IntroWelcome to the first weblog covering topics related to the setup and use of CRM 4.0 Mobile Sales.
BackgroundMy reason for requesting access to an SDN blog was to get more exposure for a technology that appears to be on the edge of NetWeaver and, as such, I feel it has been more or less neglected until now. All the sexy stuff seems to be in the real MI architecture and so I was searching for a space to air views about the 'old' technology using the mobile app studio, comm station, conntrans, etc.
Ginger Gatling hit the nail on the head with a Connecting the dots between SAP mobile technologies and mobile applications of SAP's alternative 'Mobile' offerings and the confusion that this sometimes brings. Just to make it clear the one I am talking about is the (in release 5) .Net Mobile Sales - using laptops, as well as workgroup server/clients. The SAP blurb describes this as "Designed for windows-based occasionally connected CRM field applications" - replace "occasionally" by two or three times a day (at least!), multiply that by a few hundred clients and then we start to get to somewhere approaching real life!
Having been thrown into the world of mobile sales almost 2 years ago, it seemed like there was a lot to learn but not much support, documentation, etc. to make it happen. Being part of an initial Ramp-Up project left me with the distinct feeling of being a guinea pig in testing the release level, as almost everything we did seemed to have a trial and error feel to it.
Anyway all of that is behind me now and so this initial entry is just a quick introduction to let you know that I'd like to cover some of the following topics in future weblogs:
Suggested topics (not any particular order):
- Mobile Sales Setup: Laptops vs Workgroup server/clients
- SAP CRM 4.0 upgrade from SP4 to SP8
- Need for Speed – Use of Rollout Manager in Mobile Sales Rollout
- SAP CRM 4.0 upgrade from SP3 to SP9 (well, SP8 actually for MSA)
- Conntrans – a short (!) overview
- Repository Server/Gen Wkbnch/Comm station setup – theory and practice
If any of these are dear to your heart and you want to share your own experiences, don't hesitate to contact me directly and I'll try and include examples from other companies as well as my own experiences. An additional session about performance and tuning wouldn't go amiss - so if you have tips and tricks to share, by all means let me know.
For those of you who are new to CRM Mobile Sales or just want to know more about how it works, there is a good overview at this link.
