Like always, I just hate being bored, so I’m working on my next product that I think will take off. For those of your using SAP Service Management, you probably already know that Service Management and Warehouse Management have ZERO integration. Even though WM is fully integrated with production orders, which are very similar to service order, SAP neglected SM. Sometimes I think I picked the Red-Headed Step Child to specialize in… and as it’s turning out, it could be the best thing ever for me (as soon as my apps start getting into the market).
Well, this new tools is 2 phases. The first phase is create a universal WM helper tool. It will use the functionality of MB1A, MB1B, MB1C and add the ability to automatically create a Transfer Order from it. Simple, but according to my good friend and WM expert, Jeff, something many smaller companies would love. Especially if the same person who does the material movement also creates the TO. I’m nearly complete with this first phase.
Next up, will be integrate the SM orders the same way that production orders are integrated with WM. I don’t know if I’ve fully wrapped my head around how I’m going to accomplish this connection. I have 2 schools of thought and I’ll have to contemplate a little more before I start the coding. One option is to utilize user exits along with a custom configuration table. While this method can work, it is a little more intensive for a customer to implement. In order to avoid any possible overwriting, the customer would have to manually place this include into thier code. Not difficult, but not as easy as my other products. Option 2 entails a batch program that would need to run pretty often to pick up any demands released into the system from service orders and then generate the appropriate WM documents. I also need to spend more time understanding all of the pieces involved for production orders.
All fun stuff, and yet another learning experience. Special Thanks to my good friend Jeff Bass. without him, WM would just be another black box of SAP that I know nothing about. Jeff is an amazing teacher of this stuff. If you need WM help, check him out.
Thanks,
Mike
Category: Blog
My 2nd Real Product – Service Dashboard
I’m pretty excited right now. A couple months ago, I completed Broadsword: SM Dashboard, an SAP Dashboard. I took my own advise this time around and designed something that some of my previous clients specifically asked for. It helps because I know the process so well, that I came up with all the scenarios I’ve seen throughout my career.
It’s pretty awesome because I was able to learn several new skills building this product (I’ll post more about those in some future posts) and more importantly, I actually have interested parties in this tool. Like everything else, I need a starting point, and once I have several clients running the tool effectively, that should open the door to future sales. Anyway, things are getting exciting, and between the new products I’m developing and joint venture with DMS I feel like my business is about to take off…
A Whole New Adventure – Joint Ventures
About 2 months ago, I did the SC Mud Run with a friend of mine that I consulted with. During the hour car ride, and then over dinner and drinks, we realized that we both were interested in launching products. My friend Mike also had a lot of ideas of things we could develop and sell to companies. Finally, I found a like minded soul. Since then, we’ve actually designed the first 2 pieces of Mike’s PP offering. The bad news, and it’s not really bad, but it is more work, is that now we’re looking to do a joint venture between the 2 of us. While this i awesome because I finally have someone to help with the workload, it brings about a whole new set of challenges.
1. We need to determine how to structure ourselves into a new entity. This may be a new LLC, it might be an operating agreement, or it might be both. While it sounds easy because I’ve already set up a business, it turns out because I already exist it’s a whole new set of challenges. I need to work closely with SAP to make sure that I don’t lose all of the development work I’ve done. Partnering with SAP is a great thing, but I’m being told I can’t transfer all of my development work to a new company. So I’m working through those details now.
2. For the first time, I need to work with someone else and listen to their ideas, and work together. Simple things like coming up with a company name, deciding where to incorporate, etc. Not bad, but I can’t just make a decision. We need to work together.
3. Determining revenue splits. It’s great because i have someone to share the costs with, but now I have to split the revenue as well.
And that’s just the things we know so far… I’m exciting for this new venture, but like every change, it’s always a bit scary. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.
Thanks,
Mike
Making Friends – How to connect with new business contacts
Today, I wanted to talk a little about making friends. Now this sounds simple, we learned this before we even started kindergarten, but in the business arena, it’s a little different. Not everyone wants to be your friend. It’s often a “what’s in it for me?” attitude.
I recently was lucky enough to talk to someone that has made it to where I’m trying to get to. His name is Sumit Sangha and he runs Security Weaver. They are a company that provides applications to SAP customers in the area of security. Needless to say, I was able to learn a lot from Sumit in a short amount of time. But I never would’ve met Sumit if it wasn’t for one of my consulting friends. He made the introduction because he knew I was trying to get my business off the ground and Sumit was a friend of his. I doubt I would’ve ever talked to Sumit if I wasn’t introduced to him by someone he knew and trusted.
