Can the Groupware connector use XI to communicate with CRM2007 ?

[Former Member]

Hi,

Can the latest CRM groupware connector be used to connect to SAP CRM2007 using XI

instead of communicating directly with SAP CRM2007?

The current system landscape regarding the exchange server and CRM systems is such that

it would not be feasible to connect the connector directly to the CRM server.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Sunil

[stephenjohannes]

Sunil,

Nope. The groupware connector is designed to directly talk to MS exchange or Lotus Notes and defeats the point of using it in the first place.

You either have a version mismatch or badly designed landscape if you can't connect it directly.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Stephen,

Thank you for your response. I must apologize for not making my question more clearer.

The current landscape which we have in our IT department is such that there are multiple CRM

servers which would be needed to connect to the microsoft exchange server via the groupware connector.

Since the mapbox and groupware adapter inside CRM2007 uses SOAP to communicate to the groupware

connector, I was wondering if it is possible to connect XI to the individual CRM servers and

have XI talk to the groupware connector.

If it is possible , then the advantage would be that we might be able to connect multiple CRM servers

to one groupware connector via XI.

The groupware connector would still remain connected directly with the microsoft exchange server.

SAP CRM2007 -> XI -> Groupware connector -> Microsoft exchange sever.

Thank you once again for your time and response,

Regards,

Sunil

[stephenjohannes]

Sunil,

Well technically if you make XI talk the same language that CRM talks to the groupware connector then your scenario is possible. Now the problem would be knowing the "format" of the communication that comes out of CRM to the groupware connector. If you can figure that out, then you could probably custom build the scenario you are talking about.

I'm just not sure if you will get any type of positive ROI by doing this method. Personally it just looks like something that would be costly and probably something that you will not get a lot of support. It might be easier to keep "one" CRM system that talks to groupware. Then that CRM distributes the data back from the groupware outbound to XI and then in XI you can send back to CRM. You could do the reverse where your CRM system feeds it to XI and it sends it to the CRM groupware connector system, which then feeds the groupware.

It involves a few more hops, but elminates the needs to figure out the SOAP protocol building between XI and the connector. You can then "hop" on the standard middleware adapter to distribute changes outbound using XIF plus XI and evenutally wind up in the groupware.

The drawback is one of your CRM systems, needs to have at least a global view of all business partners and activities. Which might not be desired by your business.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Hi Stephen,

I really liked your thoughts regarding the alternatives as well as the issues regarding

the ROI. Regarding the cost, we are already using XI to talk to ECC 6.0 and a bunch of other

non SAP systems. There would of course be additional time and cost involved in understanding

and building the connection between XI and groupware connector.

My initial thought was that since SOAP is a standard protocol used by XI and groupware connector,

the connection might work as long we get the correct mappings done in XI for sending the data

to the connector without having to custom develop additional stuff which of course would depend a lot

on how much of tight integration/inflexibilty exists between the mapping formats of groupware connector

with the mapbox and payload interface of the CRM server.

Let me keep this question open as of now in case someone from SAP would like to give us more insight.

I shall keep you updated on anything else which I can find and of course I shall give you max points

for your thoughts and suggestions.

Thank you once again for your time and support. Do let me know in case you hear about anything more

on this one.

Kind Regards,

Sunil Narendran

[stephenjohannes]

Sunil,

The problem is I'm not sure if the interface between the mapbox and the groupware connector piece is a "public api". This means you would either have to have SAP give you the schema/specification or reverse engineer the solution. If you have to reverse engineer the solution then you face the issue you might not get it to work right. It would be basically trying to interface to a system, where you have to "guess" what are the input parameters. IMHO is a recipe for failure.

The good part about the other alternative, is you can easily use the "public api's" of CRM and hook those into XI. It still requires one CRM to act traditionally, but you know at the end of the day you can make it work, due to the fact it becomes standard inbound and outbound exchange of data using CRM middleware and the XIF adapter + XI. You also could get other business ROI from such a solution beyond just the groupware scenario.

It would be interesting if you can get somebody from SAP to answer this question. This question might help us with integration to other groupware engines not yet supported(domino 8).

Take care,

Stephen