SAP ArchiveLink question

[Paul_Wright]

Hello Hyland.

A question if I may on ArchiveLink. For an accounts receivable function, SAP will generate PO's and Invoices etc. My understanding is that we will need to somehow get that document from SAP (as a PDF/Tiff etc), and index that into OnBase, then only will ArchiveLink create the links between that document in OnBase and the SAP object. Is this correct? So worded another way, its not ArchiveLink functionality that automatically passes documents created in SAP, directly to OnBase?
Thank you.

[Cam_Bowers]

Hi Paul,

The most common way we see documents archived into OnBase from SAP is by generating an Output Type and configuring SAP to send that document directly to OnBase. When this configuration is complete, the output is triggered by an action in SAP (such as saving or updating the invoice) and the document is then stored in the OnBase Disk Groups and a link in the TOA01 table in SAP is created. You will need the basic OAC0/OAC2/OAC3 configuration for the content repository in SAP along with NACE setup, or another transaction that can create the output of the form/smartform/PDF and archive it into the target system (in this case, OnBase). Where the indexing comes into play is by SAP generating an XML IDOC, which is achieved with additional output configuration. The IDOC is then processed by the Hyland product BIC (Business Indexing Connector) to allow for keyword updates of the related document.

[Steve_Etberg]

Hi Paul

Cameron nailed it on the head, but to unpack it for you a little simpler, in SAP ArchiveLink you essentially setup repositories, such as SAP DMS, network locations, OnBase and any other ECM repositories of choice.  Typically in SAP you setup a repository by pointing to an HTTP URL of the target repository (OnBase for example). 

Then, the SAP team would tailor the various SAP programs to write jobs/documents to the configured target repository of choice.  

Typically in an archival scenario, the SAP team creates a WRITE job that queries SAP for a range of data to archive, and on success, they define a STORE job that writes the job to the target repository of choice, and then typically create a DELETE job to purge the data out of SAP to reduce the SAP DB size which increases SAP performance and DB maintenance is reduced and it opens the SAP information to more business use once inside the target repository like OnBase.

So in essence, OnBase simply plugs into SAP's ArchiveLink as do other ECM vendors which you can think of as an SAP integration entry/exit point to add 3rd party document management repositories for SAP.  Once you hook up OnBase to ArchiveLink in SAP, the rest of the work is pretty much done all in SAP, so from an engagement perspective the SAP Project team onsite at the customer must get involved at the point you connect up OnBase and need to have SAP programs adjusted to push data/content to the defined OnBase repository connection setup in SAP.  Generally it is quite a quick setup to add a repository to SAP, as long as you get the time of the SAP guys secured.

Hope this helps!

Steve