Your connection details, one by one

Companion guide · Where each field of the form comes from, depending on your ERP · Odoo · SAP Business One · SAP S/4HANA

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Connecting Aski takes four details from your ERP. Three of them are always the same — Database, User / login and API Key — and that is where everyone gets stuck, because each ERP names them differently and stores them somewhere else.

Find your ERP below. If your installation is not reachable from the internet, this guide is the companion to aski.dev/en/tunnel-guide, which covers the networking side.

Odoo

URL

The same address you use to open Odoo in your browser, with nothing after the domain:

https://mycompany.odoo.com          (Odoo online / Odoo.sh)
https://erp.mycompany.com           (self-hosted, published)
http://192.168.1.20:8069            (internal install, via tunnel)

If your Odoo listens on a non-standard port, add it. The usual one is 8069.

Database

Odoo can serve several databases from the same address, so you have to say which one. Where to find it, easiest first:

In the URL itself when you log in: if you see ?db=mycompany or /web?db=mycompany, that is the name.
Under Settings → General Settings, or at the very bottom of that page, where Odoo shows its version and the active database.
If your Odoo shows you a database selector when you log in, the name is the one you pick from that list.
On a self-hosted install, it is the name chosen when it was created. Whoever administers the server will know it.

On Odoo online it usually matches the subdomain: if you log in at mycompany.odoo.com, the database is almost always called mycompany.

User / login

The email that person uses to log in to Odoo. Not the display name — the login email. You can see it under Settings → Users, in the "Login" column.

Important. Each person enters their own, not a shared one. Aski queries as that user, so it will see exactly what that person sees in Odoo — not one record more. With a shared user, everyone would see the same thing and that guarantee would be lost.

API Key

This is not your Odoo password: it is a separate key that Odoo generates, and that can be revoked without changing your password. How to create it:

Log in to Odoo with the user that will be used by Aski (each person generates their own).
Top right, click your name → My Profile (or "Preferences").
Go to the Account Security tab.
Click New API Key. It will ask for your password to confirm.
Give it a name you will recognise later — "Aski" — and choose an expiry. If you pick a date, you will have to renew it that day.
Copy it right then. Odoo shows it only once; if you close the window you have to generate another one.

On Odoo 14 and 15 the option is in the same place but the tab may be called "Security". If you cannot see it, your user needs developer mode enabled or higher permissions — ask whoever administers the system.

Important. If your Odoo has two-factor authentication, the API Key is mandatory: the password alone will not work.

Permissions you need

None in particular: whatever that person already has. Aski only reads, so if the user can see invoices in Odoo, Aski will be able to answer about invoices; if they cannot see costs, Aski will not see them either.

SAP Business One

Aski connects to the Service Layer, the interface Business One ships for integrations. If it is not running, ask whoever manages your SAP to enable it.

URL

The Service Layer address, with the port and the trailing path:

https://srv-sap:50000/b1s/v1               (internal, via tunnel)
https://sap.mycompany.com:50000/b1s/v1     (published)

Port 50000 is the Service Layer standard. The /b1s/v1 part is required: without it the connection will not work.

If your Service Layer uses a self-signed certificate — common on internal installs — let us know when you connect.

Database

This is the Company DB: the technical name of the company database, not the commercial name. It usually starts with SBO_:

SBO_MyCompany
SBO_PROD
MYCOMPANY_PROD

Where to see it: when you log in to Business One, on the company selection screen, in the "Database" column. Or inside the client itself, under Help → About.

User / login

The Business One user, the same one that person uses to log in to the SAP client: manager, jsmith, and so on.

Important. Use a read-only user, or that person's own. Aski only queries by default, but the fewer permissions the user has, the less you have to take our word for it.

API Key

Business One has no API keys: here you enter that SAP user's password. The field is called API Key because it is the same form for all three ERPs.

It is stored encrypted and never shown again, neither in the app nor in the admin panel.

Query Manager and cubes

The Query Manager needs nothing extra: Aski reads the saved queries with this same user and recomputes them with your data. If that user can't see the Query Manager in SAP, neither can Aski.

Cubes — the SAP HANA analytical views — do have to be published, because Business One exposes none out of the box. They only exist on Business One running on HANA:

In the Business One client, as a superuser, open SAP HANA Model Management.
Tick "Service Layer Expose" on the cubes you want to query from Aski.
Restart the Service Layer.

If the connection user is not a superuser, it also needs permission for those views in its general authorizations. Custom cubes built by your partner are published the same way, but first they have to be packaged with the Service Layer option turned on. Aski checks the list of cubes every half hour; to see what it finds, ask it "which cubes do I have?".

SAP S/4HANA

URL

The base of your tenant's OData services:

https://my-tenant.s4hana.ondemand.com/sap/opu/odata/sap
https://sandbox.api.sap.com/s4hanacloud/sap/opu/odata/sap

Database

Not applicable. On S/4HANA this field does not appear in the form.

User / login

Optional, and it decides how authentication works. If you fill it in, user and password are used against your real tenant. If you leave it empty, only the API Key is used (the SAP API Business Hub sandbox mode).

API Key

Your instance's API Key, or the SAP API Business Hub one if you are testing against the sandbox. On a real tenant, the password of the user from the previous step.

Things that apply to all three

What happens to those details

The key is encrypted before being stored, and is never shown again.
It does not appear in the app, the API, the admin panel or the logs.
Aski only reads by default. Writing requires switching on actions with confirmation, which exist only on the top plans and never run without the user approving them.
Cutting off access does not depend on us: disable that user or revoke the key in your own ERP and it is over, instantly.

The full detail is at aski.dev/en/security.

If the connection test fails

"Invalid credentials" → check the user and the key. On Odoo, make sure you copied the whole API Key; it tends to be long.
"Database not found" → the name does not match. On Odoo, look at the URL when you log in; on Business One, at the company selection screen.
"Could not reach the server" → this is not about credentials, it is networking. If your ERP is not on the internet, see aski.dev/en/tunnel-guide.
It connects but says it has no access to something → that is correct: that user does not have that permission in the ERP. It is fixed in the ERP, not here.