[74] in SAPr3-news
FAQ: sap-faq.txt
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andreas Bartelt)
Fri Apr 21 05:07:42 1995
To: sapr3-news@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 00:00:21 GMT
From: Andreas.Bartelt@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Andreas Bartelt)
SAP-FAQ
mailto:Andreas.Bartelt@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE
April 19, 1995
Abstract
This is the FAQ file for the news:de.alt.comp.sap-r3
newsgroup. It will cover SAP products and issues, in which
the USENET community is interested.
The SAP corporation provides standard software prod-
ucts for business applications, primarily for middle and large
sized companies.
Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Miscellaneous : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 3
1.2 Technicals of this FAQ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 3
1.3 How to get this FAQ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4
1.4 Contributors : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4
1.5 History : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7
1.6 Reader Response Form : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7
2 SAP AG corporation 7
2.1 What is SAP? : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7
2.2 SAP on Internet : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7
2.3 SAP addresses : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 8
2.4 What product groups does SAP distribute? : : : : 9
3 SAP R/2 9
3.1 What is SAP R/2? : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 9
3.2 On what platforms runs SAP R/2? : : : : : : : : : 9
3.3 Is there a newsgroup for R/2? : : : : : : : : : : : : 10
3.4 What are the modules of SAP R/2? : : : : : : : : 10
4 SAP R/3 10
4.1 What is SAP R/3? : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 10
4.2 On what platforms runs SAP R/3? : : : : : : : : : 10
4.3 What are the modules of SAP R/3? : : : : : : : : 10
1
5 Institutions / Persons / Contacts 11
5.1 AK-Hochschulen : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 11
5.2 Persons : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 12
5.3 ASUG (America's SAP User's Group) : : : : : : : 12
6 Network resources 13
6.1 News-Net : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 13
6.2 Mailing-Lists : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 13
6.3 FTP : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14
6.4 HTTP(WWW) : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14
6.5 Compuserve : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14
6.6 E-Mail : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14
7 Miscellaneous 14
7.1 Books / Literature : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 14
7.2 Jobs : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 15
7.3 Commercial pointers : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 15
8 TODO 15
2
1 Introduction
1.1 Miscellaneous
This is a traditional FAQ, and not a HOW TO guide to the SAP
products.
Comments, suggestions and corrections should be mailed to
me at mailto:Andreas.Bartelt@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE
Please excuse my bad english. Any corrections and hints are wel-
come.
Note for german readers:
'Es wird keine deutschsprachige Version dieser FAQ geben. Auf-
grund der Internationalisierung von SAP, des Mediums 'Inter-
net/FAQ' und der ueberwiegend des Englischen maechtigen Leser-
schaft, wurde die englische Sprache gewaehlt.'
1.1.1 Legal Stuff
Opinions expressed in this document do not reflect those of SAP
Corporation or the organizations to which any of the contributors
belong. Also, responsibility for use of the information is yours.
Information contained in this document should be considered as if
distributed under terms of the GNU General Licence Agreement
or Artistic Licence, i.e. you cannot sell it or copyright it yourself
and you cannot pass it on in altered form without making the
original available unless you are posting a free version to the net
in another format (such as postscript) and have merely changed
the presentation, not the text.
If you want to make donations, send postcards from your home-
town and holidays, or send any other goodies to
Andreas Bartelt or Andreas Bartelt
Leuchtenburgstr. 27 Wunderburgstr. 11
D-31688 Nienstaedt D-26135 Oldenburg
Germany Germany
Thanx a lot.
1.2 Technicals of this FAQ
The source of this FAQ is a LaTeX-file. You may view the FAQ
in different formats:
1.DVI
Generated from the LateX-source. Looks fine.
3
2.Postscript
Generated from the DVI-file. Looks fine.
3.ASCII
Converted to ASCII from the DVI-file using 'dvi2tty' and
some scripts afterwards. Hopefully it isn't too ugly. I'am
really sorry, since the ASCII version should be the finest,
but this was the only way to generate the different versions
automatically.
