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Taking out SPM UI - data loading and frontend

Former Member
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Assuming we choose not to use the SPM UI, on both accounts, thus data loading and frontend reporting, what support can we expect from SAP? We will of course install all components but choose not to use the UI for data loading or front end reporting, thus directly load into our dsou2019s and not direct update dsou2019s. With regards to the the flex reporting suite, we are leaning towards BEX due to the BEX products being currently in place at the organisation. However our worries lie around the Integration with E-Sourcing and whether BEX can provide something similar with RRI.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi Pom

How you get data into the Spend cubes is not relevant as long as you have the right data int he right format with all the transformations intact (source system concatenations, currency and unit conversions etc). If you choose to skip SPM data mgmt and use your own custom data load mechanism you would take the onus of data load. As long as the relevant data gets to the cubes there would be no impact on the SPM reporting. So its your decision.

But when it comes to the UI, I very highly recommend against going the BEx route. Stick with the product and use the Flex UI.

Plenty of reasons behind it. There is a lot of analytical IP for Spend packaged into the UI. The ease and empowerement of business users to cerate their own reports on the fly is unparalleled in the BEx side. Advanced features like Spend Advisor, Briefing Books, Dashboarding and graphing/charting along with things like eSourcing integration (creation of documents not just viewing them), risk hierarchy and multicurrency visualizations cannot be achieved in BEx. And I am being very brief. Coming from a BW background I can understand and relate to reverting to the BEx tools as the option of personal preference but from a business user prespective the usability and empowerement of the Adobe based Flex RIA cannot be matched.

I you still choose to go ahead with BEx, then I am not even sure how exactly you could achieve eSourcing integration. Especially creating documents from SPM into eSourcing where multiple rows can be selected and passed.

Regards

Rajesh

Former Member
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Hi Rajesh,

A very good response there and thanks for your input. I do agree with this principle and yes for the advanced features, the flex would benefit. For adhoc reports I'd still a benefit of BEX though.

Thanks again.

Best regards,

Pom

Former Member
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Hi Pom

Thanks for your understanding and also thankyou for raising this very valid and very interesting question.

On this last point of ad-hoc, however, I would still respectfully disagree. SPM is one of the few uniquely positioned offerings on the analytical side of things which allows for a extremely strong ad-hoc feature set, with built in business domain understanding, which the business users can actually use, without having to go back to the IT for building reports and queries each and every time. Total business user empowerement!

There are several additional reasons on why I am persistent with my point. With every new release/feature pack, we add more and more procurement domain related capabilities in the SPM UI where as BEx, being a generic tool set, remains unchanged. All of the future integration capabilities will be brought into the product with the SPM UI being an integral part of the equation.

If you are the customer then obviously, you can make up your own decision on which route to take, now that you have understood the official SAP recommendation which is to use the SPM UI along with the BW content. If you are a partner, and want to recommend the BEx route to your customer, then pls understand that your customer will want to know about the difference in your recommendation vs official SAP recommendation.

Hope my explanation helps bring about an understanding about the strength of the SPM UI vs generic analytical tool sets.

Regards

Rajesh

Former Member
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Hi Rajesh,

This is a very interesting debate indeed and i believe you've captured it in the essence that yes the flex UI is constantly being improved whereby BEX remains untouched. I've now also concluded that E-sourcing cannot be achieved via BEX as there are no ways of passing the multiple items.

Best regards,

Pom

Former Member
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Hi Pom

Yes and thankyou for making this 'debate happen! Helps clarify all the whys.

All of the features built into the product (and largely enabled thru the UI) have been brought outside in, meaning all of the features were introduced because they were requested by multiple customers.

Enabling the eSourcing integration with BEx tools would be a difficult job. But its not only the eSourcing integration but all of the other potential integrations that would followon in later releases with a lot of other features which would keep making this focus based UI a more attractive choice to the producement end users.

Good luck with your implementation!

Regards

Rajesh

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