Highlights from the Integration Podcast 2018

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So, since I made the first episode of the Integration Podcast on February 4., 2018 I have published 29 episodes. There was one podcast that was skipped and delivered later. It has been a really interesting experience trying to understand how to do a podcast, interview people and learn about integration. I think the cool thing about creating the podcast has been the ability to ask really smart people about what they are working with and how they see the future of integration.

In this blog post, I will take a look back on the three episodes I like the most.

Episode 6: How to automate SAP PI/PO testing with Mark Oshifeso from Anadarko Petroleum

The first episode, I would like to mention is called How to automate SAP PI/PO testing with Mark Oshifeso from Anadarko Petroleum and was published February 28., 2018.

In this episode, I had Mark Oshifeso on the show. Mark was one of the first people to use Figaf´s
Integration Regression Tool for SAP PI/PO.

Mark wanted to make it a lot easier to do an upgrade of the SAP PI/PO system, and with the help of
Figaf IRT he was able to do so.

“It´s crazy easy to use”, Mark says.

Episode 24: SAP Integration and API

The second episode which I would like to highlight is called SAP Integration and API and was published Oktober 29., 2018. I did the episode at SAP Teched Barcelona and it was fun to sit down with Harsh.

In this episode, I talked with Harsh Jegadeesan, who is a product manager from SAP. He is responsible for quite a few of the integration as SAP and has a strong presence in SAP progress
to API.

We talked among other things about the following topics:

  • Using API as a way to remove the complexity of your landscape, as the bedsheet you use to throw over
    your bed to cover the mesh.
  • Why is the API different than the Enterprise SOA. One of the differences Harsh mentioned
    was that E-SOA was a waterfall approach whereas the API is a lot more agile. SAP is using
    the same API for UI so they will do a better job understanding them.

Episode 29: SAP Integration with Adam Kiwon

The last episode I would like to take a look at again is called SAP Integration with Adam Kiwon.

In this episode, I had a conversation with Adam Kiwon who is the part of WhitePaper InterfaceDesign. Adam and his team have created different CPI Adapters, content and products
for making SAP PI/PO better. The thing I liked about it was we got a really great conversion going about what was happening in SAP Integration.

In the podcast we talked among other things about the following topics:

  • Migration strategies when it makes sense. And we talk a little about upgrading single stack 7.31
    system and migration to single stack
  • Creating CPI adapters and how they did it
  • How to create CPI content as a partner and the CPI marketplace
  • How Adam sees the need for tools to improve CPI/PI where he has different interface
    monitoring systems
  • Why Adam had proposed to use the Figaf Seeburger tools for migrating to the B2B Add-on
    on a project
  • We talked about some of the training they where working on for the CPI

Highlights from the Figaf Blog 2018

So, I really hope you enjoyed the three podcasts, I had chosen to highlight. If so, you might also like to read this blog post: Highlights from the Figaf Blog 2018.

Highlights from the Figaf Blog 2018

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So, here, at the beginning of 2019, I think it will be appropriate to take a look back on what happened on the blog on Figaf.com during 2018.

Last year, we published 35 posts on the blog. Some blogs post were about new releases on some of Figafs´s tools, some were about new insights or how I did see the future and some were about how you can use SAP PI/PO to optimize your workflow. To be honest, I had great fun making all the videos, slideshows and blog posts.  Still, after working with SAP in more than 15 years, I find it very interesting to develop new functions on the different tools, Figaf offers, so that users, in the end, will have a better experience working with  SAP PI/PO.

So, in this blog post, I will take a trip down memory lane and show you the three blog post from 2018, that I appreciate most. Not necessarily, because it was exactly these blogs which had most readers or got most shares or likes on the social media, but because they are still worth reading today in the very early stage of 2019.

Why our testing is different than most test systems for SAP PI

This first post, “Why our testing is different than most test systems for SAP PI“, was published March 24, 2018. This blog is still very interesting, because of two reasons. Firstly, testing is, and will always be, a very important part of working with SAP PI. Secondly, the blog follows up on a podcast with Mark Oshifeso, who is a customer of Figaf IRT.

It is always very interesting for me when customers take time to explain, which challenges they see when they are working with SAP PI. And maybe it will also be valuable for you to read.

SAP PI/PO support, why not learn from the errors

The second post, “SAP PI/PO support, why not learn from the errors“, was published on September 28, 2018. I think it is still worth a read because it is very important to learn from errors and bad created scenarios when you work with SAP/PO.

As you can read in the blog, there are two kinds  of errors in an SAP PI/PO context:

  1. Errors that repeat and solvable by actions like restart the message, refresh of the cache or send mail to the business user in charge.
  2. Errors that occur because a coding error that will be fixed and never occur again (hopefully.

In the blog, you will find a video, where I talked about how you can optimize your SAP PI/PO Support.

Optimize your SAP PI/CPI development

The last blog post I would like you to take a look at is called “Optimize your SAP PI/CPI development“, and was published November 21, 2018. SAP is always in progress, and it is important to set aside time to develop so that your scenarios and solutions always are up to date. In other words, I think it will be valuable for you to take a look at the blog.

