Accessing ActiveControl

There are three main ways of accessing ActiveControl:

1) SAP GUI screens, normally used by ‘transport owners’ (ie Developers, Functionals, Securities teams) to log their changes within ActiveControl.

2) Web UI interface, typically used by the majority of users such as Approvers, Testers and other stakeholders to perform their activities relating to ActiveControl.

3) Windows GUI client, generally only deployed to ‘heavy users’ such as Basis teams, Change Managers and ActiveControl Administrators.

The Windows GUI

The Windows GUI client software is a relatively small application occupying less than 15MB of space. The software can be installed locally to each person’s computer, or alternatively to a file server location for easier deployment. The client software should run on any computer capable of running SAP’s standard (32-bit or 64-bit) SAP GUI software.

The Windows client software connects to the ActiveControl domain controller via SAP’s remote function call (RFC) protocol. ActiveControl does not store any log-on information, including the user passwords.

The logon details of client, user ID and password are the same as if the person were logging into the ActiveControl domain controller via the SAP GUI. Since all of ActiveControl’s configuration and application data is client independent, it does not matter which client of the ActiveControl domain controller is specified.

Figure: The Windows GUI login screen

*Remote function call is a TCP/IP sockets-based protocol that utilises the 3300-3399 range of port numbers. For example, if the ActiveControl domain controller has system number 10, then the client software will communicate with it using TCP port number 3310.

!Although the Windows GUI client software does run on older 32-bit operating systems such as Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 and Windows XP, only Windows version from Windows 8onwards are officially now supported by Basis Technologies.

Connecting Systems

The ActiveControl Windows GUI uses the saplogon.ini files (for SAP GUI 730 and earlier) and XML file for SAP GUI 7.40 onwards, on the local PC to determine this list of systems to connect to. ActiveControl reports the presence of both saplogon.ini and SAPUILandscape.xml files in:

1) Local ActiveControl folder (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Basis Technologies\ActiveControl)

2) Windows directory

3) Directories stored in the registry by SAP GUI
Current User Local: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SAP\SAPLogon\ConfigFilesLastUsed\ConnectionConfigFile
Current User Server: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SAP\SAPLogon\ConfigFilesLastUsed\ConnectionConfigFileOnServer
Local Machine Local: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\SAP\SAPLogon\ConfigFilesLastUsed\ConnectionConfigFile
Local Machine Server: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\SAP\SAPLogon\ConfigFilesLastUsed\ConnectionConfigFileOnServer

4) SAPLOGON_INI_FILE environment variable (saplogon.ini only)

E.g. “C:\Program Files\Basis Technologies\ActiveControl\ActiveControl.exe” “SAPLOGON_INI_FILE=C:\Windows\saplogon.ini”

5) %APPDATA%\SAP\Common folder (XML only) – this is the default location for the ‘local configuration path’.

! Please be aware that ActiveControl will continue to look at old saplogon.ini files if the customer moves over to xml config files and the historical ini. file still exists, so users may need to check that both ActiveControl and SAP are using the same configuration files after doing a SAP GUI or ActiveControl upgrade.

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