SAP PI (Process Integration)

Definition or Meaning -What is SAP PI?

Full form or SAP PI stands for (Process Integration). We all must have come across a middleman once in our lifetime. What does a middleman do? In simple words if we say, a middleman connects or integrates two or more different necessary parties required to do certain task for their mutual benefits. If we talk about SAP PI it stands for process integration. Think of it as that middleman who has a connection with different part of a society. He helps different parts of the organization adjust meeting at certain place. All the coordination, communication is done by him because he has connection with all the different sectors.

As the name suggests SAP PI is a tool for the integration of different Sap and Non SAP systems. It facilitates cross system communication and permits the connection between SAP and Non sap systems on the basis of a wide range of programing languages such as ABAP and JAVA. Its work is to offer an open source environment for integrating systems which a complex system requires. Being a middleware it increases the pace of integration of SAP and non-SAP systems within or outside the organization.

Let’s say you are working on SAP ERP framework and you need to integrate with a different framework let’s say CRM. Using two different device or frameworks for even a petty chore can be quite hectic for engineers and association both. SAP PI does the work of keeping all the diverse association in a single place making it easy to synchronize information between various frameworks.

How SAP PI works?

As mentioned above, SAP PI’s work is to integrate different SAP or non-SAP solutions. To do so it has to make a lot of connection, coordination and communication. Sap Pi has basically three fundamental duties which it is supposed to do. It connects, coordinates and communicates with the different parts of a system or outside the system whose integration is required or necessary. Using the help of connector/ Adapter system, it is able to indulge in even 3rd party solutions and not necessarily only SAP solutions. Apart from connecting, it makes sure that the message gets accurately conveyed from the source to the objective goal by providing a way for every coordinated business exchange. The most important work is to communicate. It helps in the interpretation of the documents by translating files into any required format regardless of the fact that it is internal file or any business to business integration standard.

New Features in SAP PI

• SAP solutions have been providing new features in almost every of its product.
• SAP PI is not an exception as they have added a lot of cool features to this tool like centralized monitoring, large file to file transfer, IDOC and HTTP adapters in AAE and Automated Transport for Schema Validation and many others.
• By the help of centralized monitoring, it becomes easier to address the issues arisen more quickly and efficiently.
• Centralized monitoring system provides unified alert of notifications and status of PI components from a single entry point.
• Earlier SAP PI was not strong enough to handle large sized file. Handling of big files caused other integration to run at much slower pace and also the file size could not be of larger than memory size.
• The new feature in SAP PI fixes this thing and now we can transfer even big files without causing any trouble.
• In the new feature, TREX server has been replaced with UDS I.e. user defined search. It has more flexible options to configure filters and search criteria.
• There are other cool features like time out configuration per communication channel and user centric perspectives in the ESR have been provided.
• Apart from these features, certain Add-on like secure connectivity, B2B add-ons have also been provided for the benefit of users.

Advantages of SAP PI

• Talking about the advantages of Sap solutions, it certainly is beneficial for the user as well as the organization also.
• Since it is able to integrate with non-SAP systems, it can access to a centralized database facilitating fast implementation of quality enterprise plans.
• SAP PI helps in maintaining and updating information by generating accurate reports on time.
• Apart from these SAP PI solutions because it works on a centralized administration platform, enhances the ability to circulate information across organizations.