Year: 2015

Well, I recently heard a rumor that I’m pretty confident is true that by 2017, everyone running SAP will have to get rid of their Oracle DB. They can switch to HANA or some other DB, but the emphasis is on HANA. This means a lot to people like me… and when I say people like me, I mean consultants, app developers, etc. Because they means we all need to start understanding HANA, sooner rather than later. If companies are going to be forced to use HANA, it will be vitally important for us to understand how it differs, and how it is the same.
Now, we all have heard the hype… HANA is simple, HANA is fast, HANA is the future. Well, that’s great, but from a configuration standpoint, from a reporting standpoint, from a development standpoint, what does it all mean? I mentioned in my post yesterday, that I’ve just started playing around in an EHP7 HANA system. So far, I don’t see any differences in my world. The hard thing to know for sure is if there is new stuff I just don’t know about, or is not every area really changing?
How can we know for sure? I guess we have to start playing. Unfortunately, the road to HANA is paved with gold bricks… being paid for by anyone that wants a system to use or play in. So the expenditure is not small, and I’m sure the path is long. But as I start to figure things out, I’ll try to pass along what I find to you. Maybe my small snippets will be able to help speed you along on the journey to HANA that we all will soon be undertaking 🙂
Thanks for reading,

Well, after spending about a day and a half trying to figure out what is wrong with my new FSE app, turns out it had everything to do with upgrading to the new iOS 9.0.2. The problem was that I was testing in my new Hana box, to make sure the app worked in that system. Like any good scientist will tell you, don’t go changing multiple variables at the same time… well, I didn’t even think about the iOS version. Silly me, I thought it would work the same regardless. Now I know better.
So, if you have app, be sure to test it each time the OS upgrades. Subtle things can make a huge difference.
Thanks for reading,

This was the title of a webinar I listened in on yesterday. In general, it wasn’t bad. A lot of the same stuff I’ve been preaching to clients for years, but still good to hear that other people are on the same page. They gave a bunch of different little things, like setup your variants, use catalogs, use FIORI, stuff like that. They did talk a bit that SAP is still doing enhancements for PM. Keep in mind, EAM loosely includes service, but form the presentation yesterday, it was pretty obvious that they focus on plant maintenance.

if you are an ASUG member, you might be able to catch the full presentation here:
The recording and slides are now available.

Online Playback: http://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1047397/5D7BDD1AEC0C355DA1B81165E91C9694
Webcast Materials on ASUG.com: https://www.asug.com/discussions/docs/DOC-42462

I can’t say I learned anything in particular except that part scheduling is a problem for everyone, and no one seems to have a solution for it. And master data is key 🙂
Thanks for reading,

Yesterday i talked a little about the design change I needed to use in order to display my PDF output of a sapscript/smartform from SAP. Well, today I took the next step of testing my changes in my newer systems (EHP7 this time). Well, I found some rather interesting differences. For the purposes of Renovation, I’m going to leave it as it is, but these are some fun things to know.
In my ECC 6.0 system, I added the InteractiveForm Element. If I didn’t enable the element, it would just popup the download button and present me an empty window. No big deal, it was easy enough to work with.
When I did the same thing in EHP7, it now shows the form in the window, and allows me to scroll, and even gives me the minimum buttons to save and zoom in. This is much nicer.
Now, something to keep in mind. If you enable the element, it will attempt to use Adobe Reader for the browser. This is fine as long as you aren’t using the new Edge Browser. Since Adobe Reader can’t work in it, it will just give you an error and not show your form. For me, to keep it as universal as possible, I’m NOT enabling the element, and it seems to work just fine for all the browsers.
There’s your development tidbit for the day… thanks for reading,

Like so often happens, I solve an issue once, only to have things change on me, so I need to go back and revisit. Well, in my Renovation application, one of the cool things I do is allow the user to look at any printouts that happened for the document with a simple click, and then it should popup on the browser. Well, recently when I started testing, I found that the PDF wasn’t displaying properly anymore. Just goes to show, things change, so keep testing 🙂
Well, originally, my design used a FileDownload element to kick off the display. AFter some digging, I found that now I need to use Interactive_Form element. While I’m not sure if FileDownload no longer can do it, or if I just needed to do some extra steps, but using the interactive form element, it is working. It required a little more work, since you can’t launch an interactive form from a table, but doing this gets it to popup and download on the computer instantly. It’s pretty slick.
Anyway, if you have a similar requirement, let me know and I can give you more details. But the general idea is using the spool to pdf (you can find this all over the internet). The less obvious part was getting it to render again on the screen.
Thanks for reading,

Well, it was interesting going back to a regional ASUG. This is the first small show I’ve done since Mike Golden and I parted ways. So it was kind of like starting over from the beginning.

