SAP Blog

SAP Books for Kindle

2011-02-01T21:20:00.005+02:00

Kindle is a great reading device from Amazon.com. I see it as an interface to the largest library on the Planet Earth. Within seconds you have access to almost 1 milion books.

If you don't have one yet, you should get one now. I recommend the Kindle Wi-Fi - it's only 139 USD.

As a SAP Consultant, I checked if there are any SAP books available for Kindle. I found a lot of interesting books which cost a lot less than the paper edition.

Here is a list of the SAP Books available for Kindle:

Sams Teach Yourself SAP in 24 Hours
Book Description: Sams Teach Yourself SAP in 24 Hours, Second Edition is the perfect tool for learning one of the most sophisticated enterprise solutions available today. Designed to being with the basics, you will become acquainted with the entire SAP system, from navigation to creating your own reports. You'll also cover:

Implementation tools and methodologies
NetWeaver
ECC 5.0
Designing Screens and menus
Reporting
Integration with Microsoft Office
And more

SAP Implementation Unleashed: A Business and Technical Roadmap to Deploying SAP
Book Description: SAP can help you capture better information and deliver it more quickly, allowing you to make better decisions and maximize the business value of everything you do. However, SAP implementations require massive effort, total buy-in, and significant change throughout the organization. In SAP Implementation Unleashed, 10 expert SAP project managers, functional consultants, and technologists guide you through the entire journey, helping you avoid pain and pitfalls and gain all the benefits of SAP.

SAP R/3 for Everyone: Step-by-Step Instructions, Practical Advice, and Other Tips and Tricks for Working with SAP
Book Description: SAP R/3 for Everyone is the nontechnical user's guide to working with SAP R/3, the leading business enterprise software product in the world. Written and road-tested by experienced SAP R/3 users and trainers, this book saves typical SAP R/3 users time and trouble by providing them with the universal skills needed to work with any module of this complex software.
SAP R/3 can be used effectively by anyone who can perform a handful of simple procedures that are employed in nearly every SAP R/3 transaction. The authors explain these procedures in plain English, using illustrations and real-world examples.

SAP® ERP Financials and FICO Handbook
Book Description: This up-to-date quick reference guides the reader through the most popular SAP module. It includes material on SAP ERP Financials, SAP FICO, and SAP R/3. Unlike most books that only provide questions and answers for certification or interview preparation, this book covers fifty common business situations related to ERP Financials/FICO and provides practical solutions for them. In addition, the book begins with over 200 FAQs and certification questions for those who need a quick review of the material. A CD-ROM with FICO templates, short cuts, and color figures from the book is included with the text.

SAP® Business Information Warehouse Reporting
Book Description: Your Hands-On Guide to SAP Business Information Warehouse. Give your company the competitive edge by delivering up-to-date, pertinent business reports to users inside and outside your enterprise. SAP Business Information Warehouse Reporting shows you how to construct Enterprise Data Warehouses, create workbooks and queries, analyze and format results, and supply meaningful reports. Learn how to use the BEx and Web Analyzers, Web Application Designer, Visual Composer, and Information Broadcaster. You will also find out how to forecast future business trends, build enterprise portals and websites, and tune performance. Group data into InfoCubes and DataStore Objects and generate reports using queries and workbooks. Work with the BEx Analyzer, Web Analyzer, and Query Designer. Build queries and reports using the Business Administration Workbench. Add attachments and drill-through using Document Integration and RRI. Format and distribute results using Report Designer and Information Broadcaster. Extend functionality with Enterprise Portal, Data Modeling, and Visual Composer. Deploy charts, maps, diagrams, and unit of measure conversions. Predict trends and possible outcomes using SBC and Integrated Planning. Generate HTML pages using Enterprise Reporting and Web Application Designer. Create BI-based corporate Web and intranet sites using SAP Enterprise Portal.

SAP Project System Handbook (Essential Skills (McGraw Hill))
Book Description: Centralize and Control Enterprise Project Management Plan, execute, and track projects across the entire lifecycle using SAP Project System (PS) and the in-depth information contained in this comprehensive volume. SAP Project System Handbook explains how to configure PS for optimal performance, design structures and networks, create project blueprints, generate cost estimates and materials demands, and use the latest SAP tools. You will find full details on scheduling work, automating and tracking billing and POs, triggering events, and integrating with most other SAP modules. An invaluable reference to PS transaction codes is also included. * Configure and customize SAP Project System * Build PS objects, networks, and Work Breakdown Structures * Use customer and service projects to track sales and billing * Understand Assembly Processing concepts * Create integrated cost, settlement, and resource plans * Develop financial, workforce, and materials management blueprints * Perform resource-related billing using Dynamic Item Processor Profiles * Simulate and automatically generate sales documents, POs, and quotations * Manage corporate investments with IM structures and AUCs * Construct timesaving Project, Network, and Milestone Templates * Extend functionality with the Project Builder, Planning Board, and ProMan

Configuring SAP ERP Sales and Distribution
Book Description: The first and only book to offer detailed explanations of SAP ERP sales and distribution. As the only book to provide in-depth configuration of the Sales and Distribution (SD) module in the latest version of SAP ERP, this valuable resource presents you with step-by-step instruction, conceptual explanations, and plenty of examples. If you're an SD consultant or are in charge of managing an SAP implementation in your enterprise, you'll want this valuable resource at your side.

SAP is one of the leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software products on the market, with over 40,000 implementations
Covers the latest version of SAP ERP-ECC 6.0
Covers common through advanced configurations, so it's helpful no matter what your level of experience with SAP
Explains the conceptual framework behind the configuration process

If your company uses the SD module, keep this indispensable guide on hand

SAP MM - A Complete Reference to SAP MM (Material Management)
Book Decription: This book is for those who are in SAP MM or interested to learn SAP MM. This book is wrote keeping in mind the problems faced by newcomers or end users. It includes screen shot of SAP and Describes each and every aspect like customization paths, implementation etc...

SAP: An Executive's Comprehensive Guide
Book Description: Crucial Help for Getting the Most from Today’s Information Systems Technology Deciding what type of information systems your company will need to stay competitive into the twenty-first century is a highly complex and risky exercise. SAP: An Executive’s Comprehensive Guide provides the information you need to assess your options realistically and make the most informed decisions possible. Written by a team of business, financial, and information systems professionals who have extensive experience with SAP system implementations at Fortune 500 companies, this book:

Explores the strategic role of client/server enterprise computing now and in the next century
Helps you to evaluate your company’s long-term IS requirements
Offers an impartial look at SAP R/3 strengths and weaknesses
Outlines the costs and benefits involved in implementing SAP R/3
Helps you decide whether SAP R/3 is right for your organization
Shows you how to make SAP R/3 an integral part of process redesign
Covers all key technical SAP aspects of concern to IS professionals

SAP Enterprise Structure Concept and Configuration Guide - A Case Study
Book Description: SAP enterprise structure is organizational structure that represents an enterprise in SAP R/3 system. It consists of some organizational units which, for legal reasons or for other specific business-related reasons or purposes, are grouped together. I wrote this e-book to explain in details about the SAP Enterprise Structure (MM and related modules such as FI, Logistics, and SD) Concept and Configuration Guide. Just like other articles on my SAP Study Materials blog, I wrote the e-book in a simple-to-understand way, so you can learn it easily. You don't need to have extensive SAP knowledge and experience to be able to configure the SAP Enterprise Structure, as the e-book start explaining each step with the basic concept behind it. After understanding the concept, the e-book will show the step-by-step configuration with the screen shots.

SAP NetWeaver Portal Technology: The Complete Reference
Book Description: Your Hands-on Guide to SAP NetWeaver Portal Technology Master SAP NetWeaver Portal with the most comprehensive, step-by-step reference available on the entire portal implementation life cycle. Written by SAP architect Rabi Jay, this book provides everything you need to plan, design, install, configure, and administer SAP NetWeaver Portal, including SAP NetWeaver Application Server Java. SAP NetWeaver Portal Technology: The Complete Reference is filled with detailed descriptions, numerous illustrations, and hundreds of expert tips. Design and deploy portals with high availability, scalability, and performance. Implement single sign-on to backend systems and integrate SAP and non-SAP applications. Configure reliable J2EE engine and portal security, and devise a flawless portal backup and restore strategy. Improve performance using portal workload, GC, thread dump, and HTTP analysis. Plan futuristically using PAM, release planning, and maintenance strategy Design global portals using federated portal networks and external-facing portals Implement self-registration and delegated user and content administration Enable authorization using security zones, UME actions, and ACL permissions Manage users centrally using LDAP, UME, and Identity Management Implement user-, type-, and attribute-based authentication Brand your portal using portal desktop rules, themes, and framework pages Configure portal transports, and deploy patches and business packages using JSPM Monitor your portal using CCMS and GRMG Availability Monitoring Manage your portal centrally using NWA and maintain systems using SLD.

More SAP books for Kindle

XBLNR on Aggregate billing

2010-10-25T18:23:00.002+03:00

In aggregate billing process, if Oficial Number Document functionality is active the aggregated invoice doesn't get an official document number unless you apply note 1363482.

To implement the note, create program z_e21c which is called in function module ISU_INV_PREPARE_UPDATE:

REPORT z_e21c.
*&---------------------------------------------------------------------**& Form act_aggrbill_xblnr*&---------------------------------------------------------------------** text*----------------------------------------------------------------------** -->Y_ACTIVE text*----------------------------------------------------------------------*FORM act_aggrbill_xblnr CHANGING y_active TYPE xfeld.
y_active = 'X'.
ENDFORM.

Replacement Value Procedure in EDM Profile

2010-07-09T12:57:00.001+03:00

When creating an EDM profile a replacement value procedure can be allocated.The role of this procedure is to create missing values in the profile. This can be done in the import process or in the billing simulation process. I belive the system creates the missing values in the settlement process as well but I haven't tested it (yet).

Recently I was asked the following question by a fellow EDM consultant:I want to use the replacement value procedure just in case of billing simulation and not during billing. So I started to play around in the system and I discovered that when defining the RV Procedure there is a setting called RVP After Imp (in SPRO -> SAP Utilities -> Energy Data Management -> Profile Management -> Replacement Value Creation -> Define Replacement Value Creation Group.

I quickly defined a RVP group and I didn't set up the RVP After Imp field. I created a profile and a quick file to use in transaction EEDMIMP01 - Profile Import. When the RVP After Imp field was set on the RVP group, the system created the missing profile values.If the field is not set, system doesn't create the missing profile values.Also, when doing the billing simulation in EA00 the system creates the missing profile values based on the RVP configuration.

So, if you need to set up your RVP group to be used only in billing simulation but not in billing do not set up the field RVP After Imp.

Packt invites SAP experts to write a new set of books

2010-06-11T08:31:00.000+03:00

Packt Publishing (www.PacktPub.com) is planning to expand its range of SAP books and is currently inviting book ideas and potential authors.

