SAP Blog

As I promised last time, I am going to teach all of you about writing queries. There are three main types of SAP queries. They are;

1. SAP Standard query
2. SAP InfoSet Query
3. SAP Quick Viewer Query

For this exercise I am going to create an InfoSet query. We will be pulling data about purchasing which are in three tables using this query. Every step is explained with a screenshot. So I do not think anyone will have a problem in following the example.

When I started taking the steps down and attaching the screen shots to the document, it became too large to be published on my website. So I compiled the data into a PDF document. This is the link to download the ebook.

If you have any question about SAP queries leave a comment or contact me.

• Banking
• Defense & Security
• Healthcare
  • Healthcare Providers
• Higher Education & Research
• Insurance
• Public Sector
  • Public Security
• Aerospace & Defense
  • Aerospace and Defense Manufacturers
  • MRO/M&E Service Providers
• Automotive
  • Automotive OEMs
  • Sales and Service Organizations
  • Automotive Suppliers
• Chemicals
• Consumer Products
  • Food
    Beverage
  • Home and Personal Care
  • Consumer Durables and Home Appliances
  • Apparel and Footwear
• Engineering, Construction & Operations
  • Homebuilding
    Construction
  • Engineering & Design
  • Shipbuilding
  • Commercial Real Estate
  • Facilities Management
• High Tech
• Business, Medical, and Consumer OEMs
• EMS Providers
• Semiconductor and Component Manufacturers
• Software Providers
• Industrial Machinery & Components
  • Construction and Mining Machinery
  • Electrical Equipment, Appliances, and Components
  • Engine, Turbine, Pump, and Compressor Machinery
  • Industrial Machinery and Equipment
  • Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Plumbing Equipment
  • Industrial Tools and Metalworking Machinery
  • Lifting, Material Handling, and Railroad Equipment
  • Measuring and Controlling Devices
  • Motion and Fluid Control Equipment
  • Oil and Gas Machinery
  • Semiconductor and Electronic Measurement Equipment
  • Textile, Paper, Printing, and Packaging Machinery
• Life Sciences
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Biotechnology/Biopharmaceuticals
  • Medical Device/Scientific Instruments
• Mill Products
  • Building Materials
  • Fabricated Metal Products
  • Furniture
  • Packaging
  • Plastics
  • Primary Metals
  • Pulp and Paper
  • Textile
  • Timberlands and Solid Wood
• Mining
• Oil & Gas
  • Upstream
  • Supply, transmission, and trading
  • Refining and manufacturing Instruments
  • Downstream marketing and retail
• Retail
• Telecommunications
• Travel & Logistics Services
  • Logistics Services
  • Postal Services
  • Railways
  • Airlines
• Utilities
  • Generation
  • Retail
  • Transmission and Distribution
  • Water
  • Wholesale Distribution
• Media
  • Broadcasting
  • Entertainment
  • Newspapers and Magazines
  • Premium Content Publishers
• Professional Services
  • Consulting and Audit & Tax
  • IT and BPO Services
  • Commercial Real Estate
  • Business Services
  • Legal Services
  • Staffing
  • Facilities Management

For more information visit:
http://www.sap.com/industries/index.epx

Following on from the previous post on SAP R/3 by my good friend Azwath, in this post I thought I’ll discuss more on how SAP is looking to show its dominance in the Small and Midsize Enterprise solution market.

SAP currently has 3 Solutions catering to the needs of companies in the SME Segment. Namely:

SAP Business One (also known as SAP B1)- This solution is meant for companies with 10 – 100 employees and a revenue of $5 million to $100 million. and those companies that do not need all the requirements of a complete ERP. However, SAP Business One is deemed to be a fully fledged integrated business management solution catering to all the different processes that a company in this segment would need to monitor and have control upon.

SAP Business One allows small and midsize businesses to grow beyond the piecemeal approach to business software, which prevents many businesses from managing effectively across their entire operations. It features an embedded customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities to ensure seamless integration among sales, service and other customer-facing activities. SAP Business One comes with industry specific solutions too and further enhancements are catered to with the installations of tried and tested add ons.

mySAP All in One (also known as mySAP A1) is designed to meet the needs of small and mid-market businesses, and specifically those with sophisticated business processes and ambitious development plans. This solution is targeted at companies with revenue of $100 million to $250 million and less than 2500 employees. Its the mySAP Business Suite scaled down and preconfigured for specific indsutries.SAP All in One takes extracts from the functionality of mySAP ERP suite and is integrated with all of its internal modules using best in class practice as per micro industry verticals.

mySAP A1 mainly caters to the higher end of the mid-size companies. It has more functions to cater to the complexities and customizations that would be needed in relation to particular unique practices of companies in this end. It is assumed that the implementation of mySAP All in One would normally take 3 to 4 months as per the industry solutions available. This has proven to be one of the most successful solutions provided by SAP , proven by its Market Leader position in the Magic Quadrant as published by Gartner.

