Business-to-Business (B2B) requires companies to communicate, despite using different information systems. Transactions between businesses require the sender and receiver to understand the message the same way. An XML-based purchase order in one company must be acceptable for another company. The main advantage of electronic communication is cost and time reduction. The greatest problem is that the companies use different information systems, which can‘t communicate with each other unless there is a kind of connection is established.

We developed prototype solution for Slovenian company Iskratel d.o.o. They use SAP R/3 Enterprise Resource Planning system for internal operations. At the faculty two groups of undergraduate students were established to carry out this project. One group represented the buyer‘s perspective and the other supplier‘s perspective. In our prototype these two groups exchanged purchase order and purchase order confirmation in the electronic form. Two different software, SAP R/3 system and Microsoft BizTalk Server, were used in the prototype. We tested three different possibilities for the connection between these two systems: SAP DCOM Connector, BizTalk Adapter for SAP and SAP Business Connector.

The interaction between systems can be established in two ways. Firstly, the SAP R/3 system is possible to be initiator. The new document is thus created in SAP R/3 system and immediately sent to the other system (in our case to BizTalk Server). Secondly, the client can be the initiator. Client checks in its partner‘s system (SAP R/3) if there is a document waiting. In our prototype, the second choice was used.

Download pdf Connecting SAP R/3 and Microsoft BizTalk Server