Give vs Take

[stephenjohannes]

**begin rant***

After posting a question and having a bad track record with ever getting answers to questions I posted in SDN, my question is why do I continue to provide answers?

In any other area besides CRM my hit rate was pretty decent. However most of my CRM related questions went silent or unanswered. Yes I know I have very few questions, but that's exactly my point. I shy away from posting questions, because I generally figure out after a while, or the expert base isn't quite fully there. The coffee corner is about the only place where at least I can get "bone thrown" on a regular basis.

Case in point the whole EEWB blog that I posted on the tabular bp fields, could have been an SDN question, but instead I went down the route of just figuring the whole darn thing.

I almost took this approach again with the whole Genil/BOL object creation(), but I figured I would ask the "expert pool" about this. However I haven't found anyone who has any knowledge in this area? I may end up having to figure out myself again and then post the darn solution on SDN. I guess the real question is how much participation from the SAP knowledge base is really involved in areas the like CRM forums.

So why do I still answer, because many times it is a question/problem where I had to fix the issue, or something that I need to figure out for a future project.

***end rant**

Anyway the weekend is coming up very quickly so I will hope next week will bring the "awaited" answer to my question.

Take care,

Stephen

[former_member181923]

Stephen -

What a wonderful coincidence you posted about EEWB.

I posted a question about EEWB in the SCM-APO forum (it's used there also.) And a woman at one of our remote development centers saw it and said the same thing as you - that it's also used in CRM and that she had some experience with it on a previous CRM gig.

My question is: does EEWB allow you to enhance existing SAP transactions, or just to build your own.

For example, in my case in APO, the client wants to know if I can do a pop-up with some custom data in the main SAP transactions for creating/changing/displaying the Product Master.

I found an exit that MAY work, but it's fired from a "buchen" PAI and is therefore dependent on what OK-CODE the user fires - it may not fire everywhere we need it.

And if this is the case, I'm really interested in knowing whether EEWB will allow me to add a custom pop-up to the SAP transaction.

Also, is it the case that EEWB is just a package for non-programmers to develop dialogs?

Best

djh

[stephenjohannes]

David,

The EEWB virus spread to another module. EEWB is great for generating "simple" non-complex enhancement in my opinion. The problem with EEWB is that SAP decided to stop fully documenting the manual extension procedures once the tool was released. This meant that if you need to do something outside the standard data model, you are pretty much out of luck and have to rely on "ancient" documentation to figure out the procedures.

EEWB normally just adds fields or table to a business logic. If you want to do anything special(popups, etc), you have to code it. Now the only good part about EEWB is that you can use it to generate a coding template and then start your work using the template. EEWB really is designed for existing business objects(think business partner, transaction, product, etc) and not custom business objects(zbusiness objects).

I personally don't mind wizards for enhancements, but you need to know what the wizard generates in case something goes wrong, on need to deviate to meet the requirements. The EEWB is definitely better than doing things by hand, but had some drawbacks. One simple thing that drives me crazy in CRM 40, is you can't add currency/quantity fields using the EEWB. It's like there this assumption that people would never want to make extensions that stored decimal/numeric values and only do pure attribute values.

One last rant is that a good portion of the questions in the CRM forums are driven by the EEWB and the lack of proper enhancement procedure documentation. There is too much reliance on just use the EEWB, and not enough on use the EEWB and read the documentation on what objects it generates. I only mention this because prior to CRM 40, the object extension procedures had better documentation than when the EEWB came out.

Yes the EEWB is both of a source of efficiency and misery for CRM developers.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

Just was speaking to solution management CRM and we should soon be seeing some reinforcements of CRM moderation from the SAP side.

This should improve the ability to see questions answered.

We can re-visit this in the next few weeks to see if the added resources are helping the cause. Please keep posted and keep us posted (I think the new moderators will be joining in the next few weeks)

[stephenjohannes]

Marilyn,

It will be good to see some more participation from SAP on the CRM side. If you look at CRM - General & Framework forum most of the top posters come from outside the SAP mothership. Now if you really wanted to make the CRM folks happy it would be nice to divide the CRM forums further. I know CRM is in the business solutions, but if there could some extra forums added as listed below, it might help with the answer rate of CRM questions.