A list of some of the topics Packt will be interested in publishing includes:

SAP Business Intelligence SAP reporting with various SAP tools and crystal reports SAP ERP SAP certification guides SAP Netweaver

Packt is laso looking to develop books on specific industries like finance, fashion, medicine, law and so on.

While Packt is interested in these topics, this list is not exhaustive. If you have some interesting ideas on topics not mentioned in this list, you are welcome to send them across to the editorial team at Packt.

You don't need to have any past writing experience to write these books. If you have expert knowledge of your subject, a passion to share it with others and an ability to communicate clearly in English, you will be a perfect fit to write for Packt. Having an official recognition as SAP expert will be an advantage but not necessary.

Packt pays a royalty of 16% to its authors and an advanace against it.

So, if you love SAP and fancy writing a book, here's an opportunity for you. Contact Packt at author@packtpub.com with your book idea (if you have one). Even if you don't have a book idea and are simply interested in writing a book, Packt is keen to talk to you.

More details about this opportunity are available at: http://authors.packtpub.com/content/Packt-invites-sap-experts-write-books

SAP’s SME Solutions – A Guide to the Product Portfolio

2010-04-29T08:10:00.002+03:00

This is an interesting article about the SAP products for the SME market.

SAP’s SME Solutions – A Guide to the Product Portfolio

How to write effective SAP functional specs

2010-03-21T23:15:00.003+02:00

As a functional SAP consultant, sometime early in the realization phase, for each FRICE-W item identified in the blue print phase, we have to write functional specs. This is very important especially when the ABAP development team is not on the project site but somewhere 8 hours or more ahead (like India).

The functional spec document is very important document as it captures:
1) the requirements (FRICE-W scope)
2) the design or how it should work

The requirements:
Tipically a FRICE-W object is developed to cover a GAP in a standard SAP process. Therefore most often the object is require in order for a SAP process to work as the company intends to work. In the requirement section of the spec, the writer has to list all the things that the object should do. Also, sometimes is good to list what the FRICE-W object will not do just to set out the expectations.
Also each requirement should be as detail as possible.

The design or how FRICE-W object should work
In this part of the spec, the writer has to define how the FRICE-W will work. Usually a flow chart should be drawn to show how the information will flow from the SAP process to the FRICE-W and also inside the FRICE-W.
If user interface elements (such a screens, menus) will be developed these should be mocked so that the developer will have all the information to design the UI element. Usually I mock up the screens in Excel but any other tool will work. Also if some new field needs to be added to a standard SAP screen, a screen shot of that screen will be a good starting point.

When I write my specs I try to give the developer as much information as needed so usually I put the table and fields from where the data needs to be selected. The best way to find where data is stored in SAP is to press F1 on a screen field and the press the technical details button (the buttun with a hummer as the icon). In most of the cases this will show you the field name and table where that information is stored.

Other things to consider.
Most of the specs are not done from the first iteration, they have to go multiple itetation before they are signed off by all partie involved. A brief change history and versioning works very good to keep track of all the stages the spec went through.

Add test scenarios to the spec. Define a list of at least few test scenarios that both the developer and the tester should perform to test the object.

If you have other pice of advice of tips about writing effective SAP FRICE-W functional specs, please feel free to comment on this article.

SAP IS-U Presentations

2010-01-18T07:53:00.002+02:00

Here are a few interesting presentations about SAP IS-U:

http://www.pdfgeni.com/book/What-is-SAP-ISU-CCS-pdf.html

SAP IS-U Master Data Template ebook

2009-11-15T07:47:00.006+02:00

This ebook teaches you how to configure the SAP IS-U Master Data Template (EPRODCUST transaction) to create test data in IS-U system.

Now you can buy it for only 1.99 EUR.
Configure ISU Master Data Template to create test data
9.99 EUR

SAP ISU: Legacy Move In Date on the contract

2009-11-01T23:59:00.002+02:00

The other day I come to know that the field Legacy Move In Date (field EVER-EINZDAT_ALT) on the contract is not just an information only field. It is used in the meter estimation procedure to determine the vacant period.

What is the vacant period? Well, the SAP code is looking at the date when the device was installed and the validity periods of the contracts for that installation. In the case of the migration contract, it is not using the move-in date for that contract but it is using the legacy move-in date for that contract. Then if there is a vacant period which overlaps the base period the system basing the estimate on, the vacant period is subtracted from the whole base period. In other words, SAP considers that in a vacant period the consumption is zero.

So next time you cannot explain the way SAP calculated an meter reading estimate it can be worhwhile to check this side of the estimation equation.

If you are having an interest in SAP IS-U you can check out my sap-isu community at http://www.sap-isu.net .

EDM Overview videos

2009-04-03T20:30:00.002+03:00

Here are some videos about EDM.

EDM - Create Profile, Change Profile Values

Find more videos like this on SAP-ISU

EDM - Display Profile Values

Find more videos like this on SAP-ISU

I Want To Become a SAP Consultant

2009-02-14T21:21:00.002+02:00

Join the "I Want to Becoma a SAP Consultant" online community.

http://www.sapforall.net

This is a community for people wanting to pursue a career as SAP consultant.

SAP Training Materials - allmost FREE

2009-01-18T19:37:00.002+02:00

I just find out a very good resource if you want to learn SAP without investing thousands and thousands of your money!

Click here to see what you can get for less money! They have a huge discount these days, you can get all their SAP materials for only 47 USD.

Almost FREE SAP Courses - click here.

SAP-ISU.net SAP ISU social network

2009-01-09T09:43:00.001+02:00

I created a social network for SAP ISU Consultants to share knowledge and ideas.

You can find it here:

http://www.sap-isu.net

Free SAP Tip #1 - How to Use Substitutions in FI

2008-11-23T21:17:00.002+02:00

Nice article on How to Use Substitutions in FI module.

http://techbays.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/sap-tip-how-to-use-substitutions-lakshman-tandra1.pdf

Enjoy!

To subscribe at Free SAP Tips newsletter send a mail to freesaptips at gmail dot com.

SAP IS-U Billing Tariffs

2008-11-22T23:30:00.002+02:00

Hey guys!

Do you have problems with setting up an IS-U Billing rate or something related to EDM in your current project. Let me help you. Send me your rate structure / EDM issue and I'll help you.

You can sent me an email at danieltoba at yahoo dot com or daniel.toba at gmail dot com.

Who's gonna be the first?

Free SAP Tips

2008-11-16T05:00:00.011+02:00

Every day I discover new things in SAP. I want to share them with you.

If you want to receive free SAP Tips when I discover them just send an e-mail to freesaptips at gmail dot com.

Here is the first one:
=============================
Free SAP Tip
by Daniel Toba @ SAP Blog

ABAP debug

You want to enter in debug mode but you are in a modal window and cannot access the T-code box to type /H. Here is what you need to do to get into debug.

Open Notepad.

copy and paste the following line:

[FUNCTION]Command=/HTitle=DebuggerType=SystemCommand

Save the document as debug.txt

Open the Windows Explorer and drag and drop the debug.txt file ontop of the SAP modal window. Voi la, you are in debug mode!

You can subscribe to Free SAP Tips newsletter by sending a mail to freesaptips at gmail dot com with subject line Free SAP Tips. Or press here:
============================

If you liked the Free SAP tip please click on any ads on the page to give me a small reward!Thanx!

What is my typical day as an SAP Consultant?

2008-11-16T02:43:00.003+02:00

I got inspired by the previous post and wanted to share some of my daily SAP activities. I'm not doing all the bellow actions in one day, of course:
So, here they are:
1) A good day is starting with a good coffee. Back when I was working in Romania I had two ways of drinking coffee depending where I would have been. When I was going to my company office I would drink the coffee at the office while reading my emails. Sometimes I was doing the same when I was going to the client’s site. But sometimes I just drank the coffee after the breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
2) Read my emails. I start each day reading my emails and response to the ones in need of one.
3) Attend to meetings. SAP Consulting is about meetings, getting information and requirements about the client’s business processes. Interact with client’s team members or other SAP Consultants to design the SAP processes. There are a lot’s of meeting during the Blue Print phase of the project. Of course each meeting should be documented and meeting notes should be posted on the project’s document repository.
4) Design and document the business processes. Of course meeting’s results should be documented in the TO BE SAP business processes. Usually the processes are documented using plain English and Process Diagrams. Then you discover there are some gaps between the client’s processes and SAP processes so you need to think about ways to fill the gap: usually a manual step in the process, an external application which needs to be interfaced with SAP or a SAP ABAP Development (report, form, enhancement, user-exit).
5) Configuration and testing. This is what I like the most. Configuring the system and finding ways to solve client’s problems with standard SAP system. Testing is also a lot of work.
6) Writing technical specs. Once you identified a gap you need to write a technical spec about how that gap will be filled. Then the technical spec goes to a ABAP technical consultant who is creating the ABAP object to fill the gap.
7) Presentations. Design and Create PPT presentation for the client to demonstrate SAP functionalities / business process flows. Usually the presentation is created to sustain a deliverable
8) ABAP coding and debugging . Back when I was working in Romania I’ve done a lot of ABA coding and debugging. And I’m like doing it. Actually my hobby is SAP Workflow.
9) Lot’s of other stuff. List is open you can contribute. Please leave a comment.

What does an SAP Consultant do?

2008-11-15T21:01:00.001+02:00

This is an interview with an SAP Consultant working for IBM.

The IS-U house / Business Partner

2008-09-09T17:29:00.003+03:00

The IS-U House is a famous picture among IS-U Consultants as it depicts a real house and how it is modeled in IS-U as IS-U Master Data.
Here is the IS-U House.

As you can see real life objects has been modeled as IS-U Master Data.
Connection Object = building
Premise = Apartment
Device Location = The location where a device is installed (e.g. Hall, Basement)
Meters = Meters
Installation = this is an object without real life correspondence and it is used for billing purposes
Contract = a contract for a specific type of utility
Contract Account = grouping of one or more contracts under the same umbrella for financial transactions
Business Partner = the customer

Let’s see what kind of data are stored at each master data level.

Business Partner
A business partner can have multiple roles within the SAP IS-U:
- Contract partner
- Installer
- Prospect
- Contact person

At the Business Partner Level we can store the following data:
General:
- Name
- Address
- Legal Form
- Group
- Search Term

Addresses
- Standard addresses
- P.O Box addresses
- Other addresses

Communication
- Telephone
- Fax
- Extension
- Internet
- E-mail

Payment Transaction
- Bank
- Bank Account

Biller Direct

Relationships
- Hierarchical
- Equal
- Connected

Additional Data
- Status
- Identification Number
- Register entry

Free e-book: How to write your SAP Consultant CV

2008-09-08T13:14:00.005+03:00

I have wrote an e-book on how to write your SAP Consultant CV. If you want to receive a free copy you must subsctibe to my SAP Blog feed. You can subscribe either by email or if you are using a reader you can subscribe in that reader.
Here you can subscribe by email:

Here you can subscribe in a reader:

Subscribe in a reader
If you subscribe in a reader send me an email at danieltoba at yahoo dot com to send the e-book.

