6 Steps to Enhance a CRM DataSource Using a BDoc BAdI

Learn about a new method you and your BW team can use to report on information obtained when you add new partner functions to SAP CRM — the Business Document Business Add-In. This six-step process allows you to collect data in real time and enables you to load the data into SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence to use for reporting. You can also use this process to add other customized fields to SAP CRM.

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Key Concept

SAP CRM uses BW Adapter to extract data from SAP CRM and send it to SAP Business Information Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. You use BW Adapter when you have Synchronization Business Documents (sBDocs) and Messaging Business Documents (mBDocs). For sBDocs, BW Adapter extracts objects relevant to mobile clients. For mBDocs, BW Adapter extracts objects for CRM business transactions and CRM billing.

Say you add a new partner function in SAP CRM and you want to be able to report on it using SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI). You’ve checked transaction BWA5 and you know that the DataSource is handled by BW Adapter. You want to populate the enhanced fields in real time, which means that the enhanced fields are written to the delta at the time you save the transaction. In this case, you can use a Business Document (BDoc) Business Add-In (BAdI) to enhance the CRM DataSource. This is a new process — many CRM-BW implementations still use the traditional BAdI or user exit processes.

I’ll show you how to carry out this new process. First, you need to check if the partner function you want to use is available in the standard extractor in transaction RSA6. Then I’ll walk you through the six steps you need to take to add a new partner function to the SAP CRM sales order extractor and use the BDoc BAdI. I used SAP CRM 2005 for this process, but it also applies to SAP CRM 4.0. The process in this article involves the BI capabilities of SAP NetWeaver 2004s, but you can use this process with earlier versions, such as SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) 3.5. Typically a BW back-end developer who has SAP CRM as the DataSource in the BW system performs these steps.