SAP Business One has about 4 years of implementation history and very robust presence in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, plus it has strong positions internationally. Considering the fact of relatively young age – the design of the system, including object model enable advanced customization, integration with both legacy and new technologies. We see certain stake on Microsoft technologies, such as MS SQL Server and COM object model. Integrated CRM module allows you to deploy Microsoft Outlook client for messaging, just to name a few. In addition to the customizability – SAP Business One has transaction integration to high end SAP, which allows this product to consolidate mid-size and small subsidiaries across the USA or internationally to your SAP corporate ERP system – franchisees network, dealerships, manufacturing facilities, etc. In this small article we will give customization scenarios to IT managers, who are planning to deploy SAP Business One integration, customization, reporting, etc.

• SAP Business One SDK. SAP Business One Software Development Kit has User Interface API, Data Interface API, Java Connector. The recommended way of customization design is XML web services, which allows you integrate custom web portals with SAP Business One objects: Sales Orders, Inventory Items, Customers. Ecommerce or Web-based Extranet (collaboration with your permanent vendors and customers) would be a good example.

• Implementation Partners. SAP Business One has several licensing & certifications criteria. One path allows the SAP partner to provide installations and so-called functional consulting. This means that these companies are experts of tying your business processes to SAP Business One standard set of modules and standard features/functionality. In our opinion – SAP BO is not only for relatively small to midsize businesses, but also for mid-size to large and even corporate business (subsidiaries and branches). Large companies have combination of multiple systems, including legacy – often they combine several platforms: Windows, Unix/Linux, Lotus Notes Domino, Siebel CRM, Salelogix, IBM DB2 to name a few. In this situation you need partnership with technically-savvy and experienced partner

• Customization Partners. SAP Business One SDK is not an open technology and in order to get access to it SAP Partner should get SDK development training and pass certification exam. At the same time, SAP SDK uses open tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, for example for coding itself. This leads to the common practice when Customization partners do not provide implementation and functional consulting services, but rather concentrate on development – offshore business location is also common. Some risk, however might be attributed to the fact that one organization does business processes specification and another one realizes them in custom coding.

• Technology Partners. The best result in the custom solution in our opinion could be achieved with SAP Business One Partner, who does both sides: Implementation/Functional and Customization/Development. Considering less then 10,000 SAP Business One implementations worldwide – it might be difficult to find local technology partner in your area, in this case – the compromise is to use remote partner with the network of local independent contractors.

Happy implementing, customizing and modifying! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – SAP Business One, Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally. We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

.Net Framework is a platform or development environment to seamlessly create web-applications that are accessible through client machines from across the globe. These web-applications adopt open standards such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to interact with applications that are available in other platforms.

.Net Framework is platform independent and language independent. This means that .Net Framework allows you to use different programming languages such as VB.Net, C#, Jscript, VBScript, and Managed C++ and run applications on different platforms such as Unix, Macintosh, and Linux. Moreover, .Net Framework enables you to use various off-the-shelf libraries that help the development of applications faster, easier, and cheaper. .Net Framework now supports over 20 different programming languages.

The reason how .Net Framework supports so many programming languages is well answered by the concept of Common Language Runtime (CLR) engine. The CLR engine, instead of compiling the code into native code, compiles the code into Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). The MSIL, a set of instructions, then translates the code into native code. This concept of CLR is significant in making .Net Framework, platform and language independent. In addition, CLR is responsible for run-time services such as language integration, security enforcement, memory process, and thread management. Thus, .Net Framework provides a wide infrastructure to create web-applications. Microsoft has classified .Net Framework into two categories such as CLR and .Net Framework class library.

Common Language Runtime: The CLR, as mentioned in the above paragraph, provides common runtime services to all .Net applications. In addition, the CLR reduces the developer’s time to write lengthy code for using features such as life-cycle management, strong type naming, cross-language exception handling, and dynamic binding to turn business logic into a reusable component.

.Net Framework class library: This class library includes predefined sets of functionality that developers can use in their own applications. The library consists of three key components:

• ASP.NET

• Windows Forms

• ADO.NET

The .Net Framework provides a number of advantages such as fewer lines of code, complete compilation, ease of deployment, web settings and web.config, and caching. By fewer lines of code, we mean that .Net Framework allows developers to use Web controls, thereby spending more time in implementing application design and the general flow of application. Another important part of .Net Framework is that everything including Web controls, Web forms, and server-side blocks of code are compiled when a page is requested for compilation. Ease of deployment refers to the concept that components in .Net Framework can be compiled on your machine and then uploaded with all the pages in the /bin directory. Unlike a web-application in ASP, where pages have to be uploaded and the components of the pages have to be registered with the operating system, the components in a web-application in .Net Framework need not be registered.

Web settings means the configuration of .Net applications that can be accomplished through web.config, an XML based file. Because a web.config file is in XML, it is easy to understand and it is also programmatically modifiable. When a web.config file is modified the machine detects the changes immediately. This enables quick configuration of .Net applications. Caching is the term used to describe the process of collecting commonly accessed data into memory for quick retrieval. .Net Framework support three types of caching: output caching, data caching, and fragment caching.

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