SAP provides an enterprise document management system, SAP DMS that can be used to manage documents for the entire enterprise business. SAP DMS (Document Management System) is a cross application component of SAP ECC that provides robust document, content and digital asset management capabilities. DMS is powered by SAP NetWeaver.

If you have invested in SAP DMS, then there are sufficient reasons for using SAP DMS as the Enterprise DMS:

• Secure storage of documents. Supports complex security rules to control access.
• A controlled environment for updates to documents using change management.
• Provides version and revision control, integrated workflow capabilities, full text retrieval and search functionality.
• Linkage with SAP business objects such as BoM, Material masters, Orders, Invoices, Contracts etc.
• Integration of Microsoft Office applications for updating documents.
• Ability to maintain document history to meet legal requirements.
• Provides various user interfaces including an easy-to-use, intuitive, Web-based portal and MS-Windows Explorer simplified access, called Easy DMS.
• Document Hierarchy and Classification capabilities that support search as well as archiving.

DMS provides various user interfaces including an easy-to-use, intuitive, Web-based portal and MS-Windows Explorer simplified access, called Easy DMS. SAP DMS functionality include:

• Check-in/check-out functionality
• Ability to classify documents for searching
• Linking of documents to other objects for visibility across the system
• Integration of Microsoft Office applications for updating documents
• Elaborate security profiles to protect access to documents
• Controlling of documents through change management process
• Use of versions and revisions
• Full text search across stored documents
• Automatic conversion of documents to neutral format for viewing and long term Storage.

SAP DMS provides the following benefits:

• Secure storage of documents
• Easy retrieval of documents
• Excellent search capabilities to cut down on time searching for documents
• A controlled environment for updates to documents
• Complex security rules to control access
• Increased visibility of key documents
• One source and one set of rules for managing documents
• Reduced time and effort spent on document management
• Ability to maintain document history to meet legal requirements

SAP DMS enables the capture and management of electronic documents, CAD models and drawings, MS-Office files, scanned images, multi-media files, and any other electronic files that should be stored and controlled in a secure environment. SAP DMS provides version and revision control, integrated workflow capabilities, full text retrieval and search functionality, and linkage with SAP business objects such as Bill of Materials, material masters (parts), process plans, engineering change masters, and production orders. SAP DMS supports archiving and SAP classification schemes as well as third-party archiving repositories. SAP DMS provides integrated viewing and redlining capabilities.

SAP customers from any industry and of any size with requirements to manage their electronic documents, media and other digital assets in a secure and controlled environment can benefit from establishing SAP DMS at the Enterprise level.

SAP Business Workflow can be used to define simple release or approval procedures, or more complex business processes such as creating a material master and the associated coordination of the departments involved. Workflow is used for automation of business processes in turn reducing manual work and enabling monitoring capability.

SAP Business Workflow is particularly suitable for:

• situations in which work processes have to be run through repeatedly, or
• Situations in which the business process requires the involvement of a large number of agents in a specific sequence.
• Situations involving responding to errors and exceptions in other, existing business processes.

 The workflow mainly involves:

• Events – Events are created to report status changes for an application object and to allow a reaction to the changes (e.g., Material XYZ created). These events can be used as triggering events for your workflows.
• Tasks – A task contains a task description and the connection to the application logic via the method for a business object (e.g., Create Purchase Order). To use a task productively, you must assign the tasks to its possible agents. For differentiated control, the SAP task and customer-specific task can be used.
• Object – Workflow routes the document among different persons who perform certain activities and the goal of the workflow can be put inside an object type. An object can be considered as a structure with certain data and some logic (e.g., FORMABSENC is an object in SAP that can be used for the notification of leave).
• Business Workplace & Work Item – Business Workplace is a work area that an SAP user can use to carry out business Processes. For example, the inbox can be the workplace in which the manager receives the request. The request that the manager receives in this inbox is called a WORK ITEM. The manager can open it, check the details and approve the same.
• Agent – An Agent is a person who executes a work item (e.g., the manager who approves the request).

