November 2020 - Stridely Solutions

Running your business operations and huddling to keep up with the industry trends? With more and more organizations redefining their infrastructure to digitize it all, it becomes necessary for you to do the same. In case you aren’t sure which applications to use and how this article will help you understand what SAP and Salesforce are. Besides, we also help you understand how Salesforce and SAP integration transforms your business operations.

What are Salesforce and SAP?

Salesforce is undoubtedly one of the most popular CRM software available over the web. It offers areas of Enterprise CRM solutions that can be used by enterprises and organizations to rev up their business operations. Whether you seek a solution that could simplify their end to end operations or one that helps streamline critical processes, Salesforce is the best bet.

SAP, on the other hand, is an excellent enterprise resource planning software, that allows you to keep track of your enterprise resources, manage them, and regulate your expenses. What’s best about the SAP ERP platform is that you can not only streamline but also automate and optimize the processes, improving overall business productivity.

Experts believe that integration of an CRM software with that of SAP ERP would enhance its ability, adding to the features and functionalities provided by the same. Having said that, what could be best than Salesforce CRM for your SAP infrastructure?

Advantages of integration

It is believed that the integration of SAP with Salesforce helps business organizations organize their everyday sales data, customer information. This helps them make the most out of lost sales and potential information. But that’s just a part indicating how the integration benefits. To help you understand better, here we outline the advantages of integrating Salesforce with SAP.

Improved Data Management:
As said above, the integration of Salesforce with SAP ensures that every data or piece of information added to the system is ubiquitously available to all other departments in the infrastructure. Under no circumstance would you need to have duplicate or copies of the same customer information.
Besides, whenever you add new customer information in the portal, everyone concerned is notified about the same. For instance, if the sales team enters a row of a new customer with a new order, the data is shared with the manufacturing department to accelerate the production process.
Reduction in errors:
One of the most obvious advantages of integrating SAP with Salesforce is that it automates most of the data entry and processing tasks. This means that employees no longer need to manually feed in data which ultimately reduces the possibility of error. Not to mention that the data entered is faster and better as compared to the conventional methods of adding customer information.
Real-time Processing:
As mentioned above, the integration leads to the creation of a centralized database with access to all the concerned departments. With automated alerts and timely notifications, the ERP department can, at the same instant, access the data of the newly acquired customer. Irrespective of the fact that the Sales team might be in the field whereas the ERP department in an office in a different city, the data is shared with all. This optimizes the end-to-end operations improving performance and efficiency.
Organized Cashflow:
The integration of Salesforce with SAP has another benefit of improving the cash flow within the organization. It is seen that the solution has a built-in feature of sending alerts and notifications to the concerned department at the right time.
For instance, if there are accounts overdue, the integration solution would automatically send an alert to the accounting and finance department, notifying about the same. This ensures that all are actively performing and that under no situation, overdue are missed, helping organizations in optimizing their cash flow system. Not to forget the in-depth information retrieved and accessed by the financial managers. All of this facilitates better cashflow management helping you meet your end goals.
Boosts ROI:
With all of that being said, the integration of SAP with Salesforce helps you conduct your business better with real-time insights. Better management, improved cash flow, optimized customer experience, and real-time visibility, all of this boosts the overall ROI of the organizations.

Challenges Faced During the Integration Process

True that the benefits of the integration compel you to make the move. However, the process is easier said than done. If you think that you can simply integrate one with another, you might end up facing errors.

For one, SAP is an on-premise software. Salesforce, on the other hand, is a cloud-native solution.
Integrating and synchronizing data from one platform to another is a complicated task.
One must process opportunities within the Salesforce until order completion whereas execution in SAP must be taken into consideration.
Draft a system where all of the data history and the financial status must be accessible in real-time within the Salesforce software.

How to integrate Salesforce with SAP?

To begin, log in to Salesforce Development Account. Move to the setup Md then in the Quick Find Box, type API.
Download the WSDL file and this to build the SOAP project.
Next, to create WSDL/XSD:
- Use SOAPui to create an upsert request.
- Now create XSD using external tools.
Import external definition, and create another ESR object. Now map the message with SOAP requests.
You now need an API lookup code for session ID and server URL.
Now we need an ID configuration.
Finally, create two ICOs extracting data from ECC.

Once done, send the same to Salesforce.

Wondering how to start with the integration process?

Well, you can always start integrating Salesforce with SAP all by yourself, yet it is recommended that you seek expert support.

Stridely Solutions is one of the leading IT consulting companies offering the entire suite of IT solutions to enterprises and organizations across the globe. We have a separate team of experts that will help you throughout the integration phase. With experts and the required expertise, we offer end to end integration solutions. Starting with a consultation to implementation, we help you with all.

