It’s perfect when the small business ERP application fits into your business processes and no modifications are required. The company should not expect this perfect scenario and that is where you should do your homework to find a good balance between the popularity of the accounting platform, the ratings, the available functionality and a reasonable level of custom programming. SAP B1 goes further with things such as extending existing tables in the configuration with new user-defined fields, as well as adding new user-defined tables where, in both cases, the user interface is automatically added for display and editing. newly created custom tables and fields. Compare these features to what the ERP of the previous decade offered, typically a number of user-defined fields that were reserved in existing SQL tables. The new user-defined objects could be used for data entry and report generation, for example, in Crystal Report. If you plan to feed these fields with data sets from external databases, then they should be available in the Data Transfer Workbench. And this is a huge plus, but it may not be all you need. Custom tables often require animation via custom coding from the SB1 Software Development Kit. Let’s take a look at some details starting with user-defined fields and tables in the configuration:

1. User defined table. Login to the SAP BO user interface and follow the path: Tools -> Customization Tools -> User Defined Table Settings. At this point it is in your hands to create a new table. When you are done, the user interface should be automatically created and you can open it for data entry and editing via Tools -> User Defined Windows

2. Expansion of the existing table. Now suppose you would like to expand the existing object, such as trading partner, and add the field where you are checking whether this BP is ready to receive statements by email and if not traded, sends by paper mail. Again use the following path: Tools -> Customization Tools -> User Defined Field Management and here expand Master Data, Business Partner twice and click the Add button at the bottom of the form. Use your IT judgment when creating the field and giving it type and formatting. When you’re done, try opening the Business Partner form, and in the menu, click View and check User Defined Fields, and immediately your custom field will show up in the attached extension to the right of the master record form. What you need to know is the fact that the OCRD (Trading Partner Master Record File) table was modified and extended with the newly created field and you can address this field in DTW or Crystal Report

3. Custom Crystal Reports. If you have version 8.81, 8.8 or 2007A/B, you should be entitled to a Crystal Report Designer license and we recommend that you raise this question with your current reseller. As we already mentioned in CR above, you can access the newly created fields and tables, and if this is all you need to do, you can skip the rest of this post. Before you navigate to the following internet page, we would like to recommend you a Crystal Report layout with data connection via SQL Stored Procedure or SQL View.

4. Programming SDK SB1. Well, if you got to this point in the post, you probably need business logic associated with custom fields and tables that goes beyond just plain data entry and editing. The SDK libraries and code samples can be deployed in Microsoft Management Studio C# or VB.Net projects. If you want to enable SB1 for custom integration from non-Microsoft platforms like Oracle, Linux/MySQL/PHP, or maybe Apple, you can wrap your customization as a SOAP XML web service to make it platform neutral. We recommend that you hire a certified SB1 SDK developer to do the work, as the learning curve can be long for internal MS Visual Studio gurus in IT. Another option would be Http publishing, which was the traditional data exchange technology of the Internet in the 1990s.

5. ERP balance of custom vs. native business logic. We recommend sticking to the 80 to 20 rule of thumb. If your prospective ERP application requires more than 20 percent of the logic to be added through custom programming, stay away and see more presentations.