SAP Mobile Access: SAPConsole

Info by Dinesh chandra from Architect SAPsolutions

SAPConsole is a native Radio Frequency data collection application for different types of hand held devices. It has been developed to translate the SAP GUI screen into the character-based screens to support different type of output devices. It automates the data captured by the mobile devices and integrates the data with the SAP systems.

SAPConsole supports both types of mobile devices, whether it is Radio frequency devices or web equipped devices. These mobile devices uses different mode of connectivity. Some wireless devices uses Telnet client to achieve the connectivity and some uses web server for web access. SAPConsole capture the Transaction data send by wireless (RF) devices and are directly posted into the SAP system, and hence makes critical business decisions in real time.

SAPConsole Features:

• Manages interaction between user and screens.
• Translating the information in the appropriate formats.
• Maintaining device connectivity and data exchange with the SAP system.
• Responsible for interfacing with mobile devices.
• Translate the SAP GUI front-end component for character-cell environments.
• Is compatible with standard ABAP/SAP GUI application and supports standard ABAP/SAP GUI development.

SAPConsole Architecture:

As depicted there are two ways of information exchange with SAPConsole:

1. 1. Via Telnet
   For character-based terminals, telnet client is used for the connectivity. As telnet client connects to the Telnet server it starts a command interpreter for the translation of the information. This interpreter is run for every authenticated connection. The translated information is rendered by the console displayer in the Telnet Server.

1. 2. Via Web Server
   For a browser-based session, the browser connects to the web server. The Web Server is an IIS web server. This IIS web server starts a command interpreter for translation of web based information and the translated information is rendered by the web displayer. The translated data is posted to the SAP System.

SAPConsole Limitations:
Many of the constraints enforce the developers to limit the use of this technology.

• Some of the SAP GUI features are not supported by SAPConsole.
• SAPConsole requires IIS server of windows 2003 as SAP J2EE Engine is not supported.
• It is standalone component so we cannot install SAP GUI where SAPConsole is running.  

*Note: SAP is replacing SAPConsole with ITSMobile which converts WebDynpro screens into HTML format.