The point of this is to remind you that everyone you know in your business life potentially knows someone with the next piece of information you need to go to the next level. So remember, promote yourself to your friends too. You never know when they might connect you to someone that can help.
Select-Option in OO class
Here’s part 2 of my adventure with SELECT-OPTION. Now one of the cool things that SAP did was to move to an OO programming method. However, since I got very used to SAP forms, functions and programs, I keep finding things that aren’t as easy to do with classes. SELECT-OPTION for example.
Now, what I really wanted to do was to send the select option table into a global class, so I could use it select statements and other table functions. Sounds easy, right? Well, actually it is, once you figure out how to do it.
It turns out, all you need to do is create a global structure/table type that woks as a select-option. The new trick that I learned is that there is a special function in SE11 when creating a table type that allows you to create it as a select-option table.
All you need to do is go into SE11, enter in the name of the table type, select TABLE TYPE as the object to create. Once you are in SE11, Enter in the short text, then go to the menu: edit–>Define as Ranges Table Type. This changes the inputs you’re given for creating the table type.
Enter in the data Element (MATNR for example), then enter in the name of the structure you want to create, and press create. It will automatically create the fields for your SELECT-OPTION range.
Save and activate everything. Now all you need to do is enter it into the parameter for your public class and you’re ready to go.
One last point, don’t forget when calling the class, to send it in as a table…
SELECT-OPTION: matnr FOR mara-matnr.
call method XXXX (
exporting
IT_SO_MATNR = matnr )
Anyway, that’s one of my recent discoveries. I’m learning a lot about layouts and trees currently, so there will probably be a post about some of those tricks as well.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
SAP Report: SELECT-OPTIONS in a layout screen.
Well, today I’ll get a little more technical for a change. I’m working on generating a new dashboard for service management, and one of the challenges that I needed to overcome was using Select-options in a layout screen and then feeding those options to a global class. Let’s start with the layout issue:
1. you need to define a subscreen. I usually put this in my _TOP with all my other data declarations. It would look something like this:
SELECTION-SCREEN BEGIN OF SCREEN 1301 AS SUBSCREEN.
SELECTION-SCREEN BEGIN OF BLOCK slssel_1 WITH FRAME TITLE text-f10.
SELECT-OPTIONS:
vkorg FOR vbak-vkorg,
vtweg FOR vbak-vtweg,
spart FOR vbak-spart,
vkgrp FOR vbak-vkgrp,
vkbur FOR vbak-vkbur,
SELECTION-SCREEN END OF BLOCK slssel_1.
SELECTION-SCREEN: END OF SCREEN 1301.
This has a subscreen of 1301 (and it also has a box around this data to make it look nicer.
2. Once you have this subscreen declared, you need to go to SE51 and update your layout. You will need to go into the layout screen and place the subscreen in your desired location.
in my example, I’d call it SUB_1301. Be sure to make it large enough to hold all the fields (it’ll encompass your full width of the screen to hold all the fields).
3. Finally, you need to make a declaration for the new subscreen in your flow logic. Here’s a very simple example:
PROCESS BEFORE OUTPUT.
CALL SUBSCREEN SUB_1301 INCLUDING SY-REPID ‘1301’.
MODULE STATUS_0110.
PROCESS AFTER INPUT.
CALL SUBSCREEN SUB_1301.
Be sure to include a line for each PBO and PAI.
One of the big gotcha moments for me is that I can’t define my select-options as large as I’d like. I had to pare down my list so that i would fit int he screen. If you need everything, you would have to break it up into multiple screens. This may have to do with the fact that I’m using a tabbed layout.
Anyway, if you know of better ways to handle this, please let me know. I’m always interested in better ways code.
Happy coding,
Mike
Improving yourself with every car ride
Today’s post is going to move a little more toward bettering yourself. I’m gonna talk about self-improvement. I know it sounds like one of those weird things that new age people in California do, after doing yoga and meditation. At least, that’s what I thought at first. I got turned onto the stuff about 10 years ago, and I can honestly say it’s changed my life. It’s really easy to do. Get yourself an audio program, put it on your ipod/mp3 player and listen to that everyday in your car on the way to work, or on a morning jog. Now the great thing about the audio programs is that there are so many out there, I guarantee if you look, you’ll find something interesting. The best program I’ve found is by Brian Tracy, and it’s called the Psychology of Achievement. In short, it goes over some very simple ways to make yourself a happier, more productive and more fulfilled person. There are also programs that talk about running a business, marketing, sleeping better, learning faster, or learning a new language. The important lesson that I learned was that by listening to self help/self improvement stuff was that it made me a better person all around. I started making more money, I was having more and better ideas, I found the woman of my dreams and married her. All because I accidentally found these programs and started listening to them on the way to work. What do you have to lose? is your life getting better listening to the latest song on the radio? Mine sure wasn’t.
