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What's SAP?

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Re: What's SAP?

#601

Post by unixhero »

cptaj wrote: post #453
npace12 wrote: post #339

I was an ABAP developer around 10 years ago, wrote a bunch of Planning & Scheduling apps/"screens" running in SAPGUI R/3 and APO for a (brand new) manufacturing plant with a new SAP implementation. I learned ABAP in a literally one weekend and was able to make stuff really quickly. For the most part, you could just "loop at " extract what you want and show it on a screen using one of their existing ui components. The…

For someone with a web development freelancing background wanting to get into enterprise software, would you recommend going into SAP? Would Salesforce be a better path? Which one is better for a freelancer working from home (if any)? Feel free to share any other thoughts on the matter

Salesforce is a very good path. I did it for a year, did a pm role and a product manager role. Ot was great. Loved the platform. The customer/clients were really into it, and the result ended great in both instances. Of course the platform and ecosystem is not perfect, but it was absolutely not bad. Highly recommended. Get an administrator cert course on Udemy for USD15. Get the administrator cert from Salesforce for USD100, and then profit.

Re: What's SAP?

#602

Post by tripzilch »

tomnipotent wrote: post #417
mr_gibbins wrote: post #230

I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP. It's hideous. Hideous. My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree). When you look at the underlying database 'schema' (inverted commas deliberate) you'll find it's a massive, denormalised mess. Much of what SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software. Reports, for…

> SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software No they cannot. ERP's are beasts of expert domain knowledge hidden in shitty codebases, but don't be confused for an even a moment to think you can do it yourself. It's a fools errand, and I'd fire or not hire anyone that tried to intentionally do this rather than just build something basic to hedge time until you have to implement something more se…

Your tone sounds a bit insulted, what's the matter? Is it because they called SAP hideous?

I don't know what many of the terms mean you name, and I severely doubt that every business (or most) does. Doesn't mean they're not important, but most definitely just firing off a bunch of random terms fully expecting people not to understand most of them, is a weak way to prove a point.

I have seen however on the consumer side what happens when businesses "changes the business" to fit a particular piece of business planning software that is "Hideous. hideous". You're working with nice people, well-meaning people, doing their best for you the customer. And it everything well for a while and you place your trust in them. But then walls appear. And appointments get rescheduled. And they want to help you but they can't. Some people leave, a particular kind of person stays. Communication between peers grinds to a halt. If something goes wrong, they can't pick it up so it falls on you the customer to deal with or reschedule (or other inconvenience), every time. You want to get angry at the people, but you also see they are so very much doing their best, but something is holding them back. A particular kind of person is particularly good at merely keeping their head above water and not suffer the burnout many of their ex-colleagues did.

I'm not saying that it can't work well. I bet it's great when it works well. But when it doesn't it's a silent killer.

Re: What's SAP?

#603

Post by tripzilch »

tomnipotent wrote: post #437
endymi0n wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct answer here is "it depends". SAP isn't (just) a giant pile of steaming data model mess because of the thousands of people involved building that software, but really because it can model every tax case in every country in the world. Thought you had a great model for your sales tax that covered US and the EU? Well, enter Brazil and think again, with four slightly different taxes, some of which are applied…

> configuring SAP to do what you want it to do is often on par with writing your own system from scratch. Hyperbole. A lot of working with an ERP is developing middleware or custom modules that implement business-specific logic on top of an existing API and schema. It's like saying building a Facebook App is equivalent to rebuilding the entire Facebook Platform. > So we've dared to build our own multinational and ful…

So your point is basically that everybody should keep using badly complicated software forever because they're not that special and what they really want anyway, is beyond their mortal comprehension.

Seriously though, how do you envision a future where a leaner, better coded alternative appears?

Also honestly, why are you being so defensive about it.

Re: What's SAP?

#604

Post by tripzilch »

mmcgaha wrote: post #537
zamalek wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of working with an ERP is developing middleware or custom modules that implement business-specific logic Indeed. It does, however, seem that these are developed on a system that isn't designed to intuitively express the degree of logic required - or even trivial logic. There are poor souls slogging through whichever level of hell uses SAP for customer relations, purely because that's the way it's done. That a…

To give you an idea about the real scope of what is behind an ERP system, here is a link to the database definitions behind QAD's MFG/Pro: https://documentlibrary.qad.com/documents/2370665/2368142/Da... This is a product designed for small to medium sized businesses so it is not as comprehensive as a SAP. Take a serious look at the schema and imagine if you just had to write CRUD, it would take hundreds of man years.…

This looks ... terrible. I bet it works and delivers value or something, but that doesn't mean it's something to be proud of or to defend how it's designed.

I mean surely there is a better way than thousands of database tables ... with separate business logic.

