Updating SAP B1 product and price information

Business Challenge

On a weekly basis an external system is providing all product and price information to the customer. These are always all 200,000 records as the external system is not able to create delta information although typically only around 50 changes may be involved. Also deleted items are not visible because you will just no longer find them in the file. The data is provided in an excel sheet. The product information in SAP B1 needs to be updated. In addition all new product information has to be sent to the customer’s e-shop.

Solution

We create a new B1iSN integration step. The inbound is SAP B1 event triggered. In the inbound phase we define a Key Expansion to additional extract data, related to the linked business partner object information. This key expansion is just a definition in B1iSN. The transformation of the enriched B1 purchase order is placing the B1 order number into the R/3 field for the external key. The R/3 is configured to send out sales order changes to the B1iSN (to be defined as a logical system in R/3). This guarantees that immediately after insertion in R/3 an IDOC is sent out to B1iSN, covering the R/3 sales order including the generated R/3 order key. B1iSN as an RFC server is receiving the IDOC and triggers a second integration step which transforms the data and sends it to SAP B1, identified by the B1 primary key, sent by R/3 as the external key. Now you have in both systems the both primary keys of SAP B1 and SAP R/3. After a while the delivery notification is created in R/3. Also here the R/3 needs to be configured to send it out to the B1iSN server. A third integration step is converting this notification and handing it over to SAP B1. As a last step the invoice is created in R/3. Based on the configuration, the invoice triggers our fourth integration step. This step is converting the invoice in the B1 format, retrieves order information from SAP B1 to complete all information and hands over the invoice to SAP B1. This process will fail in case the human step (to mark the products as delivered) is not yet done. In this case the message will be handed over to the B1iSN Error Inbox. We configure an automatic action in B1iSN to retry the handover automatically in a certain time interval till the invoice is handed over successfully.

Related Topics

B1i Integration Services

Business One Integration Framework (B1if)

Business One Branch Consolidation (B1BC)

Business One integration with SAP NetWeaver (B1iSN)


Integration Services

CitiXsys provides application integration services to large corporations with SAP ERP having subsidiaries, vendors and associated companies running SAP Business One.

Few companies using B1i Framework

Few companies using B1i Framework

Supply chain management applications (for managing inventory and shipping), customer relationship management applications (for managing current and potential customers), business intelligence applications (for finding patterns from existing data from operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, health care, internal communications, etc) typically cannot communicate with one another in order to share data or business rules. For this reason, such applications are sometimes referred to as islands of automation or information silos. This lack of communication leads to inefficiencies, wherein identical data are stored in multiple locations, or straightforward processes are unable to be automated.

Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the process of linking such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. In the words of the Gartner Group, EAI is the “unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected application or data sources in the enterprise.”

B1i Framework is the only integration framework with SAP Business One DI Adapter and integrates seamlessly SAP Business One with any application. CitiXsys is the leader of B1i integration services with largest number of B1i consultants globally engaged in several projects.

SAP B1 purchase order to SAP R/3 as a sales order

Business Challenge

You need to send an SAP B1 purchase order to SAP R/3 as a sales order. Unfortunately the “order” business object of SAP B1 does not contain all the information needed to create successfully an order in SAP R/3. After creation the generated R/3 sales order number has to be sent back to SAP B1. After delivery the delivery notification and the invoice has to be sent to SAP B1. The invoice can be created successfully only if the products are marked as delivered in SAP B1 through a human step.

Solution

We create a new B1iSN integration step. The inbound is SAP B1 event triggered. In the inbound phase we define a Key Expansion to additional extract data, related to the linked business partner object information. This key expansion is just a definition in B1iSN. The transformation of the enriched B1 purchase order is placing the B1 order number into the R/3 field for the external key. The R/3 is configured to send out sales order changes to the B1iSN (to be defined as a logical system in R/3). This guarantees that immediately after insertion in R/3 an IDOC is sent out to B1iSN, covering the R/3 sales order including the generated R/3 order key. B1iSN as an RFC server is receiving the IDOC and triggers a second integration step which transforms the data and sends it to SAP B1, identified by the B1 primary key, sent by R/3 as the external key. Now you have in both systems the both primary keys of SAP B1 and SAP R/3. After a while the delivery notification is created in R/3. Also here the R/3 needs to be configured to send it out to the B1iSN server. A third integration step is converting this notification and handing it over to SAP B1. As a last step the invoice is created in R/3. Based on the configuration, the invoice triggers our fourth integration step. This step is converting the invoice in the B1 format, retrieves order information from SAP B1 to complete all information and hands over the invoice to SAP B1. This process will fail in case the human step (to mark the products as delivered) is not yet done. In this case the message will be handed over to the B1iSN Error Inbox. We configure an automatic action in B1iSN to retry the handover automatically in a certain time interval till the invoice is handed over successfully.

