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ONBASE INTEGRATION WITH SAP
With 12 million users at 88,000 installs in over 120 countries, SAP is the world's largest ERP software company. SAP helps organizations manage data across a variety of business operations throughout a number of different departments. SAP streamlines processes, reduces inventory, integrates financial and customer records and makes a substantial amount of information available to its users. However, critical business decisions often must be made based on information that exists on documents kept outside of SAP. Valuable time and money is lost in the effort to retrieve these documents from file cabinets and off-site storage locations where they run the risk of being lost or even destroyed. In addition, organizations using SAP are experiencing productivity losses because users do not have access to this "unstructured" data. These companies also feel pressure to adhere to closely governed compliance regulations and incur heavy costs controlling the documentation needed to comply. The OnBase SAP Integration seamlessly connects SAP business objects to documents stored in the OnBase repository. Linking key business content to SAP enables better collaboration between departments, improves customer service and supports overall productivity improvement. Supplying users with mission-critical documents when then need them, without requiring that they leave their current application, empowers users to make decisions that greatly increase process efficiency.
Three Points of Integration
The OnBase SAP R/3 integration is an SAP certified API interface with SAP ArchiveLink. It gives SAP and SAP users the ability to manage "unstructured" data as content stored in the OnBase repository. The HTTP Content Server interface allows an SAP R/3 system to perform content management functions against the OnBase Enterprise Content Management (ECM) System. Using this interface, SAP R/3 may use OnBase as its repository for storage and retrieval of archived documents.
There are currently three different points of integration and therefore three modules available.
The SAP ArchiveLink OLE Viewer module is used when the end-user wants to work within the SAP GUI, but wants to view and store documents via the OnBase OCX viewer. Users working in SAP are given immediate access to OnBase documents related to the SAP business object.
The SAP ArchiveLink Barcode Import module uses the BAPI (Barcode) component of ArchiveLink that allows an OnBase scanning application to register scanned documents with SAP. Barcode data gathered during the indexing process in OnBase is transferred to the SAP Content Server and linked with SAP business objects.
The SAP ArchiveLink Print List and Data Archive uses ArchiveLink to capture and distribute print lists, data archive files and imaged documents. Archiving SAP data will reduce the storage requirements of SAP, improve response times and reduce the time to backup, recover and upgrade SAP.
Storing Documents in the OnBase Repository
SAP users can store documents into OnBase in two ways. The first way is called Early Storage. This storage method is referred to as "Early Storage" because documents are scanned in OnBase first and referenced in SAP second. In Early Storage, an OnBase user scans documents in OnBase where they are pre-indexed with the appropriate OnBase document type. After the batch has been indexed, the documents are committed and archived in the OnBase repository and moved to an "Awaiting Transfer to Host" queue. The next step in the process is performed by a user working in an SAP Workplace. The OnBase Desktop allows an authenticated user to perform a "Mass Archival" of the batch recently stored in OnBase, by creating SAP Workflow task items in the preconfigured SAP Inbox that the user has rights to. By executing each task, the image and related business object appear. The user creates SAP business objects from data off each related image presented via the OnBase SAP viewer. After the SAP business object has been created, the OnBase Business Indexing Connector (BIC) can be used to fully, and automatically, index the documents stored in OnBase. The BIC indexes OnBase content using IDocs containing XML-tagged keywords that are related to the document's OnBase keywords. This enables users to retrieve related SAP content in OnBase using keyword values generated in SAP.
Late Storage, the second method for storing SAP content in OnBase, allows users to create a SAP business object first and store imaged documents in OnBase second. The user enters data read off of paper documents into SAP in order to create SAP business objects. Each paper document is assigned a barcode. That barcode information is manually entered into SAP and related to the business object. After a batch of SAP business objects has been created, their corresponding documents are scanned into OnBase, automatically indexed and committed with the barcode data and sent to the "Awaiting Transfer to Host" queue. The images are linked to their related SAP business objects by way of the BAPI (barcode) component of ArchiveLink. In this instance as well, SAP content archived in OnBase can be fully indexed using the OnBase Business Indexing Connector.
Viewing Content While In SAP
Once an OnBase document is linked to its associated SAP business object, the image stored in the OnBase SAP content repository can be retrieved and viewed by SAP users via the OnBase SAP viewer. Users can make more-informed, frontline decisions because the viewer immediately presents them with the OnBase content they need.
Core Features
