basis

SAP interview preparation

As discussed, the future of SAP jobs lies in more certification and business-centric training and credentials. However, regardless of whether you’re a technical or functional SAP consultant, it isn’t enough to accumulate credentials and certifications. You also need to interview well to break into SAP job, or to move into another SAP module.

To that end, here are some helpful resources to help you ace SAP interviews:

General preparation strategy for an SAP interview. There’s an important point here about what you say in your resume versus what happens in an actual interview that could save you from major interview blunders.

How to prepare for an SAP BI interview, including a list of the fundamental aspects of BI with which you need to be familiar.

How to prepare for an SAP Basis interview, including the name of a popular SAP guide that can help you prepare.

How to prepare for an SAP BW interview. Learn the one question that gets asked most frequently in SAP BW interviews.

How to prepare for an SAP CRM interview. This tip offers six sample questions, including a combination of technical and functional questions.

How to contact an SAP hiring manager after an interview. Getting the etiquette right can make the difference between getting a callback and being forgotten.

The information in these tips is designed to prepare you not only for the technical components of SAP interviews in particular modules, but to give you more general pointers for interviewing well, and for following the right etiquette when interacting with a hiring manager.

Be warned: Memorizing answers to common questions, or attempting to substitute glib responses for actual expertise, may get you an SAP job, but it won’t build your career. Instead, take the long view and build your SAP intelligence. It may take longer, but you’ll lay the foundation for a long SAP career.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

Helpful SAP Basis books

SAP Basis is one of the most important functions in the SAP ecosystem, as it touches so many components of SAP, such as system administration, security, user interface (UI) and development. Interestingly, though, there aren’t that many books pertaining directly to SAP Basis. That’s why we thought it was a good idea to bring together this following list of six books that cover Basis from different angles. We hope the list is helpful both to working SAP Basis administrators who want to get better at their jobs and to Basis consultants.

SAP FI/CO Questions and Answers: FI/CO remains a bread-and-butter SAP module, and this book offers a Basis overview grounded in the context of FI/CO. Don’t be fooled by the title; this book touches on Basis, ABAP, and a bunch of other modules, such as MM, SD and PP, so it can be of use to a lot of different job functions.

SAP Security Interview Questions, Answers, and Explanations: Security is a foundational concept within Basis, and this book prepares you for the security- and audit-related questions that can come up in an interview.

SAP Basis Certification Questions: Basis certification can add some market value to working Basis administrators, or help consultants break into the field. Whatever your role, it’ll help to be acquainted with the nuts and bolts of Basis certification.

SAP Security: SAP Security Essentials: What’s more essential than securing an SAP system? This book covers the fundamentals you need in order to put an SAP system in lockdown.

SAP R/3 Transaction Codes: Finding transaction codes can be a headache for SAP Basis administrators. This book lists them so you don’t have to hunt them down.

ABAP Objects: One of the interesting features of this book, here translated into English for the first time, is that it comes with two CD-ROMs containing a test version of SAP Basis for 2000/NT.

As always, be sure to read user reviews and book excerpts before deciding which book, if any, is right for your needs.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

Learn SAP without spending all your money

Editor’s Note: Last month, SearchSAP Expert Axel Angeli offered his take on how to get into SAP Basis. A reader responded by asking Axel how, when SAP prices for individual Basis access start at 2,000 euros, aspiring SAP functional consultants and technology consultants in Central and Eastern Europe could afford to get into Basis. This blog post is Axel’s response, which contains valuable information for anyone who wants to learn SAP without spending too much money.

Axel Angeli: In my earlier response, I just pointed out what the official SAP price is to get the software in your hands. Of course, there are many commercial training offers out there in the market, delivered by companies who have SAP licenses and can set prices at their own discretion. [Online SAP training is also available--Editor]

Regarding pricing, you have to understand that even the consultants from Eastern countries (such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania) stream into Western Europe (mainly Germany) and work there for rates that are between 500-800 euros per day. Educated Basis consultants do not really compete with low-wage workers in Poland but offer themselves as cheaper alternatives to the local German, French and British consultants. Even in Poland, an SAP consultant gets paid 400 euros per day and more, so we have to think in price ranges of a week’s freelance tariff.

