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ARCHIVAL INFORMATION: SAP Upgrade 1999 |
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The upgrade to SAP R/3 v4.5b is complete and the system is available for work. SAPweb is also available for purchasing, although the SAPweb Practice functions are yet to come. Contact the Business Liaison Team at or your School/Area Coordinator if you experience problems with the system. They will be able to help you more quickly if you provide a complete description of the problem. |
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The SAP Production environment, including SAPweb and ECAT2, will be unavailable from 10pm Wednesday, Nov. 10 until some time Monday morning, Nov. 15 while the SAP server software is being upgraded to release 4.5b. During the server upgrade, you can continue to access information in the Data Warehouse, which will be current through the last posting of data on Wednesday, Nov. 10. During this extended outage, R3-Admin will post periodic updates to the "Services Status Page - 3down". When SAP and SAPweb are ready again for use, an email message will be sent to the contact person(s) for each department. MIT VIP credit cards may still be used for purchasing during the time that SAP and SAPweb are unavailable. |
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Be sure to read the article SAP 4.5b Upgrade Information in the October Issue of Financial Systems Update. The article provides the latest information for users regarding the upgrade, including important dates to remember. |
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In preparation for the upcoming SAP software upgrade to version 4.5b, Self Studies and Quick Cards are now available on the Upgrade Documentation page. You can print the self-study course and take it
at your workplace, or you can take the self-study
course at the Professional Learning Center with an
instructor present (see related Training
page). You can use the Quick Cards in the |
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The
following text is taken from the article and
Demos
of changes in new SAP release are
scheduled
in |
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Demonstrations of the differences between MIT's current release of SAP (version 3.0f) and the new release (version 4.5b) will be given in the weeks ahead. It is recommended that people who use the SAPgui should attend one of these demonstrations to determine whether they will need to sign up for optional training. (SAPweb users do not need to see the demonstration since there will be no changes to SAPweb in the new release.) All demonstrations will be given in the Wong Auditorium in the Tang Center (Building E51). The dates, times and computer platform being demonstrated for the new release are as follows:
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The
following text is taken from the article
SAP
upgrade has no major user
changes
in the |
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MIT plans to move to a new release of SAP in November 1999 to take advantage of technical improvements in the software. However, this upgrade will not represent major changes for users. A benefit of the upgrade is that it will position MIT to ultimately move many of the GUI (graphical user interface) functions out to the web. People who use the SAP GUI will see some minor changes in the new release, but there won't be any differences for those who do their work in SAPweb. Training for the upgrade will be optional because differences to end users between the current and the new release are minor, such as toolbar navigational buttons, match codes and the simplification of some screens. In MIT's current 3.0 release of SAP, the GUI is almost identical for both Mac and PC users. In the 4.5 release, the screens will be different on the two platforms. Beginning the week of September 20 (and continuing through early November), there will be 11 demonstrations in Wong Auditorium to show users the differences between the current and new releases of SAP. These demos will help users decide whether they need to sign up for training. The demos will be platform-specific. The September demo sessions are as follows:
(October and November dates will be listed in future issues of MIT Tech Talk and provided to GUI users.) Because SAP utilizes "client/server" technology,
some of the SAP software resides on the user's
computer (the "client" portion of SAP, called the
GUI) and the rest of SAP resides on large "server"
computers. To run release 4.5, both the client and
the server software will need to be upgraded. SUPPORT TO USERS The School and Area Coordinators, who work with SAP users throughout MIT, will spend even more time than usual assisting community members. The Business Liaison Team also will provide help as people install the new GUI and begin to work with release 4.5 of SAP. Hands-on training for those who wish it is
scheduled to begin the week of October 18 and will
continue through December, if needed. The courses
are self-paced tutorials, and users can either do
the training exercises at the Learning Center (with
an instructor present) or in their own offices. The
exercises will be available on the web and as
printed documents distributed at the demos. TIMING OF THE UPGRADE By the end of September, the release 4.5 "client" GUI (for users) will be available on the network at http://web.mit.edu/sapr3. This GUI is "backward compatible," so it will work with the 3.0 release of SAP that MIT is currently running. This means that users can install release 4.5 on their desktop and begin using it well before MIT upgrades the "server" software in November. In order to complete the upgrade, the SAP environment will need to be shut down temporarily. The target date for beginning the server upgrade (and shutting down SAP) is approximately 1am on Thursday, Nov. 11. The Institute will be closed that day for Veterans' Day. The upgrade work will continue on Thursday and Friday and over the weekend. It is expected that the SAP environment will be available again for users sometime on Monday, Nov. 15. During the server upgrade when the SAP environment is unavailable, users can continue to access information in the Data Warehouse, which will be current through the last posting of data on Wednesday, Nov. 10. The MIT credit card will provide a viable purchasing option during the server upgrade. The Administrative Systems and Policies Coordinating Council, chaired by Executive Vice President John R. Curry, approved the upgrade recommendation made by Financial Systems Services. Staff members in central offices have carefully reviewed SAP release 4.5 to determine when MIT should make this upgrade. In addition, they have done extensive testing of the software and will continue to do so as the target date approaches. |
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SAP for MIT |
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