Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with sap

Are there hidden benefits to SAP?

GraceCathedral — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:47:04 -0800

Are there hidden benefits to SAP? I work for a medium-sized, semi-disorganized company. Three years ago, our customer service and sales functions were switched to SAP, along with most, but not all, of the top-level financial stuff. The project I work on (for a different part of the company), is based on Oracle (with a pretty, friendly web interface for regular users, as opposed to db folks). At one point, it seemed possible that we might be asked to move to SAP, but this didn't happen because of the general level of unhappiness with our SAP implementation.

Ever since then, I've wondered - did we just get a bad SAP implementation? Are there benefits of SAP that aren't evident from my limited perspective? Or is SAP just, well... bad? So many companies use SAP, it seems that it must offer unique advantages.

Here are some of the frequent complaints about how SAP is run in my company.

1. The speed of development, particularly for changes involving database structure. On the project I work on, we can pretty much implement any approved change request, even if this means adding new tables to the database or changing how they're used. But structural changes that the SAP developers have been talking about making for years don't seem to happen.

2. Similarly, it seems like there is a lot of difficulty getting data in and out. For instance, there are certain reports that can only be accessed as hard-copy print outs (they basically run out as scheduled jobs - they can't be triggered directly from within the interface). Is this normal?

3. The interface requires a lot of training, and does not seem to have been designed to be intuitive. For instance, users have to memorize reports named with random strings of letters and numbers. Did my company just fail to set these up properly?

4. Does SAP usually come with a web-based interface? Currently, users need to access via our inefficient intranet, and outside access for those working from home is not supported (except via VPN). Because the server is located on a different continent, this leads to a lot of complaints about system speed.

This isn't really an urgent question or anything, but it's been something I've been wondering about for years. Very high-level people in the company consider SAP useless because the particular report they want to run still hasn't been added to the system, or because they don't realize the report’s been added because it's named "DZ37489". Are we just using SAP in a stupid manner, or is it just not a good tool for our type of users? What SAP benefits are we missing out on?

No more bulges in the old onion bag

any portmanteau in a storm — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:20:08 -0800

I like watching sports but don't particularly like listening to the commentators. Surely I am not alone in this. So why don't they broadcast commentator-free audio on the SAP channel? Yes you can mute the audio, but I'd like to hear the sounds of the game.

I can understand that for some sports commentary can be useful to fill in all the time when nothing is happening (football, baseball) or where it is impossible to show all the action on the screen (hockey) but for sports like basketball, soccer and tennis having commentary actively detracts from the experience (think Tommy Smythe). To me anyway.

I don't see how this would cost very much, if anything, to implement but I know nothing about broadcasting. Are there large costs involved with this? Am I the only one who would like the option to disable commentary? And if it doesn't cost much to implement how could I go about convincing sports broadcasters to give us this option?

How do I remove maple sap from car paintwork?

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:47:21 -0800

Outside my house is a maple tree. I'm a lazy bastard who doesn't like to wash the car too often. Now, the car is covered in maple sap, which is ingrained with dirt. How do I get it off? Taking the car through a car wash simply polishes the stuff so it's a nice shiny sap/dirt mixture. Last time I was in this situation, I had someone bring me some of those melamine sponges from the USA , and that got it off, but it was a lot of hard work.

Is there an easier way to do it that won't strip off the paintwork in the process?

How do you get tree sap out of clothes?

ShortHairyMan — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:23:42 -0800

How do you get tree sap out of clothes? I sat down on a wooden bench and ended up getting tree sap all over the back of my white dress shirt.

Should I just machine wash it or take it to a dry cleaner?

I just don't want to do something wrong to make it a permanent stain.

Seeks good SAP Training

IndigoJones — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:19:37 -0800

The Man is turning the company into an SAP shop. SAP offers training, but I'm looking for third party vendors who offer a better or cheaper option. Specific areas on interest are Portal and BI, possibly XI and MDM. Focus should be Administration more important than end user, but all is of interest. Horror stories welcome, good experiences more so.

