EmpCenter Connect for SAP
EmpCenter™ Connect for SAP® significantly reduces the time, expense, and risk of integrating EmpCenter with SAP. There is no end user programming required with our pre-built, standardized, and supported interface that can be quickly implemented and easily configured.
With a much smaller footprint than other SAP integration solutions on the market today, EmpCenter Connect for SAP has the necessary components for a pre-built, robust, and easily extensible SAP integration solution.
EmpCenter Connect for SAP implements a number of distinct interfaces between EmpCenter and SAP R/3® and/or mySAP® to easily download active employee data to EmpCenter and to upload the payroll data to SAP. This ensures real-time data transfer and provides a seamless process for maintaining employee data and generating accurate paychecks - critical for any employer.
Features & Benefits of EmpCenter Connect for SAP
There are a number of features and benefits that make EmpCenter Connect for SAP a superior method for connecting to SAP:
- Uses field-proven, patented, and SAP-certified technology
- Quick and easy implementation
- Easy to modify to support customer-specific requirements
- Eliminates the need to install anything to your SAP environment, but still supports the ability to run customized or standard ABAP (advanced business application programming), RFC (remote function call), BAPI (business application programming interfaces), IDOC (intermediate documents), or a customized or standard transaction via BDC (batch data commands)
- Uses SAP Query technology and SAP-provided BAPI and RFC connectivity to provide superior flexibility, performance, and reliability.
Flexibility, Performance & Reliability
Flexibility: Access to SAP data with seamless integration between EmpCenter and SAP Query technology.
Performance: Yields an impressive runtime performance that is difficult to match, by using advanced design techniques that are multi-threaded and operate as in-memory processing.
Reliability: Utilizes SAP Query technology to enhance business process validation; supports additional SAP tables that are not supported by any SAP published BAPI.
Advanced Reliability
EmpCenter Connect for SAP supports a flexible and sophisticated error handling facility. Its error logging and audit trail capabilities can be easily activated or deactivated. Furthermore, all error messages can be emailed to specific personnel. Finally, the actual format of the emails and log messages can be configured to suit the individual needs of each organization.
EmpCenter Connect for SAP supports some optional advanced features, such as:
Store & Forward: Temporarily stores transactional information during unscheduled external systems or network downtime, ensuring there is no loss of data and messages are only processed once
Fault Tolerance: Compatible with Marathon Technologies’ FTvirtual Server™ software, which delivers simple, affordable business continuity for any Windows application, to ensure no failover, no interruption in service, and no loss of application state or data
Easily Extensive & Customizable
EmpCenter Connect for SAP is an ultra thin, non-invasive, configuration-based solution with tremendous flexibility that allows for rapid customization and evolution as business processes develop and change over time, thereby reducing TCO (total cost of ownership) and seeing ROI (return on investment) quickly.
As new interfaces need to be developed, EmpCenter Connect for SAP fully supports all of the standard SAP communication methods (BAPIs, IDOCs, RFCs, and BDCs), providing comprehensive support around any method chosen. This includes centralized error and exception handling, which would otherwise be built by hand around each IDOC, RFC, BAPI, or BDC that is implemented, resulting in long deployment times, inconsistent behavior, and maintainability issues.