CRM - Sales

CRM - Marketing

CRM - Service

CRM - Middleware

The general problem is that CRM covers so much functionality that things tend to get lost, just like before there was only the ABAP General forum.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

Make sure to take a look at the CRM wiki. You will see the division of the topics there. Stay tuned to the news about the CRM forums

[Former Member]

It could also be that the whole idea of CRM is now outdated. CRM should have come into SAP mainstream at least 4 years ago. Now there are other easier, cheaper and simpler solutions for CRM type of processes.

Ok some of the workflows etc are good but for B2B, C2C, C2B and B2C processes CRM seems like an old lumbering carthorse compared with modern web developments.

Note this is just my take on this -- it's by no means Gospel so feel free to violently disagree if you do.

Cheers

Jimbo

[stephenjohannes]

James,

Seriously if you don't have an ERP system and don't need to ever connect in data from a packaged solution then honestly SugarCRM is probably the easiest solution. The fact it is free unless you want support, is definitely appealing. It also doesn't hurt, that it is a heck of lot easier to install, configure and everything else than normal SAP solution.

However if a SAP ERP system, then my integration benefits of using SAP CRM system come into play and they will help me in the long run. Also the new version of the SAP CRM product appears to eliminate most of the user interface issues.

I agree that SAP CRM is probably only a decent solution for those shops having SAP ERP backends. If owned Oracle Apps or some other solution, SAP CRM would not be my first choice. The biggest cost in any CRM project beyond customization, is integration costs. That has always been the achiles heel of going best of breed.

Personally though for B2B e-commerce sales, the CRM product is probably very strong. A lot of early SAP sales e-commerce implementatiosn were B2B/B2R sales. The specific scenario is where you have a lot of "small customers" who don't have capability to do full fledge exchanges, but have at most internet access. You can then provide re-ordering portals, and account summary portals, which frees up your customer service staff to handle more complex inquiries.

BTW: on my original topic the question was finally solved.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

It would be very helpful to see the delta that the "new" CRM provides. I can only help bring the SMEs into the fray by reaching out to the points of contact I know of, who in turn should be providing response. Hearing critique (the kind of candid type we have in these discussions) is also a really useful part of the iterative process of improvement. My understanding is that CRM (SAP CRM) has gone through a rather grand metamorphosis. If that means improved user interface and functionality, it would help to highlight them. I'm not an expert so I don't know much about them, and I'm not the customer so I can't tell how well these suit your needs. That's your roles here.

What I can do is highlight content or point to people who should know.

For example, I'm aware of a series of demos and contents housed on the [BPX CRM homepage|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm]. There is also a [set of videos|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm?rid=/webcontent/uuid/50e8b4cb-9284-2a10-6c84-f58864f896f4] [original link is broken]; that demonstrate SAP CRM 2007. Some of this collateral was added last week so I wonder if you all have seen it and if so, what you think of it.

I'm also curious to know how Stephen's problem was resolved. Maybe it is something that can be publicly shared and others will benefit from.

If the content is useful, we'd like to know it. If it isn't we'd like to know it too and understand what assets make the best sense to provide and feature. I also noticed that there are some "collaborative" invitations to help better define how well a solution fits needs, such as this invitation for input on the [Order Management |https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/8983] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken];product.

What I found interesting (and maybe this summarizes what is "new" about the strategy of CRM 2007) is that it is positioned like this:

"Essentially, this is what CRM is about. It’s a customer-centric business strategy – not a technology. However, IT is a mission critical element of this strategy, not just to understand each customer’s needs, but also to reshape business processes to meet customer expectations, empower employees to best serve the customer, and determine how to most efficiently and effectively deliver on those needs."

That would mean that Stephen is correct in assessing size and customer expectations around solution choice. We spend so much time talking here about "the technology", it would be great to always keep a clear picture of what business challenges we need to resolve with them. Funny as it sounds from someone working for a software vendor, I would love to hear more conversation around that, before we jump to or all over solution.

[stephenjohannes]

Marilyn,

As from the customer side we purchased OKP product for CRM 2006s to get a lot of the delta information and to support our project. I know that you as an SAP employee can get access to the RKT materials located on service marketplace for CRM. That is probably the best source of knowledge of what has changed.

