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SAP Business One Integration

What is SAP Business One (SAP B1)?

SAP Business One is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, specifically designed for small and medium businesses; it is developed by SAP SE (Germany). SAP Business One, is an effective tool for small business management.

SAP Business One modules

SAP Business One has 15 business modules that are enough to solve most of the business problems, regardless of the industry of the organization. Each SAP B1 module can independently perform a specific business task. But at the same time, different modules can be linked together.
  • Administration
  • Business Partners
  • Banking
  • CRM
  • Inventory
  • Financials
  • Opportunities
  • Sales – A/R
  • Service
  • Purchasing – A/P
  • Production
  • Project Management
  • Resources
  • Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
  • Human Resources

SAP Business One Architecture

SAP Business One has a Client-server model architecture and can run on-premises or in the cloud.

There are various options for running SAP Business One for a business:

– SAP Business One on a SQL Server database.

– SAP Business One on Analytics in SAP HANA (if you need more analytical capabilities).

– SAP Business One Cloud – SAP’s cloud-based platform for SAP Business One.

Why SMEs need SAP Business One Integration?

Integration can help reduce errors and improve overall efficiency.

SAP Business One integration is essential to maximize the performance of every business system in an enterprise, including e-commerce account(s) on Amazon, Shopify, or BigCommerce.

When SAP B1 and other business systems or e-commerce in a company operate separately, they become isolated information systems. Information in different systems often overlaps, and there is a large amount of duplicate data that must be manually updated to ensure consistency across all systems.

As a result, enterprises are faced with the need to manually enter or transfer data, where the risk of human error is very high. All this slows down working processes and increases operating costs.

Employees who need to work in multiple unconnected business systems within an enterprise will have an increased level of frustration and reduced efficiency as they must switch between different systems.

Suggested Readings:  Efficient Salesforce and SAP Integration with Magic xpi Integration Platform

Simple, streamlined SAP B1 integration – is it possible?

The short answer is YES, it is very possible with the Integration platform Magic xpi.

SAP Business One connector of Magic xpi, the integration platform, allows performing a wide range of integrations between your SAP Business One application and other business systems.

Critical integration projects can be completed quickly and easily with Magic xpi due to built-in connectors and a no-code, drag-and-drop approach.

Integrate and automate processes with Magic xpi to benefit from the ease of maintenance and a quick return on investment.

Integrating SAP B1 with other business systems

Let’s look at a few examples of how SAP B1 can be integrated with various business systems using Magic xpi integration platform.

1. E-commerce integration with SAP Business One

Timely and error-free transfer of information to and from many e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, BigCommerce, Magento, eBay, etc.

2. FedEx / DHL/ UPS SAP Business One Integration

Courier Integration allows your company accurate transfer of order information to your courier(s).

3. Procurement Management with SAP Business One

With SAP Business One supplier Integration, you can perform error-free import and maintenance of up-to-date supplier data into SAP Business One.

4. Inter-Company Trading

Efficiency and accuracy improvements by automating processes between companies’ business systems.

5. Enterprise Mobility

Fast and reliable mobilization of SAP data and processes for use in Order Entry, Proof-of-Delivery, Field Service apps, and more.

Have a question about integration? Book a FREE one-on-one consultation with our integration expert.

The Benefits of SAP Business One Integration

The benefits of integrating SAP with various business systems are enormous and affect almost every function in an enterprise.

Increased productivity

Integration makes employees more efficient because the technological cycle becomes shorter and employees spend less time switching between different systems or communication. In addition, they are freed from non-productive tasks and can concentrate on real tasks.

Reduced costs

Savings by significantly reducing errors in all processes. Including time to correct incorrectly entered data. There is no need to involve employees to transfer information between different systems.

Increased Revenue

More opportunities to close deals, because information about buyer and the stock is accurately available at any time. Direct access to a complete customer profile, purchase history, and new product shipments increases the opportunity for additional sales.

Increase in customer satisfaction

As the ordering cycle gets shorter and faster, the quality of customer service improves.

Customers receive quick and accurate responses to their inquiries so they are more satisfied with the service. Thus, the business will benefit from increased customer loyalty, repeat purchases.

The Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on e-commerce

This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.


In almost all countries where coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread, isolation, social distance, and lockdown measures were taken. Whenever possible, employees have been asked to work remotely from home, schools have been closed, and people have been asked to avoid public crowded places.

