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SAP Go-Live Lessons Learned

September 27, 2011 By Tim Cooper Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Blog, SAP Project Management, SAP Strategy, SAP Testing, SAP Testing Tagged With: DataXstream, SAP, SAP ECC 6.0, SAP Integration, SAP testing, Tim Cooper

NCo 3.0: Reconnecting a Broken RFC Server Connection

September 21, 2011 By Craig Stasila Leave a Comment

Don’t you hate it when you’re talking on the cell phone and the call drops? I was talking to my wife on the way to my client site this week and was telling her about this awesome blog post I was writing when the call dropped. Bummer. Since I really wanted to tell her about my blog, I wanted to complete the conversation. But first, I had to wait for service. Then I had to call her back, and have her answer. Then I uttered the phrase that all cell phone users know, “What was the last thing you heard me say?” It was a fairly messy recovery, but I was finally able to talk about my blog!

When two software systems integrate, we also have to deal with the “dropped call” problem. SAP NCo 3.0 offers a few different levels of data recovery options depending on whether NCo is the client or the server. But before any data recovery can happen, the first step is to call the other party back. This blog post describes the general process to reconnect an NCo RfcServer to an SAP gateway host.

DataXstream to Exhibit at SAP TechEd 2011

August 23, 2011 By Dataxstream Leave a Comment

What: SAP TechEd 2011

September 12-16, 2011

Where: Booth 204, The Venetian / Palazzo Congress Center, Las Vegas, NV

DataXstream is pleased to announce that, for the sixth year in a row, we will be exhibiting at the annual SAP TechEd conference. Visit us at booth 204 to discuss with our experts how you can utilize the latest ERP technologies, strategies, and best practices to bring value to your SAP solutions. Learn how your ERP initiatives can benefit by leveraging DataXstream’s SAP Project Management and Technical Consulting services, as well as our SAP solution offerings for Virtualization, Disaster Recovery, Hosting, Implementations & Upgrades, Solution Manager, Enterprise Support, Enterprise Information Management, Integration, and ISV Enablement.

Win an Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl XLI Plaque Autographed by Peyton Manning!

To celebrate the start of the NFL season we’re giving you the chance to leave TechEd with a framed and autographed photo of Peyton Manning, one of the greatest Quarterbacks of all time. Visit our booth for your chance to win!

Filed Under: Blog, Events, News, Press Releases, Uncategorized Tagged With: DataXstream, SAP, sap teched 2011, TechEd

Build an RFC Server with NCo 3.0 – A Step-By-Step Guide

August 23, 2011 By Craig Stasila 7 Comments

SAP .NET Connector 2.0 offered a couple of different sample projects that were instrumental in my learning process. As I mentioned in my post detailing the steps to build an RFC client, SAP no longer supplies code samples with SAP .NET Connector (NCo) 3.0. So, I decided to make available some code examples created by my colleague, Terry DeBruicker.

This blog describes how to build a simple RFC Server using the SAP NCo 3.0. The sample program implements RFC STFC_CONNECTION. STFC_CONNECTION is a good example to use because it contains both importing and exporting parameters.

Build an RFC Client with NCo 3.0 – A Step-By-Step Guide

August 16, 2011 By Craig Stasila 12 Comments

The SAP .Net Connector 3.0 (NCo 3.0) offers many improvements over the 2.0 version of that product. 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. Click here to request a .zip file containing a copy of the source code.

The sample program displays details about companies defined by SAP. There are two BAPI calls involved, BAPI_COMPANY_GETLIST and BAPI_COMPANY_GETDETAIL.
Along with the SAP .Net Connector 3.0, we are using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 to build our sample. Prior to starting, you will have to download and install NCo 3.0 (OSS login required).
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, SAP ABAP Blog, SAP Interface Blog, SAP Technical Tagged With: .Net Connector, Craig Stasila, DataXstream, NCo, NCo 3.0, SAP .Net Connector

Integrate SAP Service Desk with a Third-Party Service Desk

July 7, 2011 By Steve Park Leave a Comment

When companies implement SAP, Solution Manager (Solman) is also included in the installation. Companies need to make a conscious decision of what they plan to use from Solman. One of the features in Solman is the Service Desk ticketing system.

SAP service desk is usually getting introduced in an environment in where an existing Third-party Service Desk is already in use. Because of this, companies need to make a decision on how they will integrate SAP Service Desk with their existing Third-party Service Desk.

In this blog, I will describe Service Desk integration scenarios and DataXstream’s involvement in the Service Desk integration space.

Introducing SAP .NET Connector (NCo) 3.0

January 5, 2011 By Craig Stasila 7 Comments

This past summer, SAP announced a new version of SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET — NCo 3.0. SAP decided to give us an early Christmas present when they officially released NCo 3.0 on December 22, 2010. You can download NCo 3.0 at http://service.sap.com/connectors (you will need an OSS logon).

Included in the downloads are documents that discuss the notable changes from .NET Connector 2.0 and a very comprehensive help file (in .chm format). Noticeably absent are complete samples, although SAP claims that the included tutorial will be updated.

Additionally, I already have my first NCo 3.0 project under way, so check back soon for more information about NCo 3.0!

Happy Coding!

[UPDATED]

Additional Information

Follow these links for more information about NCo 3.0 programming:

Filed Under: Blog, SAP Interface Blog, SAP Technical Tagged With: .Net Connector, Craig Stasila, DataXstream, external program, NCo, NCo 3.0, SAP .Net Connector, SAP Integration, SAP programming

SAP Mid-Month Go-Live: Got the T-shirt

November 10, 2010 By Tim Cooper 2 Comments

Conventional wisdom says you don’t go-live with SAP financials in the middle of the month (strictly speaking I should say the middle of the accounting period, but I’ll say month as a generic term for the posting period). I recently went through a mid-month SAP financials and logistics go-live and so far it has been a success.

Initially the project team had the expected you-can’t-do-that reaction when the idea of a mid-month go-live was suggested. We took three main steps to determine whether or not we were crazy or had a viable go-live option:

We asked SAP. As one of the main participants on the project we got them to do an internal review with some platinum consultants with the objective of telling us why we could not go-live mid-month.
We asked our project team, both client and consulting resources. Again, the goal was to tell us why we couldn’t do it.
We Googled like maniacs to find something to support and justify the conventional wisdom. We failed to find anything substantial that would deter us.

Armed with the conviction that there was no reason we couldn’t go-live mid-month we set about defining the details of how we would pull it off.

SAP Project Management Consulting Clichés – Part 2

November 3, 2010 By Tim Cooper Leave a Comment

Following my previous post I got a couple of responses from folks out on the interweb and decided I’d steal their suggestions and expand on their consulting clichés. After all repetition and overuse are the start point for any cliché and this means I’m doing my part to sustain the cycle – reuse, recycle, renew!

Is Your Project a Hotbed of SAP Consulting Clichés?

I felt compelled to come up with a 2-by-2 matrix to help you decide whether your project is cliché generator or a cliché consumer.

Configuring Availability Time Planning in SAP PI

November 2, 2010 By Dave Morin 1 Comment

A common problem in SAP PI is scheduling a particular interface to run at a particular time and date for adapters that poll (such as the file adapter). The communication channel is not a good way to handle this functionality as the polling period is reset if a change is activated or the channel is stopped and then started on the runtime workbench. The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate how to set up communication channels so that they “turn on” at a specific point in time and how to maintain this setting if the system needs to be restarted.