Global business integration software provider SEEBURGER announced a major advance in supply chain visibility with the SEEBURGER Monitor for SAP, an SAP add-on that enables supply chain managers and other end users to monitor and research all EDI-triggered processes from a single window within the SAP interface. The new tool is the first in the industry to link IDOCS representing supply chain messages with their associated SAP transaction documents for one-stop viewing inside SAP, eliminating the complex multi-application searches and difficult transaction and log file analysis typically required to trace trading partner communications.
Delivered as a fully integrated and preconfigured package for SAP, this latest extension to the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite is designed to answer questions such as ‘Where is my customer’s order?’ or ‘Did the order ship?’ without the average 20-hour delay involved in requesting this information from busy in-house EDI or IT specialists. The SEEBURGER Monitor for SAP helps prevent supply chain interruptions and customer relationship damage by allowing authorized end users to:
- Access all IDOCs alongside related SAP documents such as purchase orders, sales orders, deliveries and invoices in one central location within SAP, dramatically simplifying and expediting traceability.
- Diagnose and resolve most issues without technical research and analysis, including determining whether an exception is technical (such as a communication fault or document structure issue) or functional (such as an incorrect supplier ID, part number or customer record).
- Set up automated message monitoring with proactive error notifications, using SEEBURGER’s workflow-controlled process monitoring and escalation management.
- Search for needed information by virtually any parameter and view, including document type (purchase order, ASN, order acknowledgement, invoice, etc.), all documents with errors, customer name and more. Views can also be customized for specific users, such as shipping personnel, and sorted by transaction status (in progress, successful, error, etc.).
- Drill down to any document, SAP master data or process transaction for more detail, or access process-specific functions such as tolerance checks with a single click.
These capabilities leverage the long-time integration of the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite with SAP. EDI/B2B documents that have passed through the SEEBURGER gateway are automatically matched to the appropriate IDOC numbers, enabling seamless tracing of transaction processing chains at both the technical and business levels.
Business benefits include :
- Prompt problem resolution that minimizes supply chain bottlenecks, potentially avoiding production outages caused by message errors and late shipments.
- Improved customer and partner service, based on responsiveness to queries as well as proactive monitoring that can identify problems before customers, suppliers and other partners notice them.
- Operating cost reductions related to relieving IT staff of B2B problem identification and resolution responsibilities as well as avoiding violation of service level agreements (SLAs) caused by a failure to address problems in a timely manner
“Once supply chain data goes outside SAP, it is virtually invisible to supply chain and business professionals. Tracking down needed information can require slogging through 10 different SAP applications, such as order line item and order status. It’s not unusual for EDI specialists to spend more than 50% of their time on answering these kinds of questions for non-technical users,” said Rohit Khanna, EVP, Global Strategy and Corporate Development, SEEBURGER. “Our SAP Monitor both simplifies and accelerates the process, providing a one-stop source of information that reduces the drain on IT resources, quickens errors analysis, and provides full transparency and traceability to help keep supply chains running smoothly.”
