ERP: Enterprise resource planning An ERP product is capable of integrating multiple business processes or applications.

Here business processes means various types of business areas (Finance, HR, SD, MM, PP ETC) in an enterprise. The advantage of ERP product over other software products is it can update the business transactions periodically (daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly etc) in everyday business across all business areas. EX: we have 50 computers in the storage location. Each computers cost is $500 We got an order for 10 computers from customer X. If 10 computers are sold on 15/02/2012 to a customer X Effects in various business areas or modules Billing document is generated by SD and sent to Finance department for the sale of 10 computers. Billing document is generated for 10*$500= $5000 Cash transaction is posted in respective G/L accounts in Finance. Stock is reduced in the storage location of finished goods. 50-10=40 computers are available in the plant. Production people have to plan to meet the future requirements and seek raw materials. All these business areas are integrated and updated when we sold 10 computers. So we can conclude that an ERP system automates this integration and updating process with the help of integrated software. One such software product is SAP. SAP Systems Applications and Products.

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SAP R/3 SAP R/3 is the former name of the main enterprise resource planning software produced by SAP AG. It is an enterprise-wide information system designed to coordinate all the resources, information, and activities needed to complete business processes such as order fulfillment or billing.

The first version of SAP's flagship enterprise software was a financial Accounting system named R/1 called as YSR. This was replaced by R/2 at the end of the 1970s. SAP R/2 was in a mainframe based business application software suite that was very successful in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was particularly popular with large multinational European companies who required soft-real-time business applications, with multi-currency and multi-language capabilities built in. With the advent of distributed clientserver computing SAP AG brought out a clientserver version of the software called SAP R/3 (The "R" was for "Real-time data processing" and 3 was for 3-tier). This new architecture is compatible with multiple platforms and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows or UNIX. This opened up SAP to a whole new customer base.

SAP R/3 was officially launched on 6 July 1992. It was renamed SAP ERP and later again renamed ECC (ERP Central Component). SAP came to dominate the large business applications market over the next 10 years. SAP ECC 5.0 ERP is the successor of SAP R/3 4.70. The newest version of the suite is SAP ECC 6.0.

SAP has three tier architecture (R/3) Current version is SAP ECC 6.0

In Single tier architecture Database Application Presentation Single Tier

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In Two Tier Architecture. Data base Application

Two Tier

Presentation

In Three Tier Architecture.

Database

Application

Application

Presentation

Presentation

Presentation

In three tier architecture the load is distributed across all the three layers. Difference between two tier and three tier architecture. Two-tier architecture is client/server architecture, where a request to do some task is sent to the server and the server responds by performing the task. Where as a three-tier has client, server and database. Where the client request is sent to the server and the server in turn sends the request to the database. The database sends back the information/data required to the server which in turn sends it to the client. In single tier all the three layers exists at one level and the load is not distributed. So in three tier architecture system performance is drastically enhanced.

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SAP SD

Sales

Order Management Customer Management Pricing Billing

SAP SD

Credit Management ETC.

Distribution

Picking Packing Delivery ETC.

SAP GUI Navigation:

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Introduction to SAP Easy Access screen: The SAP Easy Access application window can be logically divided into numerous sections. The topmost section, just below the Red, Yellow and Green button like icons, is called as Main Menu bar which has around 6 options, namely, Menu, Edit, Favorite, Extras, System and Help; each of these menu item contains several sub options. Main Menu is sensitive to the transaction or respective application, this means that it may change according to the transaction you are performing. For example if you do a transaction related to sales order, then you may notice different menu items listed in the main menu bar such as Sales Document replacing Menu option, Goto option replacing Extras and so on. Just below the Main Menu bar there are additional buttons provided, which serves as shortcut for navigating through the application and performing other important tasks. For example one useful button is Back button which is present with backward arrow sign. This button when pressed will take you to the immediate previous page. But before you use this Back Button it is essential to remember that there is no forward button; hence, you may proceed forward only through a transaction. The button available on the right side of the Back button is the Log Off button which can be seen in yellow color with upward arrow.

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Main Tool Bar:

The next button on the right of Log Off option is used to jump to the main page, which is the SAP Easy Access screen. While Back button helps you navigate backwards page by page, the jump option which is seen with a X mark takes you to the main page from where you can perform transactions. Sequentially there are other useful buttons on the same bar such as Print button, Find button, Find Next button, Page Up, Move Up, Page Down, Move Down and finally Help button. Help button provides information on several topics; for an instance if you do not understand what is Delivery Date field on the Create Sales Order: Initial Screen, then select the field and click on Help button. It will provide all the possible information about that particular field. The shortcut key for performing Help action is again by selecting the field and pressing F1 button on the keyboard. Command Window for Transaction Codes: On the same bar you may also see a Text field just next to a green button with check mark. This field is known as Command Window wherein you can execute Transaction Codes in this window (Transaction Quotes are shortcut to execute a transaction). Let Us understand this with an example transaction. For example you want to create a Sales Order; you may have to navigate through various options such as Logistics then Sales and Distribution then Sales and then Order. Within Order option you have to double click on a node which is also called Info Cube, to execute a transaction. To cut short the execution you can just type the Transaction Code of the node in Command Window and execute the command by clicking on the green button with check mark or press enter, to directly reach to the Create Sales Order: Initial Screen. You can get better understanding on Transaction Codes if you practice regularly on actual SAP system or Master Data. It is better to possess knowledge about Transaction Codes.