Related Topics

B1i Integration Services

Business One Integration Framework (B1if)

Business One Branch Consolidation (B1BC)

Business One integration with SAP NetWeaver (B1iSN)


Integration Services

CitiXsys provides application integration services to large corporations with SAP ERP having subsidiaries, vendors and associated companies running SAP Business One.

Few companies using B1i Framework

Few companies using B1i Framework

Supply chain management applications (for managing inventory and shipping), customer relationship management applications (for managing current and potential customers), business intelligence applications (for finding patterns from existing data from operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, health care, internal communications, etc) typically cannot communicate with one another in order to share data or business rules. For this reason, such applications are sometimes referred to as islands of automation or information silos. This lack of communication leads to inefficiencies, wherein identical data are stored in multiple locations, or straightforward processes are unable to be automated.

Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the process of linking such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. In the words of the Gartner Group, EAI is the “unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected application or data sources in the enterprise.”

B1i Framework is the only integration framework with SAP Business One DI Adapter and integrates seamlessly SAP Business One with any application. CitiXsys is the leader of B1i integration services with largest number of B1i consultants globally engaged in several projects.

SAP B1 orders to external systems and SAP ERP

Business Challenge

Some of the orders created in SAP B1, needs to be sent to an external fulfillment system, some others to SAP R/3. There are also local orders not relevant for integration. Some of the orders are configured by an external configurator tool. For all the configured orders, before handover to any other system, the configuration needs to be checked for each line item by this tool. The result of the check needs to be sent back to the SAP B1. In case of a successful check the message has to be sent to the appropriate fulfillment system.

Solution

We create a new B1iSN integration step. The inbound is SAP B1 event triggered. This makes sure that all order changes will trigger this integration step. In the scenario setup we define the rule for receiver determination by a flag field in the order. In case the flag is set to “relevant for 3rd party” the message is sent to the external fulfillment system; in case the flag is set to “relevant for R/3” the message is sent to R/3. In all other cases the message will be ignored. In the processing flow we first check the condition if the order is a configured order. In this case we are doing “multiple calls” via HTTP to the external configurator for each line item. After all calls are done we send back the result via “single call” to the sending SAP B1 system. In case there is an error in at least one order item, the process is stopped. Otherwise the transformation is called. The transformation is checking if the order is relevant for the external system or R/3 and runs the appropriate transformation. Subsequently the order is handed over via RFC call to R/3 respectively via HTTP call to the external fulfillment system.

Related Topics

B1i Integration Services

Business One Integration Framework (B1if)

Business One Branch Consolidation (B1BC)

Business One integration with SAP NetWeaver (B1iSN)


Integration Services

CitiXsys provides application integration services to large corporations with SAP ERP having subsidiaries, vendors and associated companies running SAP Business One.

Few companies using B1i Framework

Few companies using B1i Framework

Supply chain management applications (for managing inventory and shipping), customer relationship management applications (for managing current and potential customers), business intelligence applications (for finding patterns from existing data from operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, health care, internal communications, etc) typically cannot communicate with one another in order to share data or business rules. For this reason, such applications are sometimes referred to as islands of automation or information silos. This lack of communication leads to inefficiencies, wherein identical data are stored in multiple locations, or straightforward processes are unable to be automated.

Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the process of linking such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. In the words of the Gartner Group, EAI is the “unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected application or data sources in the enterprise.”

B1i Framework is the only integration framework with SAP Business One DI Adapter and integrates seamlessly SAP Business One with any application. CitiXsys is the leader of B1i integration services with largest number of B1i consultants globally engaged in several projects.

Connect SAP B1 bidirectional with SAP ERP

Business Challenge

Customer is running SAP NetWeaver including some SAP R/3 systems and SAP XI. The customer’s policies do not allow direct connection to their R/3 systems. Task is to connect SAP B1 bidirectional. The customer has old fashioned EDI interfaces for inbound from an external system and is providing data for external systems in an oracle database.

Solution

Send SAP B1 changes to SAP R/3

We are leveraging the customer’s existing EDI like Flat File interface of SAP XI to send data from SAP B1 to SAP R/3. This is possible by introducing a B1iSN integration scenario “SAP B1 to File”. The inbound is SAP B1 event triggered, the outbound is defined as TXT formatted outbound file. Automatically the data is converted to the required format by the defined outbound control document. The complete conversion is based on definitions (position, length, default values, left/right justify, leading zeros, etc.). This guarantees real-time updates from SAP B1 in SAP R/3 with minimal implementation effort, high change friendliness, aligned with the customer’s policies and optimal reuse of existing interfaces.

Send R/3 data to SAP B1

The SAP R/3 is maintaining tables in an oracle database. We create a new B1iSN integration scenario “DB to SAP B1”. With each new record SAP R/3 is maintaining an ‘open’ flag. In the ‘db inbound’ we specify the scheduler to retrieve data on an hourly basis and the sql-statement to retrieve the data of interest. The ‘where clause’ makes sure to retrieve only new not yet retrieved data which is flagged as ‘open’. By the definition of the clear statement, B1iSN will automatically set this flag to ‘closed’ after successful data import in the same transaction. By xsl transformation the data is formatted to the SAP B1 XML format and imported to SAP B1 by the DI API.