As far as my issue, it is something that would be focused to a very limited audience. At most an entry in a wiki or some reference point is probably all that is needed. The solution was basically that if you need to create some Genil/BOL custom objects then the examples are located in an SAP delivered package called CRM_GENIL_SAMPLE. Unless you are CRM developer it pretty much won't interest you.

Actually the funny part about your last comment is that honestly SAP's strength has never been "technology", but the business solution. My favorite case in point that the early business to business sales solution such as the online store or the early versions of SAP CRM, were all about the "business process" and backend integration and not about having the best technology. The ITS was far from the "best technology", but allowed for the business process to be executed. At the end of day your technology is just your tool of allowing the business process to execute. People tend to forget their basic system analysis class, where you don't always need to automate a process or use the "best tool" to get the job done.

It would nice also to see more conversations that are less "tool-centric" and more focus on the process/business task at hand. There are a lot less of these conversations in CRM area, and lot more of "tool-based" conversations.

When I have more time I can try to share with you an example of a project I worked on last year where we had to look a process vs tool considerations to build the final solution.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

W00t, as in woohoo, yahe, hallelujah.

RE: "When I have more time I can try to share with you an example of a project I worked on last year where we had to look a process vs tool considerations to build the final solution."

[Volker Hildebrand|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/u/251859878] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]; would probably agree with you about the business of CRM rather than the technology. He took it a step further in an explanation to me when he suggested we stop talking purely about the IT/Business divide and move the conversation forward to include "empowered customers/consumers changing the rules of competition". In fact, he will be participating in a panel discussion on this very topic at Sapphire and I am really looking forward to that.

Your suggestion to look at process vs. tool considerations is/could be the killer conversation for BPX Community. One of our biggest problems with the [current BPX Community Project|https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BPX/Pilot-BigMachines+Corp] is that we wind up talking too much about the tools and solutions rather than really focusing on the process. The BPX techies spearheading this, are well-aware of that problem and were desperately looking to engage with folks willing to share the business process context.

Let me know what you think of this [format|https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BPX/Community+Project].

Thanks for your having taken the time and effort to share your thoughts.

Again, funny to think I work for software vendor and totally agree with:

"People tend to forget their basic system analysis class, where you don't always need to automate a process or use the "best tool" to get the job done"

Maybe some of those process improvements are eliminating superfluous technology implementation and development.

[Former Member]

In my humble opinion - It is hard, if not impossible, to keep technology and business process separate.

Most implementations of SAP include replacing some kind of other system. Try formulating the use cases - and the business team will often just explain the business process as how it was technically implemented in their current system.

It takes a lot of analysis before you figure out the business need in its pure self, separated from its implementation.

The reasons are several -

1. as time passes, people lose context,

2. some business processes got changed because there was no good technical solution when the system was built

etc.

Even if we somehow got all the business processes down, it is still costly to form a new solution from scratch - since users have to be retrained, data has to be cleansed etc.

Since CRM is the frame of reference - the new CRM follows a UI strategy very different from rest of SAP. There might be good reasons why SAP did this, but imagine the plight of a user who has to look at both CRM and say ERP screens through the portal. It would be great to hear SAP's rationale from the experts.

[former_member193450]

Being a novice to this coffee corner I already learned one thing since Marilyn made me aware of this thread: act immediately and don't wait until you think you have all the answers because by the time you think you are ready to post your comment the thread will have taken so many turns that your thoughts with regards to the beginning of the thread seem to have become obsolete.

Anyway, thanks to Marilyn who told me about the coffee corner, now let me try to get some points across here reflecting my perspective on some of the thoughts that have been shared so far -- and keep in mind that I am far from having all the answers...

- Give vs. Take and SAP's involvement:

I think Stephen makes a very valid point here talking about the issue and sometimes frustration of being an active member of the community that is left in the dark when he is asking for some help. I guess this is to some degree inherent in such communities and I am inclined to (mis)use a variant of a famous quote to describe how communities work: Don't ask what the community can do for you. Ask what you can do for the community. But I have to agree with you: At the end of the day it is about give and take. This is why we have started a project at SAP to get our CRM product management folks as well as colleagues from our customer service and support organization more involved in these forums which I believe are of such great value to our customers. You may know that we have launched CRM@BPX just a few months ago and have been pretty active in many different ways since. "working" the CRM forums may not have been our strength so far but it's one of our top priorities for Q2. So please be patient while we are evangelizing internally and trying to tell our own people: "don't ask...". I am sure that eventually we will all benefit from closer collaboration -- and even co-innovation when it comes to shaping the future direction of our products. For example, we have just started an initiative focused on order management and would like to involve the community and leverage the collective intelligence and expertise out there to build a better product. Please see [Prashant's blog |https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/8983] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken];with a brief overview and an invitation to share experiences, tell us about your business process requirements and provide feedback. I encourage you to participate in such opportunities of co-innovation.

