Add Excel Knowledge to SAP: 7 Greatest Practices
Even with the standardized enterprise processes and centralized knowledge shops supplied by SAP, a lot company knowledge nonetheless resides in spreadsheets. Taking knowledge in these spreadsheets and placing them into SAP stays one of many thorny challenges dealing with many company IT departments. Many enterprise departments are
losing assets in manually reentering this knowledge into SAP whereas introducing errors resulting from handbook knowledge entry. Practical and technical analysts within the IT departments are inundated with requests from enterprise customers to automate the add of Excel knowledge into SAP.
o Are you an SAP enterprise consumer seeking to cut back handbook knowledge entry for mass uploads or mass modifications to SAP knowledge, significantly when the info already exists in Excel?
o Are you an IT useful or technical analyst searching for methods to service the end-user requests for knowledge uploadd extra successfully?
o Are you searching for ways in which your organization can save time and assets in SAP knowledge administration?
Should you answered “Sure” to any of the above questions, then this text is for you. This text describes 7 finest practices in automating the add of Excel
knowledge into SAP. Adopting these finest practices will alleviate lots of the pains that enterprise customers and IT analysts face in importing Excel knowledge to SAP.
1. Keep away from Programming. With the a number of non-programming decisions out there to attach Excel and SAP, customized programming in ABAP or VB must be absolutely the final resort for ad-hoc importing Excel knowledge to SAP. Not solely programming is
costly and time consuming, a program that shall be used solely as soon as and even every year is especially wasteful. Additional, creating strong applications require a good bit of testing and if a program has not been well-tested, it might be harmful and trigger irreparable knowledge harm.
Use a scripting or a non-programming method as a lot as doable. SAP supplied instruments akin to BDC, CATT, LSMW, and third occasion instruments akin to Winshuttle’s TxShuttle will let you keep away from programming to a big extent.
2. Don’t Add On to SAP tables. Whereas this level could be very apparent, it
can’t be overemphasized. Writing on to SAP tables avoids all the info
validation and checks and balances that occur when creating knowledge by way of the
regular SAP transactions. So, keep away from utilizing any technique that writes on to SAP
tables.
All the time add knowledge through the pre-configured SAP transactions or BAPIs. Once more,
utilizing instruments akin to BDC, CATT, or LSMW, or TxShuttle will enable the add of
knowledge through SAP transactions as a substitute of writing on to SAP tables.
3. Select a File, Map, and Run technique. A file, map, and run technique
usually includes first recording an SAP transaction the place knowledge must be
uploaded. The recording step is adopted by a mapping step the place the SAP knowledge
fields captured through the recording are mapped to the Excel fields. Lastly,
the transaction is run time and again with the totally different rows of information in
the Excel file. A File, Map, and Run technique is much like recording and
working macros for automating routine duties.
The benefits of selecting a file, map, and run technique are that (a) it’s
very common and might work properly for a lot of totally different add duties and plenty of
totally different SAP transactions, even with customized transactions, (b) it’s a very simple
and intuitive method and saves numerous time making a mass knowledge replace, (c) it
is one thing that even the enterprise customers can do themselves with out requiring
a lot IT help.
A file, map, and run technique must be used for importing knowledge from Excel
to SAP. Once more, the SAP supplied instruments, akin to BDC, CATT, and LSMW all help
such a method and might work for a lot of totally different add purposes. The
TxShuttle software simplifies the mapping recording and mapping duties lots and
makes it even simpler for enterprise customers. Additionally, for purposes that require
add of transactional knowledge containing header and line-items, akin to journal
vouchers, invoices, buy orders, gross sales orders, and so on., the TxShuttle software has
options that make it actually helpful.
4. Select a Safe and SOX Compliant Methodology: Be sure that the tactic you select
is safe and preserves SAP’s role-based safety. In nowadays of
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) audits, this level can’t be overemphasized. One key side
of part 404 is checking that rights and duties are individually assigned to
totally different people in order that no particular person has the ability to divert enterprise or
transactions in a fraudulent method. Probably the most frequent open SOX audit
points is that customers within the IT departments have very broad entry to manufacturing
knowledge in SAP. Subsequently to ease compliant with SOX, any mass modifications or uploads
ought to ideally be carried out by the enterprise customers who’re already licensed to
make the change.
To permit enterprise customers to carry out the add through SAP-provided
transaction-based instruments, they would wish further authorizations to make use of these
instruments. If your organization shouldn’t be capable of present such authorizations, the usage of
Winshuttle’s TxShuttle product could also be extra acceptable because it lives outdoors
the core SAP system and customarily doesn’t require further authorizations.
5. Preserve the info in native Excel format. If the info to be uploaded stays in
the native Excel format, fairly than being transformed to comma-delimited or
tab-delimited textual content file codecs, it makes the add course of a lot easier. One
much less step for the customers to fret about.
The usage of Winshuttle’s TxShuttle product permits the customers to maintain their knowledge
in native Excel format.
6. Choose an outside-in method: The 2 approaches to bringing outdoors knowledge
into SAP are: (a) an inside-out method the place the info import instruments dwell inside
SAP are used to carry outdoors knowledge into SAP, and (b) an outside-in method
the place the instruments residing outdoors SAP are used to carry outdoors knowledge into SAP. An
inside-out method usually requires all the info import scripts and applications
to dwell inside SAP and subsequently should be maintained as SAP variations are
upgraded, even when the scripts are one-time-use solely. Thus, these one-time use
scripts litter the SAP system when utilizing the inside-out method. An out of doors-in
method affords a cleaner different that can be utilized with the consumer’s present
safety profiles.
The announcement of Microsoft and SAP’s joint product, Mendocinno,
just lately validates the significance that each corporations give to an outside-in
method. Different add-on merchandise akin to TxShuttle additionally take an outside-in
method to connect with SAP.
7. Empower enterprise customers: On a ultimate be aware, top-of-the-line practices in
importing Excel knowledge to SAP is to empower enterprise customers to do the add
themselves. The selection of the precise software for the enterprise customers which can
allow them to simply add knowledge with out requiring any programming will go a
lengthy solution to releasing up IT assets for extra mission-critical purposes.
Letting enterprise customers take management of their very own knowledge additionally makes SOX compliance
simpler.
A straightforward to make use of product akin to Winshuttle’s TxShuttle which can let enterprise
customers add their very own knowledge from Excel to SAP permits the empowering of those
enterprise customers.
In abstract, the very best practices in importing Excel knowledge to SAP proposed right here
contain selecting non-programmatic, easy-to-use approaches, and it will allow
your organization to save lots of giant quantities of time and assets in day-to-day SAP knowledge
administration.
To study extra about SAP instruments, BDC, CATT and LSMW, go to
http://www.sap.com.
To study extra about Winshuttle software, TxShuttle, go to
http://www.winshuttle.com.
At this website, you may obtain a FREE WHITE PAPER
describing this downside and the way the TxShuttle software works at
importing Excel knowledge to SAP.
It’s also possible to obtain a FREE 15-day analysis model of the TxShuttle software program for connecting SAP and
Excel.
