In the late 90’s Hershey foods decided they needed to begin preparing themselves for Y2K. While they were getting all their ducks in a row for what would eventually turn out to be one of the most anticlimactic “doomsday” scenarios in history, they also decided to update all their software, replace existing legacy systems, and implement $112 million dollars’ worth of SAP ERP software (Koch, 2002). It seemed like a solid, “catch-all” solution for what many people considered to be the coming apocalypse. Of course, the world didn’t end on January 1, 2000, nor did much of anything else happen aside from a few doomsday cults feeling the sting of embarrassment and plenty of egg on their faces. Hershey, however, was almost certainly looking back on the past couple years and regretting the rushed schedule they gave themselves for trying to cover more ground than was possible in the time allotted. [Read more...]
Mind the Gap: How Small Lapses in Communication can Derail an SAP Implementation and Cost a Company Millions – Part 1: How SAP Can Make or Break a Company
Webinar – Benefits and Challenges of using SAP Lean Order Management (LOM) as a Point of Sale for Retail
Some SAP Retail customers need an alternative to the SAP POS module or other outside POS interface. Lean Order Management (LOM) is a real alternative that runs order fulfillment processes directly in SAP through a portal interface. A number of enhancements can be made to the base LOM product to make it a fully functional Retail POS. This is particularly beneficial to companies that need real time, up to date information. LOM can be successfully deployed across a large end user base as a Retail POS.
What Will Be Highlighted:
- In this session you will learn how other retailers have integrated and leveraged LOM across hundreds of stores with minimal end user training
- Discussion will include the necessary enhancements needed to simplify the order process (sales, tender, refunds and returns), reducing associate / customer POS interaction and allowing end users to focus on meeting customer needs and enhancing the customer in store experience.
Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Duration: 30 Minutes
Speaker: TBD
SAP EDI EDPAR Table Walkthrough – How to Cross Reference External Customer Number to SAP Customer Number (Part 2)
Let’s say you are receiving EDI ANSI X12 850 Sales Orders from you customers that need to be uploaded into your SAP System using the ORDERS05 IDOC. Most customers will have their own internal customer numbers that they send in their EDI transmissions to represent the Sold-To and Ship-To partners.
How do you convert these external customer numbers into your internal SAP customer numbers?
Some may hard code these conversions into their EDI maps. This approach can be very high maintenance as customers can add new ship-to locations or reorganize their internal numbers which would require changes to your maps.
Others may set up a cross reference table within their EDI translation table to perform the conversion. This works well at times, but then you are at the mercy of your EDI group to update the table with any new additions or changes to existing entries. [Read more...]
Web Dynpro Basics: Context and Binding
This is for those who are new to Web Dynpro programming. Here is an explanation of how to set up a Web Dynpro application using the context and binding the context to User Interface (UI) elements of the application. This is only a basic explanation to help set a foundation for understanding Web Dynpro programming. The 3 basic elements of a Web Dynpro application are windows, views and the context. The window is simply a container for a view. To assign a view to a window expand the views and windows under the section labeled ‘Object Name.’ Double click on a window and then drag and drop the view into the window. [Read more...]
Build an RFC Client with NCo 3.0 for VB.NET – A Step-By-Step Guide
Recently, I published an article showing step-by-step instructions for how to consume an SAP RFC with the SAP .Net Connector 3.0 (NCo 3.0). The article included code samples and a working code example for download written in C#. Well, not everybody writes in C#. There are some of you that would prefer to write in VB.NET. So, I have heeded your call, all you VB.NET developers! Here is your very own article detailing how to build an RFC client with NCo 3.0 for VB.NET.
The SAP .Net Connector 3.0 (NCo 3.0) offers many improvements over SAP .NET Connector 2.0. Unfortunately, SAP no longer offers example .NET code. This blog attempts to fill that gap by describing how to build a simple RFC Client using SAP .Net Connector (NCo) 3.0 with VB.NET. Click here to request a .zip file containing a copy of the source code.
It’s SAP Upgrade Time! Do You Know Where Your Customizations Are? Part 3.
In my final post on this topic, I will discuss some of the techniques that I use to “discover” information about customizations in an SAP system, even in the absence of any documentation. The information available to be discovered may include such details as the object name, object type, user name of the person who made the last modification, date and time of the last modification, usage statistics, where-used, and for code-based objects, even the versions and their code differences.
It’s SAP Upgrade Time! Do You Know Where Your Customizations Are? Part 2.
In my last post on this topic, I discussed two negative effects of customizations in an upgrade project – risk and cost. I also discussed an obvious reason to eliminate unnecessary customization – the mitigation of risk and cost.
In this post, we will look at some of the customization areas which add risk and the cost to an upgrade project.
How To: SAP PI Data Type Enhancements
I have worked with SAP PI since it was called SAP XI (version 3.0). SAP XI was pretty rough around the edges and was not what I would call an enterprise class integration tool. Each successive SAP PI release and enhancement pack has steadily added functionality such that the latest version of SAP PI is finally starting to resemble a fully functional EAI platform.
One such example of additional functionality is the ability to enhance delivered integration content.
Recently, I had to make some modifications to an integration scenario where an SAP ERP system was sending data to an external custom solution. The good news was the SAP ERP and PI objects were built and delivered by SAP!
SAP ERP Delivered Content
The bad news was that the interface, as designed, did not meet the business’ need…
How to add fields to delivered content?
So, the $64,000 question is, how do we add fields to delivered SAP PI content?
[Read more...]
SAP Go-Live Lessons Learned
In real estate the key factors in making the sale are location, location and location. In an SAP project I’m coming round to believing that success requires testing, testing and testing.
A Short Selective Retrospective on Key Constituencies
All project events and project success stem from testing and testing well. I’ve written about various types of testing before and how that can lead to some confusion because of issues with definitions. Here I want to discuss some areas where testing really can make or break a project and ideas for how to minimize the chances of things turning out badly. [Read more...]
