How should I start learning about SAP? [closed]

Question

I'm working as a MS developer working to provide bridging products between MS technology and SAP.

I'm used to the MS space which seems to have an absolutely different philosophy than SAP. And this is starting to be an issue - I can't "get" SAP.

So, what are good materials to "grok" SAP? - understand why people buy it, how it is used from a business standpoint, how to look at the architecture from a technology standpoint, learn how it is structured, what are the important tools in SAPGUI, and gasp how do I learn how to read ABAP? shudder

I know enough SAP to do my job - I know the runes to incant in SAP. But that isn't enough, and SAP SDN and Help is really not enough for the big picture view (it also isn't great for small picture view, but that is another discussion for somewhere else).

Thanks in advance.

Welladvised

How is this a legitimate question? It's too broad to answer, attracts opinionated and spammy answers. – Leffen

Answer 1

First, SAP is so vast you will never be able to know every part of it. There are so many functionnal subjects and technologies that this is mind-numbing.

Courses can be used either for a first introduction (but this is costly for such a use) or for extremely advanced subject (better).

SAP is a full environment. The code for most of the content is available. Thus, checking how SAP has done something can/may/will help you understand the technology or the subject. (Btw, a lot of comments are in German...) in-system transaction se80 is particularly useful in this aspect, as it show all related data to a program.

Also, SDN is your friend. forum, how-to, white papers are present... it will help you. A few in-system transactions (se83) are to be used as example for coding technics.

Tacnaarica

Are you talking about ABAP? Isn't SAP the company? – Yaron

well, i'm talking about SAP's products (mainly R/3) – Tacnaarica

Answer 2

SAP is a beast to wrangle down .. some suggestions:

• For a programmer: Get a decent ABAP programming book. Most concepts will be pretty familiar, and they give you a good starting point to better understand the system.
• For a "business user": Other than going to an expensive course (mostly wasted time/money in my opinion), sit down with a user and have him/her explain too you what they are doing for an hour or two.
• For a "customizer": This is where things get really difficult as there are a gazillion of steps and choices and places to change things. Having someone more experienced helps. As you noted, books/articles are mostly not very helpful as they are usually at a loss to explain concepts.

A couple of things to keep in mind as well:

• SAP is "so big" that it is impossible to "know it all".
• SAP is written by some smart and some not so smart people. Your inability to "grok" things may be caused by some really bad programmer building a bunch of stupid solutions to problems he hasn't understood.
• SAP is notorious for coming up with their own language or by repurposing buzzwords and adding their own special meaning. This adds to the magic and confusion.

Just get started, ask questions, try out some things, don't be afraid by the size of it. Pretty soon you'll get better at it ...

Questioning

down vote for ' Get a decent ABAP programming book' i think the point is he wants a recommendation. Anyone can say 'get a good book' – Implant

yes, this is the one flaw in an otherwise great answer. Upvote :) – Cymophane

Answer 3

You should join https://open.sap.com.

That is basically a free learning portal recently made by SAP.

"Imagine you could go back to university to learn more about topics that are key to success in the SAP ecosystem, and combine your studies with your busy work schedule.

Well, now you can: With openSAP.

The first openSAP course has now started, and more will be coming soon.

For a complete overview about the SAP Education offerings please refer to the SAP Training and Certification Shop." SAP Open

Deadhead

its very time consuming if you work full-time, but its structured very good, good lessons und practical exercises! – Lues

sounds like a commercial – Walworth

But it's for a product that readers of this site actually want, so... – Dzungaria

Answer 4

SAP is a very closed-end system.

If you want to learn SAP, the only reliable way is to take some very expensive training from SAP.

Barbicel

I rather figured that... Oh well... – Welladvised

Man I hope there's a better answer to this one...some secret site on the dark web somewhere... – Namedropper

haha, if it is it probably won't be on this site. due to the popularity of SO it will be found within seconds on google. – Doorknob

The other option is to take a course from a local university that offers SAP instruction... – Mukden

I have always found SAP very closed in nature. I hope some open source project one day crushes it. I can dream can't I? I do like some things about the SAP GUI client though. – Reste

This answer is so painfully wrong it just boggles the mind. "The last time you checked" - that would be around 1530, right? – Lunate

A clean -1 for what sounds like FUD to me. Vague, no references, "last time I checked", "I doubt". A simple search at your favourite online book store shows that if your statement about SAP sueing 3rd parties for documenting their system is correct some publishers must be defying the risk. – Godthaab