Related Topics

B1i Integration Services

Business One Integration Framework (B1if)

Business One Branch Consolidation (B1BC)

Business One integration with SAP NetWeaver (B1iSN)


Integration Services

CitiXsys provides application integration services to large corporations with SAP ERP having subsidiaries, vendors and associated companies running SAP Business One.

Few companies using B1i Framework

Few companies using B1i Framework

Supply chain management applications (for managing inventory and shipping), customer relationship management applications (for managing current and potential customers), business intelligence applications (for finding patterns from existing data from operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, health care, internal communications, etc) typically cannot communicate with one another in order to share data or business rules. For this reason, such applications are sometimes referred to as islands of automation or information silos. This lack of communication leads to inefficiencies, wherein identical data are stored in multiple locations, or straightforward processes are unable to be automated.

Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the process of linking such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. In the words of the Gartner Group, EAI is the “unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected application or data sources in the enterprise.”

B1i Framework is the only integration framework with SAP Business One DI Adapter and integrates seamlessly SAP Business One with any application. CitiXsys is the leader of B1i integration services with largest number of B1i consultants globally engaged in several projects.

iVend Retail 5.4 certified on SAP Business One 8.8 by SAP ICC

CitiXsys Technologies now has its flagship application iVend Retail certified by SAP for SAP Business One 8.8

New York, October 22, 2010: After releasing iVend Retail compatible with SAP Business One 8.8 in February, CitiXsys Technologies now has iVend Retail certified by Integration and Certification Center at SAP.

The certification confirms that the development of iVend Retail is as per the SDK development guidelines prescribed by SAP and comes just in time when the retailers are gearing up for the festive season. CitiXsys Technologies is one of the largest Software Solution Partner to SAP. With this certification, CitiXsys reiterates its commitment to SAP, its partners and customers to reap business benefits from robust and intuitive applications.

“The certification is an expression of our commitment to adhere to the stringent guidelines laid by SAP. This (certification) will allow partners to confidently position iVend in the market and will provide an assurance to the customers of licensing an SAP certified solution.” says Pankaj Mathur – Vice President, Solutions Delivery, CitiXsys Technologies.

“I’m very impressed with the overall functionality of iVend.  I’ve worked on “RetailPro” and “BeanStore” in the past and iVend is by far the most user friendly POS software I have used” says Marco Albrecht, Director Operations, In Add Minus, Los Angeles, CA

[Read more…]

iVend Retail gets Commidea payment processor certification in United Kingdom

London, October 18, 2010: iVend Retail, a complete Retail Management Solution from CitiXsys Technologies gets Commidea payment processor certification in UK for Ocius for PC.

CitiXsys Technologies got iVend certified for Commidea’s Ocius for PC solution – the leading credit card processing solution in the market today.
iVend is seamlessly integrated with the latest version of SAP Business One 8.8. With this certification, CitiXsys reiterates its commitment to the UK market and its partners in UK & EMEA to reap business benefits from robust and intuitive applications.

“The certification process was done on-site which involved executing a set of test scripts. We were able to execute the test scripts flawlessly. iVend now has certified integration with Commidea payment processor in UK for Ocius for PC. We congratulate the iVend team and CitiXsys Technologies to have achieved this certification.” says Michael Dunkling – Implementations Consultant, Commidea Ltd.

“Commidea certification has been eagerly awaited by our Customers and Partners in UK & EMEA. I feel happy and proud that this certification will help our customers carry out credit card transactions with ease. This certification will also benefit our partners to confidently position iVend Retail in UK&EMEA” says Abinesh Agarwal – Product Manager iVend, CitiXsys Technologies

[Read more…]

Retailers adapt mobility to remain competitive

Mobility is about transacting real time data at the point of activity and accessing relevant business information whenever or wherever required. In retail this allows more staff to be available on the shop floor, where the customers are, and not at the back office.  The benefit of concentrating staff availability in customer facing areas can have a marked impact in the perception of service offered thus making the retailer more agile and competitive.

Mobile POS

Everyday more sophisticated and flexible solutions are provided by mobile computing platforms that are becoming more and more attractive to retailers.  This is due to wide acceptance of Wi-Fi and 3G networks as an everyday technology and the advantages they brings in being always connected, allowing instantaneous update of data, and real time provision of information to store employees at the point of activity as well as corporate bosses in any device.

Mobility of technology is often achieved through the provision of hand-held devices like iPhone, iPad, Android based devices and many more, which can be used to transact a process in software solution at the point of sale or where the work needs to take place. Managers can access consolidated data with a click of a button on any device possible.

[Read more…]