SAP IS-U FAQ

2008-09-07T20:44:00.002+03:00

SAP IS-U FAQ

I get a lot of IS-U questions and I'll use this post to start group them in some way.

Billing:

1) Can we use Payment scheme with DPC back billing ?

A: As far as I know you can use DPC with Budgetbilling ( I guess with payments plans as well because they are a type of budgetbilling) starting with version 4.7.2

2) In DPC should estimate consumption during billing ? If yes, then what is the advantage?

A: If you estimate the consumption durring billing then you will not have any Meter Reading Result in the system (no entry in EABL, EABLG table). The system is estimating a consumption and then based on the consumption it is determining a reading. If you need to print estimated readings on your invoice that would lead to inconcistencies from one billing perioad to another. The advantage is that you do not store the Meter Reading Result in the database.

3) Is UTILIT98 starting a workflow!
Yes it is starting an workflow. Actually it is triggering the event BillingEvent01 of BILLDOCAUT business object. Then you can link your workflow to this event. You can use it to send alerts or to start a business process as an action to a billing result.

SAP Solution Manager 7.0

2008-09-05T18:02:00.005+03:00

Today I was browing the SAP Portal and I found out some cool Ramp up Knowleadge Transfer documents for SAP Solution Manager.
For the ones who don't know yer, SAP Solution Manager is a product used to drive an SAP implementation project or to support an already implemented SAP Solution.

This is what SAP has to say about Solution Manager on it's Portal:
"Managing your entire SAP solution landscape is a challenging task, but SAP has the answer: the SAP Solution Manager.

The SAP Solution Manager is a platform that provides the integrated content, tools, and methodologies that you need to implement, support, operate and monitor your enterprise's solutions from SAP.

With SAP Solution Manager, companies can minimize risk and increase the reliability of their IT solutions.

SAP Solution Manager helps reduce TCO throughout the solution life cycle.
SAP Solution Manager helps companies manage their core business processes and link business processes to the underlying IT infrastructure.

SAP Solution Manager supports both SAP and non-SAP software and helps companies get more from their existing IT investments.

Current release of the SAP Solution Manager is: SAP Solution Manager 7.0, SP15. "

I haven't yet been in a project where the Soltution Manager would be used as a implementation tool but I cant wait to land such a project. Until that time I can go through almost 40 hours of SAP Solution online training.

Here is a pic of all the topics covered:

Here is the link:
https://websmp202.sap-ag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000633637&

Of couse you need to have a user with the right authorization on SAP Portal to access it.

SAP IS-U Overview II

2008-09-04T19:31:00.002+03:00

SAP R/3 and IS-U can be implemented under the SAP IS-U Client or in different clients.

Implementing SAP IS-U and SAP R/3 in the same client:

This is the best solution as the interfaces between SAP R/3 and SAP IS-U is native. IS-U practically extend some of the R/3 functionalities.

Examples:

- an IS-U device is a serial number of a device category. In R/3 a device category is a material in the Logistics Material Master.

- FI-CA posts closed reconciliation keys in the General Ledger.

- a device location and connection object is a functional location in PM

- a work management order is a PM order.

Implementing SAP IS-U in a different client than SAP R/3:

This is a solution suitable for large implementations with large number of customers. The interfaces are kept at minimum.

For example:

FI-CA posts reconciliation keys in the local General Ledger. Then the posting in the local General Ledger needs to be transferred in the R/3 General Ledger using an interface usually ALE.

The utility company buys new meters. This are managed in SAP R/3 from the logistic and accounting point of view: purchase order, goods receipt and invoice. But in the same time a interface (manual / automatic) needs to be established to make the meters available in IS-U for the device installation process.

There could be other examples as well but these are the ones are most common.

IS-U and R/3 Integration.

Let’s see the integration of IS-U and R/3 in depth detail.

As I already told you, the IS-U is sometimes extending existing R/3 functionalities to cover the need of the utility business. But of course other functionalities were newly developed.

Device Management is fully integrated with the PM and MM and AM modules. A device (e.g.: meter, transformer) is a serial number of a device category and in the same time a piece of equipment. The device category is defined as a material in the material master.

Work Management is fully integrated with MM, SD, PM/CS and Controlling modules. Here the utility company can implement a broad range of billed or non-billed services offered to the customers. For example a work management order is an extension of a PM/CS order and can be linked to IS-U objects such as Business Partner, Contract Account, Connection Object.

Billing & Invoicing is fully integrated with SD. For example we can implement a process where some services are billed in SD and Invoiced in IS-U.

Contract Accounts is fully integrated with Financial Accounting. CA is a sub-ledger of General Ledger.

IS-U and external applications integration.

IS-U can be integrated with external applications such as: GIS, SCADA, External Billing Systems, Automatic Meter Reading Systems, other CRM Systems.

IS-U in deregulation markets.

IS-U has evolved along with the utility market. In the last 10 years the European market but other markets as well has adopted a new business model. That is the unbundling of a classic utility company into: generation, transmission, distribution and supply. The unbundled utility market had several stages such as:

- accounting unbundling – the utility company would present different P&L accounts for Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Supply

- informational unbundling – accounting unbundling + the prevention of sales (supply) users to access the distribution data of customers supplied by other supplier

- legal unbundling – splitting of the utility company in separated legal entities responsible with generation, transmission, distribution and supply.

The deregulation market model leaded to a lots of changed in a utility company processes. The most important change was about the data exchange process between the utility companies. Because a customer has the right to change it’s utility supplier lead to a process called “Change of Supplier” where the suppliers and distributor need to exchange data about that customer such as: Billing Tariffs, Meter Readings, Unpaid bills.

In order to support such processes SAP developed a new module for this called SAP IDE which supports the following processes:

Change of supplier

Billing of Distribution Services to Supplier

Sending Meter Readings to Distributor / Supplier

SAP IS-U Billing Job in Poland and Estonia

2008-09-02T19:58:00.002+03:00

Ecrm Consulting requires a Team of Consultants for 2 Greenfield CC&B Formally SPL (Cordaptix) for projects in Poland and Estonia. We require consultants with excellent working knowledge of Billing Project Ideally CC&B (Cordaptix) who have excellent functional Architectural skills in Billing. The project is length is approximately 18 Months. Please send your updated resume; We are willing to wait for the correct consultants to become available.

Please contact Andrew Mickel at andrew.mickel at ecrm-euro dot com.

Andrew Mickel
CRM, Oracle, BI Specialist EMEA
ERP, eCM & CRM Business Development
eCRM Euro
Part of the Euro Group Managed Service.
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SAP IS-U Overview I

2008-09-02T10:11:00.002+03:00

Overview of SAP IS-U CCS modules

The IS-U CCS is a Industry Solution from SAP which address the needs of a customer oriented utility company. In the next pages we’ll refer to SAP for Utilities Industry Solution simply as IS-U or CCS.

IS-U comprises the following modules:

Master Data and Basic Functions
Customer Services
Work Management
Device Management
Billing & Invocing
Energy Data Management
Contract Accounts

A complete SAP for Utilities solution should also contain the following SAP products:
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
BW – Business Warehouse.

The CRM solution is design to cover all the marketing, customer acquisition, sales and customer services processes of a utility company. It is fully integrated with the IS-U: CRM works as a front end (contracts, customer services, market campaigns and IS-U as a backend (billing, payment processing, work management, etc). For example when using a CRM as a front end system, a contact created in CRM is replicated automatically in IS-U where the necessary master data is created automatically using Master Data Templates.

The Business Warehouse solution is used for reporting. Is comes with a Business Content which already contains a lot of predefined Info Cubs and reports.

Where can IS-U be implemented?
The traditional value chain in the energy industry is:
Generation, transmission, Distribution, Supply and Customer Services and Billing.
The IS-U has been successfully implemented and design for the Distribution, Supply and Customer Services and Billing. However IS-U (mostly EDM) has been implemented in Transmission companies as well. Of course with a few/a lot of developments depending on which of the business processes were covered in IS-U.

Typical landscape for a SAP for Utility Solution

World's SAP IS-U implementations

2008-09-02T09:47:00.006+03:00

Here is how the IS-U implementations are spread out in the world.

Courses: IUT225 and IUT235

2008-08-12T12:55:00.001+03:00

On 11th of August 2008 I went to Poland to deliver the IUT225: EDM Overview and IUT235 Real Time Pricing to a group of people from Poland, Bulgaria, Check Republic and Russia.

I had a good time durring this course as I got a chance to pass my knowledge to others. I didn't get the courses evaluation yet but I guess I taught them good ;).

Some of them was part of the same group I taught IUT230 Billing and Invocing for 4 days in April.

Here are some pictures.

Later Edit: WOW! I got 6.9 in the instructor evaluation. Thank you guys, it is really great you enjoyed it so much!

ISU Master Data Template: How to create an EDM Profile

2008-07-11T14:18:00.004+03:00

This mini article explains how you can create a simple master data template and a simple ABAP program to create an EDM Profile.

First step is to create the master data template.

To create a new master data template go to transaction EPRODCUST

Choose the MD Template Category as EDM_PROFHEAD. Unfortunately this MDT exists only in ECC6.0.

Configure the Template’s attributes as in the image below.

Save the Template.

Let’s now test the template.

In the same transaction EPRODCUST press the test button.

Fill in the parameters and then press Adopt button.
Now press execute.

The Master Data Template was executed successfully and by pressing on the log button we can see the profile which has been created.

Let’s display the profile header. Go to transaction EEDM08

Voila!

You have created a profile using the master data template.

Now, let’s create a small ABAP report to create the profile.
The FM we need to call is ISU_PRODUCT_IMPLEMENT.
We need to provide 2 parameters: Master Data Template and the container.

In the container we need to specify all the parameters we created in the master data template and theirs values. For this we create an internal table it_container and fill each line with a parameter. The parameters must be provided in the table in the ascending order.

DATA it_container TYPE CCMCONT_T.
DATA wa_container LIKE LINE OF it_container.
DATA it_NEW_KEYS_TAB TYPE ISU_PROD_NEWOBJECT_KEYS_TAB.
DATA wa_NEW_KEYS_TAB LIKE LINE OF it_NEW_KEYS_TAB.
DATA it_DONE_NODE_TAB TYPE ISU_EPDNODE_TAB.

