On January 17, I moderated a live Q&A on Insider Learning Network with ecenta’s Christian Matz, a CRM Expert author and SAPexperts technical advisor. 

Christian held an exclusive Q&A on CRM 7.0 and enhancement package 1 in the CRM Forum and took questions on topics such as new functionality, upgrade timelines, migration, transport and business function issues, Web Shop updates, table formatting, and integration with BW and Xcelsius reporting.

To review the entire discussion, you can view the posts in the Forum here or read the following edited transcript.

Antoine Cadot-Wood: Welcome to today's forum on SAP CRM 7.0 and the latest updates to the solution with enhancement package 1. Thank you for joining us today.

I’d like to welcome Christian Matz, who will be taking your questions today for the next hour. Christian is a CRM Expert author and SAPexperts technical advisor, managing director of ecenta America Inc., and a Senior SAP Solution Architect for the ecenta group.

Christian, I see there is a question or two already from our members, so we’ll get started!

BarbJudd: Do you have to have all open transports moved out of dev before you can apply EHP1?

Christian Matz: Generally, as a rule of good housekeeping, it is recommended to release especially those transports concerning SAP notes, modifications or any other code fixes related to SAP code, as those might result in locked objects and cause problems during the implementation of the EhP. For your own developments typically this shouldn't be a problem.

You also might want to consider keeping those transports ahead of implementation of the EhP, so that you have tested your functionality and processes on the same release of CRM when moving those transports into Production.

There are certain areas, such a Real-Time Offer Management or High-Volume Segmentation, where standard functionality has changed/added with EhP1, so you specifically want to check your transports for these areas.

Overall so far my projects have shown an EhP causes less problems than a Support Pack when it comes to open transports.

Silvia Gomez: Hello,

What are the new improvements/ new functionality that the EhP1 brings regarding the IC WebUI if you compare it to the functionality from CRM 7.0?

We have currently CRM 7.0 and we are using IC WebUI so we are interesting in the new functionality that EhP1 can give us, especially regarding the integration with Outlook.

When we implement EhP1 what will happen with all the Z developments we have in place now? Especially the ones that are linked to the e-mail editor layout? In our case we have done a development so the email editor looks a little big bigger that the standard one provided.

Thanks a lot.

Silvia Gomez

Christian Matz: Hello Silvia,

There have been a number of UI enhancements, such as:

- Mash-Ups

- Tag-Clouds

- Time-Sliders

- Favorites

- A way to control the Tab-Order

- Rapid Applications, that allow you to create view based on DB structures or tables

etc.

Since there are a lot, you might want to take a look at the Release Notes first (service.sap.com/releasenotes), where the latest release notes for EhP1 are currently EhP1 SP06. The areas most relevant for UI enhancements are UI_FRW_1 and UI_FRW_1_DOCU.

Also I know SAP is downporting some of the enhancements for EhP2 and providing them as SAP Notes, so it is always worth checking regularly for updates.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any changes related to Outlook/Groupware as part of EhP1.

Your Z-developments should be mostly fine, unless you enhanced a component for which SAP has provided an enhancement. Your development will most likely still work, but you might not get the enhancements provided by SAP for this components. So it is recommended to go through the relevant screens with a standard business role and without the enhancement set(s) being active, so that you can see changes provided by SAP.

Silvia Gomez: Regarding the product catalog in EhP1, I have heard that for the future SAP is thinking about integrating the product catalog with the MDM product catalog. Is this functionality already in place within EhP1?

Silvia Gomez

Christian Matz: Hello Silvia,

An additional comment on the product catalog: At this point, only the product catalog for WCEM (Web Channel Experience Management = the new Web Shop) will require you to use MDM. The other components within SAP CRM, including the old Web Shop, still use the product catalog maintained in CRM.

TijoAlexSimon: A few questions:

1. What is the general timeline required to upgrade from CRM 7.0 to CRM 7.0 EHP1?

2. How do custom UI components built in CRM 7.0 enviroments behave when upgrading to CRM 7.0 EHP 1? Would they continue to work without any additional modifications?

3. Is there a repository of available business functions and corresponding functionalities available on SAP site for reference?

4. When is EHP 2 being released for public use?

Thanks,

Tijo Simon

Christian Matz: Hello Tijo,

On your questions:

1. The technical upgrade for EhP1 is rather short - a few days typically do. However, depending on the number of your enhancements and the amount of regression testing required, I would expect somewhere between 2-4 weeks to get this done.

2. Your custom UI components should be fine and normally function without extra work.  However your might want to go through the screens without an active enhancement set to see the changes provided by SAP, to see if they are relevant for you as well.

3. The best documentation is probably the release notes (service.sap.com/releasenotes) as well as the help pages from SAP (help.sap.com/ -> CRM), where the first section is "business functions for SAP CRM"

4. I am not aware that SAP has announced an official GA date for EhP2. It's been in ramp up since November, so I would expect April/May for GA. But only SAP can tell you the exact date. You can find this information on service.sap.com/pam

BodilBundgaard: Hello,

A couple of questions: What is best practice in relation to switching on Business Functions?
- Implement EHP1 – without BF’s or with BF’s?
- Are there any BF’s that are harmless / that can be switched on without any risk?

We have made a test upgrade on a sandbox system. We have experienced that our own developed skin is damaged. Is this also experienced by others? Any hints how to overcome this? Thanks.

