
salesforce sap integration
The Best Methods for Connecting SAP and Salesforce
- Most firms use a best-of-breed strategy to handle their most crucial business processes. Instead of choosing just one prominent, reliable vendor, like SAP, company executives choose the finest technology from various platforms and suppliers.
- Because of this need for best-of-breed solutions, integration is more crucial than ever. After all, only when all the solutions are integrated can even the best platforms reach their maximum potential.
- SAP for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Salesforce for customer relationship management (CRM) are two of the most popular enterprise solutions in big businesses.
- This article will cover the integration of Salesforce with SAP ECC 6.0 or SAP S/4HANA, along with possible integration solutions and a successful real-world scenario.
Advantages of Salesforce Integration with SAP and Other ERP Systems
Without extra data from other systems, many Salesforce procedures and solutions, like Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, are frequently lacking.
Without access to this data, users must navigate between systems to obtain a comprehensive picture. This inconvenient method can reduce worker productivity and result in expensive mistakes.
salesforce sap integration
On the other hand, the following benefits result from connecting Salesforce with SAP:
- Better Data Quality: By integrating the two systems, data can be shared easily, increasing accuracy and removing duplication.
- Enhanced Efficiency: Integration improves operational efficiency by automating data entry, streamlining corporate procedures, and lowering human error.
- Improved Visibility: Business users may make better decisions and enhance the overall customer experience
Once they have a greater understanding of their customers, including information on sales, marketing, customer support, and billing. Salesforce sap integration.
Better Cooperation: Integration promotes better cooperation between your sales, marketing, and customer support teams by giving them real-time access to crucial client data.
Decreased Costs: Users in an integrated environment save time and money by automating data entry and minimizing human mistakes.
Increased Revenue: A strong integration can eventually boost revenue and propel corporate expansion by improving customer visibility to enhance customer experience.
Getting the Integration Project Ready
Options for Integration
An integration can be implemented in a variety of ways. They fall into three fundamental categories.
Personalized Creation (Level 1 Integration)
An integrating platform is not necessary to finish a custom development project. The following APIs would be used on the Salesforce side:
- RESTful API
- Streaming API
- SOAP API
- Callouts for Web Services
- Connect Salesforce
You won’t have to pay for any extra licenses or subscriptions on top of your basic SAP and Salesforce licenses if you build a straight link from scratch.
Custom development, on the other hand, bears the largest project risk and the greatest implementation work.
Additionally, your options for integration are limited because Salesforce is unable to directly interact with SAP standards like RFC (Remote Function Call).
Solutions for IPaaS (Level 2 Integration)
Custom development can benefit from integration through the next integration category, IPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service). In particular, SAP adapters that you wouldn’t have to create from scratch are frequently included with IPaaS solutions. Important factors like connection handling, authentication, and security are handled by the IPaaS.
Here are a few of the more well-liked iPaaS choices for connecting SAP and Salesforce:
MuleSoft is Salesforce’s iPaaS. In addition to providing templates for SAP connectivity, it excels at Salesforce.
- The product that SAP offers is called SAP CPI (Cloud Platform Integration).
- Although they are less popular, Jitterbit, Dell Boomi, IBM App Connect, and numerous more platforms can also be utilized for your integration.
SaaS with Level 3 Integrations That Are Ready to Use
- In addition to providing a platform for creating connectors, SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions offer ready-to-use preset application content.
- This has the clear benefit of avoiding the time and expense associated with overseeing a lengthy, hazardous integration effort.
- Alternatively, you can go live and implement the integrations in a few weeks. In addition to the solution, a license fee or subscription grants access to continuing support and product updates. salesforce sap integration
- More than 150 ERP systems, including SAP and Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle NetSuite, are integrated with Overcast. In addition to its pre-built features, Overcast lets you build your own integrations.
- The continuous maintenance of your solution, which is highest for level 1 (custom development) and lowest for level 3 (SaaS like Enosix or Overcast) after go-live, is another consideration when selecting your integration type. Testing and adjusting integrations to new SAP and Salesforce releases are ongoing tasks.
salesforce sap integration
Details
Good specs should be the first step in any successful software project. To ensure the success of an integration project, a few essential elements must be recorded upfront.
What Requires Integration?
The amount of data, objects, and business processes that SAP offers is nearly limitless. Choosing the correct information is crucial. You can interview your users or, better yet, observe their procedures and activities to learn what they require.
Users frequently overlook things they believe to be obvious, but if you sit with them and watch how they work, you will notice everything they do. salesforce sap integration. salesforce sap integration
These days, where do they copy and paste data between systems? Where would real-time insights help them?
Real-time or data replication?
Generally speaking, integrations come in two varieties:
Data Replication: SAP and Salesforce exchange standard or customized data objects. Typical applications for this include:
Salesforce Account to Business Partner SAP Salesforce Product with SAP Material.
Salesforce Price Books to SAP List Prices
Real-Time Access: Information is requested from SAP when needed rather than being kept in Salesforce. Because
(1) the data is time-sensitive and subject to frequent changes,
(2) the volume of data is too large to replicate, or
(3) the business logic in SAP Use applications for real-time connection include SAP price calculations and material availability checks.
Occasionally, creating a hybrid scenario in which some data is imported in real-time and some are replicated can also make sense.
For example, while copying the equipment from SAP customer service into the asset in Salesforce, we might need to import the attributes and measurement values in real-time.
Building as much real-time access as possible is a good idea because it will make things easier later. salesforce sap integration
Connecting the Data Models of SAP and Salesforce
Your field mapping is a crucial factor to consider while documenting your integration
Data replication requires knowing which Salesforce field should store which SAP field. Are the field types and lengths the same, or do I need to convert the data?
You must describe which data must be read from SAP and how the user should view it in order to provide real-time access.
Keep in mind that this must be documented, and an Excel spreadsheet is commonly utilized. This is how your map could appear:
The filter
- Actually, the contrary is frequently true: the less that is copied and shown, the more likely it is that you will get better speed and a more intuitive user interface.
- Pay close attention to the appropriate filtering method used for the data. Which SAP field has this important data?
Accessible APIs on the SAP Side
Your project team needs to be knowledgeable with SAP in order to decide on the appropriate integration strategy.
Tens of thousands of BAPIs are available for reading and writing data for all pertinent business operations in SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA. Furthermore, any SAP database table can have data read from it via RFC. salesforce sap integration
SAP provides a number of web services based on the SOAP standard, although they only address a tiny portion of the entire SAP capability.
Although the BAPIs’ OData support is more comprehensive than SAP’s current offering, this is the company’s future direction. salesforce sap integration
One benefit of using standard APIs is that they take SAP customization and configuration into account.
Creating your own SAP APIs would also result in a project on the SAP side, which might be difficult and time-consuming. APIs must work with SAP’s release and upgrade cycle, which could cause your project to be delayed even more. salesforce sap integration
Any integration project requires extensive SAP knowledge, including familiarity with business processes and relevant APIs, even in the absence of a SAP implementation.