Anyone here know about SAP?

Kappa said:
I'd be interested in learning some of this stuff too, at the moment its Oracle (and I dont know if its because we use really old cruddy stuff but it doesnt seem that nice to use.) we use but would be great to know the ins and outs of SAP
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Not even SAP know the ins and outs of SAP - it is a massive ERP.
 
My mrs is great at using SAP, I hope she doesn't dump me when she becomes a rich marketing contractor.
 
I've just worked 20 hours straight on the day before the go live of a new SAP implementation. Going in today to find out what's not right and will no doubt spend the next month fire fighting. The project has been going for nearly 2 years now and this is just 'wave 1' we still have 2 to do. It has been hell, hell I tell you. If I see another LSMW I may pass out.
 
I did some donkey work over the summer helping implementing SAP at MITIE group ltd.

The budget for the implementation was a cool £20 million...!

Thrash said:
I've just worked 20 hours straight on the day before the go live of a new SAP implementation.
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That sounds about right :p
 
I'm currently on a placement year at a company who uses SAP. My specific job role is in the Finance Department, providing support for SAP. I have no past experience of SAP, so I'm pretty much having to learn it from scratch (had a few one-to-one tuitions on the basics, and reporting etc.)

My manager who has about 10 or so years experience with SAP (specifically the FI/CO modules) bought me this book on Amazon. He's gone off on holiday for a couple weeks so I've been going through the book and practising the stuff at work. It's just transactions though, and it's a good start.

It will be impossible for me to know everything about SAP FI/CO in a year, but I'm hoping that I will eventually have a solid understanding to actually support the accountants with issues etc.

I've been told that to even think about the configuration of SAP I need to have knowledge on the transactions first, which is exactly what I'm learning about now.

Hope that helps.
 
I think my biggest problem is not having anyway to practice since I cant buy the software.

I tried to read Sams teach your self SAP R/3 in 21 days from the library but it just seemed pointless without being able to follow along the examples.

I've taken to learn Java and then SQL and then hopefully SAP somehow.


(I am correct in that I cant get access to SAP right? I dont want to find out there is a free download somewhere :p)


btw Peno, how did you find your job? What exactly did you apply for? I would like to try and get involved in similar.
 
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I tried myself to see if there was anything I could practice on before I actually got my login details, but there wasn't. So my first 2-3 weeks I wasn't really doing much work! Although my manager is actually away at SAP HQ this week on a training course, so you might be able to do the same thing? I don't think there is any way to demo the software yourself because it would rely on quite a lot of variables to actually do anything meaningful. That said, if you manage to get a job at a company who uses SAP, you can practise in a training environment so that you don't screw anything up!

I got my job by pure luck. I had interviews for loads of big companies and didn't make it through any of them. When I started giving up, my university were applying to places without even telling me. My current manager liked my CV because he graduated on the same course and university as me 15 years prior, and I had some decent coding background. His workload was piling up and he thought it would be a good chance to introduce a student to the workplace, as well as (eventually) helping to lessen his workload. My pay packet is pretty nice too - more than your average graduate salary! And if I decide to continue down the SAP path when I graduate (I could go down the accounting route), my manager has sweetned up the idea by boasting that in his peak he was on £1,000 a day (as a contractor)! Very tempting and rewarding if you can be bothered to learn SAP properly..
 
Peño said:
I tried myself to see if there was anything I could practice on before I actually got my login details, but there wasn't. So my first 2-3 weeks I wasn't really doing much work! Although my manager is actually away at SAP HQ this week on a training course, so you might be able to do the same thing? I don't think there is any way to demo the software yourself because it would rely on quite a lot of variables to actually do anything meaningful. That said, if you manage to get a job at a company who uses SAP, you can practise in a training environment so that you don't screw anything up!

I got my job by pure luck. I had interviews for loads of big companies and didn't make it through any of them. When I started giving up, my university were applying to places without even telling me. My current manager liked my CV because he graduated on the same course and university as me 15 years prior, and I had some decent coding background. His workload was piling up and he thought it would be a good chance to introduce a student to the workplace, as well as (eventually) helping to lessen his workload. My pay packet is pretty nice too - more than your average graduate salary! And if I decide to continue down the SAP path when I graduate (I could go down the accounting route), my manager has sweetned up the idea by boasting that in his peak he was on £1,000 a day (as a contractor)! Very tempting and rewarding if you can be bothered to learn SAP properly..
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Very impressive, So are you still a student or are you on a placement year?
 
Mikey said:
From my dealings with SAP people they earn a fortune..
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Yep anyone who works as a contractor supporting/implementing stuff like that can earn very good rates - same goes for banking software. If the company is spending millions on the project then paying a few experienced contractors 150k a year or so is small change to ensure it is a success.
 
dowie said:
to ensure it is a success.
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Good luck with that.

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It's not in anyone's interests to make it a success, other than the client and once they've invested millions and realised it's going to cost double what everyone else told them it would it's too late to pull out.
 
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[DOD]Asprilla;12648791 said:
^^ This man knows what he's talking about.

I've always found that SAP is bought in to help financial processes, fair enough, but before long all other process have to be defined around SAP rather than SAP conforming to your processes.

Eventually all business decision will have to be run past the SAP developers who will just suck their teeth like plumbers and tell you it will be difficult.
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Yep. One company I've seen implemented it on their products catalogue before doing the FI part. Madness - needless to say it'll probably end up being a high cost, 10 year project to fully implement, at which point they'll replace it with something basic.

An absolute joke of an investment. My preference is to take a basic finance package and just bolt on custom SO / PO systems such as websites etc.
 
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ugatennis08 said:
Very impressive, So are you still a student or are you on a placement year?
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I'm still a student, I'm just working til next August as part of my course.

I'd never even heard of SAP before I came here, but I'm beginning to understand how powerful it is.

For example I've just spent the day going through my book and testing out the transactions and the amount of information that is documented is incredible!
 
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