IBP_part_00_Introduction_v02.pdf

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Integrated Business Processes with SAP ERP

Script 0: Introduction to SAP ERP

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Copyright

- This document is in parts based on publications for the TERP10 course “mySAP ERP

– integrated business processes“– those parts are subject to the copyright of SAP AG.

- All figures used within this course are created in the style of the TERP10 if not labeled otherwise. Those parts are subject to the copyright of SAP AG.

- All screenshots used within this document, even if displayed in extracts, are subject to

the copyright of SAP AG.

- Distribution and reproduction of this document or parts of this document in any form is prohibited without the written permission of Prof. Dr. Heimo H. Adels-berger, Dipl.-Wirt.-Inf. Pouyan Khatami and Dipl.-Wirt.-Inf. Taymaz Khatami.

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Table of Figures

Figure 1: Annual Report 2011 (1) ... 20

Figure 2: Milestones of SAP ... 21

Figure 3: SAP R/3 modules: Nicolescu/Wittges 2006 ... 23

Figure 4: SAP ERP ... 24

Figure 5: From SAP R/3 to SAP ERP ... 26

Figure 6: SAP ERP is a solution within SAP Business Suite ... 27

Figure 7: Enhancement Packages ... 28

Figure 8: Quick Facts to enhancement packages ... 29

Figure 9: Things You Should Know Before Installing SAP Enhancement Packages ... 30

Figure 10: SAP NetWeaver ... 31

Figure 11: SAP Enterprise Service Architecture ... 33

Figure 12: SAP NetWeaver ... 34

Figure 13: Integration Levels of SAP: Employees, Customers and Partners - Functions of SAP NetWeaver in the Area of User Productivity ... 34

Figure 14: IT Practices ... 38

Figure 15: IT Practices and IT Scenarios ... 39

Figure 16: Advantages of SAP NetWeaver ... 41

Figure 17: IT Scenarios: help.sap.com ... 46

Figure 18: IT Scenario Running an Enterprise Portal: help.sap.com ... 46

Figure 19: Installable Units: help.sap.com ... 48

Figure 20: SAP organizational structure: terminology ... 51

Figure 21: SAP organizational structure ... 53

Figure 22: Plants in SAP ERP ... 54

Figure 23: SAP sales areas ... 55

Figure 24: Purchasing organization in SAP ... 56

Figure 25: Customer master records: example ... 57

Figure 26: Master Data Example: Material Master ... 58

Figure 27: Transactions in SAP ... 59

Figure 28: Procurement: example process ... 60

Figure 29: Engagement management: sample process ... 61

Figure 30: Reporting and Analytics ... 62

Figure 31: OLTP versus OLAP ... 62

Figure 32: Overview of IDES group areas ... 71

Figure 33: IDES Company Codes ... 72

Figure 34: Company Code 1000 (Germany) ... 73

Figure 35: Company Code 2000 (Great Britain) ... 74

Figure 36: Company Code 2100 (Portugal) ... 74

Figure 37: Company Code 2200 (France) ... 74

Figure 38: Company Code 2300 (Spain)... 75

Figure 39: Company Code 3000 (USA) ... 75

Figure 40: Company Code 4000 (Canada) ... 76

Figure 41: Company Code 5000 (Japan)... 76

Figure 42: Company Code 6000 (Mexico) ... 77

Figure 43: IDES Industry ... 77

Figure 44: IDES Human Resources ... 78

Figure 45: IDES Financials ... 78

Figure 46: IDES Sales and Distribution ... 79

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Figure 48: IDES Logistics ... 80

Figure 49: SAP Logon ... 83

Figure 50: SAP Log-in Screen: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 84

Figure 51: SAP Start Screen: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 84

Figure 52: Menu bar: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 85

Figure 53: System function bar: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 85

Figure 54: SAP Easy Access Title Bar: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 85

Figure 55: Application tool bar: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 85

Figure 56: Status bar: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 85

Figure 57: SAP – Easy Access Menu – detail view 1: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 86

Figure 58: SAP – Easy Access Menu – detail view 2: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 87

Figure 59: SAP – Easy Access Menu – Assign to Favorites: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 88

Figure 60: SAP – Easy Access Menu – Delete from Favorites: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 88

Figure 61: Command Field: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 89

Figure 62: SAP – Easy Access Menu – technical names: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 90

Figure 63: System prompts you to save: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 90

Figure 64: Session Concept: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 91

Figure 65: F1-help: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 92

Figure 66: F4-help: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 92

Figure 67: Help Menu: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 93

Figure 68: Display Technical Key (1): SAP-System-Screenshot ... 93

Figure 72: Search SAP menu: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 96

Figure 73: Create short-cut: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 97

Figure 74: Usage of short-cut: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 97

Figure 75: SAP Message: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 100

Figure 76: Display Customer (Accounting): SAP-System-Screenshot ... 101

Figure 77: Favorites: SAP-System-Screenshot ... 102

Figure 78: Performance Assistant: SAP systems screenshot ... 103

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List of Literature

This course’s content is partially based on the following references:

1. Appelrath, Hans-Jürgen/Ritter, Jörg: SAP R/3 Implementation – Methods and Tools, Springer, 2000.

2. Brinkmann, Sandra/Zeilinger, Alex: Finanzwesen mit SAP R/3 - Betriebswirtschaft-liches Customizingwissen für SAP R/3 – FI. SAP Press, 1999.

3. Brück, Uwe: Praxishandbuch SAP-Controlling. SAP Press, 2005.

4. Dickersbach, Jörg Thomas/Keller, Gerhard/Weihrauch, Klaus: Produktionsplanung und -steuerung mit SAP. SAP Press, 2008.

5. Edinger, Jörg/Krämer, Christian/Lübke, Christian/Ringling, Sven: Personal-wirtschaft mit SAP ERP HCM. SAP Press, 2008.

6. Forsthuber, Heinz: Praxishandbuch SAP-Finanzwesen. SAP Press, 2006. 7. Franz, Mario: Projektmanagement mit SAP Projektsystem. SAP Press, 2007. 8. Hellberg, Torsten: Einkauf mit SAP MM. SAP Press, 2007.

9. Maassen, André/Schoenen, Markus/Werr, Ina: Grundkurs SAP R/3 – Lern- und Ar-beitsbuch mit durchgehendem Fallbeispiel – Konzepte, Vorgehensweisen und Zu-sammenhänge mit Geschäftsprozessen. 3. Auflage, Vieweg 2005.

