Portal Implementation with Unicode options on R/3 systems

[Former Member]

Dear All,

I have a very specific and unique query. We are implementing ESS, MSS, MBO for our clients, and in the process have upgraded the production servers to R/3 4.7 version ( Non - Unicode ). We're using EP 6.0 as the front for the same .

My question is as below :

Today the client is not interested in having interface other than english, but moving down the line after 2 years he would like to have a Korean language interface, which might require R/3 4.7 with Koran language unicode and functions converted.

What I want to know is whether this effort in upgrading to the unicode version of Korean on R/3 , before we actually implement ESS / MSS etc is better or should we upgrade to a unicode version 2 years later ?

In either case what are the advantages and disadvantages ?

Expert insight sought,

Regards,

Neeraj S.

[former_member181887]

Hi Neeraj,

The approach that is usually taken is answering "why not convert to unicode now?"

The system is smaller, less functionality deployed and you have less users. We typically call this the opportunity costs.

Obviously there is no one driver to do the conversion <b>now</b> in your case (i.e. you're not doing a global implementation, you don't have MDMP, etc). You just have to evaluate if you will have the money, resources and system downtime to convert a larger system in 2 years. Its a balancing act.

I hope this helps,

Mike

[MarcelRabe]

Hi Neeraj Sripuram

did you ever get any more information about this topic? I'm still confused about the options. There is a statement op sap marketplace about the conversion of characters.

I want to offer a portal in all languages, but this almost requires all languages (and thus codepages) to exist on the backend SAP systems if you have iviews that connect to those systems (via ITS, Jco etc).

Is there a supported way to deal with this, without installing the multiple codepages?

[former_member181887]

Hi Marcel,

The portal capabilities of SAP NetWeaver are built on unicode (all JAVA based applications are based on unicode). This means that you can install many languages including exotic language like Kanji, Chinese, etc on the system.

SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7) supports 3 multi-language solutions:

Unicode: Same as portal in that almost all language characters in the world are supported.

Single non-unicode code page: Prior to unicode, single code pages enabled support of multiple languages with common characters via one code page (e.g. Latin-1 code page supported all western European languages).

MDMP: a stop gap solution prior to the release of unicode which used a clever switching mechanism to handle the processing of languages that spanned multiple non-unicode code pages. This solution had very strict restrictions and is not recommended anymore as unicode is available. mySAP ERP 2005 does not support MDMP anymore.

If you connect a portal to a backend mySAP ERP system you should only communicate and process languages that are installed on the mySAP ERP system. This ensures that no data is corrupted during transfer. Obviously the portal can support more language but you should not interface with the backend system in these languages.

I hope this helps,

Mike.