4.HTML (WWW/Mosaic)
The HTML version is generated by 'latex2html'.
I highly recommend to retrieve another than the ASCII for-
matted version of the FAQ.
1.3 How to get this FAQ
Have a look at the section about 'Network resources' in this FAQ.
1.4 Contributors
- DJ Adams
- Address: mailto:dja@cix.compulink.co.uk
- Assisted With:
Setup of Merlin Mailing-List in spring 1995
Information on Job section in Compuserve
- Andreas Bartelt
- Address: mailto:Andreas.Bartelt@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE
- Assisted With:
Initial FAQ-Setup and Maintenance
FTP site setup in summer 1994
FAQ WWW site setup in autum 1994
- David T. Bath
- Address: mailto:dtb@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au
- Assisted With:
FAQ example/template
- Wilhelm Buehler
- Address: mailto:Wilhelm.Buehler@xlink.net
- Assisted With:
Hints on how to specify HTML-news-links
4
- Fabian Geyer
- Address: mailto:geyer@umawihp0.wifo.uni-mannheim.de
- Assisted With:
Several corrections
Summary WWW Page
Book hint
- Georg Hage-Huelsmann
- Address: mailto:georg.hage-huelsmann@sap-ag.de
- Assisted With:
Information about ASUG
- Christian Hestermann
- Address: mailto:hester@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de
- Assisted With:
Information about AK-Hochschulen
- Kaliana Kellye
- Address: mailto:MISTHWEST2@aol.com
- Assisted With:
Re-editing the FAQ
Various useful information
- Frank Klausner
- Address: mailto:Frank.Klausner@sap-ag.de
- Assisted With:
Various informations
- Tom Lavelle
- Address: mailto:lavelle@netcom.com
- Assisted With:
Information about Compuserve Forum
- Martin Mezger
- Address: mailto:mezger@ibmcc01.wdf.sap-ag.de
- Assisted With:
Information about platforms for SAP R/3
- Michael Rosemann
- Address: mailto:ismiro@wi.uni-muenster.de
5
- Assisted With:
Information about SAP/R3 modules
- Frank Rump
- Address: mailto:Frank.Rump@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE
- Assisted With:
Creation of newsgroup news:de.alt.comp.sap-r3 in
April 1994
SAP WWW site setup in summer 1994
- Rainer C. Ruppert
- Address: mailto:rcr@tiger.pfm-mainz.de
- Assisted With:
Frist try to develop a FAQ
- Gordon Sloat
- Address: mailto:73601.132@compuserve.com
- Assisted With:
Information about Compuserve Forum
- Bryan Thorp
- Address: mailto:bthorp@wimsey.bc.ca
- Assisted With:
Information about SAP/R3 modules
Pointer to newsgroup comp.client-server
Was researching the possible creation of an English
language SAP/R3 newsgroup.
Created the english mailing list mailto:sapr3-list@maillis*
*t1.wimsey.com
in February 1995.
- Rupert Thurner
- Address: mailto:rupert@lifi02.ifi.uni-klu.ac.at
- Assisted With:
Mirror if FAQ (HTML) to http://ldecs3.ifi.uni-
klu.ac.at:8001/mirror/sap-faq.html
- Ralf Treitz
- Address: mailto:ralph.treitz@sap-ag.de
- Assisted With:
Information to 'SAP on the Internet'
Apologies to those I have omitted or offended.
6
1.5 History
- April 1994
Creation of the 'news:de.alt.comp.sap-r3' newsgroup.
- November 1994
First FAQ release
1.6 Reader Response Form
Simply complete (as much as you like), cut and mail the fol-
lowing section to me at mailto:Andreas.Bartelt@Informatik.Uni-
Oldenburg.DE
---- BEGIN READER RESPONSE FORM ----
1. Address:
2. How useful is this FAQ ?
Not at all
A little bit
OK
Good
I'll offer you half a million bucks p.a. to work fo*
*r me
3. What was most useful ?
4. How did you get this ?
5. What do you dislike about this FAQ ?
6. Any other comments, suggestions and corrections ?
---- END READER RESPONSE FORM ----
2 SAP AG corporation
2.1 What is SAP?
SAP stands for 'Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte in der Daten-
verarbeitung' which freely translates into 'Systems, Applications,
and Products in Data Processing'.
