What About Things SAP R/3 Doesn't Do?
In most businesses, you can find specialized tasks that a general solution such as SAP R/3 doesn't address. When you find such tasks, you can handle it in one of two ways:
Many companies write extensions or changes to their SAP R/3 programs to accommodate unique ways of doing business. These alterations are written in a programming language known as ABAP/4.
Plain English
ABAP The computer language that SAP R/3 is written in. This is normally the language your company would use for writing extensions to SAP R/3.
Although custom extensions can be helpful, there are some potential shortcomings:
The more you write yourself, the more you start to lose the advantages of buying a software package.
The built-in SAP R/3 Help systems won't provide any assistance on custom programs developed for your company. Your company will have to provide manuals, training, or online help for those extensions.
The more customization that's done, the harder it is to move to new releases of SAP R/3 software.
Tip
Specialized Systems Most businesses need to keep some highly specialized systems, even after they implement SAP R/3. Such systems would be a refinery control system or a telephone switching system. Many companies writing these kinds of systems are working to make them easy to interface with SAP R/3. SAP R/3 doesn't aim to replace all business systems, just the core ones common to most organizations.
In this lesson, you learned what configuration is and how it affects you. You should also have learned that change is normal before, during, and after implementation. In the next lesson, you learn about SAP R/3 and the Internet.