It is not surprising that in this pandemic of coronavirus disease situation more and more people turned to shop online. Thus, the COVID-19 virus can stimulate e-commerce, as consumers avoid visiting places like shops, malls, and shopping centers.

People’s habits are changing very quickly, therefore the category of consumers who never made online purchases previously, are somehow forced to do so, because of the Coronavirus pandemic; consumers will likely continue to do online purchases in the future, considering they live a positive shopping experience online. Hence why companies running online commerce stores must be ready to quickly and efficiently meet the needs of an increasingly growing number of customers and their demands, while the pandemic’s curve does not seem to be likely in the near future…

Read also: Coronavirus Is Changing How Consumers Shop

Increase E-Commerce Efficiency by Connecting online store to ERP Software

ERP is a business management software. It is used to collect, store and manage data of various business processes of an enterprise. Implementation of an ERP system is considered necessary for the effectiveness of the management of any company.

ERP systems, originally implemented only by industrial enterprises, are now adopted by most organizations, regardless of the size of the company, industry, or country. One of the most popular ERP systems is SAP ERP Software, Oracle JDE for large enterprises, and Microsoft Dynamics suite in addition to numerous ERP systems for the mid and small market…

E-commerce stores must be viewed from two sides. The first is the store’s external interface, which allows online visitors to shop online. The second side is the internal business process of your online store. Inventory, orders, and sales management.

Connecting ERP / SAP (for example), to your online store is critical to the successful functioning and development of your online business.

Yes, your online store can work even without integration with your ERP system. However, in this case, a company will have to leverage human resources to manually manage orders, inventory, and sales orders, which is usually a very demanding job, inefficient, often leading to lots of human errors and increasing the delivery window of the orders… This will certainly result in a loss of profit, hence defeating the purpose of the basics of eCommerce.

Key Benefits of Integrating ERP with Shopify e-commerce store

Integration to Shopify or any other e-commerce platform with a company’s ERP prevents inefficient manual data entry between the business system and the online shop. Manual data entry is very time-consuming and involves a high risk of costly errors.

Data transfer errors are one of the most common errors that occur in online stores that are not integrated with the company’s business system. These can be errors with both, the end-users and the suppliers. These errors lead to financial losses; company’s executives should take it seriously and should not ignore those facts.

Integrating the ERP of a company with its online eCommerce store, will certainly eliminate all these errors and provide a close to real-time synchronization between the ERP and Shopify for example, which is necessary to guarantee error-free data transmission between both systems/platforms.

Integration can save companies a lot of time by providing continuous and uninterrupted data transfer between the online store and their business system. This means the purchase order, inventory update, etc. can be automatically updated on both systems, eliminating duplicate data entry.

The integration service that we provide at EDI2XML, is bi-directional between the Shopify online store and a company’s ERP. In other words, information is transferred back and forth between both systems.

Through integration, an order created in the online store is registered in the ERP system without any human intervention. This not only avoids errors but also saves on salary costs.

In the same way, the availability of stock data from the ERP is synchronized with the online store. Thus, online customers have up-to-date information on available products, always.

How to Connect Shopify e-commerce store with SAP ERP Software

Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform that can be integrated with your ERP software using Magic xpi integration platform while leveraging Magic’s SAP-certified connectors.

Magic xpi Integration Platform lets you easily integrate, synchronize and automate processes between ERP systems and e-commerce store and provides a robust integration with any ERP. It is a proven Integration Platform certified for SAP Applications, SAP NetWeaver, and other major enterprise application vendors.
Shopify integration with SAP

Below are some of the examples of business process integration between Shopify and business systems:
  • ERP – eCommerce Catalog data integration
  • inventory data pushed to the Shopify store
  • ERP to eCommerce pricing updates (bidirectional)
  • real-time inventory checks
  • real-time credit checks
  • order information pushed to ERP
  • address book updates (bidirectional)
  • shipping confirmations
  • delivery notices
  • inventory alarms to eCommerce managers
  • call center integration
  • CRM integration

With near real-time processes, information is updated within seconds. Magic xpi automates the way you deal between ERP and Shopify processes.

Integration Partners That Will Grow Your Business

Any integration project requires technical expertise. We, at EDI2XML offer our customers, Integration services to complex ecosystems such as SAP, ServiceMax, Salesforce, JD Edwards, Oracle ERP, SugarCRM, and more.

