Sneak preview of iCATalytics integration capabilities with SAP Solutions – Part 1
Having suggested the potential value addition of having out-of-the-box integration between TPO and SAP solutions in my last blog, I thought it might be a good idea to share a sneak preview into some specific integration capabilities of iCATalytics. I plan to do this over the next few weeks with this being the first in the series.
The Demand Data Model (DDM) is an important component of the integrated data foundation on which the core functions of the iCATalytics TPO solution is based. Data from various sources such as enterprise (internal), syndicated sources (AC Nielson, IRI, etc), POS and loyality card systems are consolidated into the DDM. Needless to say, it would be very advantageous to have accelerators that would speed up this consolidation during the implementation of the TPO Solution.
Assuming an organization runs on SAP solutions, then the enterprise / internal data would definitely be sourced from the SAP landscape. From a standardization point of view, we further assume that the organization already has an EDW that is based on SAP BI/BW solution. As we know, SAP BI/BW comes with a huge repository of pre-modeled standard Business Content (SAP BI Content) for various business processes.
iCATalytics TPO solution will come with the following:
A connector that is based on the Open Hub Services (OHS) provided by SAP BI/BW. This would be advantageous in case the customer is using an ETL tool that does not support OHS based extraction.
Pre-identified SAP BI Content (InfoObjects, InfoCubes, etc) that are potential sources to the DDM.
- ETL logic that is based on a staging compatible with the identified SAP BI Content models.
To conclude, iCATalytics TPO will come with pre-built accelerators to speed up the integration of SAP BI based source data with the DDM.