10. Moos, Eckhard: Kostencontrolling mit SAP - Business Engineering mit SAP-CO, 2002.

11. Nicolescu, Valentin/Wittges, Holger: SAP® HCC Kurs NetWeaver™ 04 basierend auf den SAP NetWeaver Ramp-Up Unterlagen, 2006. SAP-Archiv: mySAP™ ERP – Alle Neuheiten auf einem Blick, 2004.

12. Scheibler, Jochen: Vertrieb mit SAP. SAP Press, 2007.

13. Schrader, Heino/Weidner, Stefan: IDES – Das integrierte Modellunternehmen für Forschung und Lehre 2005

14. Schulten, Ernst: FH Aschaffenburg – Customizing in SAP R/3, 2005

15. Thome, Rainer: Vom Customizing zur Adaption des Standardsoftwaresystems R/3; in: Schriften zur Unternehmensführung; Band 62, Wiesbaden 1998 SAP-Bibliothek 16. Weidner, Stefan: Fallstudie Customizing März 2005

SAP-Hochschulkompetenz-Zentrum Magdeburg 17. http://help.sap.com

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Course Outline

This course deals with the leading standard software for Enterprise Resource Planning, name-ly SAP ERP. Covering the content of the SAP-owned course TERP10, this course gives atten-tion to a bulk of SAP ERP, SAP analysis and the management soluatten-tion SAP BW (Business Information Warehouse). Aside from gaining in-depth theoretical knowledge regarding SAP solutions and components, this course gives you the chance to practically apply your new knowledge to the SAP system within case studies. The ultimate goal for students in this course is to gain competencies in the area of SAP ERP standard solutions as well as receiving a certificate issued by the University of Duisburg-Essen and to take (and hopefully pass) the TERP10 exam by SAP.

Course objectives

As an SAP consultant, you focus on consulting, sales and implementation of SAP ERP com-ponents. Therefore, you will need to be familiar with the integrated logistical and financial processes in SAP ERP and the utilization of analysis components like Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW).

At the end of this course you will be able to:

- explain how basic business processes in the areas o Procurement,

o Material Planning,

o Life Cycle Data Management, o Production Planning,

o Inventory Management, o Sales Order Management, o Human Capital Management,

o Financial Accounting and Controlling, o Plant Maintenance and Customer Service, and o Project Management

interact in SAP ERP.

- explain analysis and reporting functions, especially for SAP BW components. - explain Enterprise Resource Planning with SAP ERP.

- explain the technical platform of SAP ERP, i.e., SAP NetWeaver. - describe the integration of SAP ERP core components.

- perform integrated business processes and business cases in SAP ERP.

Conventional courses equip you with concepts, principles and theories by mostly using the style of a lecture. These courses aim at knowledge transfer and of theoretical links. In Com-parison to that, case studies will improve your capabilities of analyzing business problems, developing solutions and decision-making.

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The main objective of this course is to give you an understanding of theoretical foundations and practical application with the leading standard software for businesses. Thus, you will develop competencies in the area of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). In addition to the possibility of attaining a certificate by the University of Duisburg-Essen, this course serves as extensive preparation for the SAP TERP 10 exam.

Structure, Notation, and Icons

This course consists of 13 lecture notes (teaching units). 00 – Introduction to SAP ERP

01 – Procurement in SAP ERP 02 – Material Planning in SAP ERP

03 – Life Cycle Data Management in SAP ERP 04 – Manufacturing Execution in SAP ERP

05 – Inventory and Warehouse Management in SAP ERP 06 – Sales Order Management in SAP ERP

07 – Human Capital Management in SAP ERP 08 – Financial Accounting in SAP ERP

09 – Management Accounting in SAP ERP 10 – Enterprise Asset Management in SAP ERP 11 – Project Management in SAP ERP

12 – Business Intelligence in SAP ERP

Aside from script part 12, which does not contain practical work on the system, all script parts are structured the same way. Those teaching units are structured in Theory, Elucidation, Practical Application, Excursus and Reflection parts. The following Icons are used all over this course to identify those script parts. You’ll find them in the leftmost position of the page.

Theory-labeled sections of this course deal with theoretical foundations of SAP ERP. Since SAP AG considers substantiated knowledge of a product as the most important criterion for the admission to the certification exam for SAP consultants and associates, the content of the theoretical sections is of high rel-evance for the certification exam of SAP. Therefore, you should familiarize yourself with those sections during preparation for the exam. These parts are crucial for the SAP exam!

Elucidation-labeled sections of this course also deal with the theoretical foun-dations of SAP ERP. You’ll find elucifoun-dations at the end of each chapter. These parts summarize what you should have learned from the given chapter. In the Elucidations you also will be given an overview of the topics, a better under-standing of the Theory-labeled script parts, plus some additional information. Often some technical details will be explained in an “everyday speech” kind of language. From a scientific point of view, those passages might not be completely accurate but it will give you a less abstract view on the subject matter. Although the information provided in the

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elucidations is not primal for the SAP exam, you should consider it in your learning. I would never recommend that you completely ignore the Elucidations. At least read them and try to understand the content. Most of the content of the Elucidations are summaries of the Theory chapters, anyway.

Sections labeled as Practice teach you how to apply theoretically gained knowledge to the SAP ERP system using case studies to practically substanti-ate theoretical knowledge and enhance the total comprehension. Additionally, you will receive a certificate for proper processing of all case studies issued by the University of Duisburg-Essen. The practical chapters are not per se relevant for the SAP exam, although they are crucial for understanding the theory.

The Excursus section consists of additional topics to ensure in-depth understand-ing. Although they are not relevant to the SAP examination, they will be of great help in understanding the SAP ERP system.

In the Reflection section, you will answer questions concerning the covered top-ics for revision purposes. This section is not compulsory but highly advisable with respect to the SAP exam.

Additionally, there are three further sub-icons that are used in this course within the different parts (see icons above). The following sub-icons are accompanied with italic formatting:

The Note icon is mostly used in the theory parts. The icon indicates an additional piece of information.

Caution is mostly used in the practical application parts. The icon is always used in steps that are error-prone. If you see this icon, you should read the instruction very carefully to avoid any mistakes.

Sometimes, in the practical parts, you will be prompted to accomplish processes or individual steps on your own. In those cases you will receive a Hint on how to solve the problem. Hints do not contain detailed information but an idea on how to proceed.

