Geeks are more predictable than others!

However I was expecting it to be a bit earlier when I wrote Web2.0 simulation wave at SDN and that was almost a year back.

Geeks are predictable because they follow a technology trend more passionately than others. And at times they do create some useful stuff in the process.

Though great things happen when Geeks become unpredictable and come up with something very new to the world. But it can be difficult to handle such a disruption every now and then. And it's probably good that they tend to be predictable after every major disruption.

Not sure who said this first but there you go :

It's not just about who did it first but also that who did better.

So following a trend or even copying/adapting is not a bad idea provided you can do better than the original or carve a niche for yourself.

Geeks from SAP Community are getting together to adapt a twitter like functionality in an Enterprise environment and it's called Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment (ESME).

It was started by a conversation on Plurk. Read this post by Abesh and follow the links to get the story. Other deserving links are ESME - Social Enterprise Messaging Experiment by Yojibee. Dennis Howlett also blogged about his side of story on SDN.

Seems like this enterprise microblogging application will not only support human conversations but also the interactions between humans and system objects (Business Objects/Applications/Data). Read the Requirements document.

Requirement 1 is :

ERP notifications - Extensible notification system for events in backend systems. Think new sales order for customer x. Auto-generated enterprise tweets to Plurk-style cliques, defined by UME roles & groups (see #7). Could also include workflow notifications a la UWL.

I had something similar to say when I wrote this funny stuff ERP2.0 - The Blog of a SAP Purchase Order .

My suggestion will be to first concentrate on developing the UI and messaging architecture for human interactions. Enterprise services should be developed for communication with backend system.

Later these services can use the SAP Business object/Workflow event's existing subscribe/publish model for system generated notifications/alerts.

There are several type of events that gets triggered in a SAP system:

• Due to a change in the status of a Business Object/System [ e.g. SAP Business
  Objects/ABAP Objects (workflow) events ]. Also these events can be configured/coded to get published when a certain condition/status is reached. Like when a Business Objects ( e.g. Puchase Order ) is created/changed an event PO.Create can be triggered. Relevant workflows / Functions/ Methods can subscribe to these events.
  
  Basically, ESME Services can listen to a particular event by subscribing to the event of an Object. Actually, this is the way current workflow system works. However workflow tasks have added functionality. Workflow is not just a messaging / alert mechanism but it also helps in completing a process when a series of people / applications are involved.
• or just as an external/internal notification [ e.g. Job events to start a job or ABAP Object events to trigger a method ].
• There are other more system/application specific [ e.g. Report events ] but not
  very relevant here.
  

I will keep an eye on ESME but unlike earlier attempts of SAP community to replicate Blog/Wiki applications, this one seems have a better case for replication.

BPX & Geek Gap: Buzzwords from SAP Community

Interesting !!

Dan Woods is trying to compose a BPX Book with the help of SAP Community and then having another thought here. See Mark's comment on Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution approach. I wrote about it sometime back Perfection by Design and not Evolution. Is it Practical?

It seems Blogger's bug is catching me which forces you to reference your own old posts, even if it is as much related as Yahoo & Microsoft :)

But why is it 'Interesting'? Have you ever read any book which tries to answer 'Who is an ABAP Developer?' or 'About Java Programmer's Role' or even 'Who is a SAP Consultant' ? I doubt.
[ I hope I won't get a few amazon-links in the comments, telling these books do exist and I should buy one]

The BPX Book is to answer the question - 'Who is a BPX [ Business Process Expert ]?' and not about what is BPM [ Business Process Management ]? One reason for writing a Book about BPX is probably because clarification of the role seems to be equally/more important than the BPM technology available at the moment.

So who exactly is BPX apart from being the coolest super(wo)man of IT's new era. Is S/he real?
I am not trying to answer it, you better read and write ( if you want to ) the BPX Book.

