I have always been really interested in having networking and use it in a way to improve my and my networks value. So it does make a lot of sense to have a networking group, where you can get information on how other people are using SAP.

I had not heard about the group before I was contacted and ask to facilitate the group. So it does give a few problems on how to plan the first meeting. Had should I put on the agenda, that everybody will find interesting.

The big theme in SAP is of cause Mobility. So I thought that might be a good theme, because it is something that everybody needs to learn about. Myself included. I have never had the opportunity to work on any SAP mobile projects. So it may be a really good topic to learn a little more about.

I have been fortunate to have fellow John Moy to give a presentation over Skype. Over travel budget does not allow for a global travel. I have seen he last blog around the different solutions that SAP is providing for the mobile platform. I hope to get somebody else also to give a presentation on another aspect of mobility, so we can get more debate and viewpoints.

The other speaker we have is a good friend and networking expert Carina Heckscher, how will help os become better at networking. I do look forward to hear her presentation and the exercises she has promised. They will come in handy for the next couple of meetings.

If you are in Denmark you and you want to be a part of the network check out the site http://dit.dk/Netvaerk/SAP_professionel.aspx. The first meeting this year is the 8 of march.

What is really interesting about this product is that it allows the user to get easy access to easy create a naming convention that can be used in their business.

The product is target at consultants who want learn about how to create a naming convention for their clients SAP PI installations. If you’re a SAP PI client or are about to start becoming on, the product reveals a great details on what you need to know before you let consultants loose on the system. So the naming product can be used my different people.

It is really the most comprehensive product out there that helps people get and implement a good naming convention. There is some naming convention guides out there but they only focus on the mechanics of what to work on. Not how to make it work in your organization. I hope that you have time to check out the product overview to see if it is something for you.

I hope that you will take the time to check the video and see if it is something that you can use for your business.

www.piarchitecture.com/sap-pi-naming/late

Notice I’m closing the program on Friday, because I don’t want too many people into this secret methodology.

I have created a video where I talk about how the naming conventions work and what you can use them to in your business.

I have been going thru quite a number of projects and I have learned something everything. I hope that you can learn something on this.

Get the video at

http://www.piarchitecture.com/sap-pi-naming/naming-conventions/

ps. You need to optin with your name and email. I’ll not be selling your email address.

When working with SAP PI, there is often a large challenge on where you need to place the different objects that you are using.

When I started out I was using the business system and the type of integration. It was not a really pretty solution, because it often ended up being unusable for SOA and reuse. So we ended up using the business process instead, because it provides a much better approach for the organization.

I found that using the business maps for the process was a really a good idea to make it much easier. I have recorded a video about this.

I’ll be sharing another video one of the next days.

Ps. You have to optin with you name and email, so see the video.

There is also a running version available on figaf.com that allows you to test out how it works and get instant results back. This is the preferred way to use the tool because you don’t need to install PHP and the project. It is though useful if you want more control of what you are putting into your documents, or don’t want to send your mappings to my server. I do delete the mappings every 15 minutes, so I don’t keep them longer.

I don’t think that I have created a video that shows what the tool can. So that is why that I’m creating this video now. It is really simple to use.

The only thing you need to care about it to export the mapping this is done my pressing CTRL + SHIFT + =, and then you can download the mapping.

There are 3 features with the tool that is useful.

1. To make documentation simply upload the XMI file.
2. To copy the comments that you have filled out in a document, you can upload the old excel document and then it will be possible to see the comments.
3. Find the difference between two different mappings or versions. The tool will show what is different between the documents.

The difference tool is really useful when you don’t know what a person did last time or what a patch contained.

Check out the video, which will guide you thru the process of steps of the documentation.

The meeting was hosted by Sapience.be, the Belgian SAP Usergroup. Thanks for hosting us.

There was two large items on the agenda. The user survey we performed in Q2 2011 and what is coming next with SAP PI.

For the survey we did have a lot of respondents. The survey now showed a much better statistical impact the previous. I’ll not go into details with the survey, because it will be published at a later stage, and sent out to everybody who participated in the survey. The main part is that it will be presented to the different SAP PI Usergroups and they will be able to use it. The SAP PI product management team did hear the survey results, so they are trying to help creating a better product.

The other things was how the SAP PI Usergroups was able to impact, where SAP is going to spend their investments in the next releases. We already saw that some of the requirements from the GSIG for PI were in the PI 7.3 and PI 7.3 ehp 1. Part of this was the investment done with the monitoring aspects of SAP PI, which has greatly increased. Also the performance was requested by the usergroup.

So GSIG for PI are currently working on a way to make it easier for the SAP Usergroups to contribute and vote on what is the item that needs to be in the coming releases or service packs. This seems like a good way to make SAP sure, what the SAP customers wants to see in the PI system.

As always it is nice to meet people, who you have only been on the phone with. So in that perspective it was nice meeting them.

I thing the best part of meeting thise people, was their passion for SAP PI and for the users of it. The main focus was on how this improvement will serve other clients. For instance the EDI module or Crossgate offering, may not be something that will affect the current users directly, but it was still something that people was looking forward to be added to the SAP offering.

I’m looking forward to see what the work of the GSIG will mean for the next release of what SAP PI is doing. If you don’t have a GSIG for you area it may be a good idea to start creating on.

The agenda can be found at

http://www.sapience.be/event/sapiencebe-technology-commission-topic-pi

I’ll be talking about how to document SAP PI scenarios and message mappings.

• For documenting I’ll be talking about the template that you can see on http://www.piarchitecture.com/sap-pi-documentation-template/.
• For the message mappings my preferred tool is my own PI Documenter

I hope to see you in Belgium otherwise; we may meet in Teched in Madrid.

For the PIArchiving solution it is of key importance to have a cheap easy way to store messages for a long time. AWS S3 provides this making it easy for users to store their data in the systems. Data is stored securely in S3, by being encrypted when it is uploaded.

PIArchiving also uses SimpleDB to store metadata about messages. It makes it possible to find the invoice with the number 123 or the message sent from partner ABC. There is parsers for EDIFACT, X12 and XML.

See the website http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/solution-providers/piarchiving/ for more information on the SAP PI Archiving solution.

PIArchiving.com helps when you are going to archive your incoming or outgoing EDI documents to a PIArchive.

It is really easy to setup, so you can get started immediately.

The price is €4000 so it is really cheap compared to a lot of other SAP PI solution. We are just focusing on creating a lot bigger market for the solution.

If you have any comments please post them or write us at info@piarchive.com