Rgrds,
Bodil

Christian Matz: Hello Bodil,

Before activating BF I would always check the Release Notes and SAP Help, which BF can be relevant for your particular processes. You can implement EhP1 with activating any BF, but essentially this is like you haven't implemented EhP1 at all.

I would expect all the UI related enhancements are relevant for most customers, especially since some of them improve the support for certain browsers or even allow you to use certain browsers at all. For instance, IE9 might be such a case (or alternatively you can implement a lot of notes).

With regards to the skin, not sure what changes have been done in your case, and how they were done - so it is hard to say. On my project I did not come across the same problem. Did you skin refer to SAP provided objects/mimes?

meganhampsey: A few questions:

1. We are upgrading from CRM 7.0 to EhP1, what should we expect during the upgrade?

2. What impact will there be on Outlook plug-in version 10.29.5?

3. Can you, via the AET tool, extend BP data beyond table BUT000?

4. With CRM 7.0 there is missing functionality with Forward Error Handling.  Will EhP1 resolve issues with viewing and updating payload and transient retry?

5. We are not planning on using the switch framework.  Is it recommended to upgrade everything vs. using the switch framework?

Christian Matz: Hello Megan,

Regarding your questions:

1. The upgrade to EhP1 should relatively similar to an SP upgrade. There might be upgrades of related components, etc. as well. Same goes for SPDD/SPAU, depending on what you have done to your current system.
Also you might want to check your processes with a standard business role and without active UI enhancement set, to see if SAP added any functionality for those view where you have custom versions, to determine, if those are relevant for you.

2. I would have to check on this specific version, but in general I am not aware of any enhancements related to Outlook or groupware as part of EhP1.

3. With EhP1 you will get the ability to create "Rapid Applications". Basically this would allow you to build your own views for Tables or Web Services (SAP Help -> CRM -> WebClient UI Framework -> Rapid Applications).
Is that what you trying to achieve?

4. On your question related to Forward Error Handling, as far as I know this is not functionality of CRM, but of the underlying Netweaver platform. Therefore EhP1 does not provide any changes to this functionality.

5. Regarding your question on the Switch Framework: Normally the Switch Framework is more related to industry solutions, although the EhP uses a similar technology to make their enhancements available/active.

If you are referring to activating all enhancements vs. selecting some enhancements, I recommend selecting the enhancements you want/need and not activate everything. There are certain enhancements involving additional processing, and if your processes are time-sensitive (e.g. high-volume call center), even those milliseconds can make a difference. Also there are certain enhancements that you cannot switch off again, once they are activated.

meganhampsey: Have there been any enhancements to the web services consumption tool?

Christian Matz: In which way to do want to consume those Web Services?

With EhP1 you will get the tools for Rapid Applications (kind of within the AET), allowing you to build Views to show data provided by Web Services. Also certain other functionality, such as Mashups, would allow you show this data in a certain way.

Paul Kondaveeti: We are aware of the fact that CRM 7.0 Ehp 1 provides the out-of-the-box  BOBJ dashboard integration with web UI. The question we have is, do we need to configure/activate interactive reporting for this BOBJ integration?

Christian Matz: Hello Paul,

There are certain dashboards that are based on BW data and some are based on CRM / interactive reporting data. The documentation of component CRM_ANA_BOB should give you a good overview of which reports are based on which data. Also there are dashboards related to RTOM data, which might require you to activate BF CRM_RTOM_1.

Paul Kondaveeti: Thanks. We have some BOBJ/Xcelsius reports and we are currently accessing them from CRM 7.0 web UI via URL launch in a separate window. Do we need to configure/activate interactive reporting component for these reports to be integrated into web UI via the new CRM 7.0 Ehp 1 BOBJ dashboard integration feature?

Christian Matz: Hello Paul,

Unfortunately without knowing what data is in those reports, it's hard to say. There are Xcelsius reports for both BI data and CRM interactive reporting data.

But if you haven't configured Interactive Reporting so far, you probably won't need  to configure it now, unless you are adding reporting based on CRM Interactive Reports, e.g. Opportunity Pipeline or Service Order Lead Time.

Most likely you don't need Interactive Reporting.

Christian Matz: Thank you everyone for all your questions - it definitely was interesting so see all these question and concerns around EhP1. In generall EhP1 brings a lot of very interesting improvements, especially on a UI level, making SAP CRM 7 even more attractive to the end users.

I hope I was able to answer all your questions, but if you feel there are follow-up questions you would like to get answered, free to contact me directly at christian.matz@ecenta.com.

Again, thank you to all of you for making this such a great experience!

Antoine Cadot-Wood: Thanks to all who followed the discussion today!

A full summary of all the questions will be available here in the CRM Forum and in the CRM Group on Insider Learning Network. 

You can also listen to a recent interview I did with Christian on CRM 7.0 adoption. I also encourage you to join the CRM Group for ongoing information and additional resources, including tips from CRM Expert articles and SAPinsider CRM conferences, details about future live Forums, and more.

And finally, thank you again to Christian Matz of ecenta for taking the time to answer these questions.

For more on CRM 7.0 and enhancement package 1, CRM Expert subscribers can review a number of articles in the knowledgebase: just click on the "CRM 7.0" section.

For more information on CRM Expert, including sample articles, visit the CRM Expert knowledgebase.