Answer 5

In brief, this is how I learned about SAP:

• Did a 4 year sandwich computer course at University - they didn't even mention SAP
• The 3rd year of the University course was a placement year
• I got a job within a SAP department in a large bank that had recently implemented SAP
• For the first 3 months I traveled all over the UK installing the SAP GUI software
• Later I took ownership of the SAP Portal systems and got involved in SAP BASIS. Most importantly I got to know what each of the SAP teams did, which enabled me to discover what I wanted to do in my career
• Went back to University for my 4th year (while I did this I did a project for University, which I did based on SAP, so I kept in touch with the SAP department at the bank and visited them most weeks)
• After finishing University, I went to work for the SAP department at the bank full-time.
• There I lead the SAP Technical team department, which was a cross between BASIS, networking and development. Mostly middleware, end to end as well as back end technologies
• From there I moved into the SAP BASIS team
• Then I moved to another company which uses Windows and MS SQL (the bank was mostly UNIX and Oracle) and also uses some different SAP modules, a different usage model and various other aspects that are similar but not the same, so I was able to move my core skill-set over as well as increase it
• I'm still there and still learning!

I have been on several SAP and non-SAP courses.

Mra

Answer 6

As someone who has worked with SAP for 14 years, I can tell you that most 3rd party books are terrible. The best books come from SAPPress, the publishing division of SAP America.

The best way to learn SAP is to get IDES access from a partner and start creating ABAP programs in the transaction SE38. It is no different than learning any other programming language except that the programming language construct is not open source/freeware like ECLIPSE. It is within the ABAP stack of SAP.

Additionally, if you buy an SAP training program- you will get an "S User" id that will allow access to the SAP Developer Network which will enable further learning. This is expensive, but those that are serious ALL have an S User ID.

Jeseniajesh

How is an "S User ID" different from the free SDN (SAP Developer Network) account that you can create? (I created one at the end of 2010.) By the way, the SDN seems to have been renamed to SCN (SAP Community Network). – Godthaab

Found out how an S-ID is different from a regular SDN/SCN one: Access to service.sap.com – Godthaab

Answer 7

We're actually having the same kind of problem. We need to interface our system with SAP and whatever information you can find on your own is not helping much. The only way that has worked for now is to find an experience person who would help us for free (such as our customers who win themselves if they help us interconnect our piece with their SAP installation).

Teaching courses seem to be too expensive to afford when you clearly see that you won't learn much in a few days/weeks. The other option of hiring external SAP consultants is also not considered because of the costs.

I know that they are ready to teach new young graduates ABAP and their system. Or at least were ready, as they stopped employment last year completely.

From some brief time being there (writing a thesis) I remember they have extensive internal portal with message boards and various listing. If you have friends working there you can ask them to publish a private ad asking for some private lessons. Another option is to pick up a student who say started a job there but dropped it after a year or so. This way you could potentially have someone with some knowledge but not costing yet a fortune.

Supplicatory

Answer 8

Refer saptechnical.com for some good sap tutorials of ABAP & Webdynpro abap..

Also Refer sapfunctional.com to get sound knowledge of all Important Functional Modules of SAP, like MM, SD, FI, etc..

Robbierobbin

Answer 9

SAP is an ocean & known is a drop. But there's nothing stopping us from knowing it all.

• ABAP : There are some great wikis in SDN & help.sap where you can explore ABAP. I'd suggest since you'd explored more on obj. oriented programming, its best suited to learn ABAP Objects. Its much interesting & simpler like C#/Java etc. In SDN you can explore a lot in this wiki. ABAP is a great choice. As an ABAPer, we can solve issues, pretty much enhancements etc, but its mostly COBOLic. I mean procedural & you'd need SAP system to learn it, as there are not pretty much 'free' online compilers available to test & run!

• Other Options : As you'd worked prior on MS. Would suggest you to have a look at MS - SAP Duet. Today's job market has lot of professionals in technical aspects & lesser process, functional & management level associates. Click here for more information on SAP Microsoft Duet. Duet Enterprise, a product jointly developed by SAP + MS. It combines the collaboration and productivity supported by MS SharePoint with the business data and business processing functionality of SAP applications.

• ByD : Plus if you've some experience in c#, would suggest have a look at SAP ByDesign SDK. Code name : Copernicus. Now released as ByD Studio. This is amazing as the keywords, codes & scripts are more similar like c#. A perspective on this would be available here in this link.

Unleash your coding skills.. All the best..

Mcshane