Integration of SAP CRM with non-SAP-Systems

[Former Member]

Hi,

i have a question about the integration of SAP CRM with non-SAP-Systems.

We have an existing system, where all our business data (e.g. Financial, Customer) is stored. We like to implement SAP CRM as new CRM-System, and want to integrate the SAP CRM with the existing system (e.g. changing the address of an customer should be also changed in the existing system and the other way around).

With what Netweaver-Component can this be done? SAP XI? Or are there several ways to realize such a szenario?

Are there documents available that describe the fundamental SAP-integrating-scenarios with non-SAP-Systems?

Regards,

Claus

[Former Member]

Hi Claus,

I don't fully agree with Benny. There are two different types of data that you want to consider -

Master Data - e.g. material master, customer master etc. In most of the bigger organizations you maintain them on one central system and broadcast to all downstream systems. SAP has designed MDM (Master Data Management) component for this purpose.

Transactional System - e.g. Sales Order, Invoice etc. You need to post these business documents to different systems to pass the information. In you case you need to pass Sales Order to planning system or financial system. These systems can be integrated using Exchange Infrastruture (XI) or other technologies like Business connector (Based on Webmethods) etc.

I guess there are several possibilities depending on what you want to do. In my personal opinion it will prove to be very difficult if you try to access master data from one place specially if both applciations are packaged applications. You may try to ask SAP if they can support an ERP system which do not maintain material master, instead take the information from ORACLE apps. They will tell you it is not possible.

Regards,

Sanjeev

[Benny]

Hello,

you are right, the major component to do this would be XI, as this part of NetWeaver can keep all the needed data (i.e. data mapping) for this. Of course, you still need to implement something that triggers the forwarding. But best way would be to leave the data in a single location and not try to keep it redundantly. This means to always access the data in it's ariginal place, (which may hit your performance). But I'm confident you could implement it that way.

Regards,

Benny