Where’s Waldo? The Search for SAP AII Documentation

Finding SAP AII documentation in the vast expanse of information provided by SAP can feel like a Where's Waldo adventure. The first challenge is locating the documentation to guide you through the functional and technical capabilities. There is no single source or location where all AII documentation can be found. Depending on the type of information you are seeking, the documentation could be in a help file, configuration guide, business process guide, system documentation or other.

SAP documentation can be found in four primary locations.

• SAP Support Portal - Release & Upgrade Documentation, SAP Notes Database
• SAP Help Portal - Provides Online Documentation
• Consulting, Solutions, and User Group Areas - Configuration Documentation
• System Documentation - Documentation provided in the application

The SAP Support Portal provides access to Release & Upgrade documentation as well as access to the SAP Notes database. The Release & Upgrade documentation contains the Implementation Guide which consists of the following:

• Master Guide - provides information about installation, scenarios and their components. It provides links to other documents required for implementation.
• Security Guide - provides security information for SAP AII.
• Application Operations Guide - outlines the tasks to be considered and performed to operate SAP AII efficiently and recommends how to ensure high performance with maximum reliability.
• Link to Installation/Upgrade Guides - the AII Installation/Upgrade Guides are found in SAP Notes. For AII 7.0, it is found in SAP Note 1170681.

SAP Notes are a great source for finding documentation on known issues and corresponding fixes. In addition to the various Implementation Guides, SAP Notes provide update information related to:

• Product errors
• Product modifications
• Product upgrades
• FAQs
• Consulting notes
• Customization notes
• Etc.

The SAP Help Portal provides additional online documentation for SAP AII. You will find online documentation for each specific release of AII. The SAP Help Portal offers a subset of information available to the public such as User Interfaces, Concepts, Roles, Processes, etc. but does not provide configuration details.

The Consulting, Solutions, and User Group Areas provide access to Configuration Guides documentation. The configuration guides provide a more detailed guide on how to configure SAP AII for specific scenarios such as Slap and Ship, Flexible Delivery, Secure Track and Trace, Returnable Transport Items, etc. but they assume you already have a general understanding and background working in a SAP environment.

SAP provides a wealth of documentation through their online support portals an system documentation. However, locating where the correct documentation resides can be a challenge. Even after you've found some documentation, it can be unclear which documentation type you need to use and when.

While documentation SAP provides help in understanding the functional and technical capabilities of AII, it is no substitute for the knowledge gained through actual hands-on experience wth AII. There are many areas of AII which simply are not documented, such as details on how specific activities and rules operate. This becomes evident when you need to enhance an existing rule or activity to meet specific functional or user requirements. We know because we have been there.

If you are in the process of planning or implementing SAP AII or deploying SAP RFID Services, then you will need the breadth of functional and technical iformation about SAP AII in order to ensure you are maximizing the capabilities offered while minimizing the effort and reducing the risk associated with implementing new technologies.

Medical device and Orthopedic implant tracking using RFID on SAP

Large medical device companies use a short term consigned inventory model to support scheduled surgeries. Surgical cases are scheduled by field service and sales representatives and products are shipped out for these scheduled cases. Orthopedic implants are high value products that need to be tracked individually using some serialization mechanism and scheme. Companies like Zimmer and Stryker have implemented RFID to serialize and uniquely track their orthopedic implants in the Asia Pac region since 2005 for warehouse operations. There are multiple layers in an RFID technology stack from a software, hardware and systems integration standpoint and the challenge arises in developing a scalable enterprise wide solution.

SAP has been a leader in the enterprise software market for Auto-Id products with its Auto-Id Infrastructure (SAP AII) system. For SAP customers SAP AII is a natural choice to provide a platform for RFID based solutions. SAP AII provides standard support for an RFID enabled business process for shipping and receiving along with the following:

• Repository for EPC and RFID data
• Conversion of contextual RFID information into business process related events
• Numbering schemes and number management
• Flexible integration with SAP ECC and device controllers

Besides its numerous features SAP AII does have some limitations when used directly to support the short term consigned inventory required by orthopedic and medical device companies out of the box. Additionally using RFID to pick and verify orders requires the right RFID equipment and software solution. SAP offers a powerful and flexible platform for configuration and development that can be implemented and customized to suit the business process for medical device and orthopedic implant distributors.

Controlling Number Range Management with external device controllers and partner systems

The assignment of serial numbers is the initial step in the serialization process. The process involves a requesting system making a request for a block of serial numbers for a specific product. Sounds simple, but the challenge comes in controlling the size of the block that can be requested.

Companies who rely on partners or outsourced manufacturers do not have direct control over the external systems which request the number ranges. Therefore, how can the company control how many serial numbers a specific partner can request and receive? Without this control, a large block size of 1,000,000 serials instead of 100,000 could be requested. This can lead to inefficiency in serial number allotment and loss of serial numbers faster than planned. Serial numbers may seem like a notional item with no cost associated with them. However, the cost arises in the data management and any activities involved in aggregating, sorting and collating data.

SAP AII currently doesn’t restrict block size requests. However, it is possible to add functionality to SAP’s Auto-ID Infrastructure (AII) with some customizations. The customizations to control the block size can be achieved through the following:

• A thorough understanding of the numbering scheme implementation in SAP AII. Each numbering scheme is implemented with its own configuration and partition values.
• Understating the number generation and sequencing of serial numbers in SAP AII. SAP AII generates serial numbers using some internal logic. It is important to know how to intercept and enhance this logic.
• Replacing the appropriate standard function modules through custom code and configuration settings.Creating user configurable settings: The block allocation sizes needs to be controlled and stored in some user based table.
• Creating user configurable settings: The block allocation sizes needs to be controlled and stored in some user based table.