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Page Title:

Below the Command Window you will be able to see some contextual- indication which is nothing but the title of the page you are viewing currently. For example if you are executing a Sales Order transaction, then the very first page that you may see is the Create Sales Order: Initial Screen. If you proceed to the next page by entering Order Type on Create Sales Order: Initial Screen page then you will land on the Create Standard Order: Overview page.

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Application Tool Bar

Immediately under the title bar you will be able to see another bar with various options; this bar is known as the Application Tool Bar. Again, the Application Toolbar changes as you navigate from page to page; this means that there may be two different Application Toolbars for SAP Easy Access page and Create Sales Order: Initial Screen. The Application Toolbar proffers options which are relevant to that particular page; hence, it shows different option on dissimilar pages. There are numerous such options or buttons that can be seen on Application Toolbar on different screens and each button have its own functionality. You may also see many buttons appearing again and again. To know the function of a particular button in this toolbar you just need to place your mouse on the option and a pop- up field with smart text will indicate the use of the button.

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Navigation Window

The next sequential frame on the SAP Easy Access screen is your Navigation Window. This section of the interface contains a Hierarchical representation of all the folders and its content. It is present in a dig- down tree form with directories present in different levels. You can navigate through folders and their sub folders to reach to the desired node. For example to arrive at Create Sales Order: Initial Screen, you may have to navigate through Logistics > Sales and Distribution > Sales > Order and then the Node which you want will be seen (In this example it is VA01- Create info cube). You can expand and collapse the folders by clicking on the arrow button at the left side of respective folders.

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Status Bar:

Finally at the bottom of the page you may find a horizontal bar which indicates system information which is to the bottom- right of the screen. To the extreme right on the bar you may find INS which indicates that the keyboard is in Insert mode; if it is not INS then it is in DEL mode which can be seen according to the transaction. But remember that this does not have any significant effect on your transaction; it is just a denotation of your keyboard state.

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CRMSYS (CRM or Customer Relationship Management System):

Session Manager
Immediately next to the server name indication option you may find Session_ Manager Option with a scratch pad like icon. When you click on this icon you may see a popped up menu with about 5 options. The first option that you may find in these options may be System ID which is a unique alphanumeric or alphabetical SAP system name allocated to every server on the network. This id will always contain three characters. The second listed option in the popped up menu list is Client which is three digit number. The client ID is usually required when you login to the system; you need to enter the desired client ID, ID and Password. You may also have to select the language; hence, you need to put EN if you want English (it is default language). If you want your system to be available in Chinese you need to feed in CN and so on. This is possible as SAP supports multiple languages. This is referred to as internationalization and is depended on the login language. The next listed option in the dropped down menu is the User. This option shows the current user who is logged in the system. The next option is program which is nothing but the program for a particular action. For example if you want to create a sales order, then the program for creating sales order would be SAPMV45A. Remember that every action may have different program and this can be check by clicking on scratch pad like icon and selecting program option. It should be understood that ABAP is the language used to develop programs in SAP and every screen that you see has a program running behind it and to determine the currently running program you need to follow aforementioned steps. The last listed option in the menu is the Transaction which shows the currently running transaction. The transaction as showed in the list changes according to the execution you do. Sometimes you may notice that different actions, steps or screen may show same transaction, this explains that one single transaction may have different steps; hence, transaction showed on the right hand bottom of the screen remains the same.

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Goto Menu Item:

While creating a sales order we have to perform different tasks one of which is navigating through different pages. One reaches to desired location obviously through Navigation Window. But there are other ways to do this, one of which is Goto menu option. For example if you select Header within Goto option you will get various options in a drop down list such as Shipping, Payment Card, Conditions etc. You will also find Sales option which on clicking will lead to Sales screen of the header data. You may navigate backward by clicking on Back button as mentioned above and again return to the same Sales screen by clicking on a small button with magnifying glass icon which shows Display Doc. Header Details smart text. Similarly you can go to any listed screen through Goto menu option.

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Form of messages:

To your information SAP Systems communicate with the users in form of messages which is also a conventional way in which any computer may interact with the user. There are two usual kinds of messages that are presented to the user. Pop-up windows are usually seen in SAP interface and are one of the ways in which SAP system interacts with the user. One example of pop-up window can be seen when you enter some data and try to go back or exit the application; the system asks you whether you desire to save any changes.

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Another kind of messages can be seen at the bottom of the page on the status bar. These messages are usually status of the transaction or action (Information message in Green round button icon with white checkmark)

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You may also sometimes see error messages as well, which are usually in red button icon with white cross mark. You cannot proceed without rectifying the error in case you notice an error message. If you proceed without any rectification then you may find that most functions and toolbar buttons will not be working except of back button.

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SAP interface also provides alert message which are usually in yellow circular button icon with black exclamation mark. But these messages are just for your information and do not stops you from proceeding further anyways. To conclude the point, there are three basic kinds of messages, namely informational message (does not need you to act on it), error messages (mandates/requires you to rectify the issue) and alert messages (asks you to double check your action or entered data before proceeding). However, most of the important messages will be denoted in an intrusive manner, which is pop- up.

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