I guess analysts at Gartner are better placed to draw the hype cycle of these SAP Community Buzzwords. However, I think 'Peak of Inflated Expectations' is still not reached for 'BPX'. So 'Trough of Disillusionment' is far away.

I can only write about some of my thoughts on BPX & Geek Gap [ That too might well have been contaminated by me reading a few related blogs / the Book ]:

eSOA & BPX?
May be IT is getting serious about shifting the power to the Business users. And eSOA is another step in the direction of shifting the software power to the Business side. The idea is that developers / consultants/ software makers will only provide the building blocks, in the form of services [ eSOA components ] along with the modelling/mashup tools. Optimists believe that someday these tools will be so
powerful and simple enough that business users will be able to model their complex business scenarios, all by themselves, and the (da-vinci-)code will be generated automatically. Till that time BPX is a stop gap arrangement.
Only issue – that gap could be rather huge.

Also check SAP's announcement at SAPPHIRE® 2008 SAP Ushers In New Era for Business Process Management . Luckily, you don't need a telescope to see this Galaxy.

Geek Gap & BPX
Suddenly you may find that all the problems & failures of IT projects are being attributed to this ‘Geek gap’. To an extent that you might wonder if it is actually a black hole. Till now, bad project management was responsible for most of the failed projects but now it’s Geek gap. For example, see SAP Network Blog: Geek Gap Kills the Handheld Census by the authors of a book called The Geek Gap.

In my opinion, failures due to incompetent requirement determination by Business users or a poor solution provided by unskilled developer/consultant, should not be considered as Geek Gap. It covers only the problems encountered due to difference in the mindset of business users and technology consultants.

For example: A Business user asks for 'Time Display' along side the customer data display of the Interaction Software. The intention being - it will help in greeting their customers [ Good Morning , evening etc. ]. Developer thought it's easy and provided the system time alongside the customer data. Next day, customers in different time zones are amused, if not angry.

That's Geek Gap. BPX is a promise to bridge that Geek Gap.

If the developer would have even slight inclination to understand the business needs, S/he would understand that the time should be displayed as per customer's time zone. At the same time, if users understand that developers may not have the background knowledge then they will take extra care in communicating the requirement.

However, if the business user never really thought about the need of displaying time alongside customer-data and still expects that the specified software will be able to serve the 'Greeting' need then it's a failure to determine the requirement and can't be termed as Geek Gap.

I thought of a few more points but only the headings at the moment:

Difference between (Techno)Functional Consultant & BPX

[ BPX's ability to understand the Business process of an organization (Industry Vertical) while Functional Consultants is more into Horizontals ( across industry ) like Finance , Purchasing etc. ]

Web2.0 ( collaboration ) and BPX

[ I don't see this skill as specific to the BPX role. In the long run everyone will need this. However, BPX can be the initiator for the change ]

BPX - All-rounder or Split Personality [ Sometimes Netweaver is accused of the split personality disorder due to Java & ABAP stacks. But that's technology. People can't assume the personality disorder so easily. They have to be an all-rounder unless they had the disorder even before]

I will probably write a Part II , if required.

SAP, Environmental concerns & email etiquette

We have a responsibility to the environment. Before printing this email or any other document, let's ask ourselves whether we need a hard copy

Good news is that you need not necessarily have to quit your SAP job to show your concerns for the environment.

As a SAP consultant we can help the environment, at our own level, by convincing our clients to use paperless communication. The features like email for document outputs instead of printing/faxing or to use web services/EDI for document exchange are also beneficial from the environmental perspective.

Also, with the growing environmental concerns, it is easier to convince our customers to use these SAP features.

Ok so I've covered two of the terms mentioned in the heading of this post but what about the email etiquette?

Well the problem is with SAP's design for sending SapScript mails. [Fact - SapScripts are still widely used in SAP applications ] . In most of the cases, the standard solution for emailing is incapable of sending a main-body-text and can only send a mail with subject and output document as an attachment. To me this is not as per the email etiquette . Of course you as a consultant can enhance the SAP functionality to include body-text but the point is : It would have been a lot easier for SAP to include the functionality with a minor change.