Remember that you are free to share the SAP training investment with other students. In Germany, for example, there is the DSAK (Deutsche SAP Arbeitskreis), in which over 100 members share a single SAP instance. So the individual cost for acquiring SAP licenses is negligible. Your logical path here is to find as many peers as possible, start a union that wants to learn SAP — like an “Association of Polish SAP Consultants” — and share the costs of the SAP license, hardware and administration of the system.

For a low-budget quick start, you can also try out the essentials of Basis admin by using the SAP Miniwas ABAP Trial. This is free to download and use on a single PC by a single user. It has all Basis components installed, but lacks configuration features such as choosing a database and defining your own variations of creating an instance. But, generally, it has all features built in. Check out SAP SDN’s download section to find it.

Axel Angeli, SearchSAP Expert

SAP skills: Is your job on the chopping block?

There’s a major shortage of SAP skills in the marketplace, thanks to the inevitable lag time between SAP’s aggressive debut of new products and IT workers’ ability to master the associated skills.

That’s the message from Foote Partners’ upcoming report on IT skills and compensation. The report is massive, encompassing hundreds of skills, cities, and vendors, but its relevance to the SAP world is focused on the following takeaways:

Hot SAP Skills: SAP MDM, SAP ERP, NetWeaver BI (formerly SAP BW) and SAP HCM are seeing double-digit growth in compensation over the past several months.

Fading SAP Skills: ABAP, Basis, Payroll, SAP SD.

This isn’t meant to service as an index of importance. In other words, the “fading” skills aren’t less vital or widespread; they’re just not seeing compensation growth at the same pace as the hot skills. Similarly, the hot skills are not necessarily the high-volume skills; if you’re an SAP HCM expert, you can command an increasing premium, but you might have fewer opportunities to apply those skills. There are many such factors involved in maximizing your marketability. However, based on Foote Partners’ insights, it’s a safe bet to say that techies with experience in any of the “hot” categories should be talking to recruiters immediately.

In terms of the “fading” categories, it’s worth wondering whether, in time, these could be yesterday’s skills.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

SAP Basis questions wanted

The latest entry in our popular On The Spot series features Mario Linkies, CEO of Secude Consulting and former Director of Risk Management at SAP, answering questions about SAP security. Read his advice to users faced with challenges like ensuring security during a SAP upgrade, social hacking, limiting user transactions and many more in the November OTS.

For next month, the topic is SAP Basis administration. Our guest expert is Joey Hirao, author of the best-selling book “SAP R/3 Administration for Dummies” and a frequent contributor to SAPtips.com and other prominent SAP publications. Do you have a pressing Administration challenge looming? Looking for ways to find your footing after a NetWeaver upgrade? Perhaps you’re thinking of becoming an independent consultant?

Whatever the situation, we want your toughest Administration questions! Click here to submit your question (100 words or less) and stay tuned for the December issue of On The Spot!

Matt Danielsson
Editor

SAP tip challenge

Do you have a clever ABAP workaround to share? Know a slick way to optimize the latest BI tools? Then take a few minutes to share your knowledge for a chance to win one of two great book bundles courtesy of SAP Press.

Prize option #1: SAP developer’s bundle

• ABAP Objects
• SAP Exchange Infrastructure
• SAP NetWeaver/Microsoft .NET Interoperability
• SAP Enterprise Portal — Technology and Programming

Prize option #2: SAP analyst/planner’s bundle

• SAP System Landscape Optimization
• SAP Performance Optimization Guide
• SAP xApp Analytics
• Inventory Optimization with SAP

The contest runs until October 31, 2007, and you may submit more than one entry. Click here for full contest details.

Good luck!

Matt Danielsson
Editor

CRM, the savior of jobless SAP pros?

Gartner recently released a report on how they predict the SAP CRM situation will play out in the year ahead. From news editor Jon Franke's article:

"Through the end of 2008, 25% of CRM projects will be postponed or cancelled, according to Gartner. This rate of postponement and cancellation is largely a result of a CRM skill shortage — of consultants and systems integrators in particular — the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm says in a recent report."

