SAP Information portal in PHP

[Former Member]

Marilyn emailed a couple of weeks ago and asked if I had any ideas I wanted to write about. I have been doing a lot of Linux consultancy over the past few weeks, and I'm also neck deep in a network monitoring solution. So I have been a bit distracted.

I do have an idea which I would like to share with everyone. it also highlights the power of the combination of PHP and SAP.

I'm currently designing an application which will create a information Portal based on SAP information.

Imagine a web application which has modules of data convey information regarding each aspect of a business's performance. Each module has permissions and roles as to who can consume and manipulate it. The ACL & roles could be pulled from SAP or even LDAP/ADS.

The modules then present themselves by several different presentation methods, PDF, XML,SMS and FLASH.

Each user logs into the application and consumes modules according to what is applicable to job roles.

Can you picture what I'm saying.

Now here is the killer bit. Imagine plotting SAP based data using FLASH. Not only could you create a really rich presentation system, you could also make it interactive and create some sort of Zoom in feature to increase the granularity of the data presented.

Here are the key ingredients which I'm considering

Article showing how to connect FLASH & PHP

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/amfphp.html

My Favorite Application Framework

http://www.mojavi.org/

And of course the SAPRFC extenstion.

What do you think?

Wouldn't this make a killer app or what ?

It's just an idea at the moment. I have not started work on it as yet.

[marilyn_pratt]

Jason,

This sounds a little like the portal technology that SDN is using. We have contents that are linked to roles and these can be of different types: PDF, XML and advanced Media types.

Is your idea a portal without an SAP portal?

cheers,

Marilyn

[Former Member]

It sounds similar to my idea.

Imagine a business manager logging into a web application then presented with a list of modules which he has selected in his view. These modules and then output data such as finance, manufacturing & forecast information in a format the manager wants to see. eg Flash Graph, PDF file, XML, Excel sheets etc.

One of the key advantages of this is that this system can even be used by "Legacy" SAP users, because it lives on a PHP enabled box and does not rely on the SAP ABAP/JAVA VM.

[Former Member]

How long would that be useful? I mean most R/3 people are going to upgrade eventually right? I mean I am no license expert or anything but I can't imagine they would stay on R/3 for so long? Are there any customers still on R/2?

[Former Member]

For support alone all users will have to upgrade SAP installations. What it does provide you is an opportunity to move into the web enabled SAP world , before you undertake your upgrade.

I have created a subset of this already for a manufacturing firm who are not on a webenabled SAP release. They can now display live SAP mfg data on Plasma screens on production lines, instead of weekly printouts on notice boards.

Eventually they will HAVE to upgrade, but at least they have an opportuity to extract even more value from the current installation.

The whole PHP/SAPRFC thing has a limited lifetime. As more

users upgrade to the newer SAP web enabled SAP systems, this extension will be purely for existing PHP application integration.

[marilyn_pratt]

Thanks for clarifying this Jason.

I thought I was missing something but you have now made it clear. This is a good solution for those not yet upgrading. As we know, sometimes, "limited" has a very long shelf-life

cheers,

Marilyn

[Former Member]

Craig, Marilyn

Were you under the impression that I was encouraging people not to upgrade SAP?

This is not actually possible as far as I understand, to obtain licensing and Support you must be on a supported platform.

You have nothing to fear from my Killer Appplication

[marilyn_pratt]

No fear on my part, Jason. I was just thinking aloud that sometimes "temporary" workarounds live a long, long life ;-)...or was that only true in my own past (ancient) history as a developer providing "temporary" fixes that unfortunately were sometimes granted immortality by determined (stubborn) users? Immortal? Could never manage to kill some of those feisty "killer apps" when I thought they should be retired ;-). My gosh...I've created a monster

No, I bet no one else ever ever had <u>that</u> experience

cheers,

Marilyn

[Former Member]

Sounds like a very killer app!! I'll have to sit down and read through the links you gave!

Sounds like something that could even be showcased or put on display once completed showing some nice combinations of display and logic!

OK you've got my interest peaked!!