DATA : l_LOGID TYPE GUID_32,
l_SCRIPT_INFO_TAB TYPE ISU_SCRIPT_INFO_TAB,
l_IDE_STARTED TYPE EBA_FLAG,
l_MDG_COMPLETED TYPE EBA_FLAG.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'DATEFROM'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '20080101'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'DAY_OFFSET'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '000000'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'INTSIZEID'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = 'DAY'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'MASS'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = 'KWH'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'PROFILE'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'PROFTEXT'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value ='Profile Test FOR SAP BLOG'.
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'PROFTYPE'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '21' .
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'PROFVALCAT'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '1' .
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'SPARTE'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '02' .
Append wa_container to it_container.

clear wa_container.
wa_container-element = 'TIMEFROM'.
wa_container-elemlength = '255'.
wa_container-type = 'C'.
wa_container-value = '000000' .
Append wa_container to it_container.

CALL FUNCTION 'ISU_PRODUCT_IMPLEMENT'
EXPORTING
X_PRODID = 'Z_PROFIL'
X_CONTAINER = it_container
X_RAISE_NO_EVENT = 'X'
X_NO_BPCONTACT = 'X'
* X_CONTRACTDATA =
X_NO_ENV_SELECT = 'X'
X_INDUSTRY = 'U'
IMPORTING
Y_LOGID = l_LOGID
Y_SCRIPT_INFO_TAB = l_SCRIPT_INFO_TAB
Y_IDE_STARTED = l_IDE_STARTED
Y_MDG_COMPLETED = l_MDG_COMPLETED
CHANGING XY_NEW_KEYS_TAB = it_NEW_KEYS_TAB
XY_DONE_NODE_TAB = it_DONE_NODE_TAB
EXCEPTIONS
GENERAL_FAULT = 1
INPUT_ERROR = 2
AMBIGUOUS_ENVIRONMENT = 3
OTHERS = 4.

IF SY-SUBRC <> 0.
* MESSAGE ID SY-MSGID TYPE SY-MSGTY NUMBER SY-MSGNO* WITH SY-MSGV1 SY-MSGV2 SY-MSGV3 SY-MSGV4.
ENDIF.

clear it_container.
READ TABLE it_NEW_KEYS_TAB index 1 into wa_NEW_KEYS_TAB.
move wa_NEW_keys_tab-VALUE to P_l_profile.refresh it_new_keys_tab.refresh it_DONE_NODE_TAB.

IS-U Consultants Wanted by Axon

2008-04-24T15:36:00.001+03:00

Axon Global Solutions is in need of outstanding SAPers in U/CCS (at all experience levels) in the areas of Billing(BI), Device Management(DM), Customer Service/Customer Interaction Center(CS/CIC), or Finance-Contracts(FI/CA) to join our fast-growing company.

These are full time positions with a great base/bonus & benefits plan. May require travel Mon-Thu. YOU CAN LIVE ANYWHERE IN THE US OR CANADA-your call. {:>)

If qualified and interested, send resume in MS WORD doc format to Joanne.Gaitanis@axonglobal.com.

Axon Global Solutions is a Business Transformation consultancy that designs, implements and supports solutions to complex business issues faced by multinational organizations that have chosen SAP as their strategic enterprise platform.

..check us out at www.axonglobal.com !

SAP IS-U/CCS Consultant

You will participate in SAP project implementations, upgrades, support and specific client initiatives. Your consulting expertise, hands on approach and a team oriented approach will drive successful implementations and initiatives.

Requirements:

- The successful candidate will have at least 2 years experience in 1 of the following SAP IS-U/CCS modules:Billing(BI), Device Management(DM), Customer Service/Customer Interaction Center(CS/CIC), or Finance-Contracts(FI/CA).

- At least 1 full lifecycle implementation.

- The ability to demonstrate a depth of understanding and skills in configuration is essential.

- Experience with all phases of an implementation including business process blueprint, detailed design, configuration, testing, and support

- Excellent communication skills.

- The ability to work in a team, as a teal lead or without supervision if required.

- Travel as required.

Send resume in MS WORD doc format to Joanne.Gaitanis@axonglobal.com.

SAP IS-U Billing advance topics workshop

2008-03-28T10:43:00.002+02:00

I've put together a 1 day SAP IS-U Billing advance topics workshop.
The workshop contains the following topics:
Dynamic Period Control
- DPC scenarios
- DPC configuration
- DPC billing rate structure

Reset the yearly consumption to zero starting on 01.01.NNNN from the billing schema
- variant program creation
- use of seasons

RTP Billing
- EDM Overview
- RTP Component
- RTP Interface
- EDM formulas
- RTP billing

If you are interested drop a mail (danieltoba at yahoo dot com ) and I'll let you know further details about the dates, location and price.

New SAP IS-U group

2008-03-10T09:47:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

As IS-U group is not longer working I would like to take the
opportunity to create a new SAP IS-U group where we can continue to
learn new things from each other.

The new SAP IS-U group address is:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SAP-ISU

Thank you,

Daniel Toba
SAP IS-U Group

Free subscription at SAP Insider

2008-02-14T17:20:00.001+02:00

SAP Insider is offering a free subscription to it's online articles.
The registration process takes up to 5 minutes.
Go to http://www.sapinsideronline.com/ to register now!!!!

2008-02-13T08:35:00.002+02:00

Question from ISU Forum

Hi, Want to know if it is pre-requisite to activate "Deregulation settings" (Supply scenario and service provider agreement) for carrying out "Settlement". Is there any training document (in line with IUT210/220 etc) released by SAP for deregulation and settlement? Thanks in advance Ajay

Hi Ajay,
It is not mandatory to activate the deregulation settings to carrying out Settlement.
The deregulation settings is used to automatically determine Supply Scenario and the deregulation settings are picked from Agremmnets between Service Providers (for example the INVOUT agreeement is used to send the grid invoice to the supplier).
There are some standard SAP Workshop for this topics:
IUTW44 - Master Data for Deregulation and Data Exchange Processes
IUTBIL - EDM Settlement

In in a project which requires both functionalities to be implemented so I'll keep posting about this topics from now on. So stay tune!

How to create ABAP reports with IS-U like logs.

2008-02-13T08:20:00.007+02:00

Today I want to share you with a powerfull tool which is the IS-U like log system.
You can display an IS-U like log using transaction SLG1 or SLG_ISU.

How can you create ABAP reports with IS-U like logs?

This is a picture of how a IS-U like log looks like:

You need/can define your own log object in the system in the view BALOBJ. Using SM30 you can define your own log object. Let's define a ZTEST log in this view.

After that you can use the log object in your ABAP reports.
You can copy and paste the above text into SE38 ABAP Editor.

*You need to include the EMSG include program in your report.

INCLUDE EMSG.

*This include contains a lots of macros used to write log messages.
*Second you need the type pool EEMSG.

TYPE-POOLS: eemsg.

*Define a log parameter structure :

DATA: xy_parm TYPE eemsg_parm_open.

*And the log handle:
DATA: handle LIKE emsg_gen-handle.

*Define a parameter to hold the internal log number like this:

PARAMETERS extnr LIKE balhdr-extnumber NO-DISPLAY.

*Open the log using the above code.

CLEAR xy_parm.
xy_parm-extnumber = extnr.
xy_parm-appl_log = 'ZTEST'.

CALL FUNCTION 'MSG_OPEN'
EXPORTING
x_no_dialog = ' '
x_log = 'X'
x_next_msg = ' '
x_obj_twice = ' '
IMPORTING
y_msg_handle = handle
CHANGING
xy_parm = xy_parm.

*Now you can write to the log using the macro mac_msg_putx.

mac_msg_putx co_msg_information '398' '00'
'INFO' '123' space space space.

mac_msg_putx co_msg_error '398' '00' 'Error' '123' space space space.

*When the program is finished you should:

*Save the log like
CALL FUNCTION 'MSG_ACTION'
EXPORTING
x_msg_handle = handle
x_action = co_msg_save
EXCEPTIONS
OTHERS = 1.

IF sy-subrc <> 0.
mac_msg_repeat co_msg_error internal_error.
ENDIF.

*Display the log is not in background like this:
IF sy-batch IS INITIAL.
CALL FUNCTION 'MSG_ACTION'
EXPORTING
x_msg_handle = handle
x_action = co_msg_dspl
EXCEPTIONS
OTHERS = 1.
ENDIF.

*Close the log.

CALL FUNCTION 'MSG_CLOSE'
EXPORTING
x_msg_handle = handle.

*Now we're done. You should have a log which looks like the first picture.

Any reader working for Axon Global North America?

2007-12-19T17:13:00.001+02:00

Hi all,

Is any of you working for Axon Global North America. Please contact me at danieltoba at yahoo dot com as I have some questions about this company.

Thanks,
Daniel

Been busy but I'm back ;) + SAP Workflow tutorial

2007-12-18T19:30:00.000+02:00

I've been quite for a while but it was for a reason. I'm currently working in a new and exciting environment in London. The project is an IS-U implementation for a client in Denmark, in the gas industry.

I also have a interesting link for you SAPers: how to create a simple Business Workflow in SAP. It is actually a very good tutorial. I myself have some core skills of SAP Business Worfklow which I want to develop at a much higher pace than now. Hope this link is very helpful for anyone wanting to grasp the Workflow technology in SAP.

Here is the link:
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/7288

Cheers,
Daniel

SAP IS-U Interview questions

2007-09-14T08:28:00.000+03:00

These are some questions we will hear if you will have an interview for an IS-U position:

Tell me about master data in IS-U.

When you advice the customer to use the regional structure and when you can live without using it?

What about billing master data, what can you tell me.

How can we install a device only for billing?

Describe the FI-CA - Billing integration for account determination.

Describe the concept of RTP Billing.

If anyone has any other questions please post it in the comments and I will add them here.

SAP IS-U Courses

2007-08-11T10:12:00.000+03:00

I just had my first training experience as a trainer outside my home country. I did 2 SAP IS-U courses for large IT company from Belgium. In the first 2 days I did IUTW44 SAP IS-U Master Data for Deregulation and then I did IUTBIL - SAP EDM Settlement Workshop which was the most interesting for my students. I had 7 students for the courses and they were very eager to grasp new SAP IS-U concepts and knowledge. The courses IUTW44 and IUTBIL are a little to technical for any student who has no SAP experience but it all come very good in the end and the evaluations for the courses was really good.
I just want to mention that I can teach the following courses:
IUT110 - IS-U Introduction
IUT210 - IS-U Basic Functions
IUT220 - IS-U Device Management
IUT225 - IS-U EDM Overview
IUT230 - IS-U Billing and Invocing
IUT235 - IS-U RTP Billing
IUT250 - IS-U Customer Services
IUTW44 - IS-U Master Data Deregulation
IUTBIL - IS-U EDM Settlement Workshop
If anyone is interested to offer me a job for doing a training please drop me an email.