For over 21 years, we have been partner with a Global software company Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., which provides the Magic xpi integration platform.

Professionally made synchronization of the e-commerce online store with ERP really helps to make business processes as efficient as possible.

Our company will gladly help you with any Integration project. Contact us to get a free consultation.
Shopify integration price list

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Integrating CRM with business software using Magic xpi

This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

More and more, companies are seeking to optimize their workflows as much as possible, by using different IT solutions.

The fact is, more software applications that are “heterogenous” are deployed on a company premises. It is common to see for example a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, being leveraged along with different business applications and systems such as ERP (Enterprise resource planning), EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), e-commerce store and others. Companies need to optimize and improve their processes by integrating as much as possible all different apps and software solutions being used to run their day to day operations.

Before we start talking about integration, let’s have a quick overview of CRM.

What is CRM?

If you refer to Wikipedia, you find the following definition: “Customer-relationship management (CRM) is an approach to manage a company’s interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers’ history to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth”.

In other words, a CRM is a tool for managing clients and their related information, as well as a way to speed up and streamline sales processes.

CRM market

According to Statista, Global CRM software revenue increased from $ 13.93 billion in 2010 to $ 39.5 billion in 2017. The market was driven by strong software as a service (SaaS) growth.

“In 2018, CRM software revenue will continue to take the lead of all software markets and be the fastest growing software market with a growth rate of 16 percent,” said Julian Poulter, research director at Gartner.

There are a lot of companies in the CRM system market, but the four largest vendors of CRM system offerings are:

Salesforce: is a leader of the CRM software market. American developer of the CRM system, provided only the SaaS model. Technical experts mark the company as the “main players in the cloud computing market” along with Oracle, SAP, Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com

Suggested Readings: How to get more out of Salesforce with EDI Integration

SAP: is a European multinational software corporation that develops enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. SAP provide new generation of CRM tools and customer engagement solutions. SAP Hybrid solutions are more than traditional CRM software, they provide in-memory technology and Big Data insights to help companies drive contextual, personalized customer engagement in real time – across any channel or line of business.

Suggested Readings: How To Successfully Complete SAP/R3 EDI Integration Projects Using iDoc

Oracle: is an American multinational computer technology corporation. Oracle CRM is one of the leading products in the CRM market. It has a robust and intuitive interface and a variety of product lines and deployment models:

a) Oracle CRM On-Premises: is a traditional on-premises deployment where the customer needs to buy or lease his own hardware, operating systems and databases, and install a packaged Oracle CRM system on it.

b) CRM On Demand and Oracle Sales Cloud are cloud CRM solutions which are accessible over the internet and paid for by a monthly subscription fee.

Suggested Readings: Oracle JD Edwards Integration: the key to Digital Transformation

Microsoft is an American multinational technology company. One of the leading companies in the CRM space with its Microsoft Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 platform offers companies an exceptional set of productivity tools across sales, marketing, and customer service. Microsoft Dynamics 365, is unique of its kind in the CRM marketplace, and leading the way in innovation, usability and user experience.

Suggested Readings: The main reasons why you need Microsoft Dynamics Integration with your business Systems

What does CRM integration mean?

Today, it is very common to see enterprises running different types of systems, to run their business. It is common for example to see a company adopting JD Edwards Enterprise one as an ERP, while at the same time, having their sales and marketing department, leveraging Salesforce.com for as their CRM software.

Natively, both branded software systems (JDE and Salesforce), do NOT connect together “out-of-the-box”. However, both of these solutions, offer an API or web service to read/write data.

Integration of a CRM with an ERP helps automate the processes, reduce human errors and maintain a better quality of data for the enterprise.

Additionally, integrating a CRM system to another ERP software, aims at creating an omnichannel (unified) system to collect data about the client from all sources: call center, store, online store, website and social networks. The company must have complete information about its client — this will make the most advantageous offers and provide the best support. Analysis of CRM systems shows that the effect of integrating CRM with other corporate applications can significantly increase company productivity.

Thanks to the integration, data into a CRM system can be visible and transferred to other applications.

Here are some use cases of integration of a CRM

Integration of CRM with the e-commerce site(s): This is very common integration, that allows to synchronize data from an eCommerce site into a CRM system. On the e-commerce site your customers can register and make orders and at the same time, customer contacts are sent from the e-commerce site to your CRM systems. Next, with these contacts, the work can be done already in the CRM system. Namely, the initial call to the customer, the appointment, the second call and so on.

