SAP Business One Customization or where to Start

Sep 11
13:24

2011

Andrew Karasev

Andrew Karasev

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It is perfect when Small Business ERP application fits your business processes and there is no need to do any modification.

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This perfect scenario should not be expected by the company and that’s where you need to do your homework to find good balance between accounting platform popularity,SAP Business One Customization or where to Start Articles ratings, available functionality and reasonable level of custom programming.  SAP B1 goes further with such things as extending existing tables in settings with new user defined fields as well as adding new user defined tables where in both cases user interface is added automatically to show and edit newly created custom tables and fields.  Compare these features to what previous decade ERP were offering – typically certain number of user defined fields that were reserved in existing SQL tables.  New user defined objects could be used for data entry and in reporting for example in Crystal Report.  If you plan to feed these fields with external database datasets then they should be available in Data Transfer Workbench.  And this is huge advantage but it might be not all that you need.  Custom tables often require animation via custom SB1 Software Development Kit coding.  Let’s take a look at some details starting with user defined fields and tables in settings:

1. User defined table.  Login SAP BO user interface and follow the path: Tools -> Customization Tools -> User Defined Tables Setup.  At this point it is in your hands to create new table.  When you are done the user interface should be created automatically and you can open it for data entry and editing via Tools -> User Defined Windows

2. Extending Existing Table.  Now let’s assume that you would like to extend existing object, such as Business Partner and add the field where you are marking if this BP is ready to receive Statement via email and if it is not market you mail it in paper.  Again use the following path: Tools -> Customization Tools -> User Defined Fields Management and here expand Master Data, Business Partner twice and click on Add button on the bottom of the form.  Apply your IT judgment in creating the field and giving it type and format.  When you are done try to open Business Partner form and in menu click on view and mark User Defined Fields – and immediately your custom field is shown on the extension attached to the right from master record form.  What you need to know is the fact that OCRD table (business partner master record file) was altered and extended with the newly created field and you can address this field in DTW or Crystal Report

3. Custom Crystal Reports.  If you are on version 8.81, 8.8 or 2007A/B then you should be entitled to have one Crystal Report Designer license and we recommend you to raise this question to your current reseller.  As we already mentioned above in CR you can access newly created fields and tables and if this is all you need to do you can skip the rest of this publication.  Before you browse away to the next internet page we would like to recommend you Crystal Report design with data connection via SQL Stored Procedure or SQL View advice

4. SB1 SDK Programming. Well if you got to this point in the publication then you probably need business logics associated with custom fields and tables that are going beyond flat data entry and editing.  Software Development Kit libraries and code samples could be deployed in Microsoft Management Studio C# or VB.Net projects.  If you would like to enable SB1 for custom integration from non-Microsoft platforms such as Oracle, Linux/MySQL/PHP or maybe Apple you can envelop your customization as SOAP XML Web Service to make it computer platform neutral.  We recommend you to contract certified SB1 SDK programming firm to do the job as learning curve might be lengthy for internal IT department MS Visual Studio gurus.  Another option would be Http post which was traditional internet data interchange technology in 1990th

5. Custom versus Native business logic ERP balance.  We recommend you to stick to 80 to 20 golden rule.  If your prospective ERP application requires more that 20 percent of the logic to be added via custom programming then stay away and see more presentations

6. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representatives pick up the phone in Naperville and St. Joseph, MI call centers).  help@efaru.com.  We have local presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico and Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese.  One of our experiences is international Corporate ERP and Consolidated Financial reporting