SAP International Utilities Conference 2007

2007-06-04T07:28:00.001+03:00

I just wanted to share with you a usefull resource for the SAP IS-U Consultants but others can be interested. As the titles says it all, this is the link:
http://www.sap.com/community/pub/events/2007_03_iuc/

What you will find there?

Keynotes
Watch video recordings, download audio files (MP3 format), and view slides from all of the keynote sessions.

Presentations
Download slides from all of the presentation sessions.

News
Read the SAP announcement made at the Sixth SAP International Utilities Conference 2007.

Discussion Forum
Meet online with SAP experts, customers, senior executives, partners, and solution providers to learn about the latest applications and services for the utilities sector.

Free ABAP Coding Guide from SAP Professional Journal

2007-02-04T08:09:00.000+02:00

SAP Professional Journal is publishing a 3 part FREE article series on ABAP coding named "An indider's guide to writing robust, undertandable, maintainable, state-of-the-art ABAP programs". This is a must read for ABAP newcommers and for already established ABAPers. For newcommers, ABAP stands for Advance Business Application Programming.

Part 1 - Fundamamental Rules and formal criteria

Part 2 - Best practices

Is there a high demand of SAP Consultants?

2007-02-03T23:17:00.000+02:00

I my natal Romania, there is a high demand of SAP Consultants like there is for anything else from construction to real estate to trainings or you name it. There is a boom on SAP market right now as I can see hirings ads all over the place. Everybody is hiring SAP Consultants, the local established SAP consultancy companies and also there are other just arrived on the market like Accenture, HP and Bering Point to name a few. This is a good thing but also a bad thing from my perspective.

The good thing is that there is a lot of business going on and a lots of companies wants to implement SAP. Right now there are a lots of major SAP projects in implementation phase. The companies will implement SAP one way or another and they will need qualified people (read SAP Consultants)to implement and then maintain their productive SAP solution.

The bad thing is that there are not too many senior SAP Consultants and that's way they hire juniors with no SAP experience and they throw them directly into the projects after some basic traing. This leads to poor SAP implementations, angry and unsatisfied customers. And this is bad for SAP Consultants because they will be places togher with juniors in the same bucket.

I think this issues are common in each expanding market when demand goes ahead of offer and the gap cannot be closed without taking decision like hiring juniors and throw them into the projects. These leads to another issue I will try to write about in the next posts: When you can say you are not longer a junior? When do you become a senior SAP Consultant?

If you have informations about the demand for SAP Consultants in any market please feel free to comment on this post of on SAP Blog Forum.

SAP Blog Forum

2007-02-03T22:52:00.000+02:00

I created the SAP Blog Forum the perfect place to discuss about SAP. Please feel free to ask any SAP related question and I will try my best to answer it.

SAP Blog Forum - The place to get answers about SAP related issues.

SAP By The Numbers

2007-01-28T10:11:00.000+02:00

Here there is an interested article about SAP jobs in US. The article is from SAP Cookbook newsletter.

As you would expect,
we're up across the board from our Dec 29th demand numbers. There are more opportunities right now for SAP professionals than there ever has been. There are two reasons for this phenomenon: 1) more business are running SAP than ever, and 2) the seasonal phenomenon of business spending on Information Technology. That is, things will always slow down starting in November which projects and finance departments go into fiscal freeze periods where no changes are made to accounting systems. No changes to accounting systems means no IT spending. And certainly very few projects are being kicked off during this time, except for the most critical, most tenuous, and most urgent.

In general I expect to see demand numbers fall starting in November, picking back up somewhere around the 1st or 2nd weeks of January. And this year we barely saw a pause in hiring - things have been good. And so here we are toward the end of January, and demand for every major consulting area is back up.
Every consulting area is showing growth - admittedly, some areas are tronger than other - but no area has fallen off of a cliff.

I want call out a couple of areas that are showing an unusually high uptick in demand: SAP CRM and SAP Project Managers. I know CRM is a solid offering from SAP, but what can explain this surge in demand for CRM resources? I don't have an anwser - perhaps someone can help me with this? SAP Project Management is perhaps easier to explain. I don't think that SAP project managers are growing on trees (like many people might claim is the case for SAP Basis, ABAP, and Portals or many other technical areas). And project managers have a skillset that can't easily be "offshored" or fulfilled remotely.

I have always thought that project managers have the toughest job in the world, and my hat is off to anyone out there that steps up to take the reigns of a project - it's the hardest work in the business, heck some of the hardest work period. The more people understand about IT, the understand that this is Software Engineering - and Software Engineering is risky, takes time, and just about 80% of Software Engineering projects fail. In any case, SAP project managers are not growing on trees and this is such a good area of opportunity that I think there is a very real opportuinty for senior SAP functional consultants to step up and take a swing at project management. And project managers set budgets, don't they? They may be in a position to pay themselves the highest rates on a project.

Now I know many senior project managers who would warn you against pursuing a career in project management, but the reality is that moving up the food chain in the world of Information Technology means managing projects - righly or wrongly, and if you want to make it to the most senior levels of management, the project management two-step is one you must master.

Functional Area	June 21 Demand	Oct 19 Demand	Dec 1 Demand	Dec 29 Demand	Jan 21 Demand
SAP Portals	578	736	705	698	795
SAP CRM	684	737	760	809	1218
SAP Basis	1858	1374	1572	1403	1659
SAP HR	1094	816	882	829	1125
SAP ABAP	882	951	1100	1084	1094
SAP BW	996	1035	1182	1029	1188
SAP FI	972	601	1077	1042	1148
SAP SD	853	929	1016	957	1099
SAP MM	892	899	1115	1011	1237
SAP Security	913	905	963	814	927
SAP SRM	293	286	367	334	390
Project Mgr	1454	1331	1467	1348	1613

SAP Training Videos and CD ROMs

2007-01-07T10:16:00.000+02:00

SAP Training Videos & CD ROMs

SAP Books

2006-12-28T00:10:00.000+02:00

My new SAP Bookstore.

SAP Best Practices

2006-12-26T09:42:00.000+02:00

I don't know if a lot of people knows about SAP Best Practices and the new vision of SAP about SAP implementation. Well, to cut a long story short, this is the new vision: reuse a lot of already configured, documented and tested processe by making "Building Blocks" and integrate those building blocks into a solution for a specific industry. Almost for all industris there are documented and configured proceses called Best Practices. And all of this Best Practices are free and online on the SAP Help portal. You can find here Best Practices for the following industries:

Apparel and Footwear

Automotive

Chemicals

Consumer Products

Consumer Durables & Home Appliances

Dealer Business Management

EC&O
Fabricated Metals

High Tech

Home & Personal Care

Industrial Machinery & Components

Logistic Service Providers

Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul

Medical Devices

Mining

Retail

Pharmaceuticals

Primary Steel

Professional Services

Public Sector

Utilities for SAP R/3

Water Utilities - for SAP IS-U

Wholesale Distribution

ISU Billing : Creating a manual bill

2006-12-09T09:47:00.000+02:00

In Utilities billing ofen is necessary to create a manual bill for correcting an automatic bill or for billing special contracts that are hard to bill with a normal billing schema.

For creating a manual bill there is a SAP ISU transaction EA16 which from my point of view is not so user friendly and the user can be confused with all the fields that must be fill.

Another alternative to EA16 transaction would be a custom ABAP report where you can create some templates to create certain types of bill. To create a manual bill from an ABAP program there is a standard function module ISU_S_MANUBILL_CREATE.

Here there is a SDN post where you will find an example of how to fill the imput parameters of this function. Become a SDN member.

I will definetly use this function module in my current project in order to create some kind of bills.

Please visit SAPDocs if you are looking for a specific SAP Book.

SAP Blog :: Live again!

2006-12-09T09:31:00.000+02:00

Sorry for beeing so quiet lately but I have some excuses:
- my first ISU go live
- a new ISU project in electricity.

My First ISU go live.
For those who don't know I work as a ISU Billing Consultant. Durring October we set live a gas ISU implementation with Unbundling (2 contract model), monthly reading and billing and 400.000 customers. The night when we start the billing and invocing run and then RDI printing was a marathon (30 hours with no sleep) followed by only 4 hours sleep and the back to work for anoter 12 hours from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am when we delivered the RDI files (400.000 invoces) to the printing provider. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun, because we are a fine team of young and ambitious people. This ISU project is the first ISU project in Romania and I'm proud that I had a small contribution to its success.

A new ISU project in electricity
Since some time we also started a new ISU project in electricity which from the Billing point of view is much more challenging with complicated rates and some development I need to do for energy losses computation. I will also do the EDM module with a help of a coleague. I will try to update this blog with the status and the achivements I hope I will have on this project.

Please visit SAPDocs if you are looking for a specific SAP book.

Blog of an ABAP Consultant

2006-09-22T15:43:00.000+03:00

This is the blog of an ABAP Consultant based in US and has a lots of articles about SAP and ABAP.

SAPTips.COM

2006-09-10T08:53:00.000+03:00

SAPTips.com is a very good SAP resources site, in fact is a PDF magazine. Bad news is it is not for free. But you can requet a free issues here. Here is the TOC of the free issue.

How to Align MM and FI Document Numbers in Logistics Invoice Verification

2006-09-10T08:49:00.000+03:00

In SAP Release 4.6C and above, Logistics Invoice Verification (LIV) replaces conventional invoice verification for invoices related to purchase orders. The author explains how the change in invoice verification methods leads to different MM and FI document numbers, and how to align them.

Here is the full article.

Agent Determination for ISU Printing

2006-08-10T18:25:00.000+03:00

Today I worked around with agent determination for Print Workbench.

What is agent determination for Print Workbench?Some Print

Workbench formulars (transaction EFRM) has some standard structure for agent determination. For example, the bill for has an agent determination for organization unit.

When to use this?

For example when you have many call centers and you have a logic of allocating a call center to an business partner then you can print information about the call center on the invoice using the agent determination.

To cut a long story short this is how it works.

There is a standard task in the workflow system: TS20500112. This task is called in the bill form to get the agent determination.

The TS20500112 is linked to a standard role 2050039 where you can make agent determination relationship (assign organizationl based on container elements values).

If anyone is interested in this topic please let me know because I prepared an document where I have put all the steps for configuring the agent determination for bill form. Email me: danieltoba @ yahoo.com.

Asking for help and guidance

2006-08-04T08:27:00.000+03:00

Many of my reader are asking me question about how to start a career with SAP. I'll post in this blog some of my answer in case anyone has the same questions.
This is the email I received from Sin Ong Chea from Malaysia:
"Hi there
I get your e-mail address from your site: http://sapro.blogspot.com/ I am new in SAP world and i hope i can have a friend who has a good knowledge in SAP like you. :-)

Please let me introduce myself. I am an IT fresh graduate from Malaysia, thinking to start my career in SAP. I just recentlly took ABAP Workbench course and i passed the exam. Now, I have another chance to take new course(FICO, SD, MM, BASIS or HR) for free.

