How to import data to SAP

Question

As a complete stranger in town of SAP, I want to transfer my own application's (mobile salesforce automation) data to SAP. My application has records of customers, stocks, inventory, invoices (and waybills), cheques, payments, collections, stock transfer data etc. I have an additional database which holds matchings of records. ie. A customer with ID 345 in my application has key 120-035-0223 in SAP. Every record, for sure, has to know it's counterpart, including parameters.

After searching Google and SAP help site for a day, I covered that it's going to be a bit more pain than I expected. Especially SAP site does not give even a clue on it. Say I couldn't find.

We transferred our data to some other ERP systems, some of which wanted XML files, some other exposed their APIs.

My point is, is Sql Server's SSIS an option for me? I hope it is, so I can fight on my own territory. Since client requests would vary a lot, I count flexibility as most important criteria. Also, I want to transfer as much data as I could.

Any help is appreciated.

Placidia

Answer 1

Some advice from the past dozen migrations or so I was involved in:

• Do NOT try to bypass the SAP system and import into the SAP database directly. Don't even think of it. If anything goes wrong, you have shredded a production system - and you're the one who's getting the blame.

• Decide whether you want a migration-type scenario (a single transfer) or a permanent interface (transfer every n minutes/hours/days). This makes a huge difference (for example: in migration scenarios you'll usually won't have to worry about updating the same record over and over again - in a permanent interface, you'll have to take care of this). If you have to change your decision later on, you'll usually have to start from scratch.

• Get someone who knows both the SAP module involved and the way the module is customized and used in your system. You might need various experts - a consultant with in-depth knowledge of the module and a key user with detailed knowledge about the way the actual data is entered and used.

• Make yourself familiar with the data dictionary structures involved. You'll need this knowledge to correctly map your input data to the SAP structures.

• Ask the expert if there are any interfaces available. If there are, then the expert should be able to tell you more about it, including documentation. If there aren't any, you'll have to create something yourself.

• For a migration scenarion: Perform a manual entry of representative records with a key user to make sure you have all of the details covered (Which field contents go where in the SAP system? Do we have all data for all of the required fields?). In many cases, you can use the transaction recorder (SHDB) to keep track of what you entered and especially of the technical field names.

• Take a look at the Legacy Systems Migration Workbench (LSMW). It might seem a bit complicated first, but it's a great tool for many purposes.

As always, YMMV. Oh, and - be prepared to learn ABAP. You should at least be able to read it, understand what's going on and step through programs in the debugger, otherwise things will get very frustrating.

Liborio

Answer 2

My point is, is Sql Server's SSIS an option for me?

In short: no.

Most of vwegert points are valid:

• Accessing SAP databases straight is suicide
• You will want a real time interface though, I would suggest talking either to your custom jco server our asking the customer to expose their BAPI (Business APIs) through web services
• You will need an SAP/ABAP expert, especially since you have that many different types of data, I would find a good ABAPer for 80 dollars an hour and charge your customer for 100 dollars an hour..

The ones for creating/changing/reading customers are these B APIs:

BAPI_CUSTOMER_CHANGEFROMDATA Customer: Change customer
BAPI_CUSTOMER_CREATEFROMDATA Customer: Create customer
BAPI_CUSTOMER_GETDETAIL Customer: Read customer
BAPI_CUSTOMER_SEARCH Customer: Find customer number

Each functional domain (warehouse, material, contracts, orders, invoices, payments etc.) have their own BAPIs. Also, each big SAP shop abuses some fields so you will most likely have to adapt these calls per customer. Your customer should understand this and be willing (used) to pay for it.

Measureless