Do I understand correctly that for a "small to medium" business, they would only use a fraction of the functionality / database tables, but in order to support all potential "small to medium" businesses, it needs to be this convoluted mess?

Re: What's SAP?

#605

Post by tripzilch »

tomnipotent wrote: post #555
jsmith99 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full ERP? For what size organisation? I expect the finance team are using a 'real' ERP behind the scenes and posting the values from the custom system manually every month, copying and pasting from it almost as if it was an old fashioned day-book.

> I expect the finance team are using a 'real' ERP behind the scenes and posting the values from the custom system manually every month Exactly this. At a prior startup years ago, I noticed that the accounting & finance team was always in the office late along with the engineers. I would ask them to show me the spreadsheets/models/forecasts they were working on and how it all worked because it seemed so important to…

> it's not sexy

which is easily made up for how condescending you get to be about it.

Re: What's SAP?

#606

Post by tripzilch »

tomnipotent wrote: post #589
qubex wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that installing SAP into a going concern does force you to reinvent the wheel: as an auditor you might not notice it or might even rejoice, but the truth is that the whole operative side of the business needs to reinvent itself in order to conform to the mould the new ERP software requires. Auditing, accountancy, control... those are offline, non-value-adding activities and services that quite frankly…

> whole operative side of the business needs to reinvent itself in order to conform to the mould the new ERP software requires This is exactly expected and a desired outcome in a vast majority of scenarios. These jobs/roles are not snowflakes.

I've been dependent on businesses that just went through such a transition and it's terrible.

It's not a desired outcome at all.

The "not snowflakes" good people leave, and the ossified ones who really just keep their head above water and need the job, are what you have to deal with. And they have the exact same attitude to succumb to the system or else you're SOL.

I really truly think you do not understand.

It's rare but I know from first hand experience that it can be different.

Re: What's SAP?

#607

Post by tripzilch »

tomnipotent wrote: post #588
buonzz wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

congrats, you just had discovered the dark web, where things are done in non-GAAP way. surprisingly enough, there are lot of "business transactions" going on out there than all these innocent corporations combined.

What does the dark web have to do anything? Should we bring up school kids mowing lawns? We're talking about serious companies managing millions in cash flow with investors or loans providing them a swift kick of responsibility.

we were talking about "small to medium" companies but sure

Re: What's SAP?

#608

Post by PleaseLoveMe »

mopsi wrote: post #115
zxienin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in what way?

Ridiculous to even suggest that the stock management, ordering, billing and delivery tracking for companies like Adidas and their partners worldwide could run on some Excel spreadsheets . Shows stunning disconnect from how much heavy lifting enterprise software like SAP does.

I think you'd be surprised how much is still done in Excel at even really big international companies

Re: What's SAP?

#609

Post by benhurmarcel »

fefe23 wrote: post #70

People complaining about how user-unfriendly SAP is or how companies adapt to SAP instead of the other way around are missing the point of SAP. The point of SAP is that the module for your type of business is being implemented at the market leader in your area, because they are the only ones who can afford it. SAP will come to the market leader and put their processes into software. Then everybody else adapts to SAP…

> Nobody is supposed to just wing it with SAP. You are supposed to learn how to do your transaction with SAP, and that transaction is then meant to be super efficient.

But many employees have to interact with SAP only from time to time. They're not supposed to be specialists at it, just get one action done from time to time.

Everyone in my company has to enter their hours in SAP monthly. The interface is terrible; is everyone supposed to learn how to enter a few numbers in a table once a month?

Or say there's a process I need to approve. I just need to read the attached PDF, and click I'm ok with it, maybe a couple of times a month. Where is the benefit of making me learn a complete new and arcane way of validating a task?

Re: What's SAP?

#610

Post by benhurmarcel »

hef19898 wrote: post #383
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We figured out how to get at least some reports to export into Excel. Some others implemented MS Access dbs to postprocess exported SAP data. Browser tricks were also part of the mix. Then the directives came down that working outside of SAP was not acceptable and amounted to criticizing SAP. I think SAP views APIs as a threat. That COBOL-like ABAP language is part of their lock in.

Working outside SAP for things you are using SAP is one of the worst ideas, ever. You create data redundancy, jeopardize compliance, erode user trust and make migration and even simple changes near impossible. So yes, forbidding that is a good idea. One I enforced more than once. Well, at least I tried. Might even have worked once or twice. Reasons why people started working outside of SAP: - because they didn't know…

> because they didn't know the system well enough and didn't receive proper training

A lot of the interactions that simple employees have with SAP shouldn't require training though.

I shouldn't have to get a training to be able to fill a small list of hours, and it shouldn't take me 30 minutes to do so. I shouldn't have to get a training to be able to read a received request and validate it.

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