Interesting stuff, especially in light of the lean times that seem to be more rule than exception in many areas of the SAP world today. There are plenty of ABAPers, Basis admins and consultants feeling the outsourcing pinch on one hand and the downward monetary pressure on the other. This probably won't change in the immediate future, so the question is should you consider a strategic move into the CRM space? And if so, what would that entail? 

Certification is not necessarily the only route to go, according to SAP career guru Jon Reed. It's more a matter of whether your current job can be mapped to the necessary CRM skills. For the Basis folks out there, you may be interested in this post about the options for a Basis guy looking to get into CRM. Do you need knowledge of the SD module to make it in CRM? Nope, says Reed; it helps, just like certification does, but the right background is infinitely more important. 

While the CRM route is by no means a universal path to SAP bliss, it may be worth a closer look. Check out Jon Reed's SAP career section to get a handle on how your current skillset may mesh with a CRM role, then visit the CRM topic section for the latest stories, tips and expert advice on SAP CRM.  

Matt Danielsson
Editor

New SAP Job roles: Disruptive innovators

This is the fourth an final part in our series about the new SAP job roles outlined by SAP executive Shai Agassi in his TechEd 2006 keynote speech. What is a disruptive innovator? What are the job prospects? And how do you establish yourself as one? Get the scoop here!

Disruptive Innovators
As an SAP professional, the obvious first question is: how do you differentiate the disruptive innovators from the composers?

Most composers will own specific processes, like procurement, HR, manufacturing or other, clearly defined areas of responsibility. Their goal is to optimize their process to near-perfection, maintain it to meet changing needs and so on.

The disruptive innovator, on the other hand, needs a much more strategic mindset. This person is something of a maverick, looking across the entire company for areas with opportunities for disruptive innovation. It can be a new product, a new business process, or whatever it takes to move the company to the next level.

"The disruptive innovator has to be a hunter," Inbar said. "While consolidators have the luxury of tending to their niche of expertise, the disruptive innovator must be constantly on the move, looking for the next big thing."

This role is perhaps the hardest to define of the four; there's really no specific skillset to talk about beyond the fact that this person must have outstanding IT and business knowledge, and proven ability to think outside the box.

"Keep in mind that this is how SAP wants the world to be," Reed said. "In reality, some corporate cultures will embrace this kind of role more readily than others. Some cultures don't reward or even penalize people who step out of the box, so make sure you know your culture before you position yourself as a disruptive innovator."

Having said that, Reed thinks SAP is trying to convey the message that they're empowering users to do more with the SAP building blocks than ever before. It is an ongoing process and SAP isn't quite there to deliver everything they're talking about quite yet, but they're getting there, he said.

"The other roles seem to be more hands-on, but I see the disruptive innovator as a manager or Team Lead," Reed said. "You need a broader view as well as organizational leverage, ie. decent corporate status, in order to make things happen."

A Project Manager with good overall knowledge of how the technology supports the business side would make a good candidate. But all things considered, it doesn't really matter whether that person came from a technical or functional career path prior to shouldering this new role; all that really matters is the current understanding of both sides of the fence, Reed said.

This is the last part in our next-generation SAP jobs series. If you haven't done so already, make sure to check out the articles about composers, repository keepers and consolidators. 

Matt Danielsson
Editor

New SAP Job roles: Composers

This is the third part in our series about the new SAP job roles outlined by SAP executive Shai Agassi in his TechEd 2006 keynote speech. What's the difference between a developer and a composer? How can a SAP developer position oneself to benefit from the new modeling movement? Find out here!

Composers
The confusion between "developer" and "composer" as a SAP role is understandable. The developer is your classic ABAP/Java programmer with varying business skills; the composer is a business process expert first and techie second. Their main function is to make business process innovation happen in real-time. 

In the past, you had business analysts, application consultants and others examining the processes and basically putting together specs and requests for the developers to fulfill. Today, the same business analysts can make the changes they need, or perhaps create new applications altogether, using quick and easy models without extensive technical expertise.

"This is one of the more revolutionary aspects of NetWeaver," Reed said. "Modeling may present interesting opportunities for functional folks in particular areas to get more involved in the application development process. Those with some understanding of ABAP and other programming languages will probably have an easy time picking up on the modeling tools."

