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#ICYDK: US-based utility provider Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) discusses how getting out of the datacentre business and into the cloud is helping meet its regulatory, affordability and innovation targets https://goo.gl/zA7YM1 #Technology #IoT

In the previous blog post I presented the concept of working with shortcuts as a quick way to access environments and development tools. In this post I’ll dive into SAP shortcuts, which provide quick access to SAPGUI systems. Along the way I´ll show how to open a Bex Analyzer window that is already connected to a BW system using a shortcut.

In order to understand the motivation for working with shortcuts, think about the number of different systems and transactions you have to work with during a typical work week.

In my case, as a BW consultant, I use shortcuts to access each of the BW environments, Dev/QA/Production, but also for each the respective source system environments, and sometimes for separate clients. In some of those systems I am also required to log in in Hebrew to maintain localization, so I have separate shortcuts for that as well. My time reporting transaction is something that I access quite often, so I have a specific shortcut for that. The amount of time that I would’ve spent looking for the right system and choosing the language over the years is measured in hours, if not days.

Luckily, SAP offers a shortcut creation wizard that pretty much saves the need for scripting this time around. But I’ll also refer later on to some more advanced abilities made possible by avoiding the wizard.

In order to enter the wizard, click the “customize local layout” button when in the transaction you wish to access when connected to the system and language you wish to access, and choose ¨create shortcut. An even simpler method is to copy an existing shortcut and edit those parameters, but we’ll do the first “by the book” for the purposes of this blog.

You’ll now see the shortcut wizard. It is of course important to give a short name to the shortcut, as the idea is to be able to type it fast. You can now configure whether the shortcut will call the current transaction or a different one, or even a report. The system details are filled automatically – notice that “Start Parameters” is a specification of the system rather than a parameter for the transaction or program.

You can configure the client, user and the language. The password field is blocked for understandable reasons (more on that here, and I´ll also discuss it briefly further on), and you can also choose your save location.

In the next screen, it is helpful to choose that the window is maximized, and leave the “reuse connections” checkbox checked.

Once you’ve finished the wizard, The shortcut created would lead you directly into the system and transaction in which the shortcut was created.  If all you need are SAP shortcuts for different systems and transactions, then placing all of the relevant system/transaction shortcuts within a folder in the start menu is not a bad solution, as the start menu nowadays has automatic search capabilities according to what you’ve typed. But if you recall the previous post, since some other useful shortcuts work well with parameterization, consider placing all the shortcuts in the shortcuts library as explained in the previous post.

As mentioned, to create additional shortcuts it is easier to copy existing shortcuts and edit them (right click in windows explorer – edit).  So in order to create a shortcut that starts Bex Analyzer from the same system that the shortcut we´ve created did, we just need to replace the name of the transaction with RRMX. In this example I’ve also called the shortcut itself RRMX. And again, we can create a shortcut for QA called RRMXQ, and one for development called RRMXD, and so on.

In the previous post I’ve shown how to open Bex Analyzer with a specific Query, and now we’ve discussed how to open it with the system selected. Can we do both? The answer is yes, and there are a couple of ways to do so, depending on your architecture. I’ll go over one such solution in this post, with some of the implementation left to the reader. In the next post I’ll discuss another solution.

Take a look at the following transaction call, that can be used within the “transaction” field of a shortcut:

*rrmxp QUERY=3DJN21QIDOETFGY5HTMYC73BN;DYNP_OKCODE=SHOP;

Let’s analyze what this does.

* It runs the transaction RRMXP, which is a parameterized version of RRMX that receives a uid of either a query or a workbook.
* It gives a value to the query parameter (you can see the name of the parameter, QUERY, by looking in the technical help for the field in the transaction and looking for “screen field”).
* It then gives an OK code, which together with the asterisk at the beginning basically tells the screen to run the transaction while closing the GUI window.

The ability to run a parameterized shortcut has a lot of potential for speeding up access to specific elements. What we would like to do is to parameterize the query name. But how can one pass a command line parameter to the SAP shortcut?

For that, we’ll need to use the sap shortcut executable instead of the shortcut wizard. This is done by creating a Windows shortcut to sapshcut.exe, which is located in your SAPGUI folder. You can learn how to structure such a shortcut by running sapshcut.exe /?, but generally it looks like this (the exact location depends on your architecture):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“C:Program Files (x86)SAPFrontEndSAPguisapshcut.exe” -maxgui -language=E -system=BP7 -client=400 -title=BWP -command=”*rrmxp QUERY=3DJN21QIDOETFGY5HTMYC73BN;DYNP_OKCODE=SHOP;”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is what a shortcut would look like for a system that has SSO configured, but you can also throw in the user and even the password (the latter of which I’m not recommending). As in the previous post, %1 is the command line parameter which you would then use from the “Run” prompt, in this case to use the query id.

