Picture this: your sales team is closing deals every other day – acquiring new customers. However, the people in your SAP finance team are having a hard time manually reconciling and entering these new data pieces. They keep on asking the sales team, “Hey, how many sales did you close yesterday?” Sounds familiar? It’s as if your team handling Salesforce and the team handling SAP are managing two different businesses. Surveys estimate that around 30% of your finance team’s time is spent in manual reconciliation. But, this disconnect does not just waste your team’s valuable time, it’s also an expensive roadblock. Yes, Salesforce and SAP are two powerhouse systems handling the most core aspects of your business. But getting these two systems to talk to each other can feel like an uphill task. That’s where modern iPaaS solutions come in, turning the Salesforce and SAP integration nightmare into a competitive advantage. So much is the demand for iPaaS solutions that it has become the second fastest growing application and infrastructure middleware market with growth rate of 30.7% in 2023. Businesses in North America (specifically in the United States) are at the forefront of iPaaS adoption making it the largest iPaaS market.

What is an iPaaS? And Why It Should Matter For Any Business Using SAP and Salesforce

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a cloud based intelligent middleware that stands between two systems and integrates them. It doesn’t just “connect” the systems. Rather, with the help of data mapping, intelligent data transformation and real time data ingestion, it creates a synergy between the two systems.

Look at this:

When you create a new Contact in Salesforce, you need to fill all these fields:

A Salesforce Contact looks like this:

Now, if you want to integrate Salesforce with SAP, you need to figure out how to map these fields with those used by SAP. Remember, SAP, being a completely different system, uses a different field-naming pattern and field-structure.

Here’s a simple example of how field names in SAP and Salesforce differ:

This is the ‘Create Person’ workflow in SAP.

Can you see the field, named ‘title’? In the case of Salesforce (see the screenshots above), the title has been used to mention the job titles of people in the contacts. However, in the case of SAP, the similarly named field is used to specify whether the person is a Mr or Ms. Long story short, Salesforce and SAP Integration requires extensive data mapping.

Traditional Integration Approaches Vs iPaaS

Traditional integration approaches are functional but only to a certain extent. You will soon face limitations and scalability issues as your business grows.

There are basically 4 types of traditional Salesforce and SAP integration methods

1. Point To Point Integration (Using SAP PI / PO)
   This approach requires extensive technical knowledge – specifically in terms of using ABAP to make SAP do what you want. Thanks to this gigantic technical overhead, the entire setup is less flexible. You will always be afraid of future updates breaking the functionality of customized code and setup.
2. SOAP Framework or REST Web Services
   These API-based approaches can take you fairly far in terms of integration. But, one needs to have a deep technical knowledge in SAP and Salesforce API. Large data volumes can create bottlenecks. Also, when you work with APIs, you need to take security seriously. This approach can potentially increase security overhead.
3. ETL Tools (SAP Data Services)
   ETL tools can significantly reduce technical overheads – but it compromises on real time data sync. As a result, you can’t achieve true business process automation.
4. Traditional Middleware for SAP and Salesforce Integration
   Traditional middlewares can be customized and scaled.But they often come with high licensing costs. On top of that, such a system usually needs to be deployed into the on-prem servers of businesses. Also, these systems come with a steep learning curve.

iPaaS matters because it addresses these fundamental challenges by providing:

1. A standardized integration framework that can navigate the complexities of both SAP and Salesforce
2. Prebuilt connectors for SAP and Salesforce that dramatically reduces technical overheads and over-reliance on the development team.
3. Built-in error handling ensures guaranteed processing of data from one system to the other.
4. Flexibility to adapt as both systems evolve through updates

For businesses using both SAP and Salesforce, iPaaS isn’t just another IT tool – it’s a strategic necessity that ensures your core business systems work in harmony, enabling real-time decision making and improved operational efficiency.

Key Benefits of Using an iPaaS For Salesforce and SAP Integration

At the end of the day, your teams need to be on the same page in terms of company information. There shouldn’t be any blind spots. iPaaS has the capability of expertly removing these blind spots.