- CRM Forums:

I would agree with the statement that the structure of the CRM forums is not perfect and I understand that people are having a hard time with putting their question to the right forum. The same is true if you are interested in a specific area such as Interaction Center: you need to "surf" at least three different forums... At the same time questions are not always put in the right forum or forums that were created to focus on a specific topic are used for other topics as well: for example, while the "CRM Web application" forum was meant to be a forum focusing on Interaction Center (and it's "Web" Client UI) many community members use it for e-commerce questions because the forum name suggests that it's an e-commerce forum.

So, in short, we are aware of this situation and we are about to put together a new structure with more specific forums that will make life easier for everyone. We have already started a new forum on "[SAP CRM 2007|;" which covers topics and questions around the latest release with it's completely redesigned UI. Please provide feedback and input with regards to an appropriate forum structure going forward. We were thinking about launching separate forums for the different key capabilities: Sales, Marketing, Service, Interaction Center, E-Commerce/Web Channel...

As stated previously, forums are going to be a focus for my team and the entire CRM product management team: this includes moderating forums, providing answers to critical questions, providing guidance in case of burning issues, and last but nor least building a more community friendly forum structure.

- The new User Interface

The new CRM user interface has been received overwhelmingly positive and many customers and analysts actually consider it the first SAP UI that users would really love to use.

In case you haven't seen it please take a look and let us know your feedback: You can either check out the [video blogs |https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/7948] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken];by SAP product managers with short clips showcasing some of the UI highlights or go directly to the [demo library|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm?rid=/webcontent/uuid/50e8b4cb-9284-2a10-6c84-f58864f896f4] [original link is broken];. This way you can judge yourself. You may also want to watch the replay of a [recent keynote |https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/media/uuid/f0f09e97-8ad8-2a10-7ea3-e47d5a260029]address at the "CRM 2008" conference by Bob Stutz, EVP and GM of CRM Product at SAP, which also provides an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the new UI, and hear Bob talk about our new focus on the business user and co-innovation with customers.

I agree that a new UI also has its challenges - even if it gets a lot of praise: users may need to be trained again, users who use different SAP products may have to deal with multiple UIs etc. And we are well aware of this. However, the new UI has been built based on customer and user feedback and in close collaboration with a number of customers (again, hear Bob Stutz talk about this release in the replay of his keynote mentioned above). Many users have complained about previous CRM user interface in particlular so we had to do something... and you got to start somewhere.

We will continue to focus on the users and their needs and design software that is not only powerful but also easy to use... and community mambers are more than welcome to particiapte in the evolution and improvement of UI technologies at SAP. Florian Weigmann, our Chief Architect for the CRM UI, is very interested in your feedback and input. You will also notice that his team will be very active in the SAP CRM 2007 forum as well.

- Business Processes vs. IT

This is the last topic I would like to briefly comment on in this reply. In general I believe that the business needs to be the driver for IT, especially when it comes to CRM. At the end of the day, IT needs to support the business and must meet business needs and requirements. Now, as we all know there are limits and in some cases software applications can actually include best practice business processes. At the same time, IT can be a catalyst for business tranformation.

Last but not least, too much customization may not be the right thing to do, either... So it's really about striking the right balance in order to be successful. You may be interested in some articles I have recently published (for example: [Time to be bold: tune your CRM strategy|http://www.mycustomer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=133005&u=pnd&m=phnd] on mycustomer.com) or read my [whitepaper "CRM without compromise"|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/503fca91-b07f-2a10-da8e-e982443f1c89] with more food for thoughts. I would be more than happy to continue the disucssion. Also, you may want to check out a number of other [white papers and articles on BPX|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm?rid=/webcontent/uuid/00c1a8fd-fea0-2a10-0997-f57d42baee83] [original link is broken]; which are all written primarily from a business perspective on BPX. We are trying to continously publish papers and articles that look at the business challenges and practices and how IT could help improve things.

