Background

http://ubimic.org. is a group of university researchers interested in microblogging from different points of view (computer science, information systems, organizational science). Together we think that microblogging has great potential when it comes to integrating normal users and things like sensors, machines and software. We are experimenting with different microblogging tools and scenarios.

SAP Bot

ubimic - SAP Bot

General Use Case

The idea is to show how microblogging can act as a integration platform for man-machine interaction.

  1. The user creates mesages on Apache ESME with a certain tag and having a certain format
  2. The Apache ESME bot listens to the Apache ESME message stream for messages with a certain tag.
  3. After receiving messages from Apache ESME with the desired tag, the Apache ESME bot reformats the message and posts the message to an SAP back-end.
  4. Based on the status of the back-end interaction, the Apache ESME bot posts an Apache ESME message with the status of the interaction.

Technical details

  • The Apache ESME Bot could be developed in any language but we have examples code for accessing the REST API for clients written in Java and ABAP.
  • The access to the SAP system could be performed via various means (web-services, RFC call, etc.) depending on what sort of system (version, etc.) you guys have on the university.
  • There are two ways to get data from Apache ESME via a bot.
    • You can access the Apache ESME core directly via API - polling for messages
    • You can set an actionthat responds to certain tags and then calls your Apache ESME bot via an HTTP call. We've done something like this for forwarding messages to twitter.

Use Cases

Use Messages for Back-end Requests
  • The idea here would be to use Apache ESME to ask the back-end for certain pieces of information.
  • Example: "@sapstockbot how many T60 laptops do we have in stock?". The answer could be "@boehr there are 3 items left where 2 are already booked. Till now, no orders for new items are in the system."
  • Example: "@sappurchaseorders I need 4 new T60 laptops for #projectx asap!" and the bot creates the Purchase Order in the system on behalf of the project manager's user name (if he has the rights for this).
  • Business users may have difficulty in using such systems, so text analysis of the messages is very useful. Research work in this direction is promising (for example, "TextAnalysis in Information Streams: Status Quo and Future Perspectives"
  • One idea might be to use the code for the  SAP ES Google Wave Botfrom Daniel Graversen that uses Enterprise Service (ES) data to post to a blip. The code is available. Note: just looked at the code. It would very easy to re-use it have a ESME bot that queries an ES that returns a material
  • Details
Microblogging SAP System
  • There is an Apache ESME pool that is restricted to certain individuals (for example, accounting staff, which reports about latest paid orders). Origin of this group should probably be container-based (for example, LDAP).
  • The SAP back-end is also a member of this group (for example, the user "sappaidorders") and posts messages to the group like "Order XYZ has been paid by customer KN30292938".
  • Let's say order XYZ is very valuable but there were problems with the customer. The accounting person would then say "RT @sappaidorders Order XYZ has been paid by customer KN30292938 // well, finally. Good work guys!".
  • Based on ESME's pool concept, this message would only be visible to individuals in this pool.
  • The different permission schemes between the microblogging environment and the backend would also be a topic to be examined.
  • Example of research in this area: "Microblogging and ERP systems: use cases and prototype"
Taskmanagement
Device-related Use Case
  • RFID-enhanced devices send messages to microblogging system
  • Use case should also describe why inclusion of microblogging system brings advantages over direct data insertion into back-end system.

1 Comment

  1. Martin Böhringer

    Thanks for your ideas! I have two additional comments

    First, I think we should brainstorm for more specific use cases (examples). So what would a concrete use case would be where I would like to send an ESME SAP bot a message?
    Let's say, we have @sapstockbot. We could write "@sapstockbot how many T60 laptops do we have in stock?". The answer could be "@boehr there are 3 items left where 2 are already booked. Till now, no orders for new items are in the system." Or let's say we have @sappurchaseorders and we are a project manager who writes "@sappurchaseorders I need 4 new T60 laptops for #projectx asap!" and the bot creates the Purchase Order in the system on behalf of the project manager's user name (if he has the rights for this).
    While these use cases which have a pro-active user in mind are really cool, I have my doubts if ordinary business users could handle all these bots and text codes. "Ok, I need to order new laptops. I know there is a bot for this, but I do not know its name. So I use the SAP GUI..." A simple idea would be auto-suggest like we know it from IDEs. I beginn to type "@sap..." and ESME suggests appropriete users including a short description (and if necessary the syntax).

    Second, another interesting point would be if we build microblogs from SAP data. Let's say we have a microblog @sappaidorders, a protected account only visible for accounting staff, which reports about latest paid orders. The accounting staff can monitor them in their microblogging environment (which we want to be the central information dashboard) and could retweet a posting if it is important for others. Let's say order XYZ is very valuable but there were problems with the customer. The accounting person would then say "RT @sappaidorders Order XYZ has been paid by customer KN30292938 // well, finally. Good work guys!". This clearly would make sense. However, we have a big problem here with rights management (extremely high-suphisticated rights management in SAP and extremely simple rights management in microblogging)...