Introduction to Mobile Sales Application for Laptops
SDN has very limited information about Mobile Sales Application for Laptops. This was one of the main motivations for starting this WebBlog. My plan is to give more information about the application, the features and simple steps to customize the application. I will also be sharing some tips and tricks. To start off, this article deals with the basics of Mobile Sales Application.
A Sales Representative or a Service Representative is always on the move and may not be able to be connected to the server every moment. The representatives also have less time on their hands. These conditions make it necessary for any solution for a Sales / Service Representative to have the following characteristics –
- Should be a solution for a Mobile device like laptop, PDA etc.
- Easy to use user interface.
- Faster to create a transaction.
A solution which satisfies all these characteristics is a SAP Mobile Laptop Application. Mobile Laptop Application is basically a solution which can be used by a Sales / Service Representative when interacting with customers and which works in a disconnected environment (with a provision to synchronise whenever connection is established). It is also easier and quicker to create documents in the laptop solution (this obviously requires a trimming of certain non-critical functionalities when compared to CRM Online).
The various Mobile Applications available for laptop are – Mobile Sales, Mobile Service and Mobile Service R/3 Edition.
Mobile Sales – It provides the functionality which can be used by a Sales Representative. The transactions which are possible are Activities (with provision to synchronise to Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes), Opportunities, Sales Transactions (like Sales Order, Sales Quotation etc.) and Marketing Transactions (like Trade Promotion, Campaign etc.).
Mobile Service – It provides the functionality which can be used by a Service Representative. The transactions which are possible are Service Orders, Service Assignments, Service Confirmations and Service Contracts.
Mobile Service R/3 Edition – It also provides the functionality which can be used by a Service Representative. But the difference is that the data is sent to R/3 and not to CRM Server (though CRM Server is required for data exchange). The transactions which are possible are Service Orders, Service Notifications and Confirmations.
It is also possible to generate Reports (the format of which can be customized) in the Mobile Application.
In addition to these applications, Mobile Authorization Management Tool is used to restrict / allow access to certain users to certain transactions in the above applications. The synchronization with the CRM Server is done through an application called Conntrans.
My next blog will be about the general architecture of the framework of Mobile Applications for Laptop.
The blog on MSA/MSV was quiet interesting. Could you give me some information on the MSV R/3 edition? How it works, and communicates with R/3? Also some information on the difference between the Generation process in 4.0 and 5.0 would be great.
Rgds,
Niranjan
Thanks for you rinterest in my blog. I will be dealing with Mobile Service R/3 Edition in my future blogs. So keep checking my posts.
The differences between 4.0 and 5.0 will also be covered, but at a later stage. To start with, I would like to inform you that 5.0 Release is entirely based on .Net framework. So the IDE has undergone a huge change. I will be covering the details in a future post.
Keep checking my blogs!!!
Regards,
Santo.
Please continue to blog on this topic.You have started well !!
Regards
Nandakumar
We have just gone live with MSA 5.0 but I would be interested in a high level overview of the Workgroup solution capabilities and restrictions.
Cheers and keep up the good work...it is great!
James
I am quite new to this field. We have a requirement fot developing a mobile application capable of running on the PDA and should be able to create service orders in SAP DBM from the handheld. There is no standard product available for this purpose so i will have to develop a custom application as a complete product. My doubt with these kind of applications is that for creating any service order we need vehicle details, customer details and Material or labor value details, how will we get all these data on the handheld? do we need to keep master data of vehicle, customer and materials on the Handhelds?
Please suggest.
Regards,
Anurita
You are correct , when creating service order Master data as to be on the handheld. So you have to get this data on the Handheld device.
SAP as standard application MSAHH5.0 which is for Consumer Products basically , but the concept remains same in your case. So just have a look into that application , in which the creating Order is same as you mentioned about Creating Service order.
Let me know if you still need any clarification on this .
Regards,
Anand.
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/109fd370-6a59-2a10-19bb-a004f0b3c691
I worked heavily on CRM 3.0, 4.0 and MSA. Data syn was bit painful during those days. Esp. not on technical front but fundamentaly application was not flexible for business users to work in disconnected environment.
For e.g Quote created in MSA would become uneditable if transferred to CRM Online.
Whether things have changed in sap crm 2007 ! ...Do let me know ..
Keep up the good work !
Regards
sandeep