SAP is without a doubt one of the best ecosystems to run and operate applications over the cloud. For one, it automates most of the backend operations with ease, and secondly, it streamlines all of the activities enhancing productivity and adding to the overall efficiency.

Now, it is not only the solution that is accountable for its widespread adoption. As a community, SAP rolls out new features and updates to keep the entire system robust and secure. One such tool released by the organization is SLT. This article is primarily designed to help you understand the specifics of SLT, advantages, and overall architecture. Without much ado, let’s get deep into the same.

What is SLT?

SLT stands for SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server. In simple terms, it is regarded as the ideal solution in terms of replication of real-time data. The solution is meant for the SAP HANA customers and allows developers to source data from SAP ERP or even the non SAP system directly to the SAP HANA infrastructure. While some consider SLT to be an ETL tool and it is in fact one that helps the first load and later replicates the same in real-time.

When it comes to installing the solution, it could either be a core ECC system or even a separate system. SLT adopts a trigger-driven mechanism to initiate data transfer from the source to the target device. What’s more fascinating here is that the solution allows you to schedule the transfer, if not done in real-time.

SLT has a replication server that is responsible for responding to triggers and similar requests. An RFC connection is set up between the ECC transaction system and the SAP HANA DB which then responds to the trigger request

Wondering what are the advantages of using the SLT system?

Benefits

There are an array of things that make the solution an effective one. To help you understand better, here we outline the top advantages of the SLT SAP solution.

The first and the most important benefit of the SAP SLT solution is that it allows replication of data in real-time. Whether you are an existing user of SAP or not, SLT provides the ease to load data and replicate the same.
The basic definition of SLT suggests that it allows replication of data to the SAP HANA infrastructure. But that’s not enough. With SLT, developers can route data from multiple sources to a single SAP HANA or from one system to multiple SAP HANA.
The entire concept of the tool is based on triggers. Meaning that it has no impact on the overall performance of the origin of the data. It is only when a trigger is initiated, will the tool facilitates the process of data replication.
When replicating data, the one important thing to consider is the relevancy of the same. Adding redundant data to the system will only dilute the storage space. SLT tool assures that all of the data replicated are relevant and not a copy of the existing data.
In case you wish to transform data or filter the same just before it is being replicated in the system, SAP SLT is the best solution.

While the above was the mainstream benefits of the solution, there is more to the technology.

SLT provides total support to the cluster as well as pool tables.
SLT is bestowed with the monitoring capabilities backed by the SAP solution manager.
Integrated with SAP HANA studio, SLT comes with an automated conversion feature that allows it to convert Unicode and non-Unicode characters before replication.

SLT Architecture between SAP System & SAP HANA – An Overview

Getting deeper into the concept of SLT, we now discuss the architecture existing between the SAP HANA and the SAP solution. Developers and engineers can effectively transform the metadata table definitions to SAP HANA using the SAP SLT Replication Server.

With respect to the source SAP infrastructure, the connection made with SLT bear the following features:

For every table replicated, a separate logging table is created in the source by the SAP SLT Replication server.
The next step involves the creation of Read Engine in the SAP source system.
Now an RFC connection is set up to draft a link between the SAP SLT server and the SAP Source.
Next, a database connection is set up between the SAP SLT server and the destined SAP HANA infrastructure.
Database users having the authorization as that of the user “SYSTEM” will have the ease to set up a connection between the SAP HANA database and SAP SLT.

The SAP SLT Server can also automatically set up the database connectivity with SAP HANA (when a new configuration is done using the transaction LTR). Here, you aren’t required to follow the manual process for the same.

A fascinating thing about the tool is that it isn’t just meant for the replication of data from the SAP system to SAP HANA but also extends to the non SAP to SAP HANA.

Similar to the above, developers and engineers can effectively transform the metadata table definitions to SAP HANA from a non SAP system.

For every table replicated, a separate logging table is created in the source by the SAP SLT Replication server.
The next step involves the creation of Read Engine in the SAP SLT Replication server.
Lastly, a connection in the form of DB is set between the SAP SLT and SAP Source

Conclusion

Having said that, if you aren’t sure if you could implement the solution all by yourself and seeking expert support, Stridely Solutions is happy to help. We are a team of SAP experts helping organizations and industries alike to move their enterprise data to the SAP HANA infrastructure.

Whether you are just starting or in the middle of the transformation, our experts are happy to help. Stridely Solutions has years of experience in working over cloud solutions and has helped multiple organizations migrate and replicate their data without any obstruction. For detailed information, contact our team.

Month: November 2020

Salesforce & SAP Integration – Advantages, challenges and How to Get Started