Overview

What is Freight Tiger Adapter for SAP?

Freight Tiger Adapter for SAP is a software plugin written in SAP’s native language, ABAP, that brings Freight Tiger’s APIs right inside the SAP. Unlike in past where SAP Consultants had to write a lot of code in SAP to integrate their logistics processes with FT, the adapter gives them a pre-written code that significantly reduces the effort of SAP to FT integration.

What is it used for?

Freight Tiger Adapter for SAP is used to trigger the tracking & tracing of vehicles in Freight Tiger directly from SAP documents like Shipment Order or Delivery Order or Invoices. When the trip comes to a close, SAP even gets a call back from FT so that trip closure data is made available inside SAP.

What are the benefits?

1. Quicker go-live

2. Reduction in cost & effort of integration

3. Fewer chances of defects in integration code

4. Automatic master data updates from SAP to FT

5. Automation of track & trace of trips/vehicles

What does it make it easier for the customers to do?

With Freight Tiger Adapter for SAP, FT customers can easily automate the track & trace of their consignments.

How does it do it?

Freight Tiger Adapter for SAP, gives pre-written SAP ABAP code to call FT APIs and to receive callbacks from FT webhooks. It also provides standard SAP PI/PO configurations. SAP Developers either use it as it is or can modify it to suit their needs. This saves a lot of time for technical design, coding, field mapping, etc.

What are the processes it makes smoother?

Currently, the adapter includes the following features:

• Automatic Master data sync between SAP and FT

• Add & update the trip in FT

• Get a call back to SAP when the trip closes

High-Level Architecture

The adapter has 2 components that reside in SAP:

1. Adapter PI component

2. Adapter ERP Component

Open

Process To Be

This is the high-level process to-be.

1. Create company 

   1. Company name - manually/lego

   2. Generate auth token for integration for API calls (company token). Done  manually from lego

2. Install the SAP adapter

   1. Configure the adapter to get started

3. Create branches (via the adapter, this is plants, depots data)

   1. Company branches (plants) 

4. Onboarding of master data (via adapter)

   1. Places (source, destinations) 

   2. Material types (material master)

   3. Routes (like Delhi-Mumbai, deli-Calcutta, etc). 

   4. Freight rate master (rates are configurable for transporter/route combination)

5. Related Party Onboarding  (via adapter)

   1. List of shippers (consignors)

   2. List of receivers (consignees)

   3. List of transporters

Onboarding of non-SAP master data (like vehicle types) will happen manually via lego and will not be in scope for this development. 

Once the master data is uploaded once during the onboarding of a new client or a new plant, the data needs to be synced periodically. The adapter needs to take care of this. 

There will also be integration for transaction data for trips. This is explained below in next section.

High-Level Use Cases of SAP Adapter

1. Master Data Sync between SAP and Freight Tiger

   1. SAP Material Master to FT Material Master

   2. SAP Customer Master to FT Consignee Master

   3. SAP Vendor Master to FT Consigner Master

   4. SAP Vendor Master to FT Transporter Master

   5. SAP Routes Master to FT Routes Master

2. Automatic tracking of trips

   1. Configure adapter to create trips in FT from SAP Delivery Order or SAP Shipment Document or some other point in the SAP Process

   2. When the trip gets closed, get the information flowing back into SAP
      
      

Cost Implications on SAP Licencing

To the best of our understanding, the following is the summary of cost impacts:

1. Calls originating in SAP and incoming to FT: Most of the calls are of this nature. For e.g During the creation of invoices or shipments in SAP the data is pushed to FT server. This includes master data push to FT and transactions like create/update of trips and indents. This should have no licensing impact if a Valid licensed SAP User is pushing the data from SAP.

2. Calls originating in FT and incoming to SAP: FT sends some FT Trip data to SAP which gets stored in Z tables. This might have a cost/licensing impact. However, these calls are mostly very very few or none. In many cases, FT clients do not take data from FT back into their SAP.

Check our SAP Adapter User Manual to get a preview

Future Roadmap

: Available in the adapter

: planned