How should I start learning about SAP?

Question

I'm working as a MS developer working to provide bridging products between MS technology and SAP.

I'm used to the MS space which seems to have an absolutely different philosophy than SAP. And this is starting to be an issue - I can't "get" SAP.

So, what are good materials to "grok" SAP? - understand why people buy it, how it is used from a business standpoint, how to look at the architecture from a technology standpoint, learn how it is structured, what are the important tools in SAPGUI, and gasp how do I learn how to read ABAP? shudder

I know enough SAP to do my job - I know the runes to incant in SAP. But that isn't enough, and SAP SDN and Help is really not enough for the big picture view (it also isn't great for small picture view, but that is another discussion for somewhere else).

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

SAP is a very closed-end system. The last time I checked, they sued anyone who attempted to write a third-party book or document their system in a public forum.

If you want to learn SAP, the only reliable way is to take some very expensive training from SAP.

(Note: They may have changed in the intervening years, but I doubt they changed much.)

Answer 2

SAP is a beast to wrangle down .. some suggestions:

• For a programmer: Get a decent ABAP programming book. Most concepts will be pretty familiar, and they give you a good starting point to better understand the system.
• For a "business user": Other than going to an expensive course (mostly wasted time/money in my opinion), sit down with a user and have him/her explain too you what they are doing for an hour or two.
• For a "customizer": This is where things get really difficult as there are a gazillion of steps and choices and places to change things. Having someone more experienced helps. As you noted, books/articles are mostly not very helpful as they are usually at a loss to explain concepts.

A couple of things to keep in mind as well:

• SAP is "so big" that it is impossible to "know it all".
• SAP is written by some smart and some not so smart people. Your inability to "grok" things may be caused by some really bad programmer building a bunch of stupid solutions to problems he hasn't understood.
• SAP is notorious for coming up with their own language or by repurposing buzzwords and adding their own special meaning. This adds to the magic and confusion.

Just get started, ask questions, try out some things, don't be afraid by the size of it. Pretty soon you'll get better at it ...

Answer 3

We're actually having the same kind of problem. We need to interface our system with SAP and whatever information you can find on your own is not helping much. The only way that has worked for now is to find an experience person who would help us for free (such as our customers who win themselves if they help us interconnect our piece with their SAP installation).

Teaching courses seem to be too expensive to afford when you clearly see that you won't learn much in a few days/weeks. The other option of hiring external SAP consultants is also not considered because of the costs.

I know that they are ready to teach new young graduates ABAP and their system. Or at least were ready, as they stopped employment last year completely.

From some brief time being there (writing a thesis) I remember they have extensive internal portal with message boards and various listing. If you have friends working there you can ask them to publish a private ad asking for some private lessons. Another option is to pick up a student who say started a job there but dropped it after a year or so. This way you could potentially have someone with some knowledge but not costing yet a fortune.

Answer 4

First, SAP is so vast you will never be able to know every part of it. There are so many functionnal subjects and technologies that this is mind-numbing.

Courses can be used either for a first introduction (but this is costly for such a use) or for extremely advanced subject (better).

SAP is a full environment. The code for most of the content is available. Thus, checking how SAP has done something can/may/will help you understand the technology or the subject. (Btw, a lost of comments are in german...) in-system transaction se80 is particulierely useful in this aspect, as it show all related data to a program.

also, SDN is your friend. forum, how-to, white papers are present... it will help you. A few in-system transactions (se83) are to be used as example for coding technics.

Answer 5

Check out the eLearning video how-to's and tutorials on https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/elearn

Answer 6

In brief, this is how I learned about SAP:

• Did a 4 year sandwich computer course at University - they didn't even mention SAP
• The 3rd year of the University course was a placement year
• I got a job within a SAP department in a large bank that had recently implemented SAP
• For the first 3 months I traveled all over the UK installing the SAP GUI software
• Later I took ownership of the SAP Portal systems and got involved in SAP BASIS. Most importantly I got to know what each of the SAP teams did, which enabled me to discover what I wanted to do in my career
• Went back to University for my 4th year (while I did this I did a project for University, which I did based on SAP, so I kept in touch with the SAP department at the bank and visited them most weeks)
• After finishing University, I went to work for the SAP department at the bank full-time.
• There I lead the SAP Technical team department, which was a cross between BASIS, networking and development. Mostly middleware, end to end as well as back end technologies
• From there I moved into the SAP BASIS team
• Then I moved to another company which uses Windows and MS SQL (the bank was mostly UNIX and Oracle) and also uses some different SAP modules, a different usage model and various other aspects that are similar but not the same, so I was able to move my core skill-set over as well as increase it
• I'm still there and still learning!

I have been on several SAP and non-SAP courses.

Answer 7

Hi, I provide some novice sap guides. The purpose of my personnal guides is to help you to understanding how to work SAP. If you search SAP Study Guides, Tutorials or docs (User manual SAP, User guide SAP or Operating instructions for SAP R3 and SAP ECC), my website 100% free can help you. Mickael

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