How do I do billing for a small consulting firm?

GeckoDundee — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:00:54 -0800

Can a total newbie very quickly teach himself to do (all of the) Billing for a small consulting firm? Easy, right? I don't know what system they use. I've never used Oracle, but I've done everything except Billing on SAP. Do I need to know things about sales taxes and such? Or link my data to Financial concerns? Can you point me to reliable tutorials online or elsewhere?

I'm asking for a friend, so don't be surprised if he chimes in with more details, answers your questions, etc.

The wisest way to do ERP?

rongorongo — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:12:07 -0800

What is the wise way for a medium or large businesses to implement ERP software? By 'wise' I mean most likely to boost business performance and avoid pitfalls. What organisations have done this really well?

I ask this as somebody who has recently ventured a little way into the world of Oracle and SAP development having previously worked on less exalted (and often open-source) web technologies. At first site the ERP solutions seem to be a good way of dealing with the complexity and need for reliability. On closer inspection, however, they seem awfully prescriptive, inflexible, brittle and costly. Also some of the common management processes surrounding implementation (such as throwing many consultants onto a project to try to deliver it to a given deadline) seem a little dubious. This may well just be my inexperience - is it better to have a monolithic solution or something more customised and flexible?

Business Systems

Frasermoo — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 06:01:48 -0800

SAP / Oracle, these are the big expensive systems I want to avoid in a new business system. What other options are there for a small to medium sales comapany? We buy/sell about 40 lines, have a medium sized warehouse and all the typical accounting / marketing / sales people/functions that need integrating. I have seen SAP go in at my last company (huge company) and I think it is too much and too expensive for us here in a small company. We currently run a UNIX system from years ago which works, but is unweildy and dated.

SAP Transaction Type definitions

beowulf573 — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 10:22:36 -0800

SAP-filter, can anyone help me understand SAP Transaction Types? I've got raw values, what do they mean? A log of SAP transcations has been dumped in my lap and I've been asked to parse it and come up with some pretty charts and graphs. One field is the transaction type, values seem to be 01 02 04 08 or FE, but I can't find any documentation on this field from books, google, help.sap.com or the sap forums.

Specifically, I need to determine if a transaction is an update (sent changes), dialog (just viewing) or other type of transcation. I've got very little working knowledge of SAP, which is hindering me just a bit.

How do you remove sap from a deck?

agropyron — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:44:10 -0800

We have an enormous [pine|spruce] tree dripping sap all over our deck. What's the best way to get the sap off? I googled a bit and some people recommended mineral spirits. That got a bit off, but not much. Hopefully someone here knows the magic secret.

(I noticed that the previous owners actually painted over some old sap! Apparently they didn't know the secret either.)

SAP Implementations

fixedgear — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 17:52:25 -0800

SAPFilter. Any consultants, IT types, or even end users with experience in large scale SAP implementation? There is, of course, much, much more inside. I'm on a five year project to replace home grown legacy systems with SAP. We are a sort of middleman, buying food, clothing, medical supplies, hardware and spare parts for all branches of the Armed Forces and various other customers. I'm looking for horror stories (i.e. Hershey foods debacle), success stories, anecdotes, what have you. What worked and what didn't? We're gradually rolling in 4.6 million items (yes, you read that right), bringing users on board bit by bit and adding functionality slowly.

How do you get pine tree sap out of a dog's hair?

invisible ink — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:38:59 -0800

My Old English sheepdog Max likes to sit under a pine tree in my backyard, and thus he often gets sticky pine needle sap stuck in his fur. Is there any way to easily get this stuff out, preferably involving natural ingredients? (mi+) I've tried soap and water, but that only does the trick after lots of washing, which needless to say, Max is not too fond of. I've also tried cutting the chunks of fur out that get matted together from the sap, but if it's on a spot that's sensitive and hard-to-reach (i.e. around his ears, eyes, etc.) I prefer not having to resort to scissors.

Thanks in advance to everyone:-)