1. Real Time Data Sync
   With a solid iPaaS for enterprise SAP and Salesforce, each department of a business has detailed visibility into the core areas of businesses. When the SAP and Salesforce are united: the sales team remains aware of the actual inventory levels of the products while quoting a price. On the other hand, the SAP admin handling the sales aspect receives sales orders instantly from Salesforce. Teams don’t work with siloed data or data that differs from department to department.
2. Process Automation
   With an iPaaS, say goodbye to manual data reconciliation. Sales orders automatically pass to the SAP system without manual intervention. The SAP admin does not need to call the sales people and ask, “Has the sales number #123 has been closed?” When the deal is closed on Salesforce, the information automatically goes to SAP and it generates an invoice. These are just two examples. iPaaS can dramatically simplify your daily workflow.
3. Enhanced Scalability
   Unlike other integration approaches, enterprise iPaaS for SAP and CRM offers enhanced stability and scalability. When you integrate Salesforce with SAP, you don’t have to worry about future expansion. The entire setup can include as many new business units as you can open. The system adapts to growth in data transaction volumes without a hitch. If in the future, you need to integrate other systems using iPaaS, you can do so with very little technical overhead.
4. Cost Optimization
   An iPaaS-based solution saves you money in more ways than one. First, integration workflows created by an iPaaS solution entail no custom coding – at least for most instances. This less reliance on ABAP and Salesforce developers can save the company a huge amount of money. Thanks to lower maintenance overhead and quick ROI, the system does not get on the nerves of the people in your accounting department. And, most iPaaS solutions are cloud-based – meaning you don’t need to spend an exorbitant amount of money upfront.

Top 5 Features to Look for While Doing an iPaaS Features Comparison

Comparison of Leading iPaaS Solutions for SAP and Salesforce

Why APPSeCONNECT Stands Out as the Best Cloud Integration Platform for SAP and Salesforce

As you can see, APPSeCONNECT stands out as the best SAP and Salesforce integration platform. Here’s why:

Enterprise Grade, Minus the Complexity

APPSeCONNECT packs a punch when it comes to providing businesses – big and small – with enterprise-grade SAP-Salesforce integration solutions. It maintains a fair level of user-friendliness despite orchestrating some of the most complex integration tasks.

Read how Prana Organics cut their sales order processing complexity by 80% with APPSeCONNECT

Built On The Low Code / No-Code Philosophy

With pre-built connectors and templates, APPSeCONNECT reduces the need for coding to create integration workflow. The drag and drop-based workflow builder comes equipped with support for if-then conditional logic. You don’t need to know coding to work with APPSeCONNECT. All you need is a clear mental visualization of your business process logic.

Intelligent Automation Capabilities

APPSeCONNECT transforms business processes through intelligent automation. The platform excels at creating seamless workflows across departments, triggering actions based on events, and ensuring data moves exactly where it needs to go without manual intervention.

Read how Richardson Sports achieved 100% automated and real time sync of data using AppseConnect

Proven Enterprise Adoption

Major global brands like Philips, Abbott, Manchester United, and Medtronic trust APPSeCONNECT for their mission-critical integrations, proving its capability to handle enterprise-scale challenges.

Competitive Total Cost of Ownership

By combining specialized functionality with streamlined implementation and maintenance, APPSeCONNECT delivers enterprise-grade integration at a significantly lower total cost than general-purpose enterprise iPaaS solutions.

Support For All Major Versions of SAP

APPSeCONNECT supports all major versions of SAP. From the modern SAP S/4 HANA to the legacy ECC system and even SAP Business One – the platform can integrate any major SAP version with Salesforce.No matter whether you have a small or big business, APPSeCONNECT ensures seamless integration.

The iPaaS landscape is changing rapidly. Forrester claims that in the near future iPaaS will be offered by AppGen platforms as an add-on feature. It will no longer be a standalone system. That future is already in your hands: APPSeCONNECT is capable of providing an iPaaS solution packaged as an app.

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How to Get Started With SAP-Salesforce Integration With APPSeCONNECT

No matter how user friendly an iPaaS platform is, integration of SAP and Salesforce requires a good amount of planning and figuring out:

• First, requirement analysis. Answer this: why do you want to integrate SAP and Salesforce? What are the challenges that you are facing? What is your budget? How technologically mature is your IT team? The answers to these questions will make the purpose behind the integration clearer.
• Second, you need to choose the right platform. Based on your requirement and budget, you have to select the iPaaS platform that best meets you needs
• Data mapping and transformation come next. Depending on the capability of your selected iPaaS platform, you will need to perform data mapping and transformation to ensure data integrity
• Creating a proof of concept: Now that your integration is almost ready, instead of deploying it in the production, create a proof of concept by deploying it to manage a small subset of your integration workflow. This will help you identify bugs without making the business operations come to a halt.
• Testing, Validation and Deployment: After extensively validating the integration workflow, security posture and efficiency of the entire setup, you are now ready to deploy it to the production.

SAP-Salesforce integration should not rely on assumptions and gut feelings. That’s why we offer a free demo to test the capabilities of our integration platform.

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Struggling with SAP-Salesforce integration? See how APPSeCONNECT simplifies automation & eliminates errors. Book your free demo now!

1. Pre—built Templates
2. Custom Integration Workflow
3. Cost Effective
4. Industry-Leading Support

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