Johan van Zijl

I often see systems where the consultant that implemented the solution, assumed that the Customer Number in the R/3 system would be exactly the same as the BP Number in CRM. In most cases this is true(and the system should be configured to map Customer numbers to BP numbers). However, this isn’t always true, especially when using multiple backends.

There are 2 function modules that provide the functionality to map between customer and BP numbers.

The code block below shows the variables that you would typically use when calling these function modules. Note that both the function modules will return the R/3 Account Group as well.

data: lv_partner  type bu_partner_guid,
      lv_customer type crmt_bu_map_customer_number,
      lv_accgroup type crmt_bu_account_group.

Function Module CRM_BUPA_MAP_CUSTOMER_TO_BP will map the CRM BP Number to a Customer Number.

call function 'CRM_BUPA_MAP_BP_TO_CUSTOMER'
  exporting
    iv_partner         = lv_partner
  importing
    ev_customer        = lv_customer
    ev_account_group   = lv_accgroup
  exceptions
    customer_not_found = 1
    others             = 2.

CRM_BUPA_MAP_CUSTOMER_TO_BP will map the R/3 Customer Number to CRM BP Number.

call function 'CRM_BUPA_MAP_CUSTOMER_TO_BP'
  exporting
    iv_customer       = lv_customer
  importing
    ev_partner        = lv_partner
    ev_account_group  = lv_accgroup
  exceptions
    partner_not_found = 1
    others            = 2.

I finally got around to moving the site to a new location and hosting provider.

Now, I have a bit more flexibility to change the layout and will hopefully fix these soon.

My default Web Browser is still Internet Explorer 6.0. Not that I particularly like IE 6, I happen to have Firefox, Opera and Safari installed as well.

But, most of my customers still use IE6 and some of their(woefully unpatched) SAP CRM 4.0 and 5.0 IC WebClient Systems still require IE6.

A quick run down on IC WebClient browser support(all the versions support IE6) from the PAM:

• CRM 4.0 – IE7 has been released(11 July 2007) conditionally to the implementation of notes 986254, 1005093 and 981710.
• SAP CRM 5.0 – IE7  is supported with CRM 5.0 Support Pack 10 since 29 July 2007. Also note that the WebClient on IE7 with Vista will only be supported by 30 September 2008!
• SAP CRM 2007 – IE7 support came standard. Also, there is limited support for Firefox 2(This really works, except for the bloody ActiveX controls).

Bottom line, IE6 is still the most trusted and reliable browser to use with the WebClient.

Microsoft released IE7 in October 2006 and it took SAP 9 months to get the WebClient to work with it. It seems IE8 is in beta on its way later this year. Time will tell if the final version 8 will fix the bugs and be as standards compliant as promised.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with SAP developing the IC WebClient(and most of its other BSP Applications) only for IE6 as that was what 99% of its customers were using at the time(I have never seen anything other than IE on a corporate network). However, I imagine SAP spent a truck load of money to make its 3 supported CRM versions work with IE7. Now, IE8 is coming and I wonder how much it will cost SAP to provide IE8 support.

My hope is that SAP realizes that by chasing compatibility for individual browser editions is inefficient. Developing to a standard such as XHTML, wasn’t feasible 2 years ago, but it surely must become the development direction now.

And there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to display SAP Notes(also a BSP application) with a relatively standards compliant browser such as Opera. By the way, Opera is not supported for any HTMLB based BSP applications, so this is not a CRM specific issue.

A final thought relating to the screenshot above. Why should SAP completely bomb me out if I use an unsupported browser? Why not just run the page and see what happens? Its not as if I am going to log a message about it as the PAM clearly omits Opera as a supported platform.

I am currently redesigning our corporate website, and will be posting some info on it over the next couple of weeks.

This process really drove home the point that IE6 is the buggiest, least standards compliant browser around. I had no problems with IE7(still lots of bugs but I didn’t run into them), Firefox 2/3, Opera, Safari or Konqueror. Here is an excellent site that lists(and helped me fixed the IE ones) the known bugs in current web browsers.

I’m not one for getting into holy wars, but IE6 can do strange things. I guess we never see it, because web designers(like me) take its bugs into account. Another thing I will write about later is why IE6 is still my default browser.

Speaking of standards compliance, the site is now compliant with W3C standards, and the HTML Tidy plugin for Firefox has been a huge help.

By the way, I used WordPress as the backend…

We recently experienced a problem at a customer that drove everyone up the wall. Between 15:00 and 17:00 in the afternoon the user would get a spontaneous Java login popup. Once this happened the ITS would also require the user to log in again.

These login screens aren’t unknown. You normally get them at every customer the first time you log into the WebClient. In order to enable the sending of real time notifications to the client(i.e Broadcasts, Alerts and Telephony) a Java Applet is used to continuously poll the ICF(BC->Notify->Polling Service). This applet requires a login to SAP. The ITS also requires the user to log in again.

So you fix this by sending your local basis consultant a mail telling him to please set the parameters below and restart the instance:

• login/create_sso2_ticket = 2
• login/accept_sso2_ticket = 1
  

Problem solved, no multiple logins required, that is until 3 O’Clock in the afternoon…

We searched for notes, interrogated Desktop Support, logged the problem with SAP, sniffed the network, checked java versions, moved users, reinstalled machines, etc… We can’t figure out what happens 8 hours after a user has logged in?

By the way, below is a couple of notes you may find helpful:

• Note 996854 – MYSAPSSO2 cookie gets deleted while launching IC Webclient
• Note 1075935 – Logon Popup from IC webclient from the Applet
• Note 1021530 – Alert message is shown after a delay(about 15 minutes)
• Note 1097546 – Polling applet creates many sockets

Eventually, SAP responds on the note after 2 months, that we should check our Single Sign On configuration and they provide the link below.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/88/4b353a03e5494ce10000000a114084/frameset.htm

And there it is!!!

login/ticket_expiration_time  => Default = 60 hours

Turns out the default is not 60 hours, but 8 hours. 8 Hours after the user logged in, the ticket expires, requiring them to reauthenticate. I still can’t believe I didn’t think of/find it/RTFM’d this earlier.