News
SCI Helper: How I Used AI to Create a Tool That Saves Time and Nerves
created by Gemini
Vlado Balko
Oct 27, 2025
Development
Vibe Coding with Necessity: SCI and the Consultant's Reality
The SCI Helper for Chrome/Edge isn't just any extension—it's every SCI consultant's best friend. Without exaggeration: working with SAP Cloud Integration would be way more difficult and slower without it. It's the difference between sledding in summer and in winter. Both are possible, but with the Helper in winter, it's simply better.
The true power of SCI Helper lies in its plugin expandability. This instantly turns it into a community project: more heads, more knowledge, more capability. Plus, it eliminates complaining: instead of criticizing, you can just build your desired functionality yourself. And that was precisely my motivation.
The Problem That Had to Be Solved: Connectivity Test Amnesia
A great, yet frustrating, feature exists in SCI: the Connectivity Test. It allows you to check partner systems from the correct IP address and with the right credentials, which is often not possible from a local workstation.
The Problem: The connection form has several fields, and they must be filled out every time. The height of frustration is when you diligently fill out the form only to discover your session has expired, the page restarts, and you have to fill it all out again. This item had been on my to-do list for several years.
Agent Awakening: Claude Code as the Project Trigger
It remained just an idea until I started testing the capabilities of Claude Code (Anthropic's agent for contextual coding). I needed a real project, not just another boring variation of Arkanoid. And I remembered that eternal form-filling issue.
Jumping into the project was classic "early-stage vibe coding." I didn't do my homework—no thorough analysis, no PRD (Product Requirement Document). I dove in headfirst.
Version 1 & 2: I quickly realized I didn't know Claude well enough yet, and I failed to manage it properly. I preferred to abandon two initial versions at a certain stage and start over. I had to better understand the context and how Chrome extension code is actually built.
Version 3 (The Breakthrough): Fortunately, the third attempt worked.
Post-Vibe Coding: From Rough Code to Specification
This was followed by several long evenings of polishing. Although I still wasn't using a structure like GitHub SpecKit, I was approaching it in practice:
Design improvements for a better user experience were prioritized.
Code optimization for more robust and reliable saving.
The final fix for asynchronous field filling: The biggest challenge—how to populate fields that only appear after the previous field is filled? This demanded a precise architectural plan.
Adding comprehensive help documentation.
The plugin for managing and saving Connectivity Test values was complete.
Community Reward: Pull Request and The Completed List
After a few days of intensive local testing (together with my colleague Jirka Fridrich), I was ready. I submitted a Pull Request to the SCI Helper repository. This act felt significant—it was the final, formal step that transitioned a personal frustration into a public, community solution.
It didn't take long for a message to arrive from Dominic Beckbauer—the maintainer of SCI Helper—saying he liked the plugin and would include it in the next version (3.21.0). That confirmation wasn't just approval; it was the moment the project moved from a private fix to a shared asset.
For me, the community aspect is deeply personal. I am where I am today largely thanks to the accessibility of information and tools—including the SCI Helper extension itself. Submitting the plugin was my way of contributing back to the ecosystem that has supported my own growth. It's the philosophy of open development: what you take, you also return. With this contribution, I fulfilled two major goals:
I created a tool I use daily that saves me time and nerves.
I contributed back to the community of SAP BTP Integration, a commitment I also honor through my blog.The coding revolution isn't just about speed; it's about solving real problems. The SCI Helper plugin is proof that AI can push a years-delayed project from a todo list to live deployment.
The SCI Helper plugin is now available to all consultants in the latest version of the extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sap-cpi-helper/epoggeaemnkacpinjfgccbjakglngkpb?hl=en&pli=1
For further details about the code and contributions, visit the SCI Helper GitHub repository: https://github.com/dbeck121/CPI-Helper-Chrome-Extension.
News
SCI Helper: How I Used AI to Create a Tool That Saves Time and Nerves
created by Gemini
Vlado Balko
Oct 27, 2025
Development
Vibe Coding with Necessity: SCI and the Consultant's Reality
The SCI Helper for Chrome/Edge isn't just any extension—it's every SCI consultant's best friend. Without exaggeration: working with SAP Cloud Integration would be way more difficult and slower without it. It's the difference between sledding in summer and in winter. Both are possible, but with the Helper in winter, it's simply better.
The true power of SCI Helper lies in its plugin expandability. This instantly turns it into a community project: more heads, more knowledge, more capability. Plus, it eliminates complaining: instead of criticizing, you can just build your desired functionality yourself. And that was precisely my motivation.
The Problem That Had to Be Solved: Connectivity Test Amnesia
A great, yet frustrating, feature exists in SCI: the Connectivity Test. It allows you to check partner systems from the correct IP address and with the right credentials, which is often not possible from a local workstation.
The Problem: The connection form has several fields, and they must be filled out every time. The height of frustration is when you diligently fill out the form only to discover your session has expired, the page restarts, and you have to fill it all out again. This item had been on my to-do list for several years.
Agent Awakening: Claude Code as the Project Trigger
It remained just an idea until I started testing the capabilities of Claude Code (Anthropic's agent for contextual coding). I needed a real project, not just another boring variation of Arkanoid. And I remembered that eternal form-filling issue.
Jumping into the project was classic "early-stage vibe coding." I didn't do my homework—no thorough analysis, no PRD (Product Requirement Document). I dove in headfirst.
Version 1 & 2: I quickly realized I didn't know Claude well enough yet, and I failed to manage it properly. I preferred to abandon two initial versions at a certain stage and start over. I had to better understand the context and how Chrome extension code is actually built.
Version 3 (The Breakthrough): Fortunately, the third attempt worked.
Post-Vibe Coding: From Rough Code to Specification
This was followed by several long evenings of polishing. Although I still wasn't using a structure like GitHub SpecKit, I was approaching it in practice:
Design improvements for a better user experience were prioritized.
Code optimization for more robust and reliable saving.
The final fix for asynchronous field filling: The biggest challenge—how to populate fields that only appear after the previous field is filled? This demanded a precise architectural plan.
Adding comprehensive help documentation.
The plugin for managing and saving Connectivity Test values was complete.
Community Reward: Pull Request and The Completed List
After a few days of intensive local testing (together with my colleague Jirka Fridrich), I was ready. I submitted a Pull Request to the SCI Helper repository. This act felt significant—it was the final, formal step that transitioned a personal frustration into a public, community solution.
It didn't take long for a message to arrive from Dominic Beckbauer—the maintainer of SCI Helper—saying he liked the plugin and would include it in the next version (3.21.0). That confirmation wasn't just approval; it was the moment the project moved from a private fix to a shared asset.
For me, the community aspect is deeply personal. I am where I am today largely thanks to the accessibility of information and tools—including the SCI Helper extension itself. Submitting the plugin was my way of contributing back to the ecosystem that has supported my own growth. It's the philosophy of open development: what you take, you also return. With this contribution, I fulfilled two major goals:
I created a tool I use daily that saves me time and nerves.
I contributed back to the community of SAP BTP Integration, a commitment I also honor through my blog.The coding revolution isn't just about speed; it's about solving real problems. The SCI Helper plugin is proof that AI can push a years-delayed project from a todo list to live deployment.