I guess I need to come to a close here -- at least for today.

Before I shut down for some good night's rest let me tell you how much I appreciate all your efforts and engagement. Honestly, without active community mambers like you there would not be a community at all. I am really impressed about what's going on here on BPX and how committed many of our customers and partners are. This is all very exciting and we are all part in writing a new chapter at SAP.

Final note: please do check out our [homepage|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm] once in a while which is updated at least once a week, sometimes even daily, and it will provide you with additional news and announcements that may find your interest. Your feedback is always welcome.

Best regards,

Volker

[stephenjohannes]

Volker,

First I would like to thank you for taking time to comment. I really appreciate your thoughts on the topics below. It is nice to have a voice with a "little more" knowledge chime in the coffee corner.

As a followup to your points presented, I would like to share some feedback.

- On the first topic that triggered the whole thread:

Part of this was more of those banging your head on the wall moments that occur on projects. I am patiently waiting the involvement of more individuals in CRM forums that are from SAP. I personally have been active on the CRM forums for about the last three years. However during that timeframe most of those experts have been always not from SAP. When SDN used to show the "top N" for any given forum, the CRM forum had at most one or two people from SAP in the list and not always at the top.

On the collaboration piece regarding order management, I think that is definitely a great start. I know for the nature of our current solution it would not be something we can take advantage (due to specific industry requirements). However if there were ever any projects surrounding marketing module in terms of mobile marketing(think SMS campaigns/alerts, mobile delivered content, etc), I know our business might be interested in that area. The interesting part of my original question on extending the webclient UI was triggered by revisiting how to better integrate our mobile marketing solution that we decided to custom build, into the new webclient UI.

- On the forums

Breaking out the forums in subtopics will only be better IMHO. I would also say don't forget a forum for middleware, as this is always a important topic for CRM implementations.

- On the new UI

I have watched demos of CRM 2007, and we finishing up a CRM 52 upgrade here. We started the 52 upgrade before 2007 was made GA. I would definitely agree that the new UI is much improved, our users are going to appreciate the improvements. I plan on watching the keynote, however our corporate firewall blocks the viewing. I will have to wait until I have some spare time at home to view the presentation. After working with CRM since 2.0C, I can say this is definitely the easiest version so far. Even our traditional java web developers think the new UI looks slick. I have not received any bad feedback on the new UI, beyond when is this going be ready again. We choose to go with the CRM 52 early due to the new UI interface as primary driver.

Business Processes vs IT

I agree with you completely. It is very important that business has ownership of the solution. This is a primary key to success. Understanding the tools while building the process is important, but the process should not solely revolve around the tools. It is always a major challenge to get people to think in terms of process and not necessarily how should screens should physically look. It is easier to take a process and apply the process to the tool, than take "screen concepts" and modify the tool.

I personally do make it a point to visit SDN/BPX on a regular basis. I find the content is relevant for my current support and project needs. I was personally excited when there was an expansion of content related to CRM. Due to the nature of support team, where I am only person involved from a both a configuration, development, and middleware perspective on our CRM implementation, SDN provides a much needed supplement. It is like having another virtual "team member", or in the sports analogy it is the "12th man".

Once again thank you for the comments and also your team for starting this effort.

Thank you,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Thanks for the note, Volker - glad you could come in and share your thoughts before we took another turn.

I completely agree that the new UI is probably the best SAP UI I have seen ever. All I meant to say is that some of the value gets lost when non-CRM systems show another UI to users. I am living through that pain right now in projects that I manage.

It would be great to get some of your UI architects to contribute to SDN and explain why rest of SAP is not taking the path of CRM, and what are the suggestions from SAP on how to make life easier for users who have to access both CRM and non CRM applications.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I personnally answer only the questions which have some interest for me and are clear enough.

There are plenty of questions that I don't answser because the answer is so simple and just a search button click away that I think an answer is not deserved !

Some times, the question is so silly that I can't resist me to tell I find it silly...

I find maybe 1 message out of 50 to be interesting. The signal/noise ratio is just so low because of the wrong moderation policy

But I'm just an old grumpy admin... !

Olivier