This section is meant to be a collection of articles about SAP, both general, for those who are not familiar with the programme itself, and specialized articles written by people who faced different problems while working in SAP. Therefore, we are looking forward to getting any article you might find interesting.

What is "SAP" ?
What jobs/specializations exist in SAP ?
How can someone learn SAP ?
What is IDES ?

What is "SAP" ?

SAP is a German company SAP AG (www.sap.com), the maker of the most signifiant ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) product in the world. This was called initially SAP R/3, and now is called mySAP ERP. They also have another product called mySAP Business Suite which includes other modules (CRM, SCM etc.) besides mySAP ERP. In the next parapgraphs I will use the term SAP to designate the ERP product.

The most important versions ih the last 10 years are:

• mySAP ERP (v4.70)
• SAP R/3 Release 4.6
• SAP R/3 Release 4.5
• SAP R/3 Release 4.0
• SAP R/3 Release 3.1

Of course, there are even older versions.

What jobs/specializations exist in SAP ?

There 3 types of jobs in SAP.

• final users - those that effectively use SAP;
• expert-users or key-users - these know very well SAP, help final users and, sometimes, make easy configuration adjustments;
• consultants – these configure "SAP", do various technical procedures (for instance create a new sales organization or a new invoicing procedure).

Consultants do not know everything in SAP - they are specialized on modules. There are functional modules and technical modules and, correspondingly, functional consultants and technical consultants.

The technical specializations are:

• ABAP Consultant – ABAP is the language programming used in SAP, so an ABAP consultant is a programmer;
• Basis Consultant (in the last version NetWeaver) – these are the SAP system administrators

The functional specializations are according to the SAP module:

• FI – Financial Accounting
• CO – Controlling
• MM – Materials Management
• SD – Sales and Distribution
• HR – Human Resources

and other modules less used(TR, PP, PS s.a.)

In the last versions SAP dropped this acronyms, for instance there is now the Financials modules which includes the old FI and CO modules

There are two types of companies that employ SAP specialists:

• companies that have implemented SAP, these employ expert-users and sometimes consultants;
• companies that implement SAP(consulting companies) - these employ only consultants.

How can someone learn SAP ?

There are several ways:

• you work in a company that has SAP - the company sends you to courses to became an expert-user/consultant;
• you work in a company that has SAP - with documentation/books you learn by yourself and go to the next "level": expert-user/consultant (but you need a boss that will not try to stop you);
• you study at home from documentation/books. This is best for technical specializations: ABAP(programmming) or Basis(administration). There is even a book(ABAP Objects: Introduction to Programming SAP Applications) that comes with a SAP variant called MiniSAP. This variant contains only the programming and administration part without any functional module.

What is IDES ?

IDES is a SAP variant with valid data. Basically, an IDES system is the SAP system of a fictious company, completely configured and functional. There are, for instance, accounting records, complete invoices, sales orders etc. This system is very useful in training functional consultants, but useless in real production environment.
Any company with a valid SAP license receives IDES free of charge.

©2005 Costin Albu www.sap-consulting.ro