WAS 6.40 with Adobe Designer as SAPScript/Smartforms alternative

[Former Member]

Hi all,

We are implementing a custom labeling solution for our R/3 4.6 system based on WAS development. We just got our WAS 6.20 system installed (which was recommended over 6.30 by SAP) and so far we were planning to use Sapscript as the output format for the labels. After installing the WAS 6.40 Sneak Preview and some research, I found lots of promising information on the new Adobe Designer integration which could be an alternative to the oldfashioned SAPScript way.

Here are my questions:

- Will Adobe Designer only be available with the WAS 6.40 version?

- Could we develop WebDynpros with the 6.40 Java stack and access data on our WAS 6.20?

- When will the 6.40 Java stack be released for a production environment?

- Is there a way to get a "Sneak Preview" version of the Adobe Designer (it is not part of my WAS 6.40 Sneak Preview)?

- Is there a WAS 6.40 ABAP stack planned and if so, when will it be released?

Thanks,

Guenther Schober

[Former Member]

Guenther

The Adobe Designer is only available with 6.40 or later. It is available from transaction SFP in the ABAP stack and from WebDynpro in the Java Stack. Since the Java stack doesn't really include a print spooler, you might prefer to use a 6.40 ABAP stack.

You could consider runnning a stand-alone 6.40 ABAP system and just having an RFC (or BAPI) to connect it to your 6.20 based 4.6C system. It could pull the data across and print the results using the SFP.

However, to answer your question specifically, you could write a WebDynpro application and have it access the data from your 6.20 system for the data. But the results will be PDF oriented (ie for display and data entry) not print oriented for label printers.

My guess is that 6.40 will be released for general availabiliy some time in the summer. (Both stacks).

So, now it's my turn to ask questions: What were you going to print the labels on? Are Barcodes part of the print requirement? Which barcode types?

Les

[Former Member]

Les,

I appreciate your quick response...

In regards of your suggestion to run an additional stand-alone 6.40 system: my only fear is that our basis team won't be too thrilled about having to support another WAS instance.

<u>About our solution:</u>

We are planning to print a big variety of labels (and label formats) on different Zebra printer models. This is due to the fact that we would like to use Zebra's BarOne for R/3 to create the labels and upload them to our application from where they will be printed through standard SAP output (SAPScript or maybe Smartforms). And of course, BarOne only supports Zebra printers :).

Having the users to create or modify the labels through SE71 or Smartforms was never considered as an option due to the user-friendliness of those editors for non-technical users.

And yes, we will print barcodes on the labels (actually lots of them!) in all different industry standards (no 2D formats though).

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Thanks

Guenther

Ps. I just talked to our SAP rep and it looks like we won't be able to get any 6.40 version before the end of Q3; right now only rampup customers are eligible for it - this is bad news!

[Former Member]

Not being able to get at it until Q3 is indeed a drag if you need to get the application going today.

I just had an email from the product manager and he is hoping to have the demo version available on SDN in July. With that you could at least develop an online demo. The Zebra drivers are only in the ABAP stack so although it's technically possible to drive the printers from the Java side, you would need to do a lot of programming at a level below WebDynpro to get the Zebra formatted data. You'd also have to copy the Zebra drivers from the ABAP stack to the Java stack.

Note: The Adobe solution generates Zebra output directly. It does not use the Zebra BarOne utility.

Les

[Former Member]

Thanks Les!

Even July will be a stretch, we'll see...

Good to know about the Zebra integration - given our expertise, the ABAP stack would be the preferred route as of now anyway.

Thanks again!

Guenther

[Former Member]

Hi again Les!

We finally made it as a WAS 6.40 Ramp-Up customer and I started looking into the Adobe Designer as an alternative to Smartforms.

I got to the point were I created form interface and context through the ABAP workbench but I can't find any way to create the output in Zebra's ZPL language. By default the output is created in PDF format which is not supported by Zebra printers.

Any idea?

Thanks,

Guenther

[Former Member]

Hi Guenther - I'm gald to be able to respond here but I don't get all that much time to watch the forums. (Someone else saw this and told me your question). You can also post these questions using the normal OSS or service marketplace methods.

So, now to answer the question. just define a Zebra printer in SPAD in the usual way and run your program but instead of print preview, send your output to the Zebra printer you just defined. Instead of producing PDF it will produce ZPL ad send it to the printer.

Happy labels!

Les

[Former Member]

Hi Guenther,

i'm no SAP internal, so i can't promise you something about the "release strategy" of SAP according the requested features. But, i got this things working (not with Sneak Preview) and i can tell you:

Forget about Smartforms or even SAPScript! If it's possible for you to wait, do it. These Adobe forms are the first <b>real</b> WYSIWYG interactive forms i've seen yet and they are <b>definitely</b> worth using and waiting.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Stefan

[Former Member]

Thanks Stefan!

Can you share some information with me on how you got it to work?

I assume you implemted it via the Java stack?

It would definitely help if I could demo this approach to the business in order to sell it as an alternative.

Thanks,

Guenther

[Former Member]

Hi Guenther,

yes that's right. It's running on the java stack via the web services provided for this in my case (and not on sneak preview).

I didn't recognize in your initial post, that you want to use this feature for labels, i used it for interactive user input so far and it's really great, since users can work with the forms just like they know them, so the acceptance is extremely high.

BTW, you can at least partly demonstrate this by showing forms, which are also working interactively "outside" the WebAS and offline. I think, Adobe should provide some of this "special" PDFs.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Stefan