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SAP Business One: Local Service Chicago, San Diego, Atlanta - implement your dream with Alba Spectrum
Alba Spectrum
If you are growing small or mid-size business in Illinois, California, Georgia, plus if you would like to stake on SAP quality, we are recommending SAP B1 as your new ERP, MRP, Accounting, CRM. This article is for IT people in your organization
We will try to base our notes on SB1 2007A version, which is the one for USA, however international SAP B1 users are welcome to read this article. We will only review out-of-the-box integration solutions: Data Transfer Workbench, if you would like to familiarize yourself with SAP BO ISV partner add-ons or integration platform, please look at iBolt and other SAP Business One resellers, it is outside of the scope here. SB1 ERP, MRP, CRM, Financials, Service, HR, Sales and Purchasing modules are exposed to programmer via SB1 Software Development Kit, however with SDK SAP requires work to be done by certified SDK partner, plus you should talk to your SB1 Reseller on purchasing SDK license if you plan to do extensive SDK customizations. We expect that your issue is rather data conversion and ongoing integration from EDI source, ecommerce application, etc., in this case let's first review the power of Data Transfer Workbench, and only after, if you feel that this is not enough we will move to SDK:
1. SAP Business One Data Transfer Workbench. If you are SBO certified consultant, you should remember your exercises in initial data import: business partners, GL accounts, Inventory Items, Price Lists, Initial Item Quantities, GL Initial Balances. In all these examples you were given CSV templates, which should be filled in with required and optional fields, then when you come through Data Import Wizard, you provide connection to your CSV filled in templates. However, if you are also familiar with such concepts as ODBC Connection, MS SQL View, please consider SQL views creation, which will resemble exactly the same pattern as filled CSV files. Let's assume that you are placing purchase orders via your EDI partner channel, select oPurchaseOrder business object, then highlight Document and switch Source Data Type to ODBC, click Browse and in Simple Select Statement use your SQL knowledge to select data from the view created above - PO header should be taken care about. Now required element is Document_Lines - here follow the same approach, plus take care if additional objects are needed in your case. Now, the trick - if you followed exact Column Names in the SQL View, then columns mapping will be also recognized automatically in the Wizard. Then, assuming that you are familiar with CSV data conversion way in SB1 - you will get work done. Here we have to admit to our displeasure, that for 2007A SAP recognized that ODBC integration scheduling is not supported, and as we figured out it doesn't work. But, even so, in our opinion five minutes of SB1 Data Transfer Workbench of operator time will allow you to import your desired objects and it worth the time spent. Please, at this point review objects exposed via CSV templates, and give us a call if something is not covered that you need to be covered. So, maybe next step - SAP Business One SDK certification and programming is optional for you?
2. SAP B1 SDK. Here please consider the option to find really good SB1 ISV and Technology partner with Software Development Factory. SDK has access to virtually all SB1 objects and you can do real time data integration from your legacy ecommerce application, change user interface
3. Direct SQL data feeding. Please avoid this, as SAP Business One has Early Watch service, which is tracing SQL DB data intervention, instead revisit Workbench or SDK Programming options
4. Extra SAP Business One Modification Tips. You can extend existing tables by adding User Defined fields, and these fields automatically will be assigned data entering interface. If you add custom fields to your Business Partner, for example, simply pull BP records and in menu click View -> User Defined Fields. If you have to create new User Defined Table, it also gets data entry interface automatically
5. We are restricted by Article genre, so, please if you would like to hear your business case study, or SAP Business One Executive or Technical presentation, please feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum, subdivision of M2-D2, help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577 http://www.albaspectrum.com Serving ERP and MRP community since 1994, local service in Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Atlanta. Information portal: http://www.pegasplanet.com We serve you USA and Canada nationwide from our SAP Business One call center: California, Illinois, New York, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Ontario, Quebec, Washington, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Oregon, New York, New England. International clients welcome from Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South Africa, UK, Brazil, Caribbean, Russia, Central America
Author Site
8/16/2009
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