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Glossary

This Glossary contains a variety of terms that are used in context with SAP products. You do not need to learn those terms for the SAP exam. The Glossary is only meant as a look-up table.

ABAP Advanced Business Application Programming: SAP’s programming lan-guage.

Agate Application gateway: core processing component of the Internet Transac-tion Server (ITS) that links the ITS to the R/3 System.

ALE Application Link Enabling: enables distribution of business processes and functions to several loosely-linked SAP systems.

ALE distribution model Describes the ALE message flow between logical systems. The relation-ships between logical systems, message types, BAPIs and filters are defined in the distribution model.

API Application Programming Interface: software interface for application pro-grams.

APO Advanced Planner & Optimizer: software solution for dynamic supply chain management, that is, active processing of the entire logistics chain (supply chain) from the vendor to the customer.

Application hosting SAP or SAP partners set up and/or operate systems and applications.

ATP Available to Promise

AWB Administrator Workbench

Backend system Independent IT system with its own database (for example, mySAP.com component systems)

BAPI Business Application Programming Interface: functional interfaces that use methods from business objects.

BBP Business-to-Business Procurement: e-commerce business process that ena-bles employees to purchase goods and services directly from the provider. Business object Abstract program-related representation of actual business objects

BW SAP Business Information Warehouse: enables the evaluation of data from both SAP and non-SAP applications.

CFM Corporate Finance Management: SAP initiative that provides a comprehen-sive package for financial resource management and for the analysis and optimization of a company’s financial business processes.

CGI Common Gateway Interface: the CGI standard interface enables external programs to be started from the World Wide Web – which allows interac-tive Web pages to be created on the server.

Channel Preselected transaction or Web page of which an updated version is dis-played either automatically or on request.

ChannelBar Bar on the left-hand side of the Workplace browser window that displays the status of the channels available.

Classification of transactions States which SAP GUI is supported by a particular transaction.

Client A unit within an SAP System, self-contained from the points of view of commerce, organization, and data.

Component system Umbrella term for the mySAP.com systems integrated into the Workplace Composite role Collection of single roles: a new menu is structured around the menus from

the single roles.

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Brows-er. They are used to register user behavior (passwords, personal data, which pages the user calls up most often). In the context of the Workplace, cookies are one of the options for implementing Single Sign-On.

CRM Customer Relationship Management: umbrella term covering all aspects of business relationships with customers with the aim of fostering long-term customer loyalty.

CSS Cascading Style Sheet: enhancement that provides greater flexibility in the design of HTML pages and enables you to define frequently-used format templates and font types once only.

CUA Central User Administration: a system group includes several SAP systems with several clients. The same users are often created and the same roles assigned in each client. Central User Administration is designed to perform these tasks in a central system and distribute the data to the systems in the system group.

Customizing Settings that you need to make when implementing a system, for example, to adjust the company-independent functions provided to the business re-quirements specific to your company.

Digital certificate Dynamic Information and Action Gateway: protocol for communication between the SAP GUI and the application server (also known as the SAP GUI protocol).

DlAG Digital document that contains the information required to verify a user’s identity and the keys used for encrypting and decrypting messages. The most commonly used format for client certificates is the X.509 standard. In the context of the Workplace, cookies are one of the options for implement-ing Simplement-ingle Sign-On.

DME Data medium exchange

Drag-and-drop You can use Drag & Drop to select objects in one area (source) with the mouse and then move them to another area (target).

Drag-and-relate Browser-based navigation tool that enables you to link data from one appli-cation with another appliappli-cation. This includes both SAP appliappli-cations and applications on the Web.

Drag-and-relate servlet Processes information requests that are launched in the mySAP.com Work-place system landscape from a source system using Drag & Relate.

EAI viewer Enterprise Application Integration is a set of technologies that allows the movement and exchange of information between different applications and business processes within and between organizations.

ECL viewer Optional component for visualizing files in cFolders

EDI Electronic data interchange

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning: ERP systems ensure enterprise-wide resource planning by using targeted workflow management. ERP includes back-office systems such as, for example, production, financial, human resource, sales and materials management systems.

ESA Enterprise services architecture

ESS Employee Self-Service: enables employees to be actively involved in hu-man resource business processes. Employees can display, create and main-tain cermain-tain types of data, anytime and anywhere with an easy-to-use Web browser.

EWB Engineering Workbench

Field attribute In Central User Administration, you can specify a field attribute for every element of the user master data. This defines the system in which you must maintain that field entry and how the entry is distributed to the relevant component systems.

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Flow logic Flow logic is a programming model provided by the Internet Transaction Server for creating Web applications and it is stored as a file in XML-enabled format on the AGate.

Frame Front End

A WWW page can consist of several HTML pages that are separated by visible or invisible frames.

Work station

Global user manager In the Global User Manager, the system administrator in the central system has an overview of all the users in the system group, existing user groups, the systems in the system group and roles. The system administrator can use this overview to make changes and distribute them to the relevant systems. GSS-API Generic Security Services: standardized security interface with a standard

communication model for abstracting from the individual products and their characteristics.

GSS-API V2 Standard interface for security functions that are used by SNC.

GUI Graphical user interface

HTML Hyper Text Markup Language. Contains formatting instructions (that the Web browser can interpret) and links to other documents or objects.

HTML Business SAP’s own macro language that includes statements used to merge R/3 data dynamically into the HTML business templates of Internet applications that are driven by the Internet Transaction Server (ITS).

HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol: protocol between the Web server and the Web client.

HTTPS Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure Sockets. Data packets that are trans-ferred using an HTTPS connection are encrypted using SSL.

IAC Internet Application Component: easy-to-use application in the mySAP.com Workplace. These components enable even first-time users to execute sim-ple Web applications.

IDES Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System that contains model compa-nies to map the relevant business processes in the mySAP.com system. Incoterms International Commercial Terms

Internet Business Frame-work

Enables the integration of users, applications and data distribution by sup-porting XML on all architecture levels. Cross-company business processes can be triggered at Workplace level from various internal applications and external Internet services.

ISAPI Internet Server Application Programming Interface: Microsoft software interface for application programs for creating Web applications.

ITS Internet Transaction Server: interface between the component systems and the Internet. The ITS enables Internet and intranet users to communicate directly with SAP systems by starting business transactions, function mod-ules and reports as Internet applications. It consists of two main components – the WGate and the AGate.

