I was recently asked to document some pros and cons to using OrgChart in Live versus using it in Staged. I had a think and will share some of my thoughts below.
Live:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|
- Data displayed in real-time
- Leverage SAP authorizations
- Chartbook can be created with a custom date
- No database required to store data
- Custom function modules can be used to return any data in any format
| - Possible performance issues, particularly for large datasets
- Concatenated data, such as Cost Center & Cost Center ID, cannot be used in searches without creating a customer function module in SAP
- Additional database required to store User Preferences and Notes
- Appropriate bandwidth required to prevent network bottleneck for data transfer
- Using data filters can decrease performance
|
Staged:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|
- Data would always display “complete” (e.g. not seen as half-finished if changes are not completed by end of the day)
- No SAP performance issues (data retrieval from database often quicker than from SAP) or stress on SAP system within business hours
- OrgChart will always be accessible, even if SAP goes down
- Data can be transformed and manipulated as required with less effort than writing a custom function module in SAP
| - SAP authorizations cannot be leveraged
- Custom authorizations needed in OrgChart for some data which "mimic" SAP authorizations, although not all authorizations models can be reproduced
- Chartbook cannot be created with custom date
- Databases required for each environment (cost required to create and maintain)
|
Hybrid:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|
- Useful for pre-SP2 implementations where custom SAP function modules cannot be used
- Enhances performance for analytics while allowing the org structure and other data to be read in real-time
| - Mix of live data and not live data can lead to confusion
|
Summary
I don't think there's any particular strong advantages to using either architecture, but I would always recommend using the Live version where data, bandwidth and hardware will permit strong performance. Being able to see the data in real-time and having all data access controlled by SAP's strong authorization method is unrivalled in the Staged solution. The Hybrid approach can be useful for clients with datasets too large to process analytic calculations in real-time.
Thanks to stephen.burr for suggesting adding Hybrid to the original blog.
