When it comes to SAP – .NET Interoperability projects out in the market, I realized that there are many confusions in decision makers’ minds. One of the biggest confusions are which tools to use and what their capabilities are.
Here I want to mention specifically DUET. Many managers I met at pre-sales activities seemed to me like they heard about DUET being the ultimate SAP – .NET Interop tool. This is very misleading.
The first reason this being misleading actually results from the fact that managers tend to not define their specific interoperability goals. What is the desired functionality once the project is done? Is it business process interoperability? Is it document management interoperability? Is it archiving, full-text searching, … etc?
Here is a little comparison for DUET. What it is and what it is NOT… What you can do and what you CAN’T do with DUET.
Fact 1: DUET is for business process integration tool for SAP and Microsoft environments.
Fact 2: Fact 1 is very promising 
Let’s be more specific. Fact 2 says, DUET is for business process integration which can be used through MS Outlook. So, this means that you can reach SAP info from Outlook and read, modify, delete some SAP business objects.
Fact 3: Fact 2 implicitly states that DUET is all to do with SAP Business Objects. It has nothing to do with documents and Document Management capabilities of SAP.
Fact 4: UI for DUET is MS Outlook.
Fact 5: DUET is NOT a middle-ware. It is a business integrator.
Here is also a list showing what you can do with DUET:
- Manage Time
calendar integration with SAP ERP - Monitor & Manage Budget (mission critical)
alert created by SAP ERP - Implement Management Process
giving bonus to an employee
auto entry of approval request - Manage vacation and other leave requests
leave request - Request and Plan Travel
trip request and workflow for approval - View Analytics and Reports
sales performance dashboard - Manage Sales Activities
- Manage Purchase Approvals
approve laptop purchase
For a quick DUET demo, please visit: http://www.duet.com/Portals/0/Flash/demo/v2/index.html
Here is also a list showing what you can NOT do with DUET:
- Can’t manage documents residing in SAP.
- Can’t manage SAP content repositories.
- Can’t communicate with ArchiveLink and KPro.
- Can’t integrate MOSS and SAP for fulltext searching.
- Can’t be used as an archiving solution.
- Can’t be used as an workflow solution.
- Can’t be used for managing nearline storage devices.
- Can’t be used as an HSM.
… conclusion comes here …
zieglers
