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Summary
An organization’s ability to act swiftly and make business decisions is based on having access to complete and accurate
views of enterprise data. Companies recognize the value in leveraging all of their corporate information and the
benefits of reconciling data into consolidated views, but the path to get there can be difficult. Getting data into the
company’s ERP system in a timely and accurate manner is a critical success factor in business decisions. This white
paper examines existing data-loading methods and best practices to easily incorporate data into SAP solutions.
Managing large amounts of data can be a significant challenge to most organizations. Some of the common data
management tasks include:
• Data migration, e.g., loading legacy systems data into SAP applications during initial SAP implementation or M&A
activity
• Data maintenance, e.g., mass changes to SAP data for price changes and payroll changes
• Data integration, e.g., loading vendor invoices or bank statements into SAP applications
• Mass data creation, e.g., creating new master data (materials, vendors, customers, etc.), or transactional data
(journal vouchers, invoices, etc) in SAP systems
A common theme among these data management applications is data loading – loading of data into SAP systems from
external files such as spreadsheets or other databases. The limited resources in IT and in the lines of business struggle
to complete these data-related tasks in a timely and accurate manner. However, if the best practices described in this
white paper are followed in each stage of a data loading process, these challenges can be overcome.
- Custom programming
One alternative to the manual entry of data into an SAP system is to write custom ABAP™ programs. Many
companies have developed custom programs for very large data loading tasks that will remain static. These
programs can streamline the repetitive entry of hundreds of thousands to millions of records. However,
creating robust programs involves multiple iterations of requirements gathering, programming, testing,
documentation, transporting, and refinement, and these programs may be used only once or twice a year,
making the effort particularly costly in terms of man hours and ROI. Using a program that was hastily put
together or one that has not been well-tested can damage or destroy data.
• Sharing Templates
There is no need to re-invent the wheel for each transaction. Reuse templates developed for previous
uploads and share them among departments. Keeping a repository of templates, in SharePoint or a shared
file repository, along with a common naming convention, will enable users to easily find a previously created
template.
The following best practices should be considered while preparing the data files to load:
• Error handling
Any data loading project is sure to have records that will not be accepted by SAP applications due to errors,
so it is important to make sure you are prepared to process such errors. Ideally, the data loading tool you use
will show you the SAP error messages alongside the data records. This will make it easy to identify the cause of
those errors, allowing you to correct the errors in the data file and reload only the error records. If you cannot
identify the causes of the errors, the recommended method is to process those records in a foreground (step-
by-step) mode.
• Share templates
The data loading scripts and templates that you have developed should be kept in a common repository so that
they can be shared with other users within your organization.
Conclusion
Applying the best practices discussed in this white paper will ensure quicker, error-free and compliant data loading,
regardless of whether the data sets are large or small, or whether the data is master or transactional data. Training
business users to apply good processes and enabling them with the right tools to upload data improves the decisions
that a company makes by guaranteeing their data is up to date. This improved accuracy can be a huge competitive
advantage, and when combined with the operational flexibility that users have with the right tools and practices, can
be instrumental in creating revenue growth.
Winshuttle, Inc. is the leading provider of data loading and extraction tools for SAP users worldwide. Winshuttle’s products replace
manual data entry and complex technical tools by easily and securely shuttling data between Microsoft Excel and SAP solutions.
Winshuttle’s flagship product, transactionSHUTTLE, effectively bridges the needs of business users with the governance requirements
of IT. transactionSHUTTLE transforms business processes for both implementation and post production projects, including data
migration, data maintenance, data integration and data creation. Managing SAP data has never been simpler for the hundreds of
Global 2000 companies that rely on Winshuttle. Headquartered in Bothell, Washington, Winshuttle has offices in the United Kingdom,
France and India. For more information visit http://www.winshuttle.com, email info@winshuttle.com or call 1-800-711-9798.