As you can see, the booth is going back to old days of our very first trade show. Strangely, I wasn’t that far out place. It was still good to get an idea of exactly what I need before my next show.

But it was fun to see our name up there again, and be able to give a quick talk about JaveLLin. Now, like all of my shows, no one jumped right up and said “I need that tomorrow, how much???” But the show was still good. We were at the Nascar racetrack in Charlotte, and i was able to connect with some vendors who are right in my backyard. And happily, they were very interested in helping a local small business. So I got some great pointers, and in general, it was a good show.

Now I can’t wait to bring my buddy Jeff to the MN show so I can continue to improve my trade show skills 🙂
Thanks for reading,

Well, recently I found that SAP is still making some small tweaks to the core ECC system. Now, it’s not gonna change the way you do business (and it won’t put me out of business 🙂 ). But it is nice to see that small enhancements are still occurring.
Note:
2111087 – Counting entries in ALV grids
2081776 – IW38 additional functions: Cancel TECO and “do not execute”
2062605 – Enable shop papers of PM order to be printed before order is released
2115977 – Create order as a follow on order
2084957 – Mass change of maintenance plans/maintenance item
2076874 – Make it possible to change notification type
2026771 – BADI for CU Bundling logic
2128110 – Inactivation of Notification Codes
2121573 – Redesign of BAPIs in PM/CS

Now, I have yet to implement any of these notes, but I will be checking out the last note for sure, just to make sure it has no impact on what I’ve been doing. Regardless, if you’re looking for some new functionality, take a look at these notes. You might find something you can use.
Thanks for reading,

Well, for any of my friends back in MN, I’ll be back in town again soon. I’ll be a sponsor at the Minnesota ASUG on 10/29/2015.
In keeping with the small show theme, I’m upping my game to the next level. So if any of you are available, stop by and check out the booth. We’d love to see you.
Thanks for reading and can’t wait to see you,

Well, after looking at my budget for this past year so far, I’m realizing it’s time to make some changes. After talking with my cohort Jeff, he was dumbfounded when I showed him just how much it cost me to be a vendor at ASUG/SAPPHIRE this past year. Especially when you take into account just how few leads I got out of the show. So, we’ve been talking about taking a new approach. Focus on the small shows like regional ASUG meetings, and small focus group type meetings, etc.
Now like everything, there’s a trade off. Many companies only send the decision makers to big shows, or only send one or two people to the regional shows, if anyone. So the attendance is certainly smaller, and quite possible that our target audience won’t ever be at these shows. On the flip side, you never know who might show up. So if we could at least get some peers to see what we have, it’s still a victory to help get us in the door. As I’m learning, you never know who might become your champion, and just because you attend the big shows, doesn’t mean anyone will see you there.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you attend the little shows? do you ever pay any attention to the sponsors?
Thanks for reading,

You know how so many time you hear something, but don’t understand, think it doesn’t apply, or just ignore it. Then you hear the same thing again a week, a month, a year later, and suddenly it sinks in. In one of the many audio programs I’ve been listening to, I heard a new perspective that finally made sense to me. A business guru named Michael Gerber started talking about the difference between a product and a brand. After listening to his perspective, it gave me some thing new to think about. Here’s what he said.

A product is anything that your customer doesn’t currently own, has no experience with, or maybe doesn’t even know it exists.

A Brand is something your customer already buys, but you may just be another vendor in the space.

Now the implications of this, while subtle, have big impacts for someone like me. I discovered that I have a product. My apps don’t really exist in the market. While there might be similar things, they aren’t in my area, and as I’ve discovered, most people have no clue there might be something like I do. This helps me put a new perspective on my marketing. It means that most of my marketing (85% or so) needs to focus on education. Education on the the problem my software solves, education that solutions exist, etc… I knew this from other people, but hearing it in terms like this helps solidify it in my brain. thought I’d share it with you.

Thanks for reading,