You have taken the decision to investigate more about Duet and benefits it can bring for your company or - even better - have already taken the decision for a Duet implementation? Great! During the past months I have come across some common misconceptions with Duet 1.5, which I would like to share with you in this blog. So - don't mention that you have not been told about them! 😉
1. Duet not to replace SAP GUI or SAP NetWeaver Portal
Duet has been created as an alternative user interface for the occasional SAP backend user. Thus, it should be simple and easy to use to do without complexity. Of course, this implicates that not every functionality as available with SAP GUI or SAP NetWeaver Portal is available with Duet. Unfortunately, some people still want to "emulate" classical SAP user interface technologies with Duet. This is not desired due to the Duet motivation for keeping access simple. Consequently, most functionality is provided as-is and not highly customizable.
If you are looking for more customization possibilities for SAP/Microsoft integration, you might be interested in Duet Enterprise.
2. Duet on mobile solutions
As per current design, Duet 1.5 is not intended to be run on mobile devices. However, once updates have been processed from a Duet Client and are available on the user's Microsoft Exchange account, they are available on mobile devices as well, of course. An example could be Duet Sales Management contacts in the Microsoft Outlook Contacts folder. To provide you with flexibility for using Duet when travelling, Duet can be used via Citrix or VPN connections as well.
3. Duet Reports & Analytics
With Duet you can receive ERP reports as well as SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse reports. As of current design, Duet 1.5 cannot be used with SAP BusinessObjects. To find out about required supported release levels, please check the SAP Product Availability Matrix.
4. SAP CRM data replication for Duet Sales Management
Duet Sales Management can be used for making SAP CRM data available within Microsoft Outlook. This is true for Sales accounts, contacts and activities. The intention of Duet is to make relevant data available to sales people, which they typically need when being onsite at customers and while travelling. Thus, specific rules are applied for replication. Duet does not replicate the entire CRM data to the Outlook client. This would result in confusion for the sales person as there would be typically too many contacts and activities available. Additionally, it would result in huge mailbox space requirements. A replication rule is applied, which dictates which data should be replicated, e.g. for the region the sales person is responsible for. Regarding activities, a certain amount of days / weeks from the current date is specified for replication.
5. SAP CRM account creation from Duet
As it is the intention to keep things simple and easy for end users with Duet, it is not intended to create SAP CRM accounts from Microsoft Outlook as this is a more complex process and shall rather be done from other user interfaces.