I have a few questions as below:
a. What is the basic difference between SD and MM?
b. If you have a chance to take the training or certificate exam, which one will you choose? (or you prefer any other choice i stated up there)

Thanks. I hope that you can help me as I am a newbie in SAP.

Thanks.

Regards,
Sin Ong"

This is my reply:

"Hi Sin
I'm glad that you wrote to me asking for help. I like to tutor fresh starters in SAP.
Now back to your questions.
First of all it'a a good thing that you learned ABAP and you are comfortable with programming because it will help you a lot in your SAP career especially if you choose to became an functional SAP consultant (that is to learn one or more SAP modules).

Basic difference between SD and MM:
SD manages the sales part of a company. Here you manage sales order, bills and invoices, shipping of the producs, pricing procedures and so on. So it manage the interface with the company's customers.

MM manages the inventory part of a company. In MM you manage request for quotation, quotation, purchase orders, good receipts, invoices and stock inventory. This is the interface with the vendors (purchasing part of MM) and the inventory management of stocks.

Q: If you have a chance to take the training or certificate exam, which one will you choose? (or you prefer any other choice i stated up there)

A: It depends on what you like and what expertise do you have. For example for FI/CO you must know accounting and controlling otherwise you will not undersand anything.
SD and MM can be aproached withouth any business knowleadge but you must learn not by yourself you must have a tutor to teach you the basic processes of this modules and how they apply to the real business.

Good luck and we keep in touch.

Daniel"

Feel free to ask me any SAP related question. If I cannot answer I can ask others for an answer.

Job Opening: Experienced ISU Consultant with Deregulation Skills

2006-07-31T18:55:00.000+03:00

My company is looking for an experienced ISU consultant
who can give us IUTW45 Payment processing in deregulation
training.

We are in the process of implementation ISU and would like to
receive some training from an experienced consultant who had
implemented ISU with deregulation.

You can get a high paying rate and the chance to visit Bucharest
which is a great city from some points of view:
has the cheapest and the BEST beer and the best looking girls.

If anyone is interested send me an email to danieltoba at yahoo.com

Tech Books for Free

2006-05-02T09:14:00.000+03:00

I just want to share this nice site which has a lot of free tech books,
http://www.techbooksforfress.com.

Also if you want to buy a SAP book do it from

SAPDocs.com

I will get a commision from the price you pay and this can help me keep this blog updated.

What is ISU EDM - Energy Data Management

2006-05-02T09:09:00.000+03:00

I had a presentation on SAP Utilities - EDM (Energy Data Management) module and I want to share some info about EDM.

What is EDM?
EDM is a special module part of SAP Utilities Industry Solution to manage the energy data of a utility company such as load shapes and standard load profiles. Based on this data we can make Real Time Pricing and Settlement.

What is EDM Repository?
EMD has a Repository where all types of energy and energy-related data can be managed especially measurements in euidistant time interval ( 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day).

What is Real Time Pricing?
Real time pricing is special type of billing based on load shapes. Basically we can bill each time interval (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, etc) with a different price, for example the spot price. This type of billing is used for really big customers which have huge energy consumption.

What is Settlement?.
Settlement in EDM means settlement of energy quantities. All input data required for settlement comes from EDM Repository. For example we can calculate the total load of a grid and send it to a market partner.

EDM module is implemented by all big utility companies to help them achive better energy data management, to forecast the consumption and to settle the energy quantities supplied trought a utility network.

If you have questions on this topic do not hesitate to contact me or leave a comment.

SAPDOCS.COM

2006-04-18T14:45:00.000+03:00

Please visit www.sapdocs.com and buy a SAP book.

Utilities Industry

2006-04-12T14:16:00.000+03:00

Hello there,
It's been a while since I post on this blog, and now because I have some spare time I want to write about Utilities Industry. That's because I work as a SAP IS-U (Industry Solution for Utilities) Consultant. I want to gain more business process / best practice experience for this industry, but I didn't find any good internet resource so far. If there are fellow readers who want to share some business experience for utility industry I would be glad. My main focus is EDM (Energy Data Management), RTP (Real Time Pricing), Billing, Energy Settlement.

So please drop me an email at danieltoba@yahoo.com or post a commnet on this post.

Another SAP Blog

2006-03-05T09:33:00.000+02:00

Some time ago, Shathees Loganathan posted a comment on one of my blog posts about his SAP Blog and asked my to share this with you. In his blog you will find many tehnical articles about mySAP Finacials and Tehnical concepts. I recommend you to read his articles because they're good and free.

Breaking into SAP

2006-01-31T08:43:00.000+02:00

Many readers of this Blog was asking me about how to "Break into SAP". I found a very interesting guide you can read here.

Career Objectives for 2006

2006-01-08T18:12:00.000+02:00

Happy New Year!
2005 was a great year for my career and I hope 2006 will be even greater.
This is 2005 in review (from my career point of view):

My career Objectives for 2005 was:
1) Get ABAP skills:
How to achieve it:
- debug errors
- review instructions that I don’t know
- write simple programs (2 hours/week)
- read ABAP discussion forums
- read ABAP articles

2) Get Workflow skills:
How to achieve it
- read SAP Workflow documentation
- read SAP Workflow forums

3) Get IS-U overview skills
- read IS-U courses

4) MM/WM & SD skills
- read MM&SD discussion forums
- read MM&SD articles
- read MM&SD management books

Conclusions:

During 2005, I have increased my knowledge in the following fields:
1) ABAP
- ABAP debugging. How: Every time the configuration ends into an error or into a wrong result I debugged the ABAP program of the transaction that generated the error.
- ABAP programming. I have developed some ABAP reports: List of invoices, Change the rate category of the installation based on the annual consumption stored into an installation fact.

2) Print Workbench. I reviewed the IS_U_BI_BILL standard form and altered it to display the gas direct tax and the right amount in ROL.

3) ISU Overview. I need to focus more on this topic in the coming year. I have not read the ISU courses yet. To do for the next year:
- read ISU courses
- focus on EDM.

4) MM/WM & SD skills. This topic was not my priority during 2005 and will not be for 2005 either.

5) Presentation skills. This year I had 3 presentations, 2 was focused on MM module and one was ISU - billing related.

6) Training skills
This year I trained 10 people for 5 days in ISU billing.

7) ISU Billing and Invoicing. I got a good understanding of Billing and Invoicing model, functionalities and process.

Conclusions:
My career is on the right path. I love what I do and I love to learn more about SAP IS-U. I think that IS-U will have a good market in Romania and in Eastern Europe. In 2005, I planed the above objectives but I didn’t review it until now, and this is not a good practice. For 2006, I want to plan a few objectives for career development and I want to review the progress to achieve those objectives at least monthly.

Career objectives for 2006.

These are the career objectives for 2006:

1) Learn German language.
I think that if I learn to speak German, I will have many opportunities (SAP projects) to choose from to develop my career as an SAP Consultant.
How to achieve this objective:
- Buy and Learn German for Beginners Correspondence Course from Eurocor.
- Spend at least 4 hours/week learning German.
- Speak German with SAP consultants from SAP AG.
- Learn 10 German SAP words per week.

6 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on real life situations.
Total learning hours after 6 months (projected): 96 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 240

12 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on technical SAP issues. Total learning hours after 12 months (projected): 198 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 480

2) Learn ISU EDM - Energy Data Management.
How to achieve this objective:
- be part of EDM implementation team in a project
- read books on the subject.

Why I like beeing an SAP Consultant

2005-11-29T10:00:00.000+02:00

I like beeing an SAP Consultant because it requires a mixture of diferrent skills from different area, and to combine those skills is a nice career. I like the tehnical part of a business (IS system, programming, databases, etc) but also the business itself (I'm an graduate of Accountings). I like meeting new people and exchange ideeas, I like to travel and see new cities and sites, I like to dress in a suit (I love ties), I like to learn and read a lot (both tehnical and business related stuff), and of course I'm making good money out of this.
Now, the question is: is consulting for everyone? When I was a student I wanted to be a programmer, but then I discover that programming is boring because you don't get the chance to express yourself, you only write code based on tehnical specifications. Consulting is the opposit. People are asking for your advice, you CONSULT them on different matters and aspects of their business, and the you have the chance to configure the business in SAP, by making links between software components and functions. That's why I love beeing an SAP consultant.

SAP Books

2005-11-29T09:31:00.000+02:00

This is a list of SAP Books:

SAP R/3 Books List (ABAP, Basis, Functional)

SAP Training CD ROMs
Computer Based Training on SAP Functional, Basis Administration and ABAP/4 Programming

SAP Magazine
Sap Professional Journal [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]
Sap Insider [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]

Implementing SAP
Sap R/3 Implementation: Methods and Tools
Implementing SAP R/3: The Guide for Business and Technology Managers (Other Programming)
Implementing SAP R/3: The Guide for Business and Technology Managers [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]
SAP Planning: Best Practices in Implementation
SAP(R) R/3 Implementation Guide
Successful SAP R/3 Implementation: Practical Management of ERP Projects
SAP(R) R/3(R) Process Oriented Implementation: Iterative Process Prototyping
Implementing Sap R/3 : How to Introduce a Large System into a Large Organization, 2nd Edition
Enterprise Management with SAP SEM / Business Analytics
Why ERP? A Primer on SAP Implementation
Implementing SAP R/3 on OS/400 (IBM Redbooks)
Capturing the whirlwind : your field guide for a successful SAP implementation
Getting Maximum Value from SAP R/3

Dynamic, Accelerated SAP Implementation
Dynamic Implementation of SAP(R) R/3(R)
Asap Implementation at the Speed of Business: Implementation at the Speed of Business (Sap)
Implementing Sap With an Asap Methodology Focus
Preconfigured Client Made Easy 4.6C

Understanding SAP
Teach Yourself Sap R/3 in 24 Hours
Getting Started With Sap R/3 (Prima Techs Sap Book Series)
Anticipating Change: Secrets Behind the SAP Empire
Experience SAP
Flying Start SAP(R) R/3(R): A Guide to Get You Up and Running
The Whirlwind Series of SAP: In the Path of the Whirlwind: An Apprentice Guide to SAP
SAP: An Executive's Comprehensive Guide
SAP(R) Process, Analyze and Understand SAP(R) Processes with Knowledge Maps
Special Edition Using Sap R/3: The Most Complete Reference (Special Edition Using SAP R/3)
Xylem Structure and the Ascent of Sap
SAP: Inside the Secret Software Power
SAP: Inside the Secret Sortware Power [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]
Sap Rising

SAP Business
SAP Blue Book, A Concise Business Guide to the World of SAP
Sap R/3 Business Blueprint: Understanding the Business Process Reference Model
What Every Business Needs to Know About SAP (Prima Tech's SAP Book Series)
SAP R/3 Business Blueprint - The Complete Video Course