What is still missing in order to run a query is to write a wrapper ABAP program that translates a technical name to the UID and passes it to RRMXP. This is beyond the scope of this post – you are welcome to do so and share your experiences.

That’s all as far as SAP shortcuts go. In the third and final part I will discuss quick access of metadata and Master Data in BW, and access to queries with Variable values. I will also provide some additional useful shortcuts for SAP consultants in general. http://bit.ly/2ox2xHI #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

Digital transformation can do a lot to help the mining industry, such as improving onsite operations and decision making. Design thinking can optimize those improvements — if properly utilized.

“The mining sector has embraced the introduction of new technologies, which have resulted in significant productivity benefits,” professional services firm EY stated in a recent mining update. “But there is the gap between the potential from digital transformation and the poor track record for successful implementations.”

Metals and mining corporation Vale has a compelling story of a successful implementation — that only took four weeks. The result was a completely new process, according to Vale’s IT innovation manager at SAP Leonardo Live in Chicago this month.

Management Assets Across a Global Supply Chain

The mining industry is on the upswing, enjoying growth in the U.S., Europe and China, according to EY. Vale has been growing too, investing more than $120 billion during the last decade, and expanding to 27 countries, according to Vale’s Helio Mosquim.

This growth brought a lot of challenges, such as managing new assets across the globe, according to Mosquim; intelligent maintenance would help the company increase up-time, boost productivity and cut costs. Supply chain was also a big concern for the Rio de Janeiro-based multinational, which produces iron ore, copper and more.

“Imagine producing ore in the middle of the Amazon, and transporting it all the way to the ports, and going through the distribution centers in Malaysia and Oman — and on to China,” Mosquim said. “Optimizing production, optimizing logistics and shipping … it’s a big challenge for us to optimize the whole chain.”

Saving Time by Automating Critical Tasks

Workforce effectiveness was another challenge for Vale, which has about 110,000 employees — about 22,000 of whom are SAP users, according to Mosquim. Inventory is about $1.6 billion of Vale’s $11 billion annual spend, so the company automated purchasing processes to make them more intelligent.

For example, maintenance workers used to ask an SAP user to create a purchase requisition before acquiring a new part for damaged equipment, according to Mosquim. This completely manual process often overlooked parts that were already available (perhaps the previous shift ordered the same thing), and finding the missing information required searching through multiple screens.

These steps often resulted in a lot of redundant work and wasted time.

“Between 25 to 40 percent of rejections of all the purchase requisitions [occurred] because [the part] was either available on contract or in inventory,” Mosquim said. “And the equipment was out there waiting for the part.”

A “Totally Different Approach” in Just Four Weeks

Vale only expected to enhance its legacy platform, as opposed to taking full advantage of SAP innovation services. But SAP helped Vale connect APIs directly to its system and use everything in the cloud — and implement it quickly.

“We set up a plan to innovate in four weeks,” Mosquim said. “And that was an amazing experience.”

Vale put its procurement team through an SAP design thinking session to sort major pain points. They had a draft prototype by week one; by the following week, they had feedback — and were making adjustments.

“The result was very effective, very impressive,” Mosquim said. “When we saw the totally different approach, we were very confident that it was going to be able to deliver.”

Find Your Key

“We had an opportunity to have a totally new process … we had other managers come in saying, ‘We would like to invest in this innovation,’” Mosquim said. “In the end, we got a little bit from each solution, and we put it in the cloud.”

Design thinking helped Vale digitally transform its supply chain, asset management, workforce effectiveness and more. Digital technologies — including Internet of Things and machine learning — could also help mining companies improve safety, optimize site-wide operating systems and more, according to a smart mining conference last week.

“You can only truly achieve a sustainable productivity improvement by adopting an integrated end-to-end business approach from market to mine,” as the EY mining update stated.

Design thinking could be your key to a successful implementation.

Follow Derek on Twitter: @DKlobucher

This story originally appeared on Business Trends on the SAP Community.
Top image via Shutterstock http://bit.ly/2BmzpW3 #SAP #SAPCloud #AI