The Developer Perspective – Part II
This is the second and final part of our interview with Holger Bruchelt, Solution Manager at SAP. In the first part, Holger explained what developers can expect when working with Duet Enterprise including tools and processes. In the second part, he provides information about training and support, examples of applications created using Duet Enterprise and the role of SAP NetWeaver Gateway.
- 4. Do developers have access to training and/or support from SAP and/or Microsoft?
- We have a rather good community already on SDN with forums, wikis, and blogs and a very extensive developer guide. This developer guide mainly focuses on the SAP side, but you can find a Microsoft oriented developer guide on TechNet, on the Microsoft side. These two guides are an excellent starting point on how to develop your Duet Enterprise project.
- We also have trainings available through SAP Education training. The classroom trainings include access to a complete Duet Enterprise landscape where the trainer guides you through the required steps. We’ve had quite a few of these trainings already worldwide.
- We’ve had several DevJams where we have invited partners and customers. These sessions consist of a 2-day training before the event where we ramp up on what Duet Enterprise is and how to develop. Then, within the next 5 days, partners and customers can develop their scenarios together with the support of SAP and Microsoft experts. We recently had the ‘Velocity’ event which was for customers and partners that participated in the ramp-up of Duet Enterprise. This event had a similar set up as in the DevJams.
- To get information about trainings, you can go to the SAP Education page on our website (training.sap.com) and search for Duet Enterprise trainings (Code DUT100).
- 5. Can you give us some examples of creative applications recently developed?
- We have a nice Silverlight application that uses time tracking. There is a Silverlight calendar view where you can select colleagues and see their availability in the SharePoint Silverlight calendar. Depending on their availability, you can book your time and trigger a leave request directly from the SharePoint side.
- There is another application that integrates into LinkedIn and Twitter. It’s a CRM oriented application that can easily connect your LinkedIn contacts to you SAP CRM system with just a few clicks.
- There are other applications that not only integrate into SharePoint but use HTML5 to render information in SharePoint and make it accessible through mobile devices. In this scenario, you have a slightly different rendered view on your mobile device. An example is a workflow approval process. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you approve the workflow from the SharePoint site or from your mobile device, it uses the workflow ready to use capability delivered by Duet Enterprise but with a nice looking HTML5 UI on top of that.
- We also have HTML 5 HR applications that very dynamically change screens based on the selections that you make. The initial screen is the same for everyone, but then, depending on the transactions, scenarios, and steps you want to perform, the screen adjusts to show additional functions, fields, etc. It’s really a web 2.0 application that leverages AJAX, so you get a very dynamic experience when you use this HR process.
- Some of these applications are showcased on www.duet.com like the Sales Variant Configurator that uses PLM and a touch enabled Silverlight UI so you can easily browse through various configurations and build your bike. Another one is the Plant Maintenance application which provides a visualization of the company’s factories around the world. In this scenario, you can drill down to factory, building, and even certain machine rooms. So, if an employee sees that an engine is currently not working, he/she can use Duet Enterprise to create a ticket in the SAP system for a technician to fix the problem and reset the status in SAP to problem solved or engine is working again. You can find more examples in the Resources section on www.duet.com, Partners page.
- 6. What is the role of SAP NetWeaver Gateway in the development process?
- Since Duet Enterprise leverages Gateway, Gateway has an important role in the development process. We use a lot of the tools that are delivered by Gateway in the development process with Duet Enterprise. The benefit is that you can generate the objects via Gateway and you can either use Gateway to expose these objects to, for example, mobile devices or Twitter/Facebook applications, or you can also use the same Gateway object and expose it via Duet Enterprise via the BDC browser to SharePoint.
- 7. How long does it take for a developer to create, test, and deploy an application for SAP and Microsoft with Duet Enterprise?
- It depends on the scenario. A very simple scenario like bringing a list in SharePoint and make it editable, or that you can view details, can be done in a few minutes/hours. If you want to have more functionality on SharePoint, then this can be days or weeks until it’s done.
- With DevJams, we have 5 days of development. A lot of the scenarios on duet.com from partners, were actually developed in 5 days, so you can be fast. On the other hand, we have projects - actually one of our live projects - that was done in 6 weeks (from start to finish).
- 8. What kind of phone do you have? What is your favorite mobile application (in general)?
- I have a Blackberry Torch. My favorite mobile app is the Secured ID because I forget my Secure ID card so often but never forget my Blackberry so now it’s easy to log in. A not so productive app that I like is called MiCoach which tracks where you are running, or cycling. That’s one of my favorites.
