Middleware Basics

Business Scenario

The customer can get in touch with the organization through various means: •Through Direct sales representative •Through Call Center representatives •Customers walking into Companies premise •Campaign/ Promotional activities
The organization can in turn interact within it self and with its vendors through various means as well. •EDI •Fax •ALE •Telephone
Middleware acts as the central figure during such interactions. It successfully fulfills an organizations requirement in the following areas and integrates the various ways in which the Business Partners can interact with the company.

•A typical CRM landscape has been depicted in this slide, where an actual CRM landscape instance might have all or some of the systems attached to the central CRM server.  •MySAP CRM provides your sales, customer service, and top management staff with immediate information on customer habits and market trends. MySAP.com was a name for all available SAP products around 2000-2001. “My” meant, that it is customizable, ".com" meant, that it's internet enabled. This application component for CRM has a central CRM server with various extensions to support different ways of accessing the system. •Internet components of CRM application component (or in other words the entire CRM functionality), enable internet selling via Web Shops and other similar features. Internet users then can get access to CRM server via internet and can place online orders for products or services.  •Mobile Clients (laptops, PDAs etc. ) can enable the mobile server linking with the CRM component. This typically enables the efficiency of field sales and service forces.  •Customers may use the phone, fax or email to reach the sales or service representatives using the integrated contact centre solutions.  •The CRM solution offers the following fully integrated connections:  •CRM as a central CRM Server  •SAP R/3 Backend (ECC) providing the ERP functions  •SAP BI system – the Business Intelligence solution  •SAP APO system as a global ATP (Availability-to-promise) check  •SAP Enterprise Portal – integrated access to all systems   

Middleware Overview

§CRM Middleware is the application component used for data exchange between CRM & other connected systems, like ECC(R/3),BW,Mobile devices §CRM server is built on the WAS (Erstwhile SAP R/3 Basis system) §R/3 OLTP system should contain plug ins for data exchange with CRM §Mobile clients are connected to CRM via the Communication Station §Main functions of CRM Middleware are: -Data exchange and mapping -Data queuing and transport -Replication and realignment 

CRM Server

Provides the entire CRM online functions on the basis of the SAP Web Application Server, including the key components of the CRM Middleware.

The CRM application data is validated and stored on the CRM Server. The CRM Middleware receives data from connected systems, validates it in the CRM Server and replicates it to determined recipients, for example, to laptop computers in a mobile scenario. CRM server provides the entire CRM online functions on the basis of the SAP Web Application Server, including the key components of the CRM Middleware.

The CRM application data is validated and stored on the CRM Server. The CRM Middleware receives data from connected systems, validates it in the CRM Server and replicates it to determined recipients, for example, to laptop computers in a mobile scenario.
Data such as business partners and activities can be exchanged between SAP CRM and the other systems present in landscape in both directions. The business partners and activities are provided to Groupware users as contacts and tasks or appointments and vice versa.

The connection to external systems and the Mobile Clients are established via software adapters. The adapters map and convert data to various formats.

The CRM System supports the handling of CRM business objects, like customers and prospects, activities and opportunities, products and product catalogs in a variety of CRM components like Internet Sales, Service Interaction Center, Telesales, Campaign Management and various others. Thoe CRM Server Applications exchange data with the Middleware Broker via the CRM adapter.

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