SAP document Attachments extracted and filed by Alteryx & the DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP

Saved attachments held in SAP give invaluable insights when viewing individual documents in the SAP GUI, but bring pain to those who need to get visibility of a range of these.  Even more so if you are looking to view, archive or migrate documents on mass.

​The DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP provides tools which allow you to easily identify, extract and file all the required attachments in a single workflow.  This process could also be scheduled to run automatically using dynamic control parameters on the Alteryx Server (or Analytics Hub).

​Attachments at Your Fingertips

​Attachments stored against documents within the SAP system are notoriously difficult to work with in bulk, as the SAP GUI generally allows only access to single files. This brings challenges to functions such as Audit or Purchase Management, as many attachments must be scrutinised to develop a good overview, and this can be very time-consuming.  The DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP solves this issue by providing a mechanism to identify the specific attachments required and extract them on mass to a secure location.  Whether the ask is to extract attachments for a given sales organisation in a certain financial period, or to identify and download all attachments ready for a migration project, a single workflow can be run to achieve your goal.

​As with all Alteryx Connector for SAP tools, access to your SAP data is fully secure, and the SAP Document Read tool can extract any standard file type from SAP systems such as ECC, S4/HANA and CRM.  

The SAP Document Read tool is designed to work seamlessly alongside the Alteryx Designer standard offering.

You can see in the sample flow above that a combination of DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP tools can be used to select relevant documents and their related attachments. This allows for great flexibility and precision when deciding which attachments will be useful to you, so massively improving efficiency over a more manual process.

​After identifying the attachments, the SAP Document Read tool extracts the attachments in hexadecimal format.  Standard Alteryx tools are then used to convert this, add a useful filename and download the attachment to any appropriate file directory.

Use Cases

This is a powerful labour-saving solution, with wide-ranging implication possibilities.  A few obvious use cases to consider are highlighted below, but this list is certainly not exhaustive:

Audit – A clear improvement in operational efficiency can be achieved when investigating a defined range of documents

Migration – Easy access to SAP attachments accelerates processing and allows automated extraction at unrivalled speed

Purchase Management – Run workflow on-the-fly to extract attachments for relevant documents and hugely reduce analysis time 

Archiving – Schedule delta extract of attachments on mass to targeted organised directories and free system resources

Conclusion

Many business functions rely on timely access to soft copies of official documents, and SAP’s provision of these within the system of record is great functionality under the lens of day-to-day operations, viewing single documents. Switch that lens to business analytics or system administration, and that “great functionality” becomes a “big headache”, simply because of the manual effort to locate and download these objects in volume.
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The SAP Document Read tool from the DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP suite, provides a simple stream-lined solution to build dynamic workflows within the Alteryx Designer to efficiently access attachments and speed mass analysis. Add to this, the ability to automate extractions using the scheduling capability of the Alteryx Analytics Hub, and the ability to dynamically decide which attachment is extracted, and the exact file location it is loaded to, then the functionality provides unrivalled flexibility and will be a huge time-saver in many business areas.

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