In essence, workflow can be summarized as:

• Workflow engine automates business processes.
• Workflow can be triggered by an event.
• Workflow definition consists of a sequence of steps.
• Each step can be an activity (or a task). Task in turn refers to a method to implement a specific logic. Steps can also refer to user decision, and other programmatic controls.
• Runtime representation of the step is called a work item. This work item sits in the inbox (business workplace) of the responsible agent assigned to the step.
• Agent determination can also make use of Rule.

A simple and excellent document titled “SAP Workflow in Plain English” is available at http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/40a1a7ab-dcd5-2c10-63aa-9bc68b42e1f9?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true.

SAP provides several workflows that map predefined business processes (e.g., Release a purchase requisition). SAP workflow automates the business processes (e.g., “leave application approval”, “place purchase order”) and can be used as cross application tool across various modules of SAP. The SAP workflows can also be used as templates for new workflow developments.

Effective use of SAP Workflow enables the incorporation of your enterprise specific business processes (approval hierarchies, business rules) along with the world-wide established best practices which the ERP tries to bring in place.

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) provides SOA foundation capabilities for SAP customers. SAP PI is an integration platform that provides seamless integration between SAP and non-SAP applications inside and outside the corporate boundary.

SOA enabling standards (WS standards) are implemented in SAP PI 7.1 making it the core technology enabler of SAP Enterprise SOA. The essence can be summed up by what a customer has said – “SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 is now a true ESB”.

SAP PI is the part of the SAP SOA where open XML based standards are used and SAP delivers pre-configured content. SAP PI is highly optimized for SAP environment and hence 99% of SAP customers use SAP PI for their SAP integration with other non-SAP applications and interfaces (It is not that technically SAP PI is essential but SAP consultants typically are not willing to consider that as a possible approach). Most SAP customers have SAP PI along with their other enterprise integration platforms – to get the best of both worlds.

SAP systems use Intermediate documents (iDoc) to interact with other SAP systems as it produces optimal results. SAP PI converts iDoc to XML message for its internal processing. PI can also convert this data to Flat file format if the receiving application demands it. Thus SAP PI use of open standards like XML and Java enables SAP and non-SAP integration.

SAP PI adapted more and more of open Standards for SOA and through partnerships has evolved to become the Enterprise Strategic integration platform. SAP points out that one of the first scenarios that went life on SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 is based on the integration of two non-SAP applications with each other (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/12242. This view also reiterated in http://www.architectsap.com/blog/sap/sap-netweaver-pi-7-1-usage-scenarios-for-integrating-java-microsoft-mainframe-and-legacy-applications/).

Thus SAP NW PI 7.1 is being used productively for the integration of:

• non-SAP systems with non-SAP systems,
• non-SAP systems with SAP applications,
• SAP- with SAP systems.

SAP PI usage scenarios at real-life implementations detailed in http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/100f92ac-61a6-2b10-6a9c-a8109a366040?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true gives a picture of SAP PI capabilities.

SAP PI supports A2A and B2B scenarios, Synchronous and Asynchronous message exchange and includes built-in engine for designing and executing   integration processes. SAP PI can be used as the single point of integration of all systems inside and outside the corporate boundary across technologies and organizational boundaries.

The key benefits of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 are:

• Better governance with the Enterprise Services Repository,such as usage of process models, and Service Registry for both SAP as well as non-SAP services
• Great performance via local processing on Advanced Adapter Engine as well as message packaging
• Enhanced developer productivity, such asre-factoring capabilities in message mapping, modelling enhancements for mappings and integration processes, and faster configuration for local processing on Advanced Adapter Engine
• New functions, such as XML payload validation
• Out of the box process templates and integration content

The major usage scenarios where SAP PI has been effectively deployed (http://www.way2sap.com/sap-article/sap-pi-7-1-usage-scenarios-for-integrating-java-712/) include:

• Integration between SAP systems such as SAP ECC6, SAP CRM, etc.
• Integration between SAP BW and nonSAP systems for bulk data transfer
• Integration between SAP and nonSAP sytems such as Microsoft .NET applications, J2EE,and Legacy applications. A typical scenario is an application posts HTTP request to SAP NW PI 7.1 and the data is transformed to corresponding IDOC based on business rules.
• Integration between SAP PI and other middleware products such as webMethods, IBM Websphere, Microsoft Biztalk etc.
• Integration between nonSAP and nonSAP applications
• B2B Integration : Trading partner integration through EDI, XML document exchange, RosettaNet or other industry standard protocols
• Service enablement of legacy applications – provide a web service capability to legacy applications

SAP NW PI is an infrastructure for service enablement as well as service and process orchestration and mediation (mapping, routing). It provides secure, standards-based, reliable, and scalable communication between sender and receiver applications in heterogeneous system landscapes, within an enterprise and beyond enterprise boundaries (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/soa-servicebus?rid=/webcontent/uuid/00261855-5960-2b10-6898-9a0127e6391d).