Unique SAP Capabilities
In addition to managing all of the traditional communication methods to SAP, EmpCenter Connect for SAP provides some unique capabilities that allow a company to perform any operation without creating custom ABAP programs:
Transaction Component: Allows a customer to run any standard or custom SAP transaction that can be handled with a batch input session
Query Component: Retrieves information from any standard or custom tables in the data dictionary, including functionality to query from multiple tables in a single call
RFC/BAPI Component: Calls any standard or custom RFC or BAPI function module, which can be used for transaction processing or data retrieval
IDOC Component: Handles any inbound, outbound, or bi-directional IDOC in your SAP system, whether it has been customized or not
Advanced SAP Features
EmpCenter Connect for SAP supports many advanced features, including:
SXDA Import: Automatically imports any SXDA structure document into EmpCenter meta-database creating maps, message formats, and workset configurations for initial data loads
SAP RFC Listener: Configured to act as a listener for an SAP workflow trigger and treat these triggers as external events
SAP Wizards: Provides several Wizards to simplify and automate the SAP configuration process, greatly reducing deployment time 
The EmpCenter Connect for SAP RFC & BAPI Wizard
With the EmpCenter Connect for SAP , a company can use any IDOC, any (SAP-supplied or custom-written) RFC, any BAPI that SAP supplies, and access any business process available in SAP via batch input. Because EmpCenter Connect for SAP is configuration-based, instead of code-based, it is easily and rapidly upgrade-able with new releases of SAP. In short, it provides for rapid and codeless configuration-based changes as SAP systems and business processes change over time.
SAP Certification
EmpCenter Connect for SAP is built using technology that holds the following SAP certifications:
CA – ALE Certification
The SAP CA – ALE (Application Link Enabling) Certification enhances the electronic data interchange (EDI) subsystem interface with SAP Basis and SAP Web Application Server. Using direct program-to-program remote communication and transformation from non-SAP systems to SAP systems, this certification validates the conversion, import, and export of critical SAP IDOCs. SAP’s ALE communications method is the foundation for all native SAP data exchanges.
CA – ADC Certification
The SAP CA - ADC Certification verifies that the supplied interface meets the needs for flexible bar code data collection functionality throughout multiple SAP applications, and allows the use of data collection tools including radio frequency devices, bar code scanners, and mobile computing tools throughout the enterprise.
Certified For SAP NetWeaver®
“Certified for SAP NetWeaver” verifies that solutions from independent software vendors can interface properly with NetWeaver. SAP NetWeaver is the comprehensive integration and application platform that facilitates the alignment of people, information, and business processes across organizational and technological boundaries. As the technical foundation for the mySAP Business Suite and SAP xApps™, it ensures maximum reliability, security, and scalability. The open SAP NetWeaver architecture allows the integration of third-party software solutions, enabling customers using SAP technology to deploy customized solutions.
Powered By NetWeaver (J2EE – DEP)
The SAP J2EE - DEP certification verifies that Java applications from independent software vendors can be deployed and managed by the SAP Web Application Server (SAP Web AS) J2EE Engine. This certification ensures that SAP customers can successfully install and deploy third-party J2EE applications without affecting their production system landscape.
Powered By NetWeaver (EP – BP)
The SAP EP – BP Certification verifies partner business packages and their iViews for the proper integration with the SAP Enterprise Portal, (now known as SAP NetWeaver Portal). Specifically, it verifies the structure and the deployment of a Business Package developed by an independent software vendor. Verification includes, but is not limited to, single sign-on, browser independence and verification that the developed iView conforms to the look-and-feel attributes of the SAP Enterprise Portal.
Hardware Requirements
As a base requirement, the EmpCenter Connect for SAP runs on Windows Server 2003 (or Windows 2000 Server) on standard off-the-shelf hardware. EmpCenter Connect for SAP operates completely in-memory and only requires physical disk space to: (a) store its meta-database configuration data (usually just a few Mbytes), and (b) store transient data used with advanced features such as Store-and-Forward and Replication. If your deployment calls for any of these advanced features, you should use the fastest disk available to maximize performance.
For a production system we suggest purchasing a set of hardware that will meet both the customers immediate performance requirements and still allow them to scale to meet future needs. Choosing the best set of hardware to match the specific EmpCenter Connect for SAP implementation is really a series of cost-benefit analysis steps that is different for every deployment.
Fault Tolerant Option
To use the special Fault Tolerant Option, in combination with Marathon Technologies’ FTvirtual ServerTM software, EmpCenter Connect for SAP must be run on two identically configured sets of hardware, with dual network interface cards (NICs).
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