SAP MSA Online helps organizations maintain their SAP CRM Sales data through smartphones. The application runs in a browser while the user is connected to his corporate network. It provides scenarios tailored to the needs of sales managers, key account managers, and executives. It does not include scenarios for sales representatives. It also does not support data caching for offline work, and therefore only works while the user has an Internet connection.

SAP MSA Online has the following functional scope:

• Account/contact management: Create, update, and search account and contact information
• Activity Management: Create, update, and search for activities
• Opportunity Management: Create, update, and search for opportunities
• Sales contracts/orders: Search for contracts and orders
• Analytics reporting: Display reports

You use a Web-based administration console to customize and configure the mobile application.

Technology and Landscape

The target platforms for SAP MSA Online are Blackberry (Figure 6), Windows Mobile (Figure 7 on the next page), and Nokia Series 60/80 devices. SAP developed SAP MSA Online using Mobile Web Dynpro. This is a subset of the full Web Dynpro, SAP’s programming model for developing Web applications.

Mobile Web Dynpro focuses on the scenario in which a browser of a mobile device is always connected to a Web server. This is based on technologies such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), wireless LANs, and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). The main objectives of Mobile Web Dynpro are to allow application developers to create and modify mobile applications easily, and to extend existing desktop browser applications for mobile use. It provides the appropriate infrastructure and renderers for wireless handhelds. On Blackberry devices, the server renders applications using Wireless Markup Language (WML), while for Windows Mobile devices it generates HTML.

The landscape for SAP MSA Online includes an SAP NetWeaver 2004 or 7.0 Java Application Server on which the application is deployed and running. This middleware is connected to SAP CRM (from mySAP CRM 3.0 to SAP CRM 2007). An SAP BW system (3.0 to 3.5) is optional to display BW reports in either graph (pie chart or bar chart) or table format. If you use Blackberry devices, the communication between the SAP landscape and your devices goes through the RIM Blackberry server. The server acts as a proxy and is responsible to encrypt and compress your data.