SAP NW PI provides the following key tools:

• Enterprise Services Repository and Services Registry – Central location to define, access, and manage SOA assets such as service interfaces. It provides a central modeling and design environment for creating, aggregating, and using services and processes. The Services Registry supports the publication, classification, and discovery of services (SAP, partner, or custom-defined) across the IT landscape. Also enables the management and governance of services.
• Integration Directory - Central tool to configure the processing of messages, such as the systems and external communication partners that are involved in the process, the routing rules that govern the message flow between these entities, as well as the settings for the communication incl. security.
• Integration Server – Runtime environment to provide secure, standards-based, reliable, and scalable communication between provider and consumer applications. The Business Process Engine takes care of cross component Business Process Management and handles processes where the message flow between different business applications is dependent on several messages or on time and business actions or reactions. The Advanced Adapter Engine provides built-in mediation capabilities to reconcile incompatible protocols, structural maps, schema, and data formats between provider and consumer applications. It supports reliable transport and queuing capabilities to provide mechanisms for handling different quality-of-service levels at runtime, as well as validation of payloads against an XML schema.
• SAP NetWeaver Administrator (SAP NWA) for SAP NW PI and Runtime Workbench – Safeguards the deployment and operations of the processes in order to ensure runtime governance, security with access control, authentication, auditing, enforcement of compliance to policies, and monitoring of the service execution.

Technical Connectivity for communication with SAP and non-SAP systems include:

File/FTP(S) (File Systems / FTP Servers), JDBC (RDBMS systems), JMS (Messaging systems, e. g. MQSeries) , SOAP (Web Services based on SOAP), WS-RM (based on WS Reliable Messaging), Plain HTTP(S), Mail (Mail Servers via SMTP, IMAP4, POP3), SAP Business Connector (SAP BC) and Marketplace (SAP Marketplaces).

Application Connectivity includes RFC, IDoc, Proxy (ABAP and Java).

The adapter framework API for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 is public and the following are the already available Adapters (by SAP itself) for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/11820): 

Interestingly Gartner and Forrester point out that SAP PI can support non-SAP to non-SAP and B2B integrations, it is best-suited to deploy SAP applications and integrate SAP applications and processes.

The conclusion is if you have SAP, from version 7.1 you truly have an option of choosing SAP NetWeaver PI as the Enterprise Service Bus and not have to resort to SAP PI for SAP integration and another ESB product for non-SAP integration.

After a long debate on SAP vs Oracle, SAP was chosen as the ERP for a Microsoft-centric organization. The following are the points used to build the business case for SAP: 

SAP has depth of Features set and software functionality; SAP Functionality is hard to beat; (Gartner, Forrester, Customers, ERP Asia, ERPFacts.com, TEC – Technology Evaluation Center)

SAP as a brand carries weight as the company is a global leader and benefits from over four decades of building and supporting sophisticated business applications. SAP continues to focus its ERP applications on maximizing resources and reducing costs that are customized for businesses and industries. SAP has evolved its applications to have very deep industry focused solutions.

SAP has built much of this functionality in-house. SAP modules are well integrated in such a way as to provide speedy and accurate transaction and has excellent cross-module features.

SAP is a great financial tool that integrates all corporate operations. The organizations with SAP can find out where the money is being spent – instantly and real-time. Importing historical data into SAP is slightly difficult – and in that sense choosing the Financial year beginning is a good decision.

According to TEC, In FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, BUDGETING, COSTING, AND BILLING – (that includes Budgeting and Transactions; Project Billing; Invoice Generation; Project Costing; Capital Assets; Resource Sharing; and others) – SAP as well as ORACLE score 100%.

