Comments inline On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 2:16 AM, Bechauf, Michael <[email protected]> wrote: > In an effort to hopefully once and for all settle the question of what type > of integration with 3rd party application systems ESME would be best suited > for I want to capture the essence of a Twitter conversation that happened > today. Basically, it was started by @dahowlett in reference to Thingamy. > Dennis said that "#esme's true power is the NetWeaver integration so @sig's > work has significance". I have not seen the Thingamy/ESME work, but I felt > compelled to again bring up an old question: What can micro-blogging > utilities like ESME really do to make ERP systems "better" ? For me, this was > not a technical integration question, but rather a fundamental question that > can easily be applied to SFDC Chatter as well. > > The way I look at ERP systems is that a business process is broken up into > multiple steps that can each be executed with a specific transaction. Most of > these transactions can also be executed through some remote invocation > interface (WS*, RFC or whatever) which would apparently be used by ESME. > People with specific roles using the ERP system would enter those > transactions, either triggered by an outside event (Goods Receipt, Create > Sales Order, Shipment) or prompted through some workflow in the system. In a > way, the system is designed and implemented so that it's clear when who has > to do what. The level of success of an ERP implementation depends on the > degree of automation that can be accomplished. > <dlh> I think the question here is whether such "pure" processes actually exist or whether they are rather the exception to the rule. I think that there is more likely to be some sort of a hybrid process whether the foundation is a ERP-type process but certain iterations contain steps (usually collaborative in nature) that take place outside this model. Of course, you could try and capture such steps in the ERP model itself but then the model would be in a constant state of change. The question is how do you expand the definition of the process to include such steps. Process rigidity in this case isn't helpful. </dlh>
> Typically, ERP systems work best with what Sig lovingly calls "Easily > Repeatable Processes". An event happens, an appropriate transaction is > executed, the ERP systems determines specific follow-up action that either > need to be executed manually by a person or a follow-up business process is > triggered automatically. Even in the case of customer support, where Twitter > is said to have some enterprise-level success, the CRM system will make sure > that a customer support specialist will give a customer a callback, and if > that hasn't happened within a certain time period, a different customer > service agent would be found. Essentially, it is all about predictability. > > Obviously, predictability only works as long as the real world works in > synchronisity with the inner workings of the ERP system. In many cases it is > not; that's when people pick up phones or maybe use some internal > micro-blogging utility. Somebody will say, "Hey, I've got this customer who > presents me with this issue, anybody out there who can help ?". > > However, what kind of "integration" is required to make this happen ? The > demos that were shown at Demo Jam essentially published an event with a text > on ESME, but isn't in reality just somebody typing in a question ? Would ESME > really trigger a business process through some remote invocation interface, > like creating a PO, or would the ESME user, once a question was > satisfactorily answered by their network, rather turn to their ERP screen and > enter whatever they have learned ? > <dlh> I think we are talking about two distinct but related use cases. The demos at Demo Jam should ERP systems joining microblogging conversations. These conversations were "not", however, placed in a process context. What Sig is doing is placing the messages in a process context. I'm performing a task and I can see the messages that relate to that task. In Sig's use case, machine-originating messages might not make sense primarily because there are no "machines/systems" involved in the task. </dlh> > So, essentially what I'm saying is that I don't think an ESME integration > with ERP will be of significant value. ESME as a standalone tool may very > well be, but then what is its sweet spot compared to Twitter or compared to > commercial tools for enterprise-level deployment that are already on the > market ? <dlh> I think the ERP integration might focus more on the ERP systems posting their status messages to the microblogging systems. This information would first of all mean less work for human users. Instead of a knowledge worker informing his team members that a new sales opportunity has been created, the ERP system could do this. This machine-created message could also be sent via an email but this would be counter-productive. The true value would the mixture of human-based and machine-based messages creating a more comprehensive information context. Via ESME's actions which act as filters and the fact that users decide which machines / users to follow, the efficiency in processing the information increases. You could then make this information available to ERP users in context. If you are working on an opportunity then you might see messages regarding the customer in question. The real challenge will be the identification of the context and the tagging of messages so that they are associated with a particular context. </dlh> > > The Thingamy thing caught my attention because the way I understand it, what > Sig has developed is precisely for those "Barely Repeatable Processes", > meaning things that can't be executed like A-B-C, but where the activities of > people need to be coordinated in a unpredictable way in order to resolve a > specific situation. So, when exceptions become the norm, an ERP system is not > really well suited, and an BRP system - however this is going to look like - > will take over. Intuitively, for these kind of things ESME will be better > suited, and from what I was able to follow on the list, an ESME conversation > is actually associated with the specific context of that BRP. That makes > sense to me. > > I read Sig's latest blog where he compared 12sprints and Chatter with > "Sending email through Word" which sounds a little grandiose to me. I don't > know Chatter yet, but 12sprints seemed like it could show the future of > applications, where decisions need to be made in an unpredictable way with a > set of people, and how a system would support that. This could also be > augmented with business intelligence and of course also micro-blogging. But > in this case, the system is designed to work with Barely Repeatable > Processes, and associating the conversation in ESME with the BRP context or > 12sprint task could lead to interesting applications. > > But that's all very different than trying to kind of artificially integrate > ESME with a system that assumes that the world works like A-B-C. What I > believe is for ESME to *really* work efficiently, is to design application > systems that deal better with unpredictable situations, and then make best > use of ESME capabilties, instead of trying to superimpose ESME on the A-B-C > world of today's ERP. Yes, it's technically possible, but whether it makes > sense is a different story. > > All that I'm trying to establish is what needs to be built for the ESME > engine in order to really be useful and different, and on the other side > understand how application systems should look like that better deal with the > unpredictable processes where ESME shines. I briefly looked at the Chatter > announcement, and SFDC was also mentioning better integration with > application data or business intelligence, but I wasn't able to read more > from it. > > Anyway, hope this is helpful, and we can start a discussion from it. I know > you had some use case discussions already, but I really could not find any > specific examples. > > Best, > Michael >