KW Knowledge Warehouse: integrated environment for creating, translating, presenting, distributing and administering multimedia content. The Knowledge Warehouse provides a comprehensive range of tools and func-tions to support corporate knowledge management and transfer.

LaunchPad Role-specific list of activities in the Workplace containing links to SAP components and to the Web.

LIS Logistics information system

Logical system System on which applications that are integrated and have a common data-base run. In the SAP environment, this corresponds to a client in an SAP System.

LTI Long Term Incentives

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and products.

Migration Data transfer from one software system to another (for example, master data and transaction data).

MiniALV List display in a small display area of the browser window. The MiniALV (SAP List Viewer) can be used either as a MiniApp in its own right or as part of another MiniApp.

MiniApp Intuitive, easy-to-use Web application or Web document. When the user starts the mySAP.com Workplace, MiniApps provide the user with an over-view of and access to his or her most important information on the initial screen. The WorkSpace can contain several MiniApps.

MPS Master Production Scheduling

MRP Material Requirements Planning

mySAP Business Suite SAP’s comprehensive solution concept for optimum integration of all rele-vant business processes on the Internet. mySAP Business Suite provides seamless, complete integration between SAP solutions and non-SAP sys-tems across all business processes, thereby, delivering a complete e-business environment.

NSAPI Netscape Server Application Programming Interface: Netscape software interface for application programs for creating Web applications.

OLAP Online Analytical Processing

OLE Object Linking and Embedding: enables objects from one application to be linked to another application.

OLTP _{Online Transaction Processing}

One-Step Business Dovetailing of business processes between business partners, for example, using a marketplace.

Partner profiles Definition of parameters for the electronic interchange of data with a trading partner using the IDoc interface: which message is interchanged how in which direction?

Plug-In Additional program that enhances a software system’s functionality. Portal Pages that serve as initial screens for Internet users immediately provide

relevant information and form a platform for visiting other Web sites. PortalBuilder ITS service responsible for the HTML page structure. The PortalBuilder

also takes over role-dependent administration of the LaunchPad and Min-iApps. The PortalBuilder communicates directly with the Workplace Server for displaying the Workplace on the front-end.

Profile (Authorization) Summarizes authorizations. A user’ s authorization profiles are stored in the user master record.

Protocol Collection of rules for formats and types of data transmission between dif-ferent computer systems.

Remote system Independent system in a different location with which your system can communicate.

Repository Central storage facility for all ABAP Workbench development objects. RFC Remote Function Call: SAP interface protocol, based on CPI-C. An RFC

enables you to call and execute predefined functions in a remote system – or even in the same system.

Role In the mySAP.com context, a role is a collection of activities that are re-quired for participation in a business scenario. The Workplace offers a role-based view of all functions that the user requires for his/her business scenar-io.

Role maintenance You can use the Profile Generator to create authorization profiles based on the activities (transactions) contained in a role.

SAP English: Systems, Applications, & Products in Data Processing German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung

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French: Systèmes, applications et produits dans l'informatique Italian: Sistemi, applicazioni & prodotti nell’ elaborazione die dati

SAP DCOM Distributed Component Object Model: standardized basis for creating and integrating distributed software components. External client applications can use DCOM as the infrastructure for communicating with SAP servers if they need to access mySAP.com components.

SAP Easy Access Navigation menu providing a user-specific initial screen for SAP Systems. SAP GUI for HTML GUI that runs in the Web browser and dynamically generates HTML pages

based on SAP screens.

SAP GUI for JAVA Platform-independent GUI, requires a JAVA environment on the PC. SAP GUI for Windows GUI for 32-Bit-Windows

SAP Service Marketplace SAP’s global information and communication network

SAP Web Studio PC tool for developing Internet applications that are driven by the Internet Transaction Server (ITS) and access data from the SAP System.

SAPGUI _{Graphical user interface for SAP}

SAProuter SAP program that acts as part of a firewall system. It enables the routing of traffic to and from the SAP network.

SEM Strategic Enterprise Management: group of tools and processes enabling managers to introduce company-wide value-oriented management proce-dures.

Session handling Session handling in the mySAP.com Workplace enables you to have several sessions open at the same time. The user works with several browser win-dows, all of which are directly displayed as frames in the mySAP.com Workplace.

Single role s. ‘role’

Single sign-on Mechanism that removes the need for users to enter a password every time they log on to a system. The user only needs to enter a password once and can then log on to all systems that are part of the Single Sign-On environ-ment.

SIS Sales information system

SMTP Simple mail transfer protocol (internet email)

SNC Secure Network Communication: software layer in SAP systems that ena-bles them to communicate with an external security product. The external product can protect the communication links between the components of an SAP System.

SOAP Simple object access protocol

SSL Secure Sockets Layer: protocol that uses powerful authentication mecha-nisms and encryption to protect data transmitted over the Internet.

SSO Single sign-on

System infrastructure The system infrastructure defines the systems and clients required for the implementation and maintenance processes and their significance as well as the transport routes between the systems.

TCO Total cost of ownership

TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol: software protocol that defines communication between computers.

Template Templates are used for certain types of HTML documents to ensure con-sistency or provision of functions.

Ticket Authentication used for Single Sign-On (SSO) in the mySAP.com Work-place. The central Workplace server gives the user an SSO Ticket. This ticket is then verified by the component systems to allow the user access without having to enter the user ID and password again.

Transaction Logically self-contained action in an SAP System. From the user’s point of view, a transaction represents one unit (for example, changing a customer

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address).

URL Uniform resource locator: internet address (e. g. http://www.mysap.com) User interface Work station

User master record/ User master data

Records with important master data of a particular user in SAP. User master records are used to assign user menus including particular authorizations for activities to a user.

VBM Value based management

WAP Wireless Application Protocol: protocol that defines the transmission and display of special Internet content on devices with limited display capabili-ties, for example, cell phones.

Web application builder Tool for developing Internet applications driven by the Internet Transaction Server (ITS). You can use the Web Application Builder to create all the files required to run an application on a Web browser.

Web browser Simple navigation program with GUI interpreting and displaying html doc-uments from the internet.

WebDav Web-based distribution authoring and versioning: http-extension enabling the joint access of documents via internet.

WebFlow SAP WebFlow enables the running of SAP business workflow via internet. WebServer Server managing connections to the internet.