SAP provides comprehensive software and solutions to help simplify transitions to global standards – IFRS or XBRL reporting – that help companies to increase transparency in their financial reporting as well as meet regulatory compliance.

Retrieving data from the ERP systems and formatting output has been reported as one of the most problematic areas by users. SAP has tremendous reporting capabilities, As one user points out “Name a report that you want, and a qualified configurer can build it for you.” SAP allows saving report as templates for reuse and sharing with other users. SAP provides thousands of built-in reports and Crystal Reports / BusinessObjects Edge can be used for creation of new reports.

SAP is highly rated when it comes to Software flexibility and extreme configurability – reports, look-up tables, interface, localization of process etc. are configurable (as against expensive customization); SAP architecture is incredibly strong with a process-centric focus and a foundation that operates in real time communication with enterprise wide business processes that is highly flexible. SAP can automate entire processes by maintaining clean master data and also providing huge flexibility on how you want to decide to automate or semi -automate processes.

Third Party Integration is a key differentiator for SAP; According to TEC, SAP scores 100% as against Oracle’s score of 75% in 3^rd party integration.

SAP can be integrated easily to Microsoft Office Products. And this is very useful in companies that use Microsoft Excel heavily – to extract and analyze data. SAP provides native integration with Excel.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant (Dec 2010) recognizes SAP as a market leader (one of the two products in that quadrant) for product-centric mid-market companies – in both its “ability to execute” and its “completeness of vision.”

According to ERPFacts.com, SAP tops the list of “top 10 ERP Softwares” (http://www.erpfacts.com/top-10-erp-software.htm).

Gartner says SAP is an ideal solution for companies at the middle andupper end of the SME scale. (whereas Oracle is in the Challenger);

From the perspective of global penetration, ability to scale, market share and commitment, SAP is the strongest solution in the Market. Compared to this, Oracle Roadmap – especially as it is moving towards Fusion (expected to be ready around 2013) is not clear.

The ease of use is an issue with Oracle ERP solution – and it doesn’t have good drag and drop across multiple windows (Source: ERPFacts). Customers in various forums complain that User Interface of Oracle is not very attractive. Customers have described that Oracle ERP UI as hard to use. Also the personalization of screen typically requires a person with IT skills (Source: Gartner);

In implementation duration, surveys show that Oracle has a slightly lower duration compared to SAP. But Oracle’s Referenced Customers pointed out that their accelerated implementation was too rapid and after go-live they had to redo various design solutions; Improved speed resulted in lower overall quality;

SAP is one of the broadest and deepest solutions in the market and its best practices and the fast start program reduce the effort needed for the early phases of an implementation. Customers also benefit fromthe extensive expertise of SAP’s partner network According to customers, SAP’s fast start program has proved its value – e.g., system configuration and easier installation.

SAP is continually working on reducing the overall complexity by delivering pre-packaged best practices. SAP’s new Easy Access menu is extremely functional, and features that to let you find a menu path from the transaction code! Now SAP has got more “helpful” help. New user interfaces makes ERP adoption and collaboration easier. Integration with productivity tools like Microsoft Office is progressing and expected to reduce the Overall complexity of SAP.

SAP offers a true, n-tier distributed architecture – with no dependence on any database. In Product technology factors that includes Synchronization and Replication, Implementation and Training, Technical Fit, Cross-module Features, – SAP scores 92.16% as against Oracle’s score of 76.10; (Source: TEC)

SAP offers a proprietary NetWeaver architecture as an SOA (Service Oriented) and XML foundation. SAP has excellent Workflow and business process automation capabilities. Gartner points out that SOA and BPM prove their value in packaged applications in the midmarket.

SAP UI is enhanced now which allows for integrated analytics and some Web 2.0 features. SAP also has good integration with SharePoint.

Bottom-line:

SAP enables everyone looking at the same information, real-time → numerous possibilities and opportunities to become better informed and more efficient →”higher return on information”.

The learning curve is the only drawback, and with proper planning a surmountable difficultly. SAP functionality and flexibility makes it worth the learning.

As one customer aptly puts it “SAP is the Ferrari of ERP systems and SAP demands that you train people to understand just how flexible and powerful it is.”