Approval emails - Jocelyn's License Issue

Tue Feb 24 22:05:11 EST 2004

Thanks Phil. Exactly. Much better than I could have put it.

The important thing is to make sure you have the discussion with your SAP account executive so that you understand what if any is the licensing implication of your proposed solution.

I have seen customers who assume the worst and then find out that their existing license agreement covers them; customers who have started created convoluted solutions to avoid using additional SAP user ids only to find out later that their license was about to be upgraded anyway and there was no need to go around it; and customers who have bought licenses in 3rd party products when it would have been cheaper or much the same cost to have upgraded their SAP license agreement.

So make sure you:

a) Check what is the actual license implication based on how you intend to implement this business scenario. Never assume that the license implication is the same as the last business scenario or as the last customer.  Usually your SAP account executive is well aware of what your license does and doesn't cover and can quickly give you an indication if there will be any change needed to your current license, or if there are any plans afoot to upgrade your existing license.

b) Don't expose yourself to a possible breach of license just because you didn't ask.

c) Don't assume that if there is a license cost that this necessarily means you have to take a "back-door" approach.  Or that a "back-door" approach will necessary avoid the license implication.  Like any project, an effective proper cost/benefit analysis can help demonstrate the value to senior management and reduce concerns.

Regards,
Jocelyn

-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Merrick, Phillip
Sent: Tuesday,24 February 2004 11:59 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Approval emails - Jocelyn's License Issue

Brenntag,

It's fairly common that the use of any commercial software is subject to some form of licensing (as often is free software). In this respect, Jocelyn is correct to point out that the use of SAP software needs to be covered by an appropriate license agreement.

SAP has more than one form of license model, and as much as an SAP sales person would like to license every consumer, that's not always necessary :-). While your traditional R/3 user is often covered by a "named user" license, other licensing approaches are often used where the users cannot be easily identified, as might be the case for an online store.

For better or for worse, many SAP customers have negotiated specific licensing terms, so it's not possible to give a generalised response that will accurately reflect all of the people who form this workflow community of interest. The right thing to do is to hunt down your nominated account executive and ask them what terms may apply. I often use the phrase "licensing implication" when someone wants to interact with an SAP solution. That doesn't necessarily mean "per user", "per transaction", "per gigabyte", "per CPU" or any other specific metric (even dollars). Nor does it imply an order of magnitude of such. This can and often does vary from customer to customer.

A healthy dialogue with your SAP account executive can often help make you aware of the stuff you can use without having to spend hard money.

In general, the SAP e-selling solutions for consumers do not include the number of customers as a function of their price. I designed a solution once for a customer using the SAP Online Store for which they didn't have to pay any money; however, it's still subject to a software license. Again, talk to your SAP sales contacts - get to the source :-)

Phil.

-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Roger Myers
Sent: Tuesday, 24 February 2004 10:40 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Approval emails - Jocelyn's License Issue

Jocelyn:

I have am intrigued by your comments re licenses.

In a number of emails you have indicated a that all users of a generic id need to be licensed. How does this scenario play out in a web environment with an online store.

Does every web user/customer of an online store require a license?

Roger Myers
Brenntag

-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Dart, Jocelyn
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 7:11 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Approval emails

Hi John,
Be careful about the "no logon" option - you may be in breach of license agreements.
Even use of generic user ids needs to be licensed for the actual number of people who are going to access SAP using the generic account - even if technically they never log on directly.

The current best alternative to SAP MAPI is to use offline email reply as they do in SRM - essentially you send out an email notification with pre-formatted mailto hyperlinks.  When the reply email is received into SAP you evaluate it and apply the result to the work item (see business object WI_MAILREC method RECEIVE for a starting point).  This is easier if you get the new extended email notification program as it provides some BADIs where you can add your preformatted links. Simple but effective.
Regards,
Jocelyn

-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Roger Myers
Sent: Monday,23 February 2004 11:46 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Approval emails

If you are into custom development, asp.net or jsp can do whatever you need to outside of SAP.

The .net connector  or java connector can bridge/manage movement of data via bapi calls to and from SAP as required.

Roger Myers
Brenntag

-----Original Message-----
From: SAP Workflow [mailto:Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of John A Haworth
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 7:01 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Approval emails

Hi Workflowers

I have a Customer meeting tomorrow, where they want to know about the possibilities of web (non-sap) based Requisition Approval and the Pro's and Con's of them.
Initially they wanted SAP MAPI, but I havnt really given them a good alternative yet, hence the meeting.
My answer is simply using the ITS and form based approval task (thanks to those who have helped me on this) are there any answers based around Business Connector et al, that are pure web based with no log on (ITS or
SAP) and any Pros/Cons around it ?

Many Thanks

John

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