| SAP Event Management | SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight |
| What is it? |
SAP Event Management is a solution stemming out of Supply Chain Management (SCM) to providing visibility, status and exception management to business processes. It allows for the fast resolution of exceptions together with the ability to report on the performance of the business process at an instance level. SAP EM is also the core component of the Object Event Repository (OER) which is SAP’s standard tool for serialized item traceability with authentication functionality. | SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight is SAP’s standard solution for processing large volumes of raw events coming from highly distributed heterogeneous systems. It comes with a complex event processing engine (CEP) which allows for the processing of these large volumes of events. SAP BO EI allows the user to configure operational dashboards or reports used to monitor the process against pre-determined service levels. If the process goes outside the tolerance an exception is raised as an event. |
What questions does it answer? |
- Is my shipment late? Where is it now?
- How often does my supplier ship my product late?
- How often is the carrier delivering late?
- Is someone aware of that exception?
| - Product Z has been returned more than the acceptable limit, please address.
- Customer X is our most profitable and yet they are falling below our budgeted figures.
- More than acceptable levels of negative feedback is being received for product Y
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PROS |
- SAP EM can be used for process instance monitoring
- Very flexible - Your process can change depending on the instance of the object
- Has the ability to detect overdue events and react to them
- Rule set utility can string actions together to trigger on follow on operations (raise alerts / workflow)
- Very effective for processes that are open for a long time (e.g. overseas shipments) - Pre-delivered content to ramp-up projects quickly
- Has a standard Web UI available
- The UI has comprehensive built in security (authorization and filtering concept)
- The UI is fully configurable
- Relationships and Hierarchies are visually displayed - Supports Geo tracking
- Can handle large volumes of instance data
- Standard archiving enabled objects – Seamless retrievable of archive data through SAP EM 7.0 EP1 - Very tight integration with SAP NetWeaver BW / SAP Business Object tools
- Standard interfaces for B2B connectivity (Carrier Shipment Status messaging)
- Track and Trace - Stores instance related data - Can respond to queries "Where is my Order"
| - The Event Grid allows companies to gain a consolidated view of their distributed process
- Intelligent, easy to deploy event grid - Reduced network load
- De-centralized filtering => only relevant events are processed - Massively large amounts of data can be processed
- Structured or unstructured data
- Distributed data sources in memory
- Complex Event Processing (CEP) => High performance - Can mesh events from all data sources together to with historical data to uncover trends and predict future events
- Event data can be analyzed with the results being presented as Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as an alert or in a dashboard format
- Tailored towards events within a short range of time
- Ideal for observations taking a few seconds to less than a day. E.g. Threatening weather conditions
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CONS |
- Not included in SAP NetWeaver stack
- Not tightly integrated with a BPM tool
| - Not instance-based
- Not tightly integrated with the SAP Business Suite
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Which technology is aligned for a particular use case? |
- When connecting to SAP Business Suite applications, A2A or B2B interfaces
- Pre-built tight integration with SAP - Target customers:
- Those that require instance level reporting in to process / business objects
- SAP Business Suite install base
- Processes completed from short to long term - Main use case:
- Reliable storage and access to instance-level track & trace data
- Monitoring process compliance and launching activities for corrective action on process deviance
| - When connecting to any data source
- Custom built
- Flexible - Target customers:
- Those that need near real-time insight into business operations
- Business Objects install base
- Processes are completed in a short time - Main use case:
- Visualization and alerting of trends
- Widely distributed landscape that encompasses a large array of data sources
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Business Benefits? |
- Enabler for “Manage by exception” concept
- Improved operational efficiency through increased visibility / control
- Reduced time to action -> Avoid costly fire-fighting
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- Improved customer service -> Instance level reporting -> Where Is My Order (WIMO)
- Enables process improvements
- Enables partner performance measurement (KPIs)
| - Scalability -> Quickly respond to demands
- Efficient use of system resources -> Optimize resources across the network
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Can they be used together? |
- Option 1: SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight acts as the source for SAP Event Management
- SAP BO EI filters the relevant events, enriches them and passes them on to SAP EM for Instance-level track and trace reporting - Option 2: SAP Event Management acts as an information source for SAP BusinessObjects Event Insight
- SAP EM can push critical deviations or milestones to SAP BO EI for near real-time analytics
- SAP BO EI can leverage SAP EM’s tight integration with the SAP Business Suite
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