mySAP™ ERP For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Composites: Extending mySAP ERP

In This Chapter

• Understanding composites

• Discovering the three types of composites

• Looking at the pattern for composite applications

• Introducing SAP xApps

• Examining a case in point: xCQM

• Exploring what you can do today

When you go to a Web site like Amazon.com, Google, or eBay, you get a single user experience. What does that mean? All the features and products you're looking for come at you with a consistent look and feel. Although the systems in the background are incredibly complex, the user interface is very simple: You can buy books with one click at Amazon, and the Google user interface is a simple text box and search feature. If you need further information, such as book reviews or search options, it's usually only a click away.

Still, the complexity behind the scenes is enormous. For example, when you buy a book online, various features are working behind the scenes to make the experience as seamless as possible: product catalogs, your personal buying history, a feature that lets you check on availability, a shopping cart, pricing and shipping information, book rankings, a used-book inventory, promotion and discount offers, reviews and recommendations, and your account data (including your shipping address, different payment methods, logistics/scheduling, packaging options for multi-item orders, and so on). But you don't see all that stuff: You just see an easy-to-use interface for ordering a book.

Composites keep this type of complexity ...