Supporting SAP
SAP Service and Support
SAP Service und Support [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]
Supporting Sap R/3

SAP Quick Reference
Common Sap R/3 Functions Manual (Springer Professional Computing)
Instant Access: SAP, Reference Card of R/3

SAP Career
Five Steps to an Sap Career: Your Guide to Getting into Sap

SAP Consultant
SAP Consultant Handbook
Becoming an SAP Consultant

SAP Data Migration Tools
Migrating Your SAP Data
Data Transfer Made Easy 4.0B/4.5x
Testing SAP(R) R/3(R) Systems: Using the Computer Aided Test Tool

SAP Reporting Tools
SAP R/3 Reporting Made Easy, 4.6C:Fundamentals and Development Tools
Reporting Made Easy Guidebook series, Release 4.0B
SAP R/3 Reporting Made Easy: 4.6C SET
SAP R/3 Reporting & eBusiness Intelligence
Afp Printing for Sap Using R/3 and R/2

Internet Technology of SAP
The E-Business Workplace: Discovering the Power of Enterprise Portals
Roadmap to mySAP.com
mySAP.com Industry Solutions: New Strategies for Success with SAP's Industry Business Units
SAP R/3 Reporting & eBusiness Intelligence
The SAP R/3 on the Internet
Online Store Made Easy 4.6B ¿ Accelerated Internet Selling
E-Business and ERP: Transforming the Enterprise

SAP Workflow
Practical Workflow for SAP - Effective Business Processes using SAP's WebFlow Engine
Workflow Management With Sap Webflow: A Practical Manual
Optimising Business Performance With Standard Software Systems: How to Reorganise Workflows by Chance of Implementing New Erp-Systems (Sap, Baan, Peoplesoft, Navision ...) or New Releases

ABAP Certification
ABAP Programming: A Guide to the Certification Course

SAP ABAP/4
Introduction to ABAP/4 Programming for SAP, Revised and Expanded Edition
Developing Sap's R/3 Applications With Abap/4
ABAP/4, Second Edition: Programming the SAP(R) R/3(R) System

Advanced ABAP Programming
Advanced ABAP Programming for SAP
Enhancing the Quality of ABAP Development
SAP Interface Programming

ABAP Data Dictionary and Quick Reference
Software Development for Sap R/3: Data Dictionary, Abap/4, Interfaces
Sap Abap Command Reference
ABAP Language Quick-Reference

SAP ABAP Objects
ABAP Objects: Introduction to Programming SAP Applications with CDROM
ABAP Objects Reference Book

SAPscripts
SAPscript Made Easy 4.6

Smartforms
SAP Smart Forms

SAP BAPI
SAP R/3 Interfacing Using BAPIs; A Practical Guide to Working within the SAP Business Framework with CDROM

SAP JAVA
Enterprise Java for SAP

SAP Visual Basic
Professional Visual Basic SAP R/3 Programming
SAP R/3 Data Integration Techniques using ABAP/4 and Visual Basic

SAP Web Programming
Web Programming with the SAP Web Application Server

SAP NetWeaver
SAP NetWeaver For Dummies
SAP NetWeaver TM For Dummies [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]

SAP Financial Accounting
Configuring SAP R/3 FI/CO: The Essential Resource for Configuring the Financial and Controlling Modules
SAP(R) R/3(R) Financial Accounting: Making It Work For Your Business
Using Sap R/3 Fi: Beyond Business Process Reengineering
Accounting Information Systems with SAP CD-ROM, Third Edition

SAP Controlling
The 123s of ABC in SAP: Using SAP R/3 to Support Activity-Based Costing
The 123s of ABC in SAP: Using SAP R/3 to Support Activity-Based Costing [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]

SAP BW Certification
SAP BW Certification: A Business Information Warehouse Study Guide
SAP BW Certification: A Business Information Warehouse Study Guide [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]

SAP Business Information Warehouse
SAP BW Professional
Business Information Warehouse for SAP
SAP BW: A Step by Step Guide
Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse
Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]
SAP BW Reporting Made Easy, 2.0B/2.1C
Corporate Information With Sap-Eis: Building a Data Warehouse and a Mis - Application With in Sight
SAP and BW Data Warehousing [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]

SAP Supply Chain Management
SAP R/3 Business Blueprint: Understanding Enterprise Supply Chain Management (2nd Edition)
Supply Chain Management Based on SAP Systems

SAP Materials Management
Instant Access: Sap Reference for Materials Management
Administering Sap R/3 : Mm-Materials Managment Modules

SAP MM Premium Paper
SAP MM Inventory Management Overview
A Step by Step Guide to the SAP MM Inventory Management Configurations

SAP Sales and Distribution
Implementing SAP Sales and Distribution
Sales and Distribution With Sap: Making Sap Sd Work for Your Business
Instant Access: SAP, Reference for Sales and Distribution
SAP Processes: Sales and Customer Service (With CD-ROM)

SAP Customer Relationship Management
mySAP CRM: The Offcial Guide to SAP CRM Release 4.0

SAP Production Planning
Administering SAP R/3: The Production and Planning Modules

SAP PP Premium Paper
A Step by Step Guide to the SAP PP Production Shop Floor Control Configurations

SAP APO
The SAP APO Knowledge Book - Supply and Demand Planning
SAP APO System Administration

SAP Plant Maintenance
SAP(R) R/3(R) Plant Maintenance: Making It Work for Your Business
Enterprise Asset Management : Configuring and Administering SAP R/3 Plant Maintenance

SAP Service Management
Inter-Organizational Cooperation With Sap Systems: Perspectives on Logistics and Service Management (Sap Excellence)

SAP Quality Management
SAP(R) R/3(R) Quality Management: Making It Work for Your Business

SAP Project Management
Project Management with SAP(R) R/3(R)
SAP Consulting and Project Management (Book/CD-ROM package)

SAP Human Resource
mySAP HR: Technical Principles and Programming
HR Personnel Planning and Development Using SAP
Administering SAP R/3: HR - Human Resources Module
SAP Employee Self-Service, Installation Guide, Release 4.5
Sap Documentation and Training Development Guide
SAP End User Training Plan

SAP Certification for MM, SD, PP, FI, CO
Sap R/3 Certification Exam Guide

SAP Travel Management
Business Process Redesign in Travel Management in an SAP R/3 Upgrade Project [DOWNLOAD: PDF]

SAP Retail Industry
Retail Information Systems Based on SAP Products

SAP Basis Administration
SAP Basis Administration for Windows
SAP R/3 System Administration : The Official SAP Guide
System Administration Made Easy, 4.6C/D
Basis Administration for SAP
SAP(R) R/3(R) Administration
SAP R/3 Administrator's Handbook
SAP R/3 Administration For Dummies

SAP Electronic Data Interchange
ALE, EDI, and IDoc Technologies for SAP

SAP Transport
Sap R/3 Change and Transport Management: The Official Sap Guide (Official Sap Guide)

SAP Archiving
Archiving your SAP Data

SAP Authorizations
R/3 Authorization Made Easy 4.6A/B
SAP Authorization System: Design and Implementation of Authorization concepts for SAP R/3 and SAP Enterprise Portals

SAP Security
Security and Data Protection for SAP Systems

SAP Operating System and Performance Fine Tuning
SAP Performance Optimization Guide , Third Edition
SAP System Landscape Optimization
SAP Hardware Solutions : Servers, Storage and Networks for mySAP.com
Network Resource Planning For SAP R/3, BAAN IV, and PeopleSoft: A Guide to Planning Enterprise Applications

SAP Oracle
Oracle SAP Administration (O'Reilly Oracle)
SAP R/3 and Oracle: Backup & Recovery

SAP Mircosoft
Implementing Sap R/3 Using Microsoft Cluster Server
SAP Database Administration with Microsoft SQL Server 2000
SAP(R) R/3(R) and Windows NT
Optimizing IBM Netfinity Servers for Sap R/3 and Windows Nt
Backup Solutions for Sap R/3 4.5B on Netfinity Servers Running Windows Nt

SAP AIX
A Holistic Approach to a Reliable Infrastructure for Sap R/3 on Aix

SAP Linux
Sap on DB2 Udb for Os/390 and Z/OS: Implementing Application Servers on Linux for Zseries

SAP DB2
Database Administration Experiences: Sap R/3 on DB2 for Os/390
Sap R/3 on DB2 Udb for Os/390: Application Servers on Os/390
Sap R/3 on DB2 for Os/390: Database Availability Considerations
Sap R/3 on DB2 for Os/390: Implementing With Aix or Windows Nt Applications Servers
Sap R/3 on DB2 for Os/390: Disaster Recovery
High Availability Considerations: Sap R/3 on DB2 for OS
DB2 Universal Database and SAP R/3 Version 4
Sap on DB2 for Z/OS and Os/390 DB2 System Cloning

SAP Tivoli
Using Tivoli to Manage a Large-Scale Sap R/3 Environment
Managing SAP R/3 with Tivoli

SAP Informix
SAP R/3 for the Informix DBA

Search www.amazon.com for more SAP books

Career Builders Toolkit: The Book

2005-11-27T19:00:00.000+02:00

Matt Moran, an writer, spokeman and IT Consultant, wrote The IT Career Builders Toolkit, a book about bosting your career and take it to new hights. Matt is also writing a blog about IT career: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career/. I think it worth reading Matt's book and blog, and also his website http://www.cbtoolkit.com. This readings will definetly add value to your career.

Daniel

Becoming a SAP Consultant

2005-11-09T09:04:00.000+02:00

Steve posted an comment on this post asking me about "How to become a SAP Consultant". That's is a good question which deserves an detailed answer.

Becoming a SAP Consultant is a hard job, beeing SAP consultant is even harder. Anyway, it pays the effort. Entering into the SAP world can be possible in 2 ways:
- working for a company that wants to implemente SAP as it Enterprise Application System, either as a final user (the one which enters the data or runs some reports) or as a key user (the one which take part in the implementation project as a member of the implementation team)
- get a job as a Junior SAP consultant with a SAP Consultancy Company, with or without SAP experience.
After first contact with SAP as a junior consultant it takes 2 years to be confortable with one module and be a Consultant with responsabilities in configuration.

How did I found my path into a SAP Consultant Career.
In 2000, I was in my final semester at Academy of Economics Study in Bucharest, Romania. I decided to get a job before I finish the studies so I applyed to many programmers jobs, but I got only rejections, exept from ROMSYS, my current employer which decided to hire my as a ERP Consultant. So for 3 years I've been an ERP consultant for an local romanian ERP application. And after this 3 years, my company decided to become an SAP partener and I was choosen to be part of the new SAP team. Now I have 2 years of SAP experience, an MM certification and 1 year experience is SAP IS-Utilities (Billing and Invocing).
Hope all of you who wants to become an SAP Consultant to be as lucky as I was, get a junior SAP Consultant job and work as hard as you can to progress into your SAP Consultant Career. It worth.