Technically, Script output [ print/mail/fax ] is sent by the call to the function module CLOSE_FORM. The same function also creates emails depending on the output medium. Only if SAP would have chosen to call the new APIs like SO_DOCUMENT_SEND_API1 in place of function CONVERT_OTF_AND_MAIL, it could well have been possible to configure the solution to include email body-texts.

Rather than changing this centrally in CLOSE_FORM, in recent patches, it has used CLOSE_FORM to get the otfdata , convert to PDF and then it calls the API SO_DOCUMENT_SEND_API1 etc.

Further, it means all applications should be changed to include the desired functionality and it will be a development change rather than config / enhancement.

In any case, it's fairly simple to use emails for outputs. If your client is not concerned about the email etiquette then you should be able to configure/ enhance the solution using SPRO config or BTEs ( Transaction FIBF ). Just check SAP OSS and you can get the recommended development solution for the particular application. Your Basis team would be able to help you with the SCOT configs etc.

And if you managed to implement emailing solution with body-text, don't forget to include the sentence in fashion :

'Think before you print'.

ERP2.0 - The Blog of a SAP Purchase Order

Nothing serious ..or may be !!

---

Welcome to ERP2.0 : The Blog of a Purchase Order

---

Date 07-Oct-2007 Time 01:10:00 PM

NASDAQ crashed today. Just wondering what would be my net worth in USD ( Foreign Currency ) now. Feeling lucky to have GBP as my local currency :)

Tags : EXCHANGE-RATE

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Date 06-Oct-2007 Time 12:10:00 AM

I am not feeling good today. Change in conditions. This guy with user-id RMTIWARI robbed me of my value. Now I have a net price of '1000.00 GBP'. Unbelievable, just a few moments back, I was one of the wealthiest Purchase Orders in my company having net worth of '5000.00 GBP'.
I don't want to live any more. Someone please complete my lifecycle.

Tags : RMTIWARI, PRICE CHANGE, CONDITION VALUE

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Date 05-Oct-2007 Time 01:40:00 PM

Feeling heavier today. Someone added a few items to me with some real heavy stuff.
How would you feel when you are carrying 4 CAR-ENGINEs? Never mind... it also means I am much wealthier than before.

Tags : ITEM, QTY, RMTIWARI

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Date 04-Oct-2007 Time 01:40:00 PM

Happy Birthday to me. BTW, don't send/attach any documents to me through GOS [ Generic Object Services ]. Just send me a link and it will appear on my blog. ..That's right..

Welcome to ERP2.0. I am a Purchase Order... but even I have a blog . Also, visit my blog and search through Tags or titles.

I will let you know how it goes :)

Tags : CREATED, RMTIWARI

---

What if SAP Purchase Orders ( For purely technicals/geeks, ME21N.. ) start having a Blog rather than change-logs ( Change Documents , remember CDHDR, CDPOS)? That would be Cool.

Can we replace change logs and archiving of outputs/prints/emails of SAP Business Objects by utilising a Blogging software? With the ability to search and arrange based on tags, it might just be useful.

Sometime back , I wrote about the simulation/integration of web2.0 stuff with/in SAP, see Web2.0 simulation wave at SDN and it seems to be happening now. See the report from TechEd. Now Nigel James is integrating Wordpress ( Blog-Platform ) with SAP.

I wonder if James Governor & Thomas are also excited about the opportunity to read Purchase Order's Blogs :-)

Next what, A Purchase Order who wants to have a Second Life , may be this time as a Sales Order or at least as a STP : Stock Transfer Order :-)

When will CharITy begin at home?

I really don't know what should I write about. After posting a comment on SDN,I was thinking about why IT companies do not act as a role model for the implementation of technology before asking others to do the same. Not sure if I am correct but as I mentioned in my comment:

I think unlike ERP, GRC solution will be required for all the companies and IT companies will be no exception.

