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Component documentation Data Consolidation for Mobile Applications Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Purpose

The Consolidated Database or CDB (Consolidated Database) is the logical overall database of CRM Mobile. It is located on the CRM Server and contains all the data that is supposed to be distributed.

Implementation Considerations

For Employees in the field force, the CDB is divided into partial datasets in order to allow them to work independently. They do not work online on the overall database, but rather on the mobile Sites (laptops) with local, geographically distributed datasets. The logical overall database is said to be fragmented in this case.

The partial datasets of the CDB must correspond to the requirements of the employees in the field force. This means that each remote employee is given access only to the data for which he or she is responsible.The employee then manages “his/her” data (be it customers, contact persons, orders or appointments) on a local database.

Generally speaking, there will be a degree of overlap between the various partial datasets into which the overall database is divided.The phrase “replicated data storage” implies that there may be several different employees in the same system, who are all responsible for managing a given item of data and who could make changes to it.

This scenario, in which the same information content is maintained in more than one place, obviously has consequences for the functionality of such replicated database systems.

Features

·        It must be possible to fragment the entire database down to the level of individual objects. Thus it must be possible, for example, to assign customer A to employee X, while making employee Y responsible for customer B.

·        Data that is administered and maintained in several locations must be regularly exchanged and brought into line with the other affected locations, so that the datasets remain consistent. (automatic administration of redundancy; i.e. automatic maintenance of the Look-Up Tables).

·        Changes to the datasets on the local databases (for example through a change of responsibility) must be performed automatically (automatic fragmentation changes; that is, Realignment).

·        At any time it must be clear who is responsible for maintaining which data (transparency of fragmentation and replication).

In order to provide this functionality, CRM Middleware offers a number of mechanisms, maintenance tables and fields.

Example

There are two employees with responsibility for a given sales area, each of whom sells a different product, however. If there is a customer who orders both products, each employee will have this same customer’s details on his or her laptop. Other kinds of information, however, will be specific to the individual employee (e.g. prospective customers, personal calendar, activities, etc.).

 

 

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