_finance, lf_purchase…): LinkyFlow calls each service by that name.

The analytics reports (trial balance, VAT items, open items…) need no file: LinkyFlow reads them from the work centres of the business user, read-only.

Step 2 — Add the connection in LinkyFlow

1. In Excel or the web app, open Connections → Add connection.
2. Choose SAP Business ByDesign.
3. Enter the Tenant URL — the host only, https://my123456.sapbydesign.com, nothing after it.
4. Enter the Username and the Password of the business user.
5. Give the connection an alias and save.

LinkyFlow checks the connection without writing anything: one read of each domain's service, and one of the user's analytics services. What each domain gives access to is shown on the connection's page (see below). Reading is proven; writing is reported as maybe, because SAP does not say what a user may change — the first successful write proves it.

See what each domain gives access to

Connections → View opens the connection's page. For each domain it shows whether its service is installed on the tenant, whether the user may read and write there, and every object of the domain with what can be done on it — read, create, and each lifecycle action (Post Journal Entry, Approve Purchase Order, Release Sales Order…), available or not, with the reason. Below, the analytics reports the user may run, searchable. An AI assistant asking what it can do with the connection gets the same answer.

If a domain is not installed or incomplete

• Not installed: the last check did not find the domain's service on the tenant. Upload its file (Step 1) without renaming it, then sync the connection.
• Installed, incomplete: the service on your tenant is an older or trimmed copy; the operations it lacks are marked unavailable and refused by LinkyFlow, never sent to SAP. Upload the file again, then sync.
• Another service under that name: a service named lf_… exists but is not LinkyFlow's. Replace it with the file, then sync.

When the password changes

SAP locks a user after a few wrong passwords, so LinkyFlow never retries a refused sign-in. The first time the tenant rejects the password, the connection is marked in error and every later call is refused by LinkyFlow itself, without contacting SAP. Open the connection, enter the new password and save: LinkyFlow checks it once, and the connection is active again.

Step 3 — Load your first query

1. Insert a LinkyFlow query and pick SAP Business ByDesign.
2. Choose an object — Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, Journal Entries, Projects… — select your connection and run it.
3. Filter it: every object offers the filters that matter for it (a status, a customer, a company, a fiscal period…). Codes are SAP's own; each domain's Code Lists query lists their valid values.

The Actions pane offers each lifecycle action of a row only when its status allows it, and every action answers the record as SAP holds it afterwards.

With an AI assistant

Through MCP, an assistant can read every domain and run the lifecycle actions you ask for: create a journal entry Not Posted, simulate it, submit and post it when you say so; release a sales order; approve a purchase order; start a project. What reverses or moves money or stock — cancelling a posted entry, posting a supplier invoice, posting a goods receipt or issue — stays yours, from the Actions pane or SAP. Creating a journal entry takes SAP about half a minute: if the assistant reports it as unconfirmed, it is usually created — it finds it again by its external reference before creating anything twice.