SAP hybris integrationRelease 5.5 of the hybris Commerce Suite has just been introduced. With each release hybris makes big steps forward in the integration with SAP. For now, most details are provided for the integration with SAP ERP, along with some interesting developments around hybris Marketing, containing tools as the SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence (CEI).

The SAP hybris integration roadmap clearly shows that the full integration with SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C) will come in the near future. A first step has been provided in the integration of the complaint & ticket management processes in C4C. SAP ERP integration is clearly the main focus at the moment. Very little is known about any upcoming integration scