Effort Estimation for Xi

[Former Member]

Hi,

Though I appreciate that every project has its unique challenges and complexities involved, and that there can not be one single answer, I am interested to know as to what will be the typical effort involved in implementing XI. As an example, lets take 5 non SAP systems to be interfaced with SAP each having 10 interface points of medium complexity.

Thanks and Regards

Datta

[Former Member]

Hi Datta,

Like you said the effort differs very much, but lets say you are familiar with all adapters and know how to configure each type, I would say you will need around a day for development per interface, and a day for testing. If you have interfaces that are similar then the development time can be greatly reduced. You will also need to have documentation done and schedule Acceptance tests. For around 50 interfaces you could spend anything between 50-150 man days. This does however mean that the developer is XI proficient. However , if this will be the first project and you still need to learn everything this could take a much longer period.

[Former Member]

Achmed's statement refered only to development. But the biggest challenge in an interface project, regardless of XI or any other technology, is the definition of the interfaces. Which data will be needed? How can we get it out of the system and into the next one? Can we use existing standards (in SAP e.g. IDocs, BAPIs) or do we need to implement enhancements on the systems? There are a lot of questions to clarify before you can actually start developing, so depending on the size of the team, the willingness to make decissions etc. this has a huge impact on the efforts per interface.

Additionally it should not be forgotten, that there are some actions (development, configuration) to be carried out in the sending and receiving systems which add up to the effort per interface.

Also there is some basic effort to set up the XI system, which will reappear for DEV, QA and PRO. And there are some features like Alerting which you might want to use, that need some configuration time.

So this cake has many pieces, where the actual development within XI is probably the smallest on and the biggest effort and the biggest challenge is the conceptual work.

best regards

Christine