WGate WebGateway: component of the internet transaction server (ITS); connects the ITS with the web server. WGate receivers queries from the web browser via web server and forwards them to AGate.

Wizard Software assistant displaying instructions for running particular actions within applications.

WML Wireless markup language: internet standard language to characterize pages for mobile WAP devices.

Work item Runtime representation of steps to define a workflow or task.

Workflow IT-enabled processing of structured, interrelated and repetitive business processes.

Workplace Role-based, personalized web browser portal for SAP systems, external systems and internet applications.

Workplace middleware Communication software on a server replicating, synchronizing, monitoring and distributing data between the center (network) and external users, e.g., business warehouse or mySAP ERP system.

Workplace middleware Part of the workplace architecture consisting of a web server, an internet transaction server and optional drag-and-relate services.

Workplace server Main server to store information about the workplace user roles.

WorkSpace Right hand side of the mySAP.com workplace browser window displaying MiniApps, Transactions and web sites.

XML Extensible markup language: standard for the definition of individual dis-play languages characterizing structured information with tags. Like html, xml is a link-oriented language for internet content.

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1 Introduction

This introduction script will give you an overview of SAP ERP and the required capabilities to deal with this complex standard software.

In chapter 2 – Enterprise Resource Planning with SAP ERP, you will familiarize yourself with

- the software producer SAP,

- the differences of SAP R/3 and its successor SAP ERP and - the technical platform for SAP ERP, i.e., SAP NetWeaver.

In chapter 3 – Overview of SAP ERP, you will get a short introduction to - the SAP ERP organization structure,

- foundations of master data and transactions and - the technical foundations of SAP ERP analytics.

Those remarks will enable you to process further units and case studies, since you gain basic theoretical knowledge on the system.

In chapter 4 – The Model Company IDES, you will find an excursus briefly outlining the model company IDES. Being an SAP-created sample for education purposes, all relevant business processes of SAP ERP can be implemented in IDES.

In chapter 5 – Handling and Navigation in SAP ERP, you will be actively involved with the SAP ERP system for the first time. You learn how to use the SAP Graphical User Inter-face (GUI) by using the different navigation methods and the integrated help function. Final-ly, you will work on a navigation case study that will enable you to process case studies on your own.

Educational objectives in chapter 2: - know SAP company and history

- list the differences between SAP R/3 enterprise to its successor SAP ERP - explain SAP ERP architecture

- understand the core functionality of SAP ERP solution within the SAP Business Suite - explain the purpose of Enhancement Packages

- describe the SAP NetWeaver platform

- list the IT Practices enabled by SAP NetWeaver - describe the strategic advantage of NetWeaver Educational objectives in chapter 3:

- explaining SAP ERP organizational model

- explaining functionality of SAP ERP master data and transactions - explaining SAP ERP analytics

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- familiarize with IDES AG

- insight into organizational structure of IDES AG

- brief information about UCC (University Competence Center) Educational objectives in chapter 5:

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2 Enterprise Resource Planning with SAP ERP

This chapter gives you an overview of the software producing company SAP and its main product SAP ERP.

2.1 Excursus: SAP – The Company

SAP AG (German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte / English: Systems, Ap-plications, Products) was founded in 1972 by five former IBM employees. To-day, SAP is the third-largest independent software vendor. SAP’s head office is located in Walldorf, Germany. As originator and market leader for enterprise application software, SAP employs over 54.000 people worldwide, over 11.000 of which work in the head office in Walldorf. In addition to the main development center in Walldorf, SAP maintains, amongst others, branches in Palo Alto (USA), Tokyo (Japan), Ban-galore (India) and Sophia Antipolis (France) as well as in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Saarbrücken (Germany). Today, SAP has sales and development locations in more than 50 countries worldwide.

In 2011, SAP generated a provisional turnover of 14.232 billion Euros. SAP AG is listed at diverse stock exchanges, e.g., DAX and NYSE. SAP services 183.000 customers with numer-ous installations of SAP products. 12 million users in more than 120 countries use SAP prod-ucts in 28 different languages. SAP applications and services enable more than 183,000 cus-tomers worldwide to operate profitably, adapt continuously and grow sustainably. With over 2.900 certified Partners and more than 25 business solutions and industry solutions, e.g., for automotive and pharmaceutical businesses, SAP helps companies of all sizes and industries run better.

A brief selection of SAP’s customers: - General Motors Corp.

- Bayer AG - Discovery Channel - DHL - Callaway - Asics - BP - Shell - Deutsche Telekom AG - Siemens AG - Porsche AG - Daimler AG - Audi AG - Deutsche Post AG

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Figure 1: Annual Report 2011 (1) Milestones of SAP history

Since the founding in 1972, software engineering regarding ERP has advanced constantly. The biggest milestone of SAP AG was the going live in 1992 with the SAP R/3 system. R/3 means that transactions and the processing of transactions, respectively, can be conducted in real-time. Since 1993 there has been a cooperation agreement between Microsoft and SAP for the porting of the R/3 system to Windows NT, which was accomplished in 1994.

The development of a user-friendly GUI was carried out in 1998 with Enjoy SAP. Since 1999, mySAP.com has existed, allowing the connection of e-commerce applications with pre-sent ERP applications. The software products mySAP ALL-in-One and SAP One Server were introduced in 2002.

The latest generation of ERP software by SAP is called (my)SAP ERP (the prefix my will presumably be dropped for future releases), focusing on the inter-company integration of en-terprise software with the connection over SAP NetWeaver. As the introduction of SAP R/3 in 1992 was a migration from mainframe computing to client/server architecture, SAP ERP/NetWeaver is another paradigm shift with the migration to service-oriented architectures (SOA) to preferably integrate all present systems and gradually transfer them into the new system landscape. This is to ensure the value of all prior investments of a customer, partially reflected in the latest SAP AG license agreements.

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2.2 Theory: SAP R/3, SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver

In this chapter you will learn about the software products SAP R/3, SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver. The focus is on both theoretical foundations as well as important fundamental terms with respect to the case studies.

What is Enterprise Resource Planning?

Modern companies, especially big and mid-size ones, have complex organizational structures, many resources to be controlled and administrated, processes to be integrated within the company and with external partners as well as huge amounts of data and information that must be available 24/7. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are integrated computer-based systems used to manage all these issues within a company. ERP Systems are used to manage internal and external resources. That includes tangible assets, financial resources, materials and human resources. From a technical point of view, ERP is a software architecture whose purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on a centralized database and normally utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise-wide system environment. SAP was one of the first companies, and up to present days the most successful one, to introduce a standard software that helps companies in managing their daily work. The term “standard software” refers to the possibility to customize preconfigured “standard” structures and processes to meet a company’s needs.

