SAP Support Radar

0006 – User-supplied PAM data, never bundled or auto-fetched ​

Status: Accepted

Context ​

The app's core dataset — the SAP Product Availability Matrix — is created and maintained by SAP and published on the SAP Support Portal behind an SAP S-user login; it is not public, freely redistributable content. Three ways of getting this data into the app were possible: (a) check a full, real PAM export into the repository and ship it as the bundled default data, (b) build a fetcher that logs into or scrapes the SAP Support Portal automatically, or (c) require each user to obtain their own export and convert it locally.

This is a distinct decision from ADR 0001 ("no backend") and ADR 0005 ("plain JSON data") — those are about how data is consumed at runtime; this one is about where the data is allowed to come from in the first place.

Decision ​

Never check a real, complete PAM export into the repository, and never fetch or scrape it automatically. webapp/model/PAM.json is listed in .gitignore — the file the app actually loads at runtime is not part of the committed source at all. Instead, each user downloads their own CSV export from the SAP PAM tool on the SAP Support Portal (using their own S-user access) and converts it locally via npm run pam:import / scripts/import-pam-csv.js — see Installation → Regenerating the PAM data for the exact steps.

This is deliberately narrower than the optional --ui5 merge (see Architecture → PAM.json field mapping): OpenUI5's own version overview data at ui5.sap.com/versionoverview.json is public, requires no login, and the import script is allowed to fetch it automatically — only the SAP-proprietary PAM export itself is subject to this decision.

Consequences ​

  • Positive: Avoids redistributing SAP's own licensed/access-controlled PAM content — checking a full export into a shared or public repository could exceed the terms under which it was obtained via an S-user login.
  • Positive: Each user's data reflects exactly the product landscape visibility their own SAP contract grants them, and is as fresh as their last export — not a bundled snapshot that silently goes stale between releases.
  • Positive: The app imposes no assumption about which subset of PAM entries a given organization can even see.
  • Negative: First-time setup requires a manual, out-of-band step — log into the SAP Support Portal, export CSV, run the import script — before the app has real data to show. There is no "just clone and run" path to a fully populated app.
  • Negative: Keeping the data current is a manual, user-triggered action (re-running the import); nothing in the app reminds a user their data has gone stale.