Daniel

Becoming an SAP Consultant: The Book

2005-08-30T09:08:00.000+03:00

I just remembered that I read Becoming an SAP Consultant a while ago.
Although it's an old book which refers to old SAP versions, I t good for beginners because it give them an overview of the SAP world. I've read this book in the first weeks of my first implementation and I got some good advices on various topics: from how to behave in some circumstances to what is ABAP. I definitely recommend this book as a must read for a junior SAP consultant.

Skills of a good SAP Consultant III

2005-08-30T09:02:00.000+03:00

3) Presentation skills
SAP is a new life for an enterprise. SAP reorganize the old business processes and makes them better. In order to have a smoth SAP implementation you have to transfer knowledge to customer team. Depends on your teaching and presentation skills if the customer team understand the new SAP processes and helps you to implement them or not. So in order to win the customer team for your side you have to have excelent presention skills and make them understand the SAP processes and make them view how their processes will run with SAP.
It doesn't matter what tool you use to make your presentation. It matters if at the end of the presentation you've met your goal: people to understand what you have just presented.
For how to make a very good presentation I recommend you this book: Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson .

Skills of a good SAP Consultant II

2005-08-25T08:12:00.000+03:00

Today I will focus on:
2) Programming skills

SAP is an application developed in ABAP. I think is the only software that you can see it's source code. This is way you can see how things works behinde the scenes and you can debug the software to see where the error is coming from. I think that every SAP consultant must know a little of programming and database.

What to know about databases:
- what a table is
- what a primary key is
- how the tables are link with each other
- how to see the content of a table (SE16)

What to know about programming (ABAP):
- how to define variables
- how to define an internal tables
- how to fill an internal table
- some SQL to manipulate data
- how to debug a program

You may say that for ABAP there are ABAP consultants, but as a functional consultant you can resolve some minor issues in configuration for example if you know some abap or some debuging techniques.

Next time: 3)Presentation skills.

SAP IS-U Consultants

2005-08-24T16:01:00.000+03:00

Are there any SAP IS-U Consultants who are reading my blog? I would like them to contact me at danieltoba@yahoo.com to discuss about ISU, because I have some Billing issues.

SAP Top Sites

2005-08-24T14:08:00.000+03:00

In my net surfing I just discovered this site: http://www.saptopsites.com/ which it seems to be a collection of SAP sites. You can vote my blog here.

Skills of a good SAP Consultant I

2005-08-24T13:57:00.000+03:00

What are the skills of a GOOD SAP Consultant? Well, this is a hard to answer question but I'm willing to take the risk ans propose an answer. I hope others will come with theirs opinions to compile a GOOD SAP Consultant Profile. Today I will focus on comunication skills.

1) Comunication Skills.
A GOOD SAP Consultant must know how to comunicate with other parties involved in the implementation: customer employees, customer team members, coleagues, management team, other vendors.
A GOOD SAP Consultant must adjust it's comunication skills to the level of whom he/she needs to comunicate, so he/she must know when to speak and when to listen, when to jump into a conclusion, when to have a hard tone or a soft one. I think all this skills comes after years of experience (I have 5 years of ERP consulting) and I still learn from my comunication experiences.
Also, it is important to know the language in which you comunicate. I think that all the SAP consultants must know English and also German, because there are a huge part of SAP which is documented in German. (From my experinece, the IS-U module has it's function modules documentation mostly in German).

Other comments anyone?
Next time will introduce other skill: Programming knowledge.

ISU - Transport of Billing Master Data

2005-07-25T15:38:00.000+03:00

For transporting the ISU Billing Master Data from one client to another there are 2 reports:

REA_RTRANS_DOWNLOAD_MUSTER - for downloading the Billing Master Data.
REA_RTRANS_UPLOAD - for uploading the Billing Master Data.

Delete a material master - MM module

2005-07-18T15:39:00.000+03:00

If you created an material by error and you want to delete that material from the data base you can do it in this simple 4 steps. The only condition is that this material has to have no material movement recorded.
These are the steps:1
1) Flag material for deletion. transaction MM06
2) Run report MMREO001 - Selection of materials flagged for deletion and select the material
3) Run report MMREO050 Archive Materials to archive the material (some customisig settings might be required)
4) Run report MMREO110 Deletion Program for Archiving Materials to delete the material from the database.

These reports are called by the SARA transaction too.

Teaching SAP

2005-06-07T13:59:00.000+03:00

In the SAP Consultant career there is a time in a project when she or he must teach the project team some courses. Last week I had my first such experience, I teached a class of 12 people the IUT230 Billing and Invoicing course. It was an wonderful experince and I think I did good. Every student had to evalate the course and the instructor and I got the maximum score possible.
My objectives were to make my class understand the concept rather than to know each transaction and each screen. So in my explanations I kept repeting some key concepts and it worked like a charm.
Anyone wants to share their teaching experince? Feel free to participate with comments.

MM Reopen posting period - MMPI transaction

2005-05-20T14:06:00.000+03:00

Today I had to deal with this MM reopen period issue.
Problem: One user opened by mistake period 06 year 2005 but they still had documents for posting in period 04.
Solution: The solution is running the MMPI transaction and read note 48781.

This is a post I found on sap.ittoolbox.com SAP forum which explain some basic steps to reopen the MM period.

1. Lock all users out of PRD
2. Take snapshot of MB5L for all materials at company code for current and previous periods

3. Add User parameter MMPI_READ_NOTE with value = current date in this format YYYYMMDD

4. Stop all processing that updates inventory values

5. Run t-code MMPI with correct period

6. Run Z_DEl_HIST_ENTRIES program

7. Take MB5L snapshot for all materials at company code fs01 for current and previous periods

8. Validate that values match on MB5L pre-post snapshots or are appropriate.

9. Unlock all users in PRD

10. Remove User parameter MMPI_READ_NOTE from user ID

Good luck if you have such a problem.
Be carefully if you want to reopen a period that is far in the past!!!!

SAP BW Learning Guide

2005-05-18T08:53:00.000+03:00

Check out this SAP BW Learning Guide from searchSAP.com. There's also other SAP Guides on this site.

SAP NetWeaver Guide

2005-05-18T08:51:00.000+03:00

Check out this SAP NetWeaver Learning Guide from searchSAP.com.

SD - Minimum Order Value

2005-05-17T17:31:00.000+03:00

In the SD module there is no starndard configuration for issueing a warning or message error if the order value is less than a certain value. But the system can be configured to add a surcharge calculated as as difference between minimum order value and actual order value.
All the configuration is described in this SAP note: 18173.

Power Point Presentations

2005-05-14T09:42:00.000+03:00

We, as SAP consultants have to make lots of Power Point Presentation in order to show to the clinet how its procesess are modeled in SAP. I think this book, Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson can improve our presentation skills. Cliff holds an blog on Power Point Presentation.

SAP IS-U group

2005-05-14T09:34:00.000+03:00

I forgot to share with you this SAP ISU group. IS-U is the Industry Solution for Utilities module with can be integrated with SAP R/3. For about an year I work with SAP IS-U on a big project. For more information here are some links:
SAP Website
SAP Help
Anyone working with IS-U?

SAP Certification

2005-04-30T09:14:00.000+03:00

Sorry for the relative quietness at my blog lately. I wasn't so inspired this spring, maybe because of the weather (it was a little to rainy), maybe because of the stress of starting a new project. But now I'm back and writing.
I want to share my exeprience of getting SAP Certified Consultant. I have a Certification on Purchasing (MM module) since December last year.
In the mid of 2004, my boss asked me to prepare for the certificaton. Back then I was working with MM module. So after about 1 year of experience and 2 MM courses at SAP UK Education (SCM500 - Processes in Procurement and SCM510 Invetory Management) I started to study hard for this certification exam. After one month of hard studying, I had to swich to SAP IS-U and I didn;t had so much time to study for certification. But luckly for my I have a "brilliant mind" and I only had to make a quick review of the MM courses.
After all those hours of studying, on Nov 12, 2004 I pass the Certification Exam with a score of 79 points.
My advice for the ones who wants to get MM certified:
- read all the courses. There aren't tricky questions but you should know as much details as you can
- study the IMG configuration
- study the SAP forums like www.sapfans.com
Review your knowleadge every day.

Good luck.

Pay Rises After Three-year Decline

2005-03-12T05:04:00.000+02:00

Finally!!!
Pay for certified and noncertified IT skills rebounded in 2004 after a
three-year decline, says a new report released by IT research consultancy
Foote Partners.
See the article here.
http://www.sap.info/en/news.php4?OID=Article-2307542282d395fcac

OO ABAP and Design Patterns

2005-03-10T09:35:00.000+02:00

Igor Barbic explains in this article how to use design patterns in ABAP.

Sites about SAP Workflows

2005-03-07T17:19:00.000+02:00

As I told you in my previous posts I have diged a little into SAP Workflows and now I briefly understand them. For anyone who's interested in the subject I have discover this 2 site of Alan Rickayzen, the author of Practical Workflow for SAP:

http://www.workflowbook.com/
(tutorial about how to create a workflow in SAP)

http://www.workflowing.com/
(good FAQs about workflows.)

Other SAP Workflow article:
Why use SAP Workflows

And by the way. I managed to creeate my first SAP workflow from scrach.

SAP Workflows

2005-03-03T18:00:00.000+02:00

Right now I'm struggling with SAP Workflows, which are very nice but it seems to me that are a little bit tricky.

If someone has some links to SAP Workflow sites or some basic study material on the subjec please let me know.

Some SAP BW articles

2005-03-03T17:57:00.000+02:00

http://www.sapinsideronline.com

New links to SAP blogs

2005-03-02T09:05:00.000+02:00

Today I added some links to other SAP related Blogs.
The links are located on the right side of the page.
There is SAP Specialist, a blog of a chinese consultant which has also posts in english. Then there is Apolemia, a SAP APO related blog and Hans@SAP weblog.

SAP Blog

2005-03-01T09:14:00.000+02:00

I have tried to find some SAP blogs but either there are only a few either I did't find them until now. So I decided to blog abot SAP. Why? Because I'm a SAP consultant, a junior one. I have only 1,5 years of SAP experience, one roll-out project and now I work for another project. Although I started as a MM consultant (I also have a MM certification) I'm currently working as an Utilities Consultant (Billing and Invoicing).
Here you will find things related mainly to SAP logistics and SAP Utilities, but also other interested things about SAP world.
For the SAP begginers, the first step to do is decided on a module and then start reading the SAP help. You cann't learn SAP at home, so you have to work for a consulting firm or for a company that use SAP products. My advice is to look for such a company and find a way to work for this company.