Integration of CRM with accounting and finance: Most often this method is used to upload customer data to accounting programs. Back from the accounting program can be taken in CRM information about payments and receivables from customers.

Large companies that use ERP systems can integrate applications even more closely. For example, orders are initially sent from the e-commerce site to CRM and processed by sales managers, then, automatically transferred to the ERP system. In ERP, further work will be done with the customer’s order (production, logistics, etc.). The status of the order will be returned to CRM.

Benefits of CRM Integration

Integration of CRM with other business applications and systems used by the business will allow:

  • spend less time on search and exchange of information between departments;
  • reduce personnel costs;
  • reduce the risk of losing contacts and other important information about the clients;
  • see full statistics of company activity and configure the end-to-end analytics;
  • migrate workflows into a single interface;
  • reduce paperwork to the minimum;
  • configure automatic data exchange with partners and contractors — for example, a delivery service, bookkeeping outsourcing company or coalition loyalty programs;

Overcoming Integration Challenges with Magic xpi

Using the Magic xpi Integration platform, you can easily integrate enterprise-level solutions due to Magic xpi code-free, business process automation, and data synchronization solutions.

Magic xpi has pre-build, optimized and certified adaptors for most branded CRM systems such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, SugarCRM, and other.

Magic xpi extends the capability and usage of your CRM system. You can achieve simply and intuitively integration with your company’s business applications, like IBM i, JD Edwards, SAP, Lotus Notes, accounting, ERP, supply chain management, HRMS, logistics, and many more.

Magic xpi, using its visual and intuitive design tools, can simplify and unify the interfaces of your CRM, as well as other business systems in use, while not using any custom coding.

For learn more about Magic xpi integration platform, watch this video

Magic xpi Integration Project Lifecycle

  1. Analysis: Analyze your business processes.
  2. Design: Design and build your business processes and integration flows in the Magic xpi Studio.
  3. Connection: Quickly connect all your existing enterprise applications using Magic xpi built-in certified connectors and adaptors.
  4. Testing: Test the integration flows on simulated business processes, without Interrupting real business activity.
  5. Optimization: Before full deployment, perform risk-free optimization of your business processes and integration flows.
  6. Deployment: Deploy your new integration solution using the Magic xpi server.
  7. Monitoring: Monitor the integration of your business processes.

Click here to download our free White Paper on Magic xpi Integration Platform

The main key to the success – is digital transformation.

Change the usual workflow and introduce new technologies is not easy. Often employees are unwilling and fear of change. However, as you may already know, or have learned from this article, there are many arguments in favor of automation and integration of your business application and systems.

Moreover, if you do not engage new technologies, this does not mean that your competitors are not doing so: competition is ahead. Do not lose customers, develop faster with new technologies. Contact us today for free IT consultation.

Free CRM Intergation consultation

Efficient Salesforce and SAP Integration with Magic xpi Integration Platform

This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

To improve the productivity of their business, companies invest in the best software solutions and platforms to become more efficient. Numerous large and medium-size companies around the world use SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) along with Salesforce’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

However, at some point, companies realize the inefficiencies due to the fact end-users have to maintain two different systems simultaneously, which results in duplicating data entry, therefore, creating inconsistencies between both systems. They realize how crucial it is to have these two important systems work together in synchronized mode. Efficient and faster system integration with Magic xpi is a proven solution in a similar case.

Before we start reviewing Salesforce and SAP Integration, let’s describe in a quick summary what Salesforce CRM and SAP ERP systems are.

What is ERP?

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning – is an integrated business-management software for administrating internal and external company resources. The system’s purpose is to unify the flow of information between all business units in a company.
ERP Integration with Magic xpi

ERP systems allow to create a standardized and unified information space of the enterprise. In other words, an ERP system is a single-entry point, a single processing center and a single source of information of the activities in an enterprise.

SAP ERP – Overview

The company SAP (Systems, Applications and Products) was founded in 1972 in Germany, by former employees of IBM. It is the world’s largest software corporation. The company now, has over 404,000 customers in over 180 countries.

SAP ERP (SAP R/3)

SAP ERP system (SAP R/3) is a multi-component system that allows to connect business processes of production, procurement, sales and marketing in a company. SAP ERP, is made up of separate components and modules, natively integrated.