2.2.1 SAP R/3

SAP R/3 was the most successful product throughout the history of SAP, dominating the market for ERP-software during the 1990s and establishing the basis for SAP’s current success on the world-wide ERP-market today.

In its basic version, SAP R/3 is an integrated, branch-neutral standard software covering almost all business purposes that might exist in a company. The flexible adjustment to company-specific requirements is referred to as customizing in SAP R/3 (and all other SAP systems). Diverse application modules (FI, CO, TR, etc.) can be added to the present basic module (SAP Basis – indicated as the blue hexagon in the following figure) to eventually achieve complex branch-specific modules. The particular units are visualized in the following figure.

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Figure 3: SAP R/3 modules: Nicolescu/Wittges 2006

We will hold our discussion on detailed module description at this point. This monolithic structure of the unitized design was a proper solution to include all relevant business process-es back in the 1990s; however, new requirements for companiprocess-es revealed a lack of flexibility of this design. Especially with respect to the integration of external systems (non-SAP sys-tems), of customers and vendors of the supply chain, a new way to represent business pro-cesses became necessary.

2.2.2 SAP ERP

With increasingly globalizing markets, competition changes constantly and requires compa-nies to adjust quickly to those new conditions. A vital factor for success is the time needed for a company to flexibly adjust their business processes, operations and information flow along the inter-company supply chain to improve efficiency and integration as well as improve transparency to achieve more effective business processes.

It is imperative today, more than ever, to ensure that the business processes in an organization are integrated, streamlined and transparent. SAP ERP allows companies to gain better control of their administrative and operations environment and increase efficiency and profitability. Furthermore, the application drives down the costs of integration and deployment by shorten-ing time to benefit and leveragshorten-ing existshorten-ing IT investments.

SAP ERP is a standard software package that covers all vital business processes within a company and provides functions for both corporate headquarters and small subsidiaries. SAP ERP is a combination of components that integrate people, information and processes com-prehensively and flexibly. Thereby, it is designed in such a way that companies can imple-ment only the business functions they need when they need them, thus, simplifying upgrades and reducing total cost of ownership.

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SAP ERP is embedded in SAP NetWeaver, which is the basis for almost all SAP products. The following figure displays the integration capabilities of SAP NetWeaver. You can inte-grate almost every business application with SAP ERP by using SAP NetWeaver technology. Therefore, it is possible to integrate Independent Software Vendor solutions, self developed software solutions or non-SAP solutions. Furthermore, Java and .Net-Frameworks are inte-grated with SAP NetWeaver.

Figure 4: SAP ERP

With SAP ERP, SAP has set a new standard for ERP systems. It provides the applications to cover the main functional areas of every company from an information technology point of view. This solution incorporates SAP ERP Financials, SAP ERP Human Capital Man-agement, SAP ERP Operations and SAP ERP Corporate Services solutions.

- SAP ERP Financials: The aim of this solution is to utilize a company’s funds effec-tively and, therefore, increase profitability in the long term.

- SAP ERP Human Capital Management: Every company has employees. They are important resources and SAP ERP HCM enables a company to utilize them effectively toward achieving company goals. This solution covers all aspects of human resources, from recruitment and training through payroll.

- SAP ERP Operations: SAP ERP Operations provides an extensive operations solu-tion for automating and streamlining procurement and logistics execusolu-tion, product de-velopment and manufacturing and sales and service.

- SAP ERP Corporate Services: SAP ERP Corporate Services introduces service solu-tions for end-to-end life cycles for travel management, environment, health and safety and real-estate management. It also addresses the development of efficient incentive programs.

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2.2.2.1 From SAP R/3 to SAP ERP

Starting in the 1970s, there have been major technology waves – from mainframe computing to client server architectures and now from client server technology to service oriented archi-tectures

In 1992, SAP R/3 was introduced as successor of SAP R/1 and SAP R/2 featuring a two-layer architecture (technology layer: SAP Basis; application layers: modules like FI, CO, etc.). SAP R/3 required extensive changes as well as complex and time-consuming interface configura-tions and maintenance upon release changes. One disadvantage of this architecture was that customers of SAP had to upgrade both layers when implementing a new release of SAP soft-ware, which caused a complete replacement of the underlying IT infrastructure. In contrast to that, SAP ERP with its service-oriented architecture offers an extensive solution, which pro-tects investments in existing IT infrastructure and systems. Since SAP ERP is based on SAP NetWeaver, future solutions and new systems or applications can be easily integrated into SAP ERP, without the need to replace the underlying platform or technology.

SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) is the evolutionary successor of SAP R/3 and it is the main component of the SAP ERP solution. SAP ERP ECC 6.0 is the latest version of SAP's ERP solution. Figure 4 shows that this solution is no longer based on the core compo-nent SAP Basis, but the complete integration into the SAP NetWeaver concept is in place. For each new release of SAP R/3 and later SAP ERP, the functions of the software have been extended, applications have been optimized and interfaces to other software components have been enhanced. SAP R/3 was developed by using ABAP, SAP’s own programming language. In SAP ERP, ABAP has still a dominating role but Java-based applications and XML-based Web Services (service-oriented architecture of SAP NetWeaver) are becoming more and more important in new ECC releases.

Along with other SAP components, SAP R/3 Enterprise is included in SAP ERP as well. That is why customers wanting to upgrade their present SAP R/3 Enterprise to SAP ERP are not required to perform technological changes. With the introduction of SAP ERP in 2003, many new components are available to support and enhance ERP business processes. At that time, SAP R/3 Enterprise was one of those components. As you can see in the following figure, SAP ERP at that time already consisted of more components than merely SAP R/3 Enterprise and SAP NetWeaver and featuring many new functional enhancements, e.g., self-services, SAP SEM, Internet Sales, etc.

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Figure 5: From SAP R/3 to SAP ERP

Please note that SAP ERP is not meant to be a remake of R/3 but a solution for a service-oriented architecture. As opposed to SAP R/3 (monolithic structure, applications were linked to the business logic), SAP ERP is based on the open, service oriented architecture of SAP NetWeaver. The technology platform allows SAP R/3 customers to overcome the costly and timely problems of real-time business regarding integration of application and external sys-tems as well as maintenance of interfaces.