With this specific implementation it is possible to restrict the block size to prevent accidental or malicious number range requests. When working with partner or external systems, it is important to have the controls in place to manage the information being sent and received. In the case of Number Range Management, the standard functionality of AII does not provide the controls for. By leveraging SAP’s extensibility, adding the control logic was just a matter of adding the logic and data tables to enable it.

Demystifying SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure (AII) Encoding Types and Numbering Schemes

SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure (SAP AII) supports industry standards for various types of GS1/EPC encoding types and numbering schemes. These schemes can be used in overall supply chain applications for GS1 and EPC global organizations to internal asset tracking application. The application drives the selection of numbering schemes to be used in serialization projects.

In SAP AII GS1/EPC Encodings are grouped under the EPC_*** ID Versions. As the standards have evolved, the EPC versions have incremented. The latest EPC version SAP supports in AII 7.0 is standards version 1.30 (EPC_1.30). The ID Versions in SAP align with the Tag Data Standards ratified by EPCglobal.

The Encoding Type naming convention includes the encoding type followed by the number of bits in the encoding. For example, SGTIN-96 means it is using the Serialized GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) Identity Type and contains 96 bits of data. Standard encodings in SAP AII:

• DOD - Used for United States Department of Defense (DOD) supply chain applications as required by DOD mandates.
  
  
• GIAI - Global Individual Asset Identifier used to track individual items in asset management applications, such as manufacturing, hospitals, etc. The asset type is not identified.
  
  
• GRAI - Global Returnable Asset Identifier differs from GIAI in that it allows identification of the type of asset being tracked. GRAI is used to track items which are reused, such as totes, pallets, etc. ()
  
  
• SGLN - Serialized Global Location Number is used to assign a unique serial number to a location, such as a warehouse, dock door, bin location.
  
  
• SGTIN - Serialized Global Trade Item Number is used to assign a unique serial number to an item, bundle, case, or pallet. Typically, this is performed at time the item is being packaged during manufacturing. The GTIN identifies the item by company and item reference. ()
  
  
• SSCC - Serial Shipping Container Code is used to assign a unique serial number to a case, tote, pallet, container or other type of container used to transport items. The SSCC does not identify the type of item being shipped.

SAP AII can also be configured to support any emerging or proprietary numbering schemes that may not be standard in SAP. Some examples of these are:

• Flex-Pharma – used by Pfizer to serialize Viagra products for authentication. It is similar to SGTIN.
  
  
• AI(01) AI(21) – Encoding used to store the 01 (GTIN) and 21 (Serial Number) Application Identifiers for use with ECC 2D DataMatrix barcodes. This encoding is emerging in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing to reduce cost of item level serialization.
  
  
• GID – General Identifier is a generic encoding which can be used to serialize an object.
  
  
• GDTI – Global Document Type Identifier is a new encoding ratified in version 1.4 of the Tag Data standard. It is used to serialize documents which require proof of ownership or an obligation on the receiver of the document. Examples are tax demands, proof of shipment forms, insurance policies, internal invoices, military notifications, etc.
  
  
• GSRN – Global Service Relation Number is ratified in version 1.4 of the Tag Data standard. It is used to provide a globally unique serial number representing a service arrangement between a service provider and a specific user. An example would be a library using a GRSN to identify a person’s membership and associate the unique GRSN with the asset (books) being lent or returned by the member.

For a detailed guide on creating custom encodings in SAP AII, please visit our Knowledge Center where you can find valuable EKTs (ENC Knowledge Tips) to create your application specific encoding scheme. With the right implementation and SAP AII expertise a custom numbering scheme can be easily implemented on SAP AII.

Where is my data stored in SAP AII?

SAP AII provides many different methods (Auto-ID Cockpit, function modules, etc.) to query the data stored in the backend database. However, there are times when you may need to view the data directly for troubleshooting or where specific data is not returned via the other methods. In previous versions of SAP AII - AII 4.0 and AII 5.1 context items were visible through the Auto-ID Cockpit. In AII 7.0, however, the Auto-ID Cockpit no longer returns the object context (user data) data.

Step 1: View List of AII Object Tables

Access the data browser using transaction SE16. To see a list of all the tables which store the AII object (EPC) data, enter /AIN/DM_OBJ* for the Table Name and Click on the circle button to the right of the text box.

Figure 1 Data Browser

Step 2: Select a Table to Browse

There are six tables whch store AII Object data. We're going to focus on three main tables.

Figure 2 AII Object Tables

/AIN/DM_OBJECT - the master table for all AII object records. It contains the Object GUID (SAP internal identifier), GTIN or SSCC data for the object, Product GUID whch correlates to the product master data associated with the objet, EPC value in HEX format, datetime the object was added and/or updated, and more.

Figure 3 DM_OBJECT Table

/AIN/DM_OBJ_ID - Stores the Object GUID along with the associated HEX, Pure ID and Tag URI encodings for the object. This is a valuable table for locating the object GUID by its associated HEX value, Pure ID value or Tag URI value.

Figure 4 DM_OBJ_ID Table

/AIN/DM_OBJ_CTX - table stores all the user data associated wth an object via name-value pairs.

Figure 5 DM_OBJ_CTX Table

Conclusion

By accessing the AII Object tables directly, you can verify whether AII is capturing the data successfully as well as gain a better understanding on how AII stores and uses the object data. Through a proper AII implementation it is possible to report and view all the data elements.