SAP R/3 Components

SAP ERP (SAP R / 3) includes three core functional areas, divided into modules.
  • Financial – include financial accounting, controlling, fixed asset management etc.
  • Human Resources – organizational management, includes functionality for recruitment, personnel records, payroll.
  • Logistics – integrates sales and distribution, materials management, production planning, quality management, plant maintenance

What is CRM?

CRM – customer relationship management is a software designed to help businesses improve their customer relationships. CRM focuses on the preservation and analysis of data to improve the marketing, service and business relations with customers.

Salesforce CRM – Overview
Integration Salesforce

Salesforce.com, Inc. is a cloud computing company that provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. Salesforce has been holding leadership in the global CRM systems market for many years.

There are a large variety of Salesforce CRM categories for all customer needs:
  • Salesforce Sales Cloud – The Sales Cloud is a CRM platform that enables a company to manage sales, marketing and customer support.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud –to manage customer journey, email, mobile, social media, web personalization, content creation, content management and data analytics.
  • Salesforce Service Cloud –is a service platform for customer service and support.
  • Salesforce Community Cloud is an online social platform to connect customers, partners, and employees with each other. So, a company can service customers more effectively, and get work done in real time.
  • Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a highly scalable, cloud-based SaaS ecommerce solution.

Read: How to get more out of Salesforce with EDI Integration

What is Magic xpi ?

Magic xpi, is one of the key integration and orchestration technologies on the system integration market. Actually, it is one of the oldest in this space. Magic xpi helps companies in their digital transformation journey, and enable them to integrate heterogenous systems, databases and business processes using certified connectors by the manufacturer. It is a reliable SOA, API-driven integration platform for all connectivity needs.
System Integration with Magic xpi

Why System Integration is Important?

Systems integration with Magic xpi can help avoid problems related to the interaction of corporate systems. Companies can get closer to its client by putting together ERP, CRM, social networks and mobile apps.

Salesforce and SAP integration will allow companies to take advantage of both Systems. For example, Salesforce for collecting and registering orders and the ability of the ERP system to process them. In addition, the process of entering orders into the corporate system is significantly accelerated and the percentage of operator errors decreases.

Read: Salesforce integration and Magic xpi: Things you should know

The best of both: ERP and CRM

Salesforce and SAP integration is essential to maximize each system’s output, reduce errors, and improve overall organizational efficiency.

As mentioned above, SAP is one of the world’s leading providers of enterprise software solution and an important advantage of SAP ERP is its capability to integrate with third-party solutions through either iDOC or BAPI. This integration improves performance and helps automate many business processes. But in order to achieve the desired results, you need to be sure that the integration process is done properly, using certified connectors by SAP themselves, and all systems work as planned.

SAP and Salesforce Integration Challenge

Despite the fact that Salesforce and SAP offer a complete and documented APIs, integration of these two complex systems is not as simple as it may seem at first glance, especially if going through the legacy point-to-point integration using traditional coding methodology.

Each one of these systems, provides its own API:

SAP offers connectivity using BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) and iDoc (for standard and customized schemes) or web services interfaces via SAP Netweaver XI/PI.

Salesforce also provides a Web service interface.

Understanding the structure, dependencies and requirements of each API during a systems integration, requires a lot of efforts, because each API is different, specific to the corresponding vendor, and typically very time consuming to learn and read all documentation.

The integration challenge is further complicated by the fact that SAP is an on-premises solution, while Salesforce is a fully cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) solution.

Systems integration and automation processes usually require a lot of custom coding, which is very difficult and tedious to write with a point-to-point approach.

Experience has shown, the system integration using manual coding is inefficient. In case you have integrated with complex and lengthy individual coding, you will almost certainly have less opportunity to incorporate appropriate and unified mechanisms for live processes managing. If the appropriate integration tools are not used, companies lose sight of the benefits of integration opportunities due to the direct costs and risks that manual integration entails.

Overcoming integration problems using Magic xpi

Magic xpi integration platform, provides fast and efficient enterprise-grade integration. With Magic xpi, there is no need for additional coding. This is a proven solution for automating business processes and data synchronization.
ERP/CRM Integration

Magic xpi has “certified connectors” certified by Salesforce and SAP and Salesforce respectively. It extends the proficiencies of any Salesforce CRM and SAP systems. Magic xpi easily synchronize, integrates and orchestrates business processes, enterprise applications using a visual “drag and drop” mechanism, between source and destination.