2.2.2.2 SAP Business Suite

When a company grows, processes usually become more complex and software requirements change. SAP Business Suite offers additional solutions that compliment, enhance and support the processes that are executed in SAP ERP. You can see from the following figure that SAP ERP is a solution within the SAP Business Suite and that all products of SAP use SAP NetWeaver as technical platform.

The SAP Business Suite is based on the demand of customers or customer groups and on contributions of analysts and leading experts to allow customers to successfully face chal-lenges on the market. The solution embraces business requirements, tactical requirements and strategic requirements within and beyond a company, ensuring inter-company collaboration amongst partners.

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Figure 6: SAP ERP is a solution within SAP Business Suite

SAP Business Suite is a complete package of enterprise solutions that link people, infor-mation and processes and, therefore, improve the effectiveness of business relationships. It consists of individual SAP solutions. SAP Business Suite features the following business so-lutions that need to be licensed separately:

- SAP ERP – SAP Enterprise Resource Planning - SAP CRM – SAP Customer Relationship Management - SAP PLM – SAP Product Life-Cycle Management - SAP SRM – SAP Supplier Relationship Management - SAP SCM – SAP Supply Chain Management

All SAP solutions are based on the new service-oriented architecture paradigm. Accordingly, SAP Netweaver is the technical platform that powers the SAP Business Suite. SAP NetWeav-er will be discussed in the next chaptNetWeav-er.

2.2.2.3 SAP Enhancement Packages

Starting with SAP R/3 Enterprise, changes and enhancements to the software were integrated into the system as extensions. With the new SAP ECC 6.0, SAP distributes new features and applications by using enhancement packages. This new software strategy accelerates and sim-plifies the upgrade process and adaptation to industry sectors.

SAP enhancement packages represent a new software delivery strategy that allows a company to add innovations on top of SAP ERP 6.0. Thereby, there is no need for a full upgrade of the current release of SAP ERP. The main reason for SAP to introduce SAP enhancement pack-ages for SAP ERP is to simplify the way customers manage and deploy new software func-tionality. With the enhancement packages, customers can electively implement these software innovations from SAP and activate the software according to business demand. As a result,

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customers can isolate the impact of software updates and bring new functionality online more quickly through shortened testing cycles.

SAP enhancement packages are currently available for SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver. They are planned for other Business Suite applications as well.

From a content perspective, each enhancement package either focuses on a dedicated set of business processes that are improved or adds new processes to the SAP ERP Solution Map. Those improvements are grouped thematically, which a company can install with a new ap-proach. The new capabilities, included in an enhancement package, focus on the following four areas:

- Simplification: new capabilities designed to simplify business processes as well as user interfaces

- Generic enhancements: new generic capabilities for Financials, Human Capital Man-agement, Operations and Corporate Services

- Industry-specific enhancements: new capabilities delivered for particular industries - Enterprise Service Bundles: New enterprise services that illustrate the value of the

service-oriented architecture along business scenarios and needs, extending the func-tionality of SAP ERP and enabling innovative composite applications to be developed on top of SAP ERP.

Figure 7: Enhancement Packages

With enhancement package delivery technology, SAP provides customers with new develop-ments and enhancedevelop-ments of applications for their existing SAP installations. This means that they can use new developments that are offered for their business processes when they want to and according to their own requirements.

SAP enhancement packages are optional packages that enable companies to take advantage of ongoing innovations while keeping their core software stable, rather than engaging in large upgrade projects. Each SAP enhancement package provides a collection of new or improved

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business functions. Companies can deploy the enhancements in a modular fashion by activat-ing only the new features and functionalities they want – on their own timetable.

SAP Best Practices have a few of these highlights pre-configured such as New General Ledg-er and Analytics, othLedg-ers need to be evaluated on a project basis.

SAP enhancement packages allow updating a subset of the software components that are part of an existing SAP ERP 6.0 implementation. For example, a company is now able to update parts of its SAP ECC Server. The selection of software components is driven by the function-al enhancements that the company plans to implement. The following figure displays how new HCM functionalities (Selective Update - Example) are installed by updating only EA-HR (version 602) on the SAP ECC Server. Thereby, the enhancement package is "set on top" of the existing SAP HR application.

Figure 8: Quick Facts to enhancement packages

The following key points summarize important facts about the enhancement package concept and recommended approaches:

- SAP enhancement packages are cumulative, which means that each new enhancement package includes new innovations of its own as well as all innovations delivered with previous packages.

- SAP recommends that you install the latest available enhancement package version. - You install enhancement packages and Support Packages in a single step.

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Package Version 01, which are equivalent to the Support Package versions for the underlying release.

- SAP enhancement packages have the same maintenance period as the underlying core application, SAP ERP 6.0.

- You install only selected parts of the enhancement package. The selection is driven by functional need from a business point of view.

- Installations of enhancement packages, as well as the activation of business functions, are irreversible. Test the installation process and activation of new functions in advance on a sandbox system. Ensure that you evaluate the runtime and the system behavior, its dependencies and impacts. Make sure that the installation is free of errors before going live.

- Installation of an SAP enhancement package has no impact on existing business processes or user interfaces as long as no business function has been activated. Activation of business functions is only possible in ABAP-based systems and not in Java-based systems. Enhancement Packages in Java-based systems are active after installation. Enhancement Packages of SAP NetWeaver are active after installation. It is not possible to mix the installation of different enhancement package versions in your ABAP system. Only one enhancement package version is allowed.

Figure 9: Things You Should Know Before Installing SAP Enhancement Packages

2.2.3 SAP NetWeaver

As mentioned earlier, SAP ERP is a flexible successor due to its service-oriented structure. It is modeled on enterprise service architecture in which business applications may interact with each other via open interfaces. This construction principle is quite demanding when it comes

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to technical infrastructure. An open application and integration platform is required for calling technical applications and seamlessly integrating external third-party systems. SAP NetWeav-er covNetWeav-ers this key role and is, thus, the company-wide infrastructure for all business applica-tions.

2.2.3.1 Overview of SAP NetWeaver

SAP NetWeaver is a Web-based, open integration and application platform. It is the founda-tion for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and provides the integrafounda-tion and alignment of people, information, and business processes across business and technology boundaries. Thereby, SAP NetWeaver uses open standards to enable integration with information and applications from almost any source or technology.