To get you started, here’s some of my favorite “authors”:
Brian Tracy (I”ve listened to a lot of his stuff, loved everything).
David DeAngelo – this program introduced to me Brian Tracy, along with a lot of other ideas.
John Cummuta, Zig Ziggler, and many others. If you’re interested in exact titles in my libary, just respond to this post. I’ll be happy to share.
Happy Listening,
Mike
Learning to Market – baby steps
Well, my continuing adventure of trying to sell my first product is certainly no cake-walk. I really thought the hard part was designing a good product. Turns out, it’s a lot tougher to find customers than to build something. Right now, I’m working on my “Consumer Awareness Guide”. I got this tip from an audio program called Piranha Marketing. I’ll talk more about audio programs a different day. Anyway, the Consumer Awareness guide is basically a couple page educational document to give to prospective customers. In essence, it’s a document to convince someone they need my services without actually selling. Not as easy as it sounds. You have to start by figuring out a lot of mistakes that people make and explain those mistakes. Short story, by educating your potential customers, you build rapport and credibility. I’m trying to finish mine now. If you want a copy, please let me know. I’d be happy to send you one… =)
Picking a Product to Build and Sell
A few years ago, I came up with this great idea. Build a product that I could sell, so that I wouldn’t have to do traveling consulting every week. The idea behind it was simple. Build something one time, and sell it to a lot of companies. Then all I’d have to do is sit back and collect the profits, and then start making something new. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. I’ll talk about the creation process some other time, but right now, I’ll focus on current events. I completed my product about 1 year ago, and I thought the hard work was over. However, what I didn’t take into account is just how much work (and potentially cash) it takes to get a product launched. Right now, all of my free time is spent coming up with ways to drum up some interest in Paper Street Enterprises. I thought it would be a no brainer, I’ve been doing SAP for going on 14 years, I’m really good at what I do, how could people not want to work with me. Well, it’s pretty easy, they don’t know me. I’ve spent all of my time designing the product, and very little of that time showing I’m an expert. Sure I can fall back on the companies I’ve consulted for, but as it turns out, most of them are no longer interested in the product I thought everyone would want. So… my take away from this, before you spend days, weeks, months or even years designing and developing something, make sure you have someone that wants to buy it from you. I thought Rapier would be the sort of thing that everyone would want, and they still might, but the fact is, no one asked for it. I made the make of assuming they wanted it or needed it. Going forward, I’m focusing on known items that people want. I start simple. Every time I hear a client say, “I wish SAP did this”, or “I can’t believe SAP doesn’t provide that”, I quickly add it to my list of development ideas, and move it to the top of the list. Why? because I know that at least one company is interested in using it (maybe not buying it, but you need to start somewhere). So learn from my mistake… make sure you have a market before you build a product. Good luck.
Moving Past Consulting
Well, I’ve talked a lot about my history, I guess it’s time to start talking about where I want to go. While I am still consulting, my real focus has been launching SAP applications that I can sell. In this past year, I’ve got Rapier SAP certified, but I’m still struggling with the marketing aspect. Sales hasn’t been my strong point, so things are moving slower than I’d prefer. There are so many things to do in order to start sales & marketing for a product. First and foremost, is finding potential customers. For that I’ve taken multiple approaches. The first step I took was to actually purchase a list of contacts that use SAP. This isn’t as easy as it would seem. First, there aren’t a ton of companies out there selling contact information like that. Second, who knows how accurate it even is. Third, the contact names you get… well, let’s just say I’ve learned to be a lot more specific in what I request for the future.
The company I used was called SAP User List. I ended up buying almost 1600 contacts, and it was roughly $.55/name. What I didn’t know is that I was getting a lot of names from the same company, and many of the companies weren’t in industries that would use my product. The biggest take away from buying the list was to be very specific. I originally said I wanted everyone in the NC/SC, and all companies less than $100 million. What I needed to focus on was the position/job title. I really needed to find all of the service managers and IT managers out there. On the plus side, I was able to determine a lot of companies that use SAP. The next step, is to test the list that I received and see what kind of response I receive. Next time, I’ll talk about how I organized the list I received, as well as how I’m growing it to mine for other opportunities