Needless to say, this trend has caused some concern in developer circles. So what can today's ABAP developer do to avoid getting pinched between outsourcing on one hand and model-driven, do-it-yourself business people on the other?

"You can't do everything with models," Inbar said. "There's going to be plenty of room for skilled programmers for areas like Java and creation of new services."

Inbar suggests familiarizing oneself with the model-driven tools, tapping into the BPX-community and looking for ways to leverage superior technical skills to "move up the stack." For those who work closer to the User Interface, embrace the modeling tools and start building the next generation of UI building blocks — dedicated, highly interactive components that require advanced technical skills.

For those who are true programmers at heart, try to find the unfilled niches between SAP's productized enterprise services for specific industries, advises Inbar.

"Still, the key question for many is: will these tools decrease the opportunities for classic ABAPers? The honest answer is probably yes," Reed said. "Having said that, I think many developers can and should get on board with the modeling movement. SAP wants it to seem like a functional expert in a particular area can come in and just design all this stuff. It's not that easy; they can do a lot, but they'll still need considerable support from technical people."

Bottom line, don't be all doom-and-gloom. Instead, make it a point to be the first in the office to really master the new modeling tools and position yourself as the authority on next-generation development. There will always be room for a liaison between the functional teams and classic techies, and the more you actively seek out that role, the more relevant you will remain to the company.

Even if you don't have access to SAP's own tools, you can gain a lot of experience by using third-party modeling tools, Reed advises. Not everyone is on ECC 5.0 or 6.0, which is pretty much what you'd need to get into this on the SAP side, but you can still pick up a lot of useful knowledge by playing around with similar technology outside the SAP world.

Check back on Monday for our final part of this series to learn what disruptive innovators do and how you can become one!

Matt Danielsson
Editor

New SAP Job roles: Repository Keepers

What is the next career step for classic Basis people? How can ABAPers avoid outsourcing? Part of the answer can be found in the four new SAP job roles Shai Agassi outlined in his TechEd keynote speech last month: consolidators, repository keepers, composers and disruptive innovators. How do these new roles tie into the current SAP ecosystem? How do you position yourself for the career sweet spot a year or two in the future? Here's the second part in a series of four where we discuss exactly what these roles mean and how to get your foot in the foor.

Repository Keepers
The core of a good SOA strategy is tight control of a central repository of Web services. Keeping vital metadata in the central repository is a prerequisite for the previously mentioned consolidators to do their jobs.

For example, take a CRM solution. The metadata must be stored in the repository in a way that makes sense in the long term. That means you can do a product and define a set of services that a company needs at a certain pint in time. But the next day, someone will say 'that's great, but I need some tweaks made to fit my job function better' and just like that, he or she creates a duplicate of that service. More will soon follow, and that's the point where you start backpedaling towards chaos.

To keep things running smoothly, the company needs people that can create and maintain the repository in a way that is consistent yet flexible enough to last for the long haul. That's a tricky balancing act, but those who can pull it off will be very valuable players on the IT team.

"The repository keepers are kind of like the keepers of the crown jewels," Inbar said.

A good repository keeper must have very deep understanding of the meta data and must also have a firm grip on exactly how the applications are being used across multiple departments throughout the company. Simply put, you need to be intimately familiar with both the business processes and the technology architecture to excel in this role.

"SAP is really emphasizing master data and metadata as a way to make sure data is structured consistently in the company," Reed said. "That idea is a core aspect of NetWeaver, but for the job itself it depends a lot on the size of the company and the number of Web services they're running."

As with consolidators, Reed doesn't expect to see "Repository Keeper" to show up as a de facto job title anytime soon, but he points out that this has good potential as an evolutionary skill to learn. As companies grow and expand their services, the need for a central control person grows accordingly.

As a rule, Reed feels that this kind of role favors those with technical rather than functional skills.

"As we move forward, you will see people already involved in the creation and management of Web services get pulled into repository keeping," he said. "MDM/BW workers and some developers are also well-positioned for jumping on this bandwagon."

Stay tuned for more information on composers tomorrow.

Matt Danielsson
Editor