SAP is a collection of software for nearly all business applica-
tions in middle and large sized companiess.
SAP AG corporation was founded in 1972 and is today one of
the most important software companies in the world.
2.2 SAP on Internet
SAP has the domain 'sap-ag.de'.
7
2.2.1 EMail
For general marketing requests ( promotional items etc ) mail to
mailto:infoservice@sap-ag.de
Individual SAP employees can be reached as FirstName.LastName@sap-
ag.de.
At SAP AG the R/3 SAP office is used as internal mailtools.
2.2.2 Other services / Future plans
Beyond the infoservice mail address which is handled by SAP Mar-
keting, SAP is currently NOT offering any formal service via Inter-
net. There is no procedure to help you with individual questions
or technical support requests mailed randomly into SAP.
This might change in the future, for SAP investigates the use
of the Internet for communication purposes. As of now, please
use the regular Hotline / OSS links for SAP technical support
until SAP announces addresses and contact points for Internet
accessible services.
2.3 SAP addresses
Here are some selected SAP addresses:
- SAP Deutschland
- SAP Aktiengesellschaft
Postfach 1461, D-69185 Walldorf
Neurottstrasse 16, D-69190 Walldorf
Tel. (0 62 27) 34 - 0
Telex: 466 004 sap d
Fax (0 62 27) 34 - 12 82
- SAP Oesterreich
- SAP Ges.m.b.H.
Postfach 25, Stadlauer Str. 54
A 1221 Wien
Tel. (02 22) 2 20 55 11
Fax (02 22) 2 20 55 11 - 222
- SAP Schweiz
- SAP (Schweiz) AG
Leugenestrasse 6
Postfach 130
CH-2500 Biel 6
Tel. (0 32) 42 / 1 11
Fax (0 32) 42 72 11
8
- SAP International
- SAP America Inc.
U.S. Corporate Headquartes
International Court Three
300 Stevens Drive
USA Philadelphia, PA 19113
Tel. (215) 521 4500
Fax (215) 521 6290
- SAP Asia
Bangkok Representative Office
23rd Floor CP Tower
313 Silom Road
T-Bangkok 10500
Tel. (2) 2 31 06 13
Fax (2) 2 31 04 48
- SAP Canada Inc.
4120 Yonge Street, Suite 600
CDN-North York,
Ontario M2P 2B8
Tel. (416) 229-0574
Fax (416) 229-0575
- SAP Japan Co. Ltd.
Loop-x 17th Floor
9-15 Kaigan, 3-chome, Minato-Ku,
J-Tokyo 108
Tel. (03) 5440-2001
Fax (03) 5440-2021
A more complete list can be retrieved from ftp://ftp.Informatik.Un*
*i-
Oldenburg.DE/pub/sap/Info/
2.4 What product groups does SAP distribute?
- R/2
- R/3
3 SAP R/2
3.1 What is SAP R/2?
SAP R/2 was the first compact software package for the whole
spectrum of business applications from the SAP corporation.
3.2 On what platforms runs SAP R/2?
SAP R/2 runs on IBM Mainframes and BS2000 (Siemens ma-
chines).
9
3.3 Is there a newsgroup for R/2?
No.
3.4 What are the modules of SAP R/2?
RF Financial Accounting (Finanzbuchhaltung)
RA Assets Accounting (Anlagenbuchhaltung)
RK Cost Accounting (Kostenrechnung)
RK-P Projects (Projekte)
RP Human Resources (Personal)
RM-INST Plant Maintenance (Instandhaltung)
RM-QSS Quality Assurance (Qualitaetssicherung)
RM-MAT Materials Management (Materialwirtschaft)
RM-PPS Production Planning and Control (Produktion)
RV Sales and Distribution (Vertrieb, Fakturierung, Versand)
4 SAP R/3
4.1 What is SAP R/3?
SAP R/3 is the continuation of R/2 on client/server and dis-
tributed open systems.
