To SAP with Love: Focus on University Alliance than SAP Certifications

Please SAP, Focus on improving the University & Corporate Alliance Program. You will get your chance to certify them later. Think about Future.

Like any other checks, SAP Certifications can be useful but it is not a necessary or sufficient measure to judge the ability of an SAP Consultant. Anyone serious about solving the issue should focus on the root cause of the problem. My advice to someone who thinks SAP Certification, by itself, is the magic solution to the problem of failed SAP projects. With due respect, now please get back to earth. And welcome home, just in case. Read more »

Set Theory and Programming (ABAP)

Marilyn Pratt tagged me due to 8 things we don't know about her :). As usual I was embarrassingly late and could not comply. She has got some really interesting real life stories to share. As they say, truth can be stranger than fiction. Of course I am not comparing with Bollywood movies but this one from Zoli can be really close.

I will probably won't be able to write a complete post about myself but for the respect...of elders :) ..

Back in 2005, I was an active member of SDN and then applied to be an expert blogger. Marilyn approved my Blog application :) . Somehow I could not contribute as much as I should have but then that's another story [ there is none really ]. However, I did get something else along with my rights to blog at SDN. My cool black and white photograph...cropped nicely...

Actually, that 'cropped nicely' part was done by SDN however B&W part was by accident. I tried editing my snap in MS photoshop and by default it was saved as B&W.
[ I now know about the issue with Photoshop ].

I developed my personal website, sometime in 2004 and somehow I do like this black and white color scheme . Believe it or not, I've not updated my personal website for ages. Though my subscribers list for the website is a lot bigger compared to my Blog. Just in case you are feeling jealous, it's still very modest and under control. I will blame Dunbar and his number for that :).Dunbar's number is the supposed cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships.

Before you set high expectations with this post, 'Set Theory and ABAP', let me clarify that I have not done my engineering in computer/software field. I am actually a Mechanical Engineer by qualification. So I still manage to try a few things on my own before googling and realizing that it was invented million years back.

Have you ever felt that some of the mathematical operations, if available in ABAP, can be really useful at times. To start with..what about Set Theory. Will an specific implementation for some of the Set theory operators might just be useful in ABAP Programming?

For Example : Given that internal table ITAB1 has the same structure as ITAB2, if we can use the Set operators like UNION, INTERSECTION etc.

It can be implemented as a Class/methods or Functions or even as ABAP Statements. I can understand that complex use of these statements will result in degradation of performance but it can be useful for specific scenarios.

By complex use I mean something like : ITAB4 = (ITAB1 ∩ ITAB2) - ITAB3

As an example : Let's say you have 3 Internal tables already available through
Function read etc. in your ABAP program.

• ITAB1 [ Employees who performed well consistently for the past 3 years ]
• ITAB2 [ Employees who has been promoted during past 3 years ]

If we have set operators then we can write just a few lines of code to get :

• Employees who performed and promoted = (ITAB1 ∩ ITAB2)


• Employees who performed but did not get promoted = ITAB1 - (ITAB1 ∩ ITAB2)


• Employees who didn't perform but got promoted = ITAB2 - (ITAB1 ∩ ITAB2)

You may find some interesting and related articles on web:

• A visual explanation of SQL Joins
• Programming with Sets
• Euler & Venn diagram
• Collections in Java

P.S. - I wrote a quick program to compare the object list between two huge transport requests. The idea was to find the objects which are not shared by both. In terms of Set terminology it can be called a DisjointUnion - all elements in either set A or set B, but not in both.
As people normally search for these kind of utilities to reach my post. Use standard FMs / APIs to write your own code. See Function Module TRINT_READ_REQUEST.

P.P.S. - Blogger's editor has a problem. It does not accept the URL links with special characters - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number, as it is. And saves it as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar.
Updated : However, you can write in HTML as Dunbar%27s+number and that works.

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.

ERP2.0 - The Blog of a SAP Purchase Order

Nothing serious ..or may be !!

---

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

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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 :-)

Thingamy and a Failure of web2.0

Tags are not enough. In fact, sometimes they don't make any sense at all, specially on my Blog. Check my posts based on tags. Frankly, they won't make much sense otherwise also ;-)

I guess now Sig will have to change his Tag ( sorry triple ) line as well .
Here's my 30*3=90 Megs(approx), at least now go run Germany.

