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 Usage of External Data by SAP Customer Activity Repository

 

SAP Customer Activity Repository uses data that is created and managed in other source systems in your landscape, such as, SAP ERP or, optionally, SAP CRM.

  • SAP ERP: SAP Customer Activity Repository typically requires the presence of a source SAP ERP system in your landscape.

    Note Note

    It is possible to integrate SAP Customer Activity Repository with a third-party ERP system. For more information, see SAP Note 2095570Information published on SAP site.

    End of the note.

    There are several reasons for this prerequisite:

    • The repository does not contain master data.

      As transactions are received by PIPE from the point of sale, the data contained in the transactions must be verified against master data. For instance, you must check that the store id contained in the transaction is that of a valid store. Similarly, that each retail line item of the transaction contains a valid article. The master data for stores (plants) and articles (materials) is maintained in a source SAP ERP system. Therefore, the repository needs access to master data records maintained in the SAP ERP system.

      For more information, see Master Data.

    • SAP Customer Activity Repository is a foundation that provides a harmonized multichannel transaction data model for consuming applications.

      PIPE only acquires transactions that are completed at the point of sale, for example, at a store. Transactions completed through other channels, for example through a Web shop, are stored in the source SAP ERP system in the form of sales documents. The repository uses the sales documents stored in the source SAP ERP system to provide access to multichannel transactional data using views of the SAP HANA Content for SAP Customer Activity Repository. The multichannel transactional data exposed through these views can be used for analytics and by consuming applications.

      For more information, see SAP ERP Data for Multichannel Sales Analysis.

    • SAP HANA Content for SAP Customer Activity Repository, includes several analytical virtual data models. One of these virtual data models, Inventory Visibility Analysis, provides you with a near real-time view of your current inventory position.

      The model combines POS transaction data stored by the repository with the latest inventory figures available in the source SAP ERP system.

      For more information, see Inventory Data.

    SAP ERP data can be replicated to SAP Customer Activity Repository or, if SAP ERP and the repository are installed on the same SAP HANA database, accessed directly from the SAP ERP tables. For more information, see SAP Customer Activity Repository Installation Guide.

  • Optionally, CRM (for example, SAP CRM): As SAP Customer Activity Repository is a platform that combines transactional data from multiple channels, it also allows you to identify which of the transactions are carried out by a particular customer. The default implementation of customer identification in SAP Customer Activity Repository assumes that you have replicated all required master data, such as customer information, from a source SAP CRM system into the repository.

    For more information, see Customer Data (Optional) and SAP Customer Activity Repository Installation Guide.

Integration

If your SAP Customer Activity Repository landscape requires you to replicate sales documents from a source SAP ERP system, you must consider the implications of replicating data from external systems. Trigger-based replication of tables from a source system includes deletion in source tables by archiving activities (since on the database level it is impossible to distinguish between delete actions caused by archiving and regular deletion of data records). As a result, SAP LT Replication Server replicates archiving activities as delete actions in the SAP HANA database.

More specifically, when data is archived in your source system, records are deleted from their respective database tables. Therefore, when these tables are replicated to the SAP Customer Activity Repository system, the records that were archived in the source tables are deleted in the target SAP Customer Activity Repository tables.

For example, sales documents are replicated from your source SAP ERP system to your SAP Customer Activity Repository system. You may have set up your SAP ERP system to archive sales documents that are more than a year old. Given the SAP ERP archiving settings, in the SAP Customer Activity Repository, you will not be able to run analytic reports on multichannel transaction data (which includes SAP ERP sales documents) that is more than a year old. When deciding on the frequency at which to archive data in the source SAP ERP system, you must consider and balance the performance requirements of your SAP ERP system and the amount of historical data that must be available in SAP Customer Activity Repository system for analysis. The general recommendation is that 18 to 24 months of historical sales data is available in the repository.