4.2 On what platforms runs SAP R/3?
SAP R/3 is based on open systems, e.g. Unix.
R/3 runs on a variety of databases, e.g. Oracle, Informix On-
line and ADABAS-D.
Actual Info: In December 94, SAP and IBM have jointly an-
ncounced support for DB2 (for UNIX). First customer shipment
supporting DB2 and R/3 on AIX systems is scheduled for Feb. 95
with a date for general availability in late 95. Further support for
DB2 for AS/400 and DB2 for MVS is currently being investigated.
4.3 What are the modules of SAP R/3?
AM Asset Management (Anlagenwirtschaft)
CO Controlling (Controlling)
FI Financial Accounting (Finanzwesen)
HR Human Resources (Personalwesen)
10
IS Industry Specific Solutions (Industriespezifische Loesungen)
PM Plant Maintenance (Instandhaltung)
PP Production Planning (Produktionsplanung)
PS Project System (Projektsystem)
QM Quality Management (Qualitaetssicherung)
SD Sales and Distribution (Verkauf/Versand/Fakturierung)
MM Materials Management (Materialwirtschaft)
WF Business WorkFlow
Central to all these modules is BC - Basis.
5 Institutions / Persons / Contacts
5.1 AK-Hochschulen
'AK-Hochschulen' aka 'SAP-Arbeitskreis Hochschulen' is a work-
ing group of universities and the SAP corporation.
The official address is
SAP-Arbeitskreis Hochschulen e.V.
-Vorstand-
69190 Walldorf
Germany
Another contact is
SAP-Arbeitskreis Hochschulen e.V.
c/o Prof. Dr. Oetinger
Goebenstrasse 40, D-66117 Saarbruecken
Telefon : 0681-53410
Fax : 0681-585733
Have a look at the files stored at
ftp://ftp.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE/pub/sap/AK-Hochschulen/
for further information.
The AK-Hochschulen has a WWW site:
http://www.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/SAP-AK The editors
of this WWW site could be contacted under mailto:sap-ak@uni-
duesseldorf.de .
11
5.2 Persons
These persons are interested in SAP.
- Dipl.-Kfm. Michael Rosemann
Institut fuer Wirtschaftsinformatik
Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster
Grevener Str. 91
48159 Muenster
Tel.: 0251-9275107
Fax.: 0251-927562
EMail: mailto:ismiro@wi.uni-muenster.de
5.3 ASUG (America's SAP User's Group)
(The following informations are from Gordon Sloat)
ASUG is the American Sap User Group (ASUG).
Within ASUG, there are about a dozen Focus Groups orga-
nized by function: SD, MM, Basis, EDI, etc. There also are some
industry groups: Chemicals, Consumer Goods, etc. Some of the
groups are more active then others. Some lean toward R/2; oth-
ers toward R/3. The make up of the Focus Groups is constantly
changing. To participate, your company must be an SAP cus-
tomer and must join ASUG. Corporate membership costs $600
per year. Once your company is an ASUG member, any of your
employees are welcome to participate in any of the Focus Groups
that interest them.
The Compuserve ASUG Forum is a private forum run by ASUG
and SAP. You must be an ASUG member and be authorized by
both SAP and Compuserve to get access to the Forum. You can
not use an existing Compuserve account. You must order the start
up kits from ASUG. Kits ordered from Compuserve will not work!
The start-up kits cost about $40 each. Compuserve accounts cost
a minimum of $10 per month. You can order as many ASUG kits
as you want. This procedure is a bit restrictive and limits dis-
cussion on the forum, but SAP and Compuserve insists on it. To
get information about joining ASUG or to order Compuserve start
up kits, call the ASUG offices in Chicago. Kim Baker is Member-
ship Coordinator for ASUG. She can be reached at (312)-321-5142
or 73601,15@COMPUSERVE.COM. Richard Lloyd of DUPONT
currently is the Chairperson for ASUG. Sorry, but I don't have his
number.