I don't talk much but recently I commented on Sig's Blog and also shared my fictional idea about a Software Time Machine. "Sig + nicely explained + Triples" with the help of a few examples.

How come so many enterprise software bloggers reviewed, applauded , criticized & suggested but didn't notice such a basic issue with Thingamy's design[ in the hindsight , of course ]?

• Are these Web2.0 conversations shallow and lack the depth needed for any substantial impact?
• Is everyone busy stating the obvious?
• Is it because startups like Thingamy are less within the range of their business compared to SAP?
• Is it a failure of web2.0?
• Or is it a success? [At least everyone will share the blame. ]

Make a difference or stop writing......ok so here is my STOP, for the time being ;-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is my TechEd, Go run to Germany.
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Perfection by Design and not Evolution. Is it Practical?

To what extent and how?

It's a long time since I wrote here [ and forever since anything sensible ;-) ]. But I finally got my first bank holiday after getting shifted to the UK.

Yesterday, I went to a Ghazal (most well known form of Urdu Poetry) concert of Jagjit Singh, one of the most respected Ghazal singers of our era. Excellent but somehow I was a bit disappointed by the choice of Ghazals. Like the Indian curry houses in the UK, it seemed tailored to suit the local demand. The near absence of Mirza Ghalib's ghazals from a Ghazal concert is like...just missing a chance to satisfy the pseudo-intellect of everyone involved.

Hui Muddat ki Ghalib mar gaya par yaad aata hai
Woh har ek baat pe kehna ki youn hota to kya hota !!

That very ( very very ) loosely translates to:

Has been ages since Ghalib died but his memories still haunt,
His thoughts on almost every scenario; if it happens like this then what? And what if it doesn't?

He must have made a good programmer as well :-)

Cynthia Rettig [ I have no idea who She/he is :-) ] wrote an article on "The Trouble With Enterprise Software" which was more of a question rather than answer about whether enterprise software has become too complex to be effective?

If you don't believe in the 7 days theory then it all started with relatively very simple, single cell formation, called Amoebas. But the million years of evolution transformed it into a giant and complex monster(s). Some of the most complex ones are known as Humans [ or ERP ].

Well, there might be simple solutions to the complex problems. [ At least till we realize ].

From the mentioned article:

To manage this growing complexity, IT departments have grown substantially: As a percentage of total investment, IT rose from 2.6% to 3.5% between 1970 and 1980.2 By 1990 IT consumed 9%, and by 1999 a whopping 22% of total investment went to IT. Growth in IT spending has fallen off, but it is nonetheless surprising to hear that today’s IT departments spend 70% to 80% of their budgets just trying to keep existing systems running.

Not sure if The law of diminishing returns, played its part on IT including Enterprise Software. Initially, all they wanted is some kind of accounting software that can replace their Pen/Files/Calculators and were happy when they got it. So in the beginning, even for a small investment, the returns were terrific however as their needs grew further from simple to complex, the investments started to rise substantially but in proportion, the returns were not so great.

Business started expecting their answers from IT and rightly so. Answers for not just Whats but Whys, Hows and Whens as well. Further, it led to complexity that now seems so unjustifiable.

Some of the problems are also due to the fact that it was all driven by evolution and not by design. So at every given point we end up in having something that will be phased out or evolve itself further. But then this is the case with almost every other thing.

Read the articles of Shai Agassi, [ Mind the Gap / Software by Design / What is ERP? ].

Read Thomas's counter post about the mentioned article here.

The major problem however can be due to a very well known fact. ‘To err is Human’. Software does not make mistakes by itself but unfortunately it's made by Humans (correction: programmers). The decisions are finally taken by the IT & business people and only around 20% of those are likely be good ones [That too not always]. Bad decisions keep on multiplying the problems and after a few years it becomes a mess. It's not correct to blame just the software.

The difference between excellence and Perfection is probably just a step. But it does take a lot to bridge that gap. Probably, nothing can be perfectly perfect ever, however that does not mean it won't survive. But there is no guarantee it will either ;-)

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.

