Customer Case Studies
SAP Connector Case Study
A merger of 2 multinational petroleum companies, one possessing an established and highly customised Lotus Notes CRM/Projects/Purchasing system, the other running with SAP. At the conclusion of the project, the following processes had been established:
- UK-based users continue to use their familiar Lotus Notes projects database and to raise purchase requisitions against the relevant project.
- Once the requisitions have been approved via the existing Lotus Notes approval process, they are flagged as ready for creation in SAP.
- A scheduled agent is initiated to process all such requisitions: the data is passed to an initial BAPI where it is subject to comprehensive validation in SAP (and any errors trapped and reported to the originator of the requisition), and is subsequently inputted to a second BAPI responsible for the creation of the requisition in SAP. The resulting SAP-generated requisition number is written immediately to the Notes requisition document and the Project Managers notified by e-mail.
- A second scheduled agent continues to poll SAP for the conversion of the above "first-stage" requisitions into purchase orders. Once complete, the new SAP PO numbers are written back to the relevant Notes requisitions which now become purchase orders in Notes.
- As an ongoing process, all financial data relating to each project is maintained in both systems (including budgets, planned, commitments and actuals) - this is achieved by the continual polling of SAP Project Systems via a customised RFC and the updating of project documents in Notes.
- UK-based users continue to input their weekly timesheets as usual, and an overnight agent updates SAP Project Systems/Payroll.
This solution provided numerous benefits:
- A single SAP license is required for all SAP purchasing processes and no user re-training in SAP is necessary.
- The UK division can continue to maintain its integrated Projects/CRM solution and to take advantage of the rich features of the Notes client such as the recording of all correspondence (including eg attachments) with customers/vendors.
- Remote users can continue to enjoy the unique replication abilities of Lotus Notes, raising (and approving) requisitions "offline", despite no connectivity to SAP.
- Temporary "data manipulation" is still a possibility for Project Managers, giving them the ability to simulate any number of budgeting scenarios via an existing Lotus Notes wizard, and to view on an hourly basis the potential impact of exchange rate fluctuations on their projects.
All of the above was achieved without the need for LEI or DECS - only the Lotus Connector for SAP was required, which opens up the LCLSX (Lotus Connector LotusScript Extensions) for LotusScript agents to utilise.
SAP IDocs Case Study
A world leader in car engine manufacturer has multiple sites across the UK but their purchasing process was still based on carbon copy paper requisitions that were signed off at various levels across the organisation. This information was then keyed centrally into a SAP purchasing system.
Kelros developed a Notes Purchase Requisition (PR) System that allows users to raise requisition items using either a Lotus Notes or Browser Client. Approved suppliers are easily selected from a separate Kelros Notes & web-based Supplier application. Kelros also developed a Stock System to allow easy selection of items related to a particular supplier, whilst maintaining the flexibility to order unusual items from non-approved suppliers.
The completed PR then follows a workflow process including routing to nominated Buyers and Approvers who use Notes or Web Clients to process the PR. Kelros then generated the appropriate IDoc file for use in the SAP Purchasing System.
SQL Case Study
A leading City trading house, required an extensive CRM system to track clients, their trading accounts (including payments in and out) and all correspondence with the company. Tight integration with their back-end SQL systems was also required. Kelros implemented a bespoke version of kelros.sales as the front portal to all customer details.
Via the means of Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS) running on a Domino server, all trading account data is pulled up dynamically from SQL as the Notes document in kelros.sales is opened and any changes written back to the relevant SQL tables. Scheduled LotusScript agents run periodically to check for new/deleted records in both systems and update the other accordingly.
A "Payment In/Out" button presents users with a series of dialogs (with keyword fields - such as the available trading accounts for the selected client, account balances and currency symbols - populated dynamically from SQL). As the final dialog is completed and payment confirmed, the transaction (client, currency, amount etc) is written to the SQL Payments tables in preparation for the Visa/BACS etc transfer. The payment is additionally recorded for information as a Notes document against the appropriate account.
Elements of Kelros' Helpdesk tool. kelros.support, was also incorporated into the CRM, allowing the tracking of issues registered by clients (such as problems logging into the website), as well as reporting tools to track SLA success rates.
Key Benefits:
- Central repository for all client details / correspondence / transactions
- Rich user-friendly client/front-end for all company staff involved in client contact
- Automation of SQL table updates (previously carried out manually)
- Payments can now be recorded by any number of staff instead of a few SQL-trained individuals
ZMerge Case Study - SAP R/3, System 21 and JD Edwards
A large convenience and prepared food manufacturer had 11 manufacturing sites across Europe. Their manufacturing processes were both discrete and continuous so they used a mixture of ERP systems including SAP R/3, System 21 and JD Edwards running on various operating systems and platforms.
They had no centralised data warehouse of purchasing information that they could use to monitor and track the performance of the suppliers, the supply contracts or the manufacturing companies/sites. Every raw material was given a unique identifier code which was then used as an interpretation tables so that each ERP system could be programmed to output a monthly CSV file of all purchases made. Kelros used ZMerge to populate a Lotus Notes application. The ZMerge import looked up a raw material master record that contained the negotiated price and calculated any variance of the actual paid price from the master price.
This system has helped the company to identify and rectify buying from non approved suppliers, buying at the wrong contract price and buying more than anticipated (this allowed Central Purchasing to go back to the supplier and negotiate better discounts). In the first month of operation the savings made were over three times the original cost of the system.
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