Please explain drawbacks of Winshuttle compare with SAP BODS

[Former Member]

Hi all,

Please explain drawbacks of Winshuttle compare with SAP BODS

Thanks&Regards,

chandrasekhar

[Former Member]

The premise on which Winshuttle works versus BODS is quite dissimilar.

Winshuttle provides three different modes of deployment, standalone, single user; centrally managed templates with basic approval workflows and the enterprise model which offers a broad swathe of modes of interaction with the technical objects.

A great deal of your selection criteria should focus on whether you are looking for a very technical solution data integration and data migration solution or a rapid application development (RAD) solution. Winshuttle is principally focused on being a RAD that can be leveraged by technical and non technical users alike.

Winshuttle works natively with Microsoft Office Excel and as such does not require you to use CSV, Text or Tab Delimited text files. Further, it uses the standard SAP authorizations model so a user can only create recordings for the transactions that they have access to. In the same way, a 'runner' user can only use a technical object like a transaction recording or Query if they have the requisite authorizations. This is a different model when compared with BODS or LSMW where the tools are used and executed typically by a more technical or IT user.

If you were trying to determine disadvantages with Winshuttle it would likely be focused around throughput. BODS tends to be faster but doesn't necessarily cover all the scenarios that a transaction recording does. The size of your data sets may determine whether BODS is a better choice.

My personal view is that BODS is a fine solution if you already have it in place, if however you are starting from position zero, it will take longer to implement than Winshuttle and is more complex to use as a solution. Additionally, it is likely to have a higher price tag and require a very much more technical skillset in order to configure and use it.

[Former Member]

Tthank you

[Former Member]

What i refer to as 'deniers' typically challenge using Winshuttle for several reasons:

1. BDC

Most IT shops don't like BDC's and would prefer to use API's like BAPIs - WInshuttle also supports using BAPIs and RFM's but it requires more technical knowledge than BDC's - often IT aren't aware of this capability because Winshuttle don't focus on this capability as the core value proposition.

2. Throughput

Because Winshuttle uses RFC, and is dependent on SAP dialogs and dialog response times throughput is highly dependent on the network, the performance of the SAP system etc - some of this issue is circumvented with BODI/BODS because Direct Input methods can be used; as a consequence thoughput performance is much higher with BODI/BODS but only when all the data is perfect, if there are data failures then the end-to-end time for data processing may be longer with BODS/BODI. The same arguments would be true for LSMW vs. WInshuttle.

3. BUAD

If IT holds the responsibility for all integration solutions then they don't like the idea that Winshuttle allows ordinary business users to create their own integrations. In reality this capability is all contingent on the type of license that a Winshuttle user is granted.

4. EXCEL

IT also is very dismissive of the data staging environment if Excel, there is a perception that this is an old fashioned, lightweight and simplistic data staging environment however what is often not acknowledged is that it is a de facto commonly used data preparation tool and has significant capacity, servicing more than 256 columns of data to the tune of a million rows per sheet. Winshuttle also supports Access as a data staging environment and also enables WSDL's on the items in #1 above, so if your preference is a database and your own application front end, that is also supported.