The ShipERP shipping solution is written completely in SAP ABAP. Core to its technology is the use of web services within SAP to directly communicate and transact business with the major carriers that support this technology. By following Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) methodology it enables the ShipERP application to integrate seamlessly with carriers and provide real-time processing of shipments and tracking.

If a carrier does not support a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) the ShipERP product can also utilize XML via HTTP POST or EDI processing to communicate with the carriers. Other options for integration include tracking number generation using carrier algorithms or pre-generated tracking numbers loaded into ShipERP. Whatever is the method of integration ShipERP can support it.

ShipERP’s design and use of SOA within SAP has been thoroughly reviewed and tested by the SAP Integration and Certification Center (SAP ICC) and given the certification of “SAP Certified ABAP Add-On and Powered by Netweaver”. This certification guarantees that ShipERP conforms to SAP’s rigorous integration requirements and that this “built in” solution will provide stability and technical efficiency. As part of the certification process ShipERP is given its own name space. This means that ShipERP has a unique, non-customer specific transaction which distinguishes the product form other SAP transactions and customer specific transactions. The ShipERP Multi-Carrier Shipping Solution name space and unique transaction is /ERPIS/SHIPERP. This provides structure and organization during an upgrade by preventing the product from being stepped on. Using the unique namespace not only prevents naming conflicts, but it also prevents unauthorized modification of distributed objects that were built in the unique namespace. A unique namespace is reserved with SAP against your SAP installation number. It is not transferrable, and can only be registered and used on that specific installation of SAP. The namespace also comes with development and a repair license keys. Only the owner of the unique namespace development license key can develop objects in their unique namespace. Recipients of products that were built in the unique namespace cannot modify or repair the delivered objects without receiving the repair license key from the namespace owner.

Being a certified SAP solution, ShipERP is delivered to customer systems as a package which is imported via the SAP SAINT transaction. This makes ShipERP support packages easy to implement and consistent with SAP’s support methodology. Scalability as well as accurate change management is achieved through this process. Internal Basis teams can support this functionality which in turn empowers the customer’s staff and contributes to the bottom-line cost reductions.