One main advantage of using open standards and a uniform basis, which can operate or inte-grate all company systems is the considerable reduction of the total cost of ownership – not only for SAP solutions, but for the entire IT landscape. SAP NetWeaver helps companies to use existing IT investments in a way that adds value while also creating a foundation for fu-ture cross-enterprise processes.

Figure 10: SAP NetWeaver

2.2.3.2 Excursus: Service-oriented Architecture and Enterprise Service Architecture The term Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been mentioned now sever-al times in connection with SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver.

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What is Service-oriented architecture?

SOA is an IT concept aiming at supporting business processes. Therefore, the old monolithic structures like in the R/3 system are broken up into small reusable components that hold the business logic. Those encapsulated services can be interlinked to handle complete business processes. Thus, services may be used within distinct processes.

A decisive advantage of those services (also known as Web Services) is that they are based on well-known standards and that many software companies, e.g., Microsoft, IBM, Sun and SAP, agreed on furthering Web Service standards. Those standards are combined in the Web Service standard stack. This includes:

- XML (eXtensible Markup Language): specification language for data contents defining both data as well as corresponding metadata.

- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol): method and function call of remote applications using XML as basis language.

- UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Services): directory to locate Web Service functionalities.

- WSDL (Web Service Description Language): specification for describing Web Service interfaces.

- BPEL/BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language/for Web Services): specification language defining the sequence and conditions for the interaction of services to implement (parts of) business processes.

Those specifications allow Web Services to interact with each other. What does this stack of standards mean concretely?

Imagine a sales process is executed in an ERP system and one of the sales process steps is to check the customer’s credit status. A remote program module can, for example, prompt an-other application to look into somebody’s creditworthiness. Therefore, the remote program seeks a matching service by using the UDDI directory. After finding a service that provides “credit-check-functionality”, information about interfaces, parameters, etc., of the service may be conveyed to the remote program in WSDL. The remote program can now call the service by using SOAP. The service is then executed and the calling ERP system receives the results. In that way, the mapping of a particular business process can be accomplished by using mul-tiple series-connected services. The communication between the services is enabled due to standardized protocols. Since services can interact and communicate with each other, there are no disruptions and, thus, the process is independent of systems, platforms and infrastruc-ture, being processed only by machines.

To simplify this, one can say the software packages (services) “understand” each other, since they “speak” the same technical language (XML). Due to the consequent use of the standards in that stack, they know exactly how to interact with each other. Furthermore, note that you can use a service in multiple processes, enhancing the re-usability of a service. For instance, a “credit-check”-service may be used in a sales process as well as in a personnel hiring process. Enterprise Service Architecture (ESA)

The consequent implementation of the Web Service concept was addressed by SAP with its Enterprise Service Architecture. Multiple enterprise services are combined in composite ap-plications and delivered as packaged composite apap-plications, i.e., as so called xApps, which

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represent complex business functionality. Next is a list of the hierarchy, starting with a single service to a complete xApp:

1. Service: simple function

2. Web service: web-compatible function

3. Application service: consists of a Web Service making services from an application available.

4. Enterprise service: consists of one to N application services and serves as inter-application Web Service to abstract business.

5. Composite application: complex application consisting of enterprise services.

6. Packaged Composite Application: packages of composite applications from a software company.

7. xApps: composite application created by SAP or partners.

Currently, SAP, SAP partners and third party providers cover multiple business processes using xApps. However, more time is required before a complete coverage of business pro-cesses using xApps can be accomplished. Nevertheless, even today SAP offers many Best Practice solutions based on xApps.

Figure 11: SAP Enterprise Service Architecture

Note: End of Excursus!

2.2.3.3 SAP NetWeaver Integration Layers

SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation on which almost all SAP solutions are currently based. It provides core functions for the infrastructure of a company’s business solutions in four subareas (Integration Layer) including

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(1) People Integration (2) Information Integration (3) Process Integration (4) Application Foundation

Figure 12: SAP NetWeaver

These SAP NetWeaver subareas contain multiple capabilities, which are explained in the fol-lowing.

Figure 13: Integration Levels of SAP: Employees, Customers and Partners - Functions of SAP NetWeaver in the Area of User Productivity

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Integration level: People Integration

Employees, Customers and Partners - Functions of SAP NetWeaver in the area of User Productivity

People integration is the top-level integration layer of SAP NetWeaver and is the point-of-access to SAP (regardless if it is an ERP, a BW or CRM system, etc.) and Non-SAP systems. It combines functions that users need for their every-day work, regardless of whether it con-cerns one system or applications on many distributed systems. Since access to the portal is role-specific, it can be used for customers, vendors or employees in equal measure.

Along with functions in the area of Mobile Business and Search, like they are provided through the Enterprise-Search-Application, the SAP NetWeaver Portal is the central compo-nent in the area of User Productivity.

The portal (SAP Enterprise Portal) is a single point of contact and access to all sources of in-formation and is, thus, a consistent user interface for accessing applications of a business pro-cess with all role-specific content and personalization functions. All SAP-systems, data ware-houses, desktop files, web content, Web Services and third-party systems of an enterprise are comprised in one single GUI. Using single sign-on, a facilitated method for authentication and communication processes between different IT systems is implemented. Furthermore, portal knowledge management can be used to transform unstructured data into important company information. The collaboration function facilitates inter- and intra-company group efforts.

SAP NetWeaver Mobile

SAP NetWeaver Mobile is a technology solution of SAP NetWeaver on which, a set of mo-bile applications are based. These applications are called “SAP xApps composite applications for mobile business" and mostly are extensions to existing non-mobile SAP applications. For instance, there is an extension for SAP Human Resource Management, which allows cap-turing travel data and working hours on a mobile device (e.g. Smartphone or Handhelds). Fur-thermore, service employees can be informed about new tasks directly on their mobile devices and they can transfer customer data directly from their mobile devices to the SAP system, without having to access the SAP ERP backend system from their desktop computer at the office.

Integration level: Process Integration

All operations and all work performed in a company are controlled through business process-es. Along with these processes data is exchanged between employeprocess-es. This data exchange can be accomplished manually without any help from software. But it can also be supported by software preventing data redundancies and data entry errors.

The term Process Integration encompasses a set of different requirements, which SAP NetWeaver covers with its components. These requirements are:

- Modeling of business processes

- Customizing of applications that support a business process