Generally, we develop enterprise suits and industry specific solutions for other industries but never felt this need for the IT industry. Irony is that while other industries use powerful solutions like SAP for most of their business processes, IT uses MS Excel, Outlook and some project management software to handle their own processes/projects [other than HR & FI ( to an extent ) ].

Anyway, I am sure someone from Enterprise Software Bloggers' will discuss this, if it is really an issue.

However, there is another and more down to earth topic. After getting many queries from SAP aspirants about their career, I am finding it hard to avoid/answer them. Do you think there is an issue of their inclusion into SAP ecosphere? Lately, I could not reply to most of their queries because it's so very difficult to provide a customized answer, each time. Will someone please come up with a SAP like solution [that requires little customisation ;-)] for their career queries and guide them?

I found this forum on SDN, which seems to be related but the issue is that Career issues should only be answered by experienced and competent people. After all it's a question of someone's career, not the same as messing up a BADI implementation.

As an example, I found someone suggested an SD consultant to change his career and become an ABAP programmer. Just because that guy is working on a service project & involved with testing in SAP SD area.

I found an interesting debate on the same forum, What innovation is needed to meet the needs of the future workforce?.

I would suggest, please include the SAP aspirants as part of the SAP ecosphere and provide them proper guidance. I think a SAP Career Forum at SDN should be started and answers should be reviewed by experienced and established SAP Career Gurus.

In case you are interested in the queries that are being asked, let me know.

While BPX Bridge is in the making...

....Let's make the two ends meet for the time being.

That seems to be a good idea. See David's post SDN and BPX on a Joint Mission.

BPX [ Business Process Expert ] is possibly the bridge which will eventually connect the geeks with users [ someone suggested Geeks say 'User' when they actually mean 'Dumb' ] or if you don't like to personify then technology with business.

However, it has never been easy. As they say, East is East & West is West..and even if they decide to meet, technically it will just be a point or may be a thin line.

If you check SDN (Geek) Blogs, you'll find a few bright ideas presented but very rarely these ideas are supported with a proper business case. I think if Geeks can just start thinking a bit in this line or take help from the Business Process Practitioners to present a business case/motivation for their technical ideas then it should make a lot of difference. If they have a good idea it must be able to make at least some difference in the way things are done.

To motivate Geeks, if anyone who is writing a technical blog but has made at least one convincing example under the heading 'The Business Case' , then it should be tagged as both SDN as well BPX and rewarded accordingly.

Similarly, if a Business Process Practitioner can come with a requirement to improve a business process/scenario, he should take assistance from Geeks in finding a technical approach for the same.

Also, some kind of open challenge can be started by detailing one business process and then challenging Geeks and Business Process Practitioners to improve/implement.

I must have read the example below ( or similar ) on one of the Enterprise Blogs.

e.g. Recruitment Team needs a basic background check for the candidates.
Integrate with web and add a 'Get/Match Details' feature in recruitment module.

Input provided : Name, Email, Qualification details, skill area, ex-company name etc.
The info will be used to check if :

• The university does award the mentioned degree.
• His record/points on SDN.
• A reference-required mail to SDN Moderator ;-)
  ......

SAP has BPX, Really?

Marlyn was obviously upset when Dennis recognized that 'SAP has SDN' but denied the existence of an equivalent Business Process Community.

I could not resist the temptation to get involved. Later, there was some interesting discussion on the steps required to make a successful Business Process Community.

All said and done, Business Process Community on S(D)N has been progressing well. Considering it's not as easy to built a successfull Business Process Community over the web, compared to any Developer's Network.

After a lot of discussion, I finally tried to make some coffee here.

Geeks were discussing another interesting topic ( Is ABAP Sexy? ) so I asked another doubt( and is it male or female? ) .

After a long time, I felt the urge to get involved on S(D)N.