Rich Haenke of SAP is the ASUG-SAP Liaison and the Com-
puserve Forum SYSOP. He can be reached at 72662,1752@COM-
PUSERVE.COM, or at (610) 595-4459 phone or at (610) 595-4927
fax. Call him if you have questions about ASUG or the Com-
puserve Forum. Erika Bhatia held this job for the last several
12
years and set up the ASUG forum, but she has now moved on to
other things.
6 Network resources
There are several network resources on internet you may use to
get information or partizipate in discussions.
For SAP AG itself on the Internet refer to the SAP section of
this FAQ.
6.1 News-Net
To learn more about SAP, join discussions, ask questions and so
on, you may visit the following newsgroups:
- news:de.alt.comp.sap-r3
The FAQ will be frequently posted to this group.
- news:comp.client-server
This newsgroup has some SAP R/3 threads occassionally.
For job related postings use:
- news:de.markt.jobs
- news:de.markt.jobs.d
There are currently no english language newsgroups for SAP.
But you may post to German newsgroups without problems, since
most readers can understand English.
6.2 Mailing-Lists
- sapr3-list@maillist1.wimsey.com
To find out about the list and how it operates, send an e-mail
to: mailto:majordomo@maillist1.wimsey.com with 'INFO
SAPR3-LIST' in the body of your mail. You will get in-
structions returned immediately.
This is an english language mailing list for all SAP R/3 top-
ics.
There is an archive of this Mailing-List at ftp://ftp.Informatik*
*.Uni-
Oldenburg.DE/pub/sap/Mailing-Lists/sapr3-list/
- merlin@ftech.co.uk
For more info on merlin, potential subscribers can send 'info
merlin' in the body of a message to mailto:majordomo@ftech.co.uk
This is an english language mailing list restricted to people
working with SAP (meaning agencies / head-hunters etc are avoided)
to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible.
13
6.3 FTP
There is a ftp site for SAP information:
<ftp://ftp.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE/pub/sap/>
This FAQ is also stored there.
6.4 HTTP(WWW)
This FAQ can be found at:
http://swl.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/sap-faq/sap-faq.html
Mirrors of the FAQ are available at:
- Austria http://ldecs3.ifi.uni-klu.ac.at:8001/mirror/sap-faq.html
Other sites:
- http://pflaume.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/sap/sap.html
- http://umawihp0.wifo.uni-mannheim.de:4000/ geyer/saplinks.html
- http://www.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/SAP-AK
6.5 Compuserve
There is a private forum sponsored by ASUG (America's SAP
User's Group). You need to be an employee of a company that is
using SAP and you need to be a member of the above group.
Beside ASUG topics there are technical discussions, mostly
about installation and upgrade issues.
See also the ASUG section of this FAQ.
In section 14 ("Contracts & Jobs") of the CONSULT forum
on Compuserve you can find job related postings.
6.6 E-Mail
You can reach SAP via email (see the section about the SAP AG
corporation for details).
7 Miscellaneous
7.1 Books / Literature
Are there any books about SAP and it's products?
The following should be mentioned:
- "Die Client/Server-Technologie des Systems R/3"
Ruediger Buck-Emden und Juergen Galimow
Addison-Wesley
ISBN 3-89319-764-8
14
- "SAP/R3 Grundlagen Architektur Anwendung"
Markt und Technik Verlag GmbH
ISBN 3-87791-562-0
- "Praxistrainer SAP R/3,
Grundlagen - Architektur - Anwendungen, 3pprox. 400 p*
*ages"
7.2 Jobs
For jobs related topics see the Newsgroup section and the Com-
puserve section of this FAQ.
7.3 Commercial pointers
This is an experimental section. Please drop me a line if you dislike
this section or if it is not USENET conform in any way ( there is
a similiar problem regarding the Books section ...).
- MaxEmploy SAP R/3 cd-rom training
http://www.maxemploy.com/tihome.html
mailto:maxemplo@jaxnet.com
8 TODO
- LIVE-AG
15