Without custom coding, using visual and intuitive design tools Magic xpi unifies and makes Salesforce and SAP interface easier. Magic xpi allows you to create simple or very complex integration scenarios between several systems, data retrieval and conversion, use of any communication protocol, monitoring, scheduled tasks, reliable deployment, and more.

With Magic xpi, a company can get accurate and real-time view of corporate information, without any user intervention. Magic xpi’s code-free approach enables companies to quickly deploy integration projects, in a matter of days rather than months. Thus, benefiting from an immediate return on investment.

Read: How to Choose the Right Integration Platform?

Efficient and easy integration

Our main priority is to find solutions that increase business efficiency. We have a successful experience in integrating different systems using Magic xpi integration platform. Our deep understanding of business context and various industry specifics, allows us to create solutions that make any business activity as efficient as possible.

How To Successfully Complete SAP/R3 EDI Integration Projects Using iDoc

,
Article written by Pierre Namroud, EDI Integration Specialist & Business Consultant

During my professional career as an integrator and EDI expert, I had the opportunity to work on several major integration projects. Some of them were in an Oracle environment while others had to do with integrating with SAP/R3. Other projects included integrations with different types of systems such as Salesforce, Shopify, Microsoft suites, etc.

In today’s EDI2XML post, I will share my experience as an ‘Integrator’ to lay down the basis of a successful integration project of EDI and SAP/R3. Please note, however, that I am not an SAP expert and during these integration projects I worked closely with SAP professionals and credit them for all of their efforts in completing the SAP portions of this type of project.

What is SAP/R3?

SAP/R3 is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solution produced by the well-known German company, SAP. This specific version,“R3”, has been renamed to ECC (ERP Central Component). SAP Business One is also a sub-set ERP software from the same Software Provider and it is designed for Small Businesses.

SAP ERP Solutions are widely present in corporate enterprises in North America, Europe and all around the world. It is one of the most popular corporate ERP software solutions.

Does SAP support EDI Integration?

SAP ECC (or R3), out of the box, does in fact support EDI integration. The EDI format that is currently supported by SAP is called iDoc. Simply put, iDoc format files or messages are proprietary to SAP and they are similar to, and based on, EDIFACT messages.

In essence, if an iDoc file is provided to SAP, it will get processed using some specific BAPI and it will turn the iDoc into an order, in SAP.

EDI Transformation for SAP Integration

Most integration projects that I have worked on involved integrating EDI X12 formats within the SAP system, in both directions (incoming and outgoing messages). Since X12 EDI format is far from the iDoc format, our team was tasked with handling the transformation and EDI translation from X12 EDI to iDoc format.

Checklist for a Successful EDI Integration Project with SAP

Now that the basics are defined, I will share my recommendations, in a checklist format, to help guide you through a successful integration project for SAP and EDI.

  • Make sure you know how to work with SAP backend. If you are not highly knowledgeable or an expert in SAP, make sure to most definitely include someone who is, as part of your team. This is a must.
  • Make sure you work in a Development SAP environment, rather than a Production environment when doing the work.
  • Make sure to use the appropriate SAP BAPIs or RFC, well identified for each point you plan to integrate with SAP. This is very important and it is crucial to be identified. Your SAP expert can take the lead in this area.
  • Make sure to equip yourself and your integration team with an efficient integration framework. The completion timeline and success rate of this project will definitely be better if you equip your integration team with an efficient integration tool.
  • To avoid getting into an unknown space, outsource the translation of the EDI X12 or EDIFACT (or any other protocol) to a reliable, knowledgeable Service Provider. By teaming up with an EDI partner, you’ll quickly notice the real value they will bring to the table since they will handle all of the complexities that an EDI project can bring. Their task will be to do the EDI transformations and create one single iDoc format of EDI for your integration flows to SAP.

Conclusion

I sure hope that I was able to expose some of the challenges and complexities surrounding a typical SAP integration project, with the above checklist, and properly explained my recommendations, from my own personal experiences.

If you are interested to learn more about this topic or any other issue related to EDI integration projects, please click on the image below and I will be more than happy to contact you for a FREE consultation.

Free EDi Consultation and pricing