Technology Details

The Duet architecture consists of three elements:

• Duet client add-on for Microsoft Office
• Duet server
• SAP software add-on

The Duet client add-on extends Microsoft Office to display additional information, handle communication with the Duet server and SAP environments, and prepare the client for offline synchronization.

The Duet server functions as the deployment and communication facilitator between the Microsoft Office and SAP environments. No transactional logic resides on the Duet Server.

The Duet Server:

• Maps application layout information defined in SAP to the Duet clients
• Forwards all activities triggered on the SAP applications to the correct client
• Handles mapping of users from Microsoft to SAP
• Manages all data formatting between SAP applications and Microsoft Office (e.g. defining how to display an approval email)

The SAP software add-on provides:

• A Web-services adapter for connecting to the Enterprise SOA services in the SAP applications
• Configuration tools for the Duet scenarios
• Metadata repository that serves as the Duet application definition.

The Microsoft Exchange server is used as an asynchronous message infrastructure. Duet routes messages such as approval emails, or reports through Exchange to the intended client recipient.

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For more information on how to implement and deploy Duet, please see our White Papers.