SAP Helpdesk to User: I know what you did in the last transaction

So the next generation software will improve the user-experience and also change the roles of users and developers. But how? Read the in-depth analysis of 3G Software by Shai Agassi. A part of Shai's post is quoted here:

• In that sense the users are going from Data Entry to Exception handling and co-authoring
• Systems are going from Aggregation to harmonization and more importantly Automation
• As structure is added into information, its ability to route intelligently increases by orders of magnitude, hence the value-add of data moves away from the store and into "right-time routing"
• forcing developers to go from transactional programming to Event centric resolution

I just thought of at least one area of improvement. The scenario is something like as described below:

A SAP user is creating an order on his transformed SAP system and encounters an error. He is now thinking about informing his SAP Helpdesk and about the interrogation process that he has to go through. Just when he has started writing about the details about simulating the error with the screen-shots/input data and actions, he receives a call/email from his SAP Helpdesk.

Don't worry son, I know you are facing a problem and I know exactly what you did in the last transaction. Relax we'll take care of it.

Well that's an exaggeration probably. But is it not an area of improvement for SAP? When my internet explorer crashes ( which is does every now and then ), I at least get that moral support pop-up from Microsoft Windows which begs me to send the information online with a click of button. As if they are going to solve the issue and it will never happen again.

Can we have something like this in SAP? So if a user is facing an error and wants to contact SAP Helpdesk, all he needs to do is to run the transaction with the tracker on and then send the information to SAP Helpdesk. With a click of button. All the related information regarding input required for error simulation, dump, error, authorization failure, user default settings, user-gui settings [ SAPGui ]/IE settings [ for Web-Gui ], navigation-path etc. will be send to the SAP Helpdesk with the in-built mechanism.

For SAPGui transactions, it sounds like sending the BDCDATA table of the recorded transaction through a workflow-task-method, which can be run by the SAP Helpdesk.
Almost similar to eCATT functionality but needs to be embedded within the transaction.

For web-gui transactions, navigation-path, click tracking, form-data....does not it sound like Sitemeter or MyBlogLog?

Also, the information can be recorded in two ways. One is to show the demo of screens, input and navigation sequence. More of a static representation of the flow like the flash-demo we see on websites.

Second one can be a guided procedure to actually run the transaction with the same set of data and navigation sequence.

Some of these click-tracking and navigation information can easily be recorded using the JavaScript in a same way that we do for our blogs and sites.

However, a refined framework will be required to completely build this mechanism. I think with the MVC architecture of BSPs and WebDynpro, it will not be too difficult to build the event driven data-collector for recording the input-data and screen change [ navigation ] etc.

Basically, the idea is that user will click on the "Start Tracking" button at the beginning of the transaction and then...when he encounters the error he gets a moral-support-pop-up.

What do you think?

Web2.0 simulation wave at SDN

Geeks at SDN have started bringing most of the web2.0 innovations on SAP platform. After a few widgets and then a BSP Wiki, what do you think will be the next wave at SDN?

My bet is that it will be a open source blogger like platform, a forum, a twitter simulation or another dig, written in ABAP/BSP/WebDynpro. Geeks are geeks :) . I think the new trend on SDN will be to copy each and every idea of web2.0 and develop it through ABAP/SAP tools.

Not a bad idea provided we can find some use of it in the enterprise scenario. Otherwise, I will prefer an open source project executed with the collaboration of Business Process Experts and Geeks to develop something which can find real use in Industry.

But as I said geeks are geek.... How can we build a Blogger platform for SAP?
If we can build so many solutions for the industry what's the big deal about developing a Blogger platform. In fact, it should be easy as we are the users of this platform and already aware of the functionalities required. Don't need a functional specification either.

Ok so it's not a big deal. So what about this one....how can we build a workable blogger platform by utilising existing SAP functionalities for document management.

For example, how can you build a blogger platform [ at least something like SDN weblog platform ] by utilizing DMS [ document management service ] and BSPs etc. The restriction is that you should not be designing and creating a database of your own rather use SAP standard functionality & tables.

So basically the steps can somewhat be [ don't have DMS in miniSAP so can't check] :

• Configure a new document type for a Blog [ in SPRO --> Cross Applications --> DMS ]
  The content server can be the database or file server.


• Create a new Class for Blog in classification [ Xn CL01 ]. Attach a few characteristics to store the tags [ topics ] related with a post.


