Professional K2 blackpearl®

Chapter 23. Introduction to K2 connect

Holly Anderson

K2 blackpearl provides a bridge connecting people and line-of-business (LOB) systems by utilizing SmartObjects. However, even with K2 blackpearl, business users have a difficult time getting to data in complex systems, such as SAP. Users want to read and write SAP data, without involving SAP experts. They want to be able to use SAP data in applications and workflows, view the data in reports, and access it all in a reusable and manageable way. Solutions that provide this type of functionality can be costly and time-consuming. K2 connect for SAP provides the ability to access SAP quickly, giving business users a solution that meets all their needs.

K2 connect for SAP is an add-on component to K2 blackpearl that provides a user-friendly interface for developers to model business entities against an SAP environment without having to write code. The entities can then be surfaced for use within K2 processes, reports, forms, .NET-based applications or Web services, and other applications such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. K2 connect decreases development time and improves developer utilization by allowing the SAP experts to work with familiar SAP components such as business application programming interfaces (BAPIs), and provides .NET developers with objects that they can easily access and use within their applications.

The initial release of K2 connect supports accessing SAP R/3 4.6c environments and higher. In subsequent releases, ...