SAP AG global strategy with the mySAP All in One solution is to partner up with channel partners who would be using their industry specific expertise in providing consulting and support services for mySAP All in One for their particular industry.

The final and the newest member to the family is :

SAP Business ByDesign (better known as SAP A1S) – This solution is catered to suit the requirements of midsized companies with 100 – 500 employees. Another important thing to note is that SAP A1S is the first to embrace the SaaS delivery model, its important as a up-to-date consultant that you know these terms well, as this is what is going to make up the future.

I should say as my personal opinion that SAP Business ByDesign does have an appeal to it, with its interface and the various ERP Logistical functions it caters too. Its not a surprise that other consultants who got to work on it first hand were quite enthusiastic about it. At present there are many installations and projects bring carried out with this new solution in parts of Europe and in selected industries. SAP AG have some aggressive plans with this new product and sure enough interested parties will be hot on their tracks, and me not being an exception will keep posting with the latest info.

Remember 2010 and 2014 are the magic target dates …so keep yourself in the game by knowing where to place yourself…… all the best!!

Hope you found this post interesting and informative, your comments and suggestions are welcome at ssurenlk@msn.com.

Your welcome to contact me on “+94 777 880605” for any quick queries.

S.Suren

There are many people out there who are trying to understand SAP. Although this site is mainly for SAP professionals, I thought of putting up a post on SAP R3 which will help people who are looking for information on SAP.

What is SAP R/3?

SAP standards for System Application and Products in data processing. And the term R/3 defines the SAP three layer architecture. Those three layers are;

1. Data Base layer
2. Application Layer
3. User interface Layer.

SAP is the largest business software provider in the world. They are based in Germany. SAP currently employees more than 40,000 employees and serves more than 41,000 customers all over the world. Total number of SAP users exceeds 12 million in number worldwide.

SAP is mainly an ERP or an Enterprise Resource Planner. It approaches business by covering key business elements from its modules which will be integrated to cater the requirements of the business. These modules are logically and operationally divided mainly based on the functionality. Material Management, Sales and Distribution, Finance and Controlling are some of these modules. Materials Management module covers the supply chain functionality from requirement generation for the ordering, purchasing, logistic handling, goods receipt, stock handling, physical counts, goods issues and transfers and invoice verification. Sales and distribution module on the other hand will cover the order receipt and goods delivery to the customer.

SAP has its main or the standard product along with its industry specific solutions. There are more than 25 industry specific solutions (List of SAP IS) some of them are SAP for Oil & Gas and SAP for Chemicals. These industry specific solutions are fine tuned to cater the special requirement of a particular industry. SAP AFS (which is my blog’s area of focus) is catering the special requirements of the apparel and footwear industry. In this case requirements of the industry to handle its materials in sizes and colors have been catered apart from the standard SAP functionality for an example.

Brief history of SAP – From R1 to R3

SAP started its journey in 1972. Five of the former IBM employees started the organization called System Applications and Products for data processing to give the businesses a standard solution to process their data real time.

The first SAP product was its financial accounting software and it is called R1. Sometime later the R/2 was developed. R/3 started in 1990’s. Now SAP is moving to the world of web and its applications are becoming very interactive and web based.

SAP Advantages

SAP has tons of experiences with them. Almost all the business best practices are built into the system. When a customer goes for SAP apart from the solid software they get the business best practices.

SAP is a fully integrated system. All the modules of the system combine seamlessly. All the processes are linked and financials automatically takes place in the background.

SAP is a robust and tested system. With its 120,000 installations in 120 countries for 41,000 plus customers with more than 12 million users SAP is tested both in terms of time and volume. It is robust and fast when considering the amount of the data that the system processes.

SAP’s support is another key advantage for its users. Upgrading is also possible without much of an effort.

Above are only some of the advantages and services a customer and user will get when they use SAP. For more information visit the SAP.com

SAP R3 is growing fast. So I will keep updating this section. If you have any comments please leave it here or mail me on azwath@yahoo.com

Resources:
http://www.sap.com/
http://www.sap.com/about/company/history.epx