• Now develop a BSP application and embed a rich text editor [ HTML/JavaScript ] into it for editing post [ doc ]. You can use document BAPIs to create or change a post [ BAPI_DOCUMENT_CREATE2 & BAPI_DOCUMENT_CHANGE2 ] .


• List the posts & get post data using BAPI_DOCUMENT_GETLIST, BAPI_DOCUMENT_* etc or use the document table DRAW. Keep the tags of post as classification characters tics . Use BAPI_OBJCL_CREATE, BAPI_CLASS_GET_CLASSIFICATIONS etc.
  

Ok forget it :)

SAP's Co-Innovation : A Myth or Reality?

'Innovation', the term, is so widely used and abused that Nick Carr must be thinking of writing another book - 'Innovation does not matter' ;-)

So it seems SAP's promise of “Co-Innovation” has attracted wave of new SAP Customers, Partners to SAPPHIRE® ’07. Later, Thomas proved that Co-innovation is a strength not a weakness . Unlike Marketing guys, Thomas did provide real examples of Innovations at SAP.

However, I got technical on the definition of co-innovation and why it should not be called a co-innovation. But Vinnie came up with a better logic. See comments on Thomas' post.

Now, in line with my earlier post Views & iViews, I will list the two view points here;
SAP's Co-innovation is:

A Myth:

• Is it a customer/partner led Innovation or co-innovation? Do you think both convey the same meaning?
• Will customers/partners get the share in the resultant IP. As Vinnie pointed, if they won't then it's not co-innovation.
• In effect, is it lending/borrowing Ideas for further co-execution? Then it's not co-innovation.
• Thomas said "When two or more companies sit down and figure out a way of doing something new, or significantly better, cheaper, faster, then I’d label it co-innovation." Most of the innovation that the System Integrators have delivered, if any, the driver has been the ideas/requirements from the user side or the ideas evolved due to SIs proximity to the users. But I don't think it was tagged as 'Co-innovation' then.
• If it's important to bring people together from different backgrounds, to foster innovation, then why not do it as 'OPEN' [ as in ‘open source’ ]? e.g. why Colgate-Sap joint venture can’t disclose about what exactly they are working on? Who knows, if GM/SDN/BPX will have their viewpoint.

A Reality:

• Co-innovation is a reality. But about joint IP and OPEN as in 'Open Source', please don't complicate it as yet, it's just the beginning.
• It's an initiative taken by a Product company and the progress is being made.
• Has to be done because it's needed.
• Results will tell that SAP's co-innovation is indeed a reality.
• Because SAP is learning from others like IBM.
• Forget everything, it's because people at SAP like Thomas are honest with their approach and I quote :

"Developments such as the BI accelerator and enterprise search appliance with Intel, Cisco and GRC, and the Duet appliance with HP and Microsoft are also a step in the right direction. Enterprise services too, are evidence of a deeper customer centric co-innovation mindset. SDN itself is a big leap forward to openness and conversation, but there is much more to do.
I don’t think the SAP can afford to be smug about SDN. It is just the beginning. It would be a shame to say we have SDN, therefore we get this community- co-innovation thing. We need to continue to focus on how to expand, enrich and deepen the conversation, not how we market the fact that we are having a conversation. "

Time will tell..

Bloggers about SAP

Where should you ask your career related queries or technical
questions?

I would suggest first try any of the SAP ABAP Forums like SDN, ITToolBox or SAPFans for your technical/career issues.

While asking a question, about your career, ensure that you've given proper information about your background & the problem along with your location. Generally, the job-trend/work-environment depends on a particular location. Understand that, a local expert will be able to help you better with those kind of queries which are influenced by local conditions/trend.

However, if you are confused or not able to receive proper guidance from there then you may directly try to contact one of the Bloggers. Apart form Bloggers on SDN, you can put your queries to a few external Bloggers as well.

The list of those Bloggers, is maintained at SDN Wiki Page: Bloggers about SAP

PS: Remember, it does not list all the Blogs but only those which are well-known on the web.
Also, it does not include the Blogs that violate copyrights of others. So you may not be able to find the Blogs like S A P D O C S, which contain a lot of copyrighted training materials.

These training materials are owned by SAP AG and should not be distributed without having permission from SAP AG. Please refrain yourself from asking/distributing SAP Training Material, on Forums.