International Focus Group for Integration

The International Focus Group for Integration (IFG for Integration) is an initiative of SAP user groups around the globe in the area of SAP integration, SAP Integration Suite and SAP Process Integration/Process Orchestration.

Our mission

The mission of the IFG for Integration is to establish the collaboration between the various SAP user groups in the area of SAP Integration Suite, SAP Process Integration, SAP Process Orchestration and SAP integration. In addition to the collaboration, exchange of experiences and knowledge our goals are to combine and strengthen the feedback and influencing towards SAP and to work on joint best practices. Target of our group is to support the various PI focus groups as part of their national user groups (but not to replace them in any way).

Our members

User Group	Country	Logo	SIG	Contact	Website
DSAG	Germany		Application Integration	Hermann Steinrötter	www.dsag.de
ASUG	U.S.		Integration Technologies and E-Business	Andrea Pennington, Melissa Andrews	www.asug.com
SAPience.be	Belgium			info@sapience.be	www.sapience.be
VNSG	Netherlands		Process Integration	Bernd Pfeiffer	www.vnsg.nl/pi
SAP4dk	Denmark			dk.pi.user.group@gmail.com	www.sap4dk.com
SAPSA	Sweden			Pontus Borgström	www.sapsa.se
SBN Norge	Norway			Eva-Maria Fahrer	www.sap-sbn.no
JSUG	Japan		Technology	Atsushi Hasegawa	jsug.org
SAUG	Australia		Technology	Sascha Wenninger	www.saug.com.au
UK & Ireland SUG	UK & Ireland				www.sapusers.org
African SAP User Group	Africa		NetWeaver	Corlia Van Zyl	www.afsug.co.za
Russian PI User Group	Russia			Iliya Kuznetsov	groups.google.com
Utilisateurs SAP Francophones (USF)	France			Marc Yardin	www.usf.fr
SAP Mentors	global			Michal Krawczyk, Daniel Graversen, Agasthuri Doss

Chair

At the last face-to-face group meeting 2017 in Berlin Hermann Steinrötter was reelected as chair of the group.

History

2022

• March: Start of integration survey 2022 (see section SAP Influencing)
• June: Publication of survey results 2022
• June: Virtual integration day on June 23rd
  https://webinars.sap.com/sap-user-groups-k4u/en/ifgintegration

2020

• May: Start of integration survey 2020 (see section SAP Influencing)
• November: Publication of survey results 2020

2019

• February/March: Finalization of question catalog for integration survey 2019
• May: Start of integration survey 2019 (see section SAP Influencing)
• October: Publication of survey results 2019

2018

• February/March: Finalization of question catalog for integration survey 2018
• May: Start of integration survey 2018 (see section SAP Influencing)
• October: IFG Integration Days in Stockholm
• November/December: Publication of survey results 2018

2017

• March/April: Finalization of integration survey 2017
• May: Start of integration survey 2017 (see section SAP Influencing)
• September: End of survey with 511 participants
• November: Publication of PI survey 2017 results (see section SAP Influencing)

2016

• February: Finalization of PI survey 2016
• March: Webinar SAP AIF 3.0
• April: Start of integration survey 2016
• September/October: Publication of PI survey 2016 results (see section SAP Influencing)
  
• December: Annual group meeting in Berlin

2015

• January: Publication of PI survey results (see section SAP Influencing)
• May: Start of PI survey 2015 (see section SAP Influencing)
• September: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Hamburg)
• October: Publication of PI survey 2015 results (see section SAP Influencing)
• October: Start of new SAP Customer Connection Program for SAP Process Orchestration (see section SAP Influencing)
  

2014

• January: Follow-up survey on monitoring, see details in next section
• January: Webinar SAP NetWeaver PI Roadmap
• January/February: Finalization of questions for PI survey 2014.
• February: Webinar Trading Partner Management (SAP B2B Add-On)
• March: SAP Mentor Agasthuri Doss joins IFG for PI
• September: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Paris), change of group name to IFG for Integration

2013

• January/February: Finalization of questions for PI survey 2013.
• February: Maintenance and subscription of collected PI requirements by users at SAP Customer Connection Program.
• March: Release of new document version 3.5 of PI naming conventions (see working papers below), completion of subscription period of SAP Customer Connection Program.
• May: Official start of PI survey 2013, see Global Survey for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 2013
• August: Completion of PI survey
• October: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Stockholm), release of PI survey results, see links below

2012

• February/March: Completion and review of PI requirements gathering
• April: Online survey for prioritization of collected requirements, see Online Survey – PI Requirements Prioritization
• May: Start global NetWeaver PI Survey 2012, see Global Survey for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 2012
• July: Completion of online survey for prioritization of collected requirements, forwarding of results to SAP
• October: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Stockholm), release of PI survey results & requirement prioritization
• October: Change of group name from GSIG for PI to IFG for PI

