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...]

SAP NCo 3.0 – Best Practice Guide for Upgrade from .NET Connector 2.0

Duration: 1 hour

Speaker:  Craig Stasila, Principal, DataXstream

This one hour webinar will supply you with knowledge of features specific to the new upgrade, as well as an overview of the advantages that come with investing in NCo 3.0.

What Will Be Highlighted:

  • Changes and new features brought upon by the NCo 3.0 update
  • Demonstrations of best-practices for implementing new and existing NCo code
  • Live demonstration of inbound and outbound function calls between a .NET solution and SAP ECC

Available on Demand

Please complete the required form to view the webinar

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DataXstream to Exhibit at Insider IT 2011 Conference in March

SAP Insider IT 2011 Logo

Visit DataXstream at the IT 2011 Conference

What: IT 2011 Conference

When: March 15 – 18, 2011

Where: MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV [Read more...]

Case Study – SAP EDI Integration

Vera Bradley – SAP EDI Integration

As part of Vera Bradley’s SAP implementation, the EDI program was critical to the sales of their designer products. Having no internal resources to tackle this task and being on a tight deadline, Vera Bradley needed a means to rapidly integrate SAP and Gentran Server for Windows.

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Case Study – SAP PI Integration

Applied Materials – SAP PI Integration

Applied Materials needed to connect various systems to SAP MDM using SAP PI 7.0. These interfaces were mission critical, and needed special consideration in design and implementation. Another team had already began work but had run into problems with interfacing to custom applications communicating with MDM.

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Case Study – Xstream Connector Integration

Greenlee Textron – Xstream Connector Integration

Textron needed to enhance their ability to manage accounts receivable collections, disputes and deductions beyond that delivered by standard SAP functionality. Owing to its extensive functionality set and ease of use, Textron chose the Cforia software package for this purpose. Now they needed a means to rapidly integrate SAP and Cforia.

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Case Study – SAP WMS Integration

Intradeco Apparel – SAP WMS Integration

For Intradeco Apparel, the integration of their third-party Catalyst Warehouse Management software was paramount to the go-live of their SAP system. Intradeco had tried twice before to go live with SAP, each time ending in failure as the integration to their legacy system was not done well enough to limit business risk.

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Case Study – Integration with SAP .Net Connector

Pure Fishing, Inc. – Integration with SAP .Net Connector

Pure Fishing needed a new and standardized solution to allow seamless interaction between their SAP systems and third-party warehouse management software that was more reliable and flexible then custom integration approach used in the past.

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SAP Technical Consulting Services

Other companies may have consultants that match ours in talent, but no one matches our skill. Talent is natural. Skill is only developed through tremendous work ethic and endless hours dedicated to honing one’s craft. Our craft is SAP: from the program level down to the specific functional, technical, and administrative details. Our depth of understanding and experience in SAP allows us to clearly see the big picture, and our detailed SAP expertise is used to build solutions that match your vision.

Because Experience Matters

DataXstream offers senior level consultants covering many types of SAP consulting services. Our deep domain expertise, particularly in technical activities, enable customers to tackle complex, challenging projects where time is of the essence. Averaging over 10 years SAP experience per consultant, we can fill most roles from analyst to project lead, to solution manager. When hiring DataXstream, you gain the commitment to success that is reflected in our 100% project success rating.

DataXstream’s range of services include:

Infrastructure Assessment and Systems Architecture

Whether you are looking to implement SAP for the first time, perform an upgrade, merge several legacy systems together, or virtualize your landscape (SAP or otherwise), it is critical that you take the proper steps in preparation for your work.  DataXstream can work with you to design a system landscape that is able to meet your business goals and adapt to business growth in the short, medium, and long- term.  We will review your existing hardware, software, systems architecture solutions (SAP and non-SAP) and make recommendations regarding the design of your system and the applications you need.  We will determine the sizing requirements for your new landscape (including the amount of hardware, storage, servers, etc. that is needed), identify gaps in hardware and software between your present system and the one proposed, and obtain all required licenses.  At this stage, we will also make recommendations as to whether to engage in a virtualization process or not.  If you decide it is in your company’s business interests, we will use our technical expertise to virtualize your landscape.

 Project Management

Once you have architected the optimized and efficient IT infrastructure needed to support your SAP system, DataXstream can assist you in the management of your SAP projects.  We work collaboratively with customers to develop and deliver strategies and engagement plans for projects in all phases of the SAP lifecycle; including implementations, development, integration, upgrades, data management, and support. We provide realistic project forecasts, deliverable timelines, estimated costs, and resource needs.  Whether it is during the stage of pre-implementation, execution, or post-implementation of your project, DataXstream remains highly involved in the process and can work with you on strategy, tactics, and execution.

SAP Technical Development and Functional Configuration

Once you have your infrastructure and the specifics of your envisioned SAP solution in place, DataXstream’s SAP experts can do the nitty-gritty work to make your plan into a reality. Our team of senior developers dive into the programming world of ABAP, BAPI, RFC, XI, PI, IDOCS, ALE, .Net, Java Connectors, as well as a number of middleware integration platforms, working to meet all the functional and technical specifications of your SAP system.  Our consultants have the necessary mix of  project leadership, thorough understanding of  business processes and goals, and SAP technical expertise to deliver solutions that are both technically-sound and business-process optimized. This work involves configuring all critical components of the SAP system, developing custom applications to enhance the capabilities of standard SAP solutions to meet your unique needs, and testing each of the SAP components to ensure your system performs as desired.  We integrate all critical process,  data sources, and third party software with SAP; cleanse and migrate data as necessary into your SAP system; leverage SolMan’s rich tool set to better manage and support your system throughout the application lifecyle; and provide the Basis administration to KTLO and support your SAP system’s day-to-day activities.

Support

As you are engaging in your SAP project, DataXstream can assist with every phase of an SAP lifecycle.  Our consultants have been through countless SAP lifecycles and have experienced the details of every stage. We know when certain support activities need to be done and can plan pro-actively to resolve them to eliminate unnecessary issues. DataXstream also understands the need for process discipline, along with clear communication during an SAP lifecycle, and can assist you with putting such critical processes in place. When it comes to your support needs, DataXstream can assist in planning and vision, full post-production support, and adaptation of the support model as you respond to internal and external changes.

Upgrades

At some point in time, it may become necessary to upgrade your SAP landscape.  When that day comes, DataXstream can assist you.   DataXstream has been helping companies with SAP upgrades since 1998.  Consequently, we understand upgrades and the need to execute upgrades quickly and effectively to minimize disruption and ensure business continuity.   Our upgrade process involves understanding your technical and business environment in order to establish an approach that meets your business goals; assessing your existing infrastructure and doing a gaps analysis between what exists now and what is needed for the upgrade; and executing on the upgrade plan.  If it is in your company’s best interest, DataXstream can also virtualize your landscape before executing the SAP upgrade.

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

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:

  1. 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.
  2. We asked our project team, both client and consulting resources.  Again, the goal was to tell us why we couldn’t do it.
  3. 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.

[Read more...]