In the blog post I talk about a process built on the following steps:

  • Scoping
  • Development
  • Testing
  • Document
  • Transport
  • Validation
  • Go live
  • Support

In the blog, I also talk about a webinar, I held, about how the Figaf tool allows you to optimize and automize the different steps in the process, so you don´t have to have all the manual paper tasks to fill in. You will get much greater visibility into what is developed of your SAP PI/CPI landscape.

I hope you liked the content, I have chosen for this blog post. If so, you might also like to see Highlights from the integration podcast 2018.

If you have questions to the three blogs or other topics regarding Figaf.com, do not hesitate to contact me.

IRT SAP CPI Monitoring

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In my opinion, many companies are using too much time on their support process, while working with SAP Cloud Integration (CPI/HCI). They do not have the big overview, that can help them to create and optimize the best scenarios for their workflow.  This is one of the reasons why I have created the Figaf IRT SAP CPI Monitoring. With this tool, you will be able to manage your support process in a much more efficient way. IRT SAP CPI monitoring with automation will help you to automize many of your tasks. The automation both means that the work is always done correctly and that you can use your time on something else.

I wrote about how you can monitor and search for messages earlier, and it gained some interest so it is something the SAP CPI users are interested in check out the post How to search for messages in SAP CPI, here you can see how to make it easier to monitor your iflows so they contain information that tracks them correctly.

Normally it is a slow job working with support and many things you have to take care of manually. And you have to do it in many different places. This means, that it is very difficult to remember to check all the different places, where you have to make changes, and more important: It is not easy to be sure, that all the changes are made correctly.  And that is way, IRT CPI Monitoring will be a valuable tool to many companies. You can then have just one way to monitor and support both SAP PI/PO and SAP CPI, so  you can set up rules for the processing.

Besides the normal rules we have, it would be possible to retrigger some scenarios with the tool if they are using SOAP or HTTP, but that is something that we need to develop together with a customer.

In this video, I will tell you more about IRT SAP CPI Monitoring with automation:

I offer to solutions to help you with your automation:

  • A cloud solution. If you want more information about this, please contact me. It is still in beta but has the same code line.
  • An on-premise installed version of the Figaf Integration Regression Tool can help you make better documentation to ensure you know what is changed and that you can test the correct interfaces. You can try it for free. Please take a look at figaf.com/irt
Download IRT for now

 

 

New whitepaper: How to create your SAP integration in 2019

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So, November 14. 2018, I wrote a blog post, The future of SAP Integration PI, CPI and how to prepare your self, about a webinar, where I talked about the key takeaways from SAP Teched and how to implement things based on. There is a lot of interest in the topic because it is new ground for a lot of customers and consultants. You will need to think about how you are using SAP XI/PI/PO and how you migrate/upgrade. The big new thing that you have probably not been able to avoid is how to use SAP Cloud Integration (CPI/HCI), and now all the extra services.

Now, I am happy to announce that I created a whitepaper about my thinking about SAP Integration in 2019:


You can download it from the Slideshare page.

And why is this stuff important? It is so, because already today you are working with integration, and you´ll probably have to work with a lot of new integration projects in 2019.

As always in something like this, there are functions that changes and you need to make it work in a different way. It is also difficult to capture all requirements for all scenarios so as always it depends on your strategy what to do.

In other words, if you have to be ready for all the new challenges, you have to understand where you are going, the current state of the SAP PI roadmap and how to make integration in a faster way. Once again, I would like you to pay attention to Figaf´s Integration Regression Tool, which supports the full lifecycle of integration. It is a requirement for how you are going to deal with integration.

If you like this, please share or leave a comment.

What is SAP CPI Best practice?

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SAP Best practice has always been the holy grail for SAP customers to follow. Then you knew that what you were doing was the best you could to work optimally with the software. SAP even has a lot of Best Practices for their ERP system S/4 HANA or ERP, that shows customers in certain industries how to maximize the use of the SAP software.

I’m working with the relative new SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI), which is a new tool to make SAP Integrations with. Like a replacement of SAP PI/PO, though it has some different options and flows.

On projects, I get asked

It is therefore often customers ask what is best practice?

There are many factors in place so with the relatively low number of finished implementation compared to SAP PI/PO. But I have no doubt, that SAP CPI at the long-term will enable you to design much better workflows.

There are at least three reasons, that you should be happy to be introduced to SAP CPI:

  • It is a much freer platform, enabling patterns in different ways
  • All flows are different
  • All organization have different requirements for logging, transport, and monitoring

Maybe it will be better at a later stage, when developers learn the tool more and have a few successful implementation projects.

Check out the video where I talk a little more about he concent

So, I would very much like to hear your opinion about your best experiences with SAP CPI. How would you describe the best practice regarding SAP Cloud  Platform Integration? Please leave a comment under this blog post.

And if you like the blog post, please do share it. I would appreciate it.