2011

• January – March: Concept and preparation of new PI survey
• April: Start of PI survey for 2011
• April: The Danish user group FSD joins the initiative
• May: SAP mentors Michal Krawczyk und Daniel Graversen join the group
• July: End of PI survey for 2011. We received more than 400 responses this year. Many thanks to all contributors and user groups!
• September: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Brussels), see also Thoughts after the Global Special Interest group for PI (GSIG for PI) after the meeting
• September/October: Official release of PI survey 2011 results
• November: Start of PI requirement gathering

2010

• January: SAPSA and SBN Norge join the initiative
• March: SAPience.be joins the initiative
• July/August: Second international survey about SAP Application Integration and PI
• August/September: JSUG joins the initiative
• September: Annual onsite meeting in Den Bosch / Netherlands
• October: SAUG and SUG UK & Ireland join the initiative
• October: Executive meeting with SAP management (Hervé Couturier, Dirk Kästner, Sindhu Gangadharan) at SAP TechEd Europe
• October: AFSUG & Russian PI group join the initiative
• November:The French user group USF joins the initiative

2009

• February – April: Survey about usage of EDI adapters on XI/PI
• May: Publication first draft of monitoring best practices
• May: Publication updated version of PI naming conventions
• September: Onsite meeting in Walldorf

2008

• August: Kickoff meeting in Walldorf (ASUG, VNSG, DSAG, SAP)
• September: First international survey about SAP Application Integration and PI
• November: Web conference PI naming conventions

SAP Influencing

• Global Survey for SAP Integration 2022
  Global Survey for SAP Integration 2022
• Global Survey for SAP Integration 2020
  The survey was conducted between May and August. The results can be found in the following blogs: Results of the global Survey for SAP Integration 2020 – Part 1, Results of the global Survey for SAP Integration 2020 – Part 2
• Global Survey for SAP Integration 2019
  The survey was conducted between May and August. Details can be found in the following blog: Results of the global Survey for SAP Integration 2019
• Global Survey for SAP Integration 2018
  The survey was conducted between May and August. Details and link to the results can be found in the following blog: Global Survey for SAP Integration 2018
• Global Survey for SAP Integration 2017
  The survey was conducted between May and September. The results can be found in the following blog: Global Survey for SAP Integration 2017
• Global Survey for Process Integration 2016
• The first part of the results are described in the blog Results of the global Survey 2016 for SAP Process Integration (Part 1 of 2).The results of the 2016 focus topic are described in the blog Results of the global Survey 2016 for SAP Process Integration (Part 2 of 2).
• Global Survey for Process Integration 2015
  The results are again published in two SCN blogs. The blog Results of the global Survey 2015 for SAP Process Integration (Part 1 of 2) gives an overview of the general questions in comparison to the previous years. The second blog Results of the global Survey 2015 for SAP Process Integration (Part 2 of 2) includes the results of 2015 focus topic RESTful web services and cloud integration.
• SAP Customer Connection Program for SAP Process Orchestration
  Start of functional requirement collection for SAP Process Orchestration. More details and how to participate can be found in the following blog: Join the new customer connection project for SAP Process Orchestration
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2014
  The results are published in two SCN blogs. The blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2014 (Part 1 of 2) gives an overview of the general questions in comparison to the results of the previous surveys. The blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2014 (Part 2 of 2) provides an insight into 2014 focus topic BPM.
• Follow-up Survey on PI Monitoring
  As monitoring was still a major pain point in the PI Survey 2013, IFG and SAP have decided to do a small follow-up survey to get a better understanding of the experiences from companies who already use the central PI monitoring on SAP Solution Manager. Further details can be found in the blog IFG Survey: Central PI Monitoring with SAP Solution Manager.
• Results from Requirement Prioritization
  Results from the collection of new functional requirements for PI and the voting from the SAP user group members are published in our blog Results of the PI Requirement Prioritization. 9 of the 20 top requirements got nominated by SAP for the SAP Customer Connection Program. More information about the process and own participation can be found in the blog IFG for PI: Subscription process for new PI Features in SAP Customer Connection Program.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2013
  The blogs Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2013 (Part 1 of 2) and Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2013 (Part 2 of 2) give an overview of the latest results from 2013 and trends.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2012
  The blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2012 shows the results of the survey from 2012.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2011
  The results of 2011 can be found in the our blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2011.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2010
  Announcement for 2011 and 2010 results are publish in the our blog Global NetWeaver PI Survey 2011 and last Year’s Results.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2008

Working papers

• Naming Conventions for PI
  Best practice document about naming conventions and integration design for SAP NetWeaver PI (version 3.52 with updates for PI 7.40 released in May 2015)

Further activities

• Release of a new naming convention document for SAP Cloud Platform Integration in 2018

How to participate and join

The download of the documents and the registration to the web conferences is offered to all members of the participating user groups and can be accessed via their specific portals or by contacting the speakers of the special interest groups listed in the table above.

Group meeting 2011 in Brussels, Belgium	Group meeting 2012 in Stockholm, Sweden
Group meeting 2013 in Hamburg, Germany	Group meeting 2014 in Paris, France
Group meeting 2015 in Hamburg, Germany	Group meeting 2016 in Berlin, Germany

Other user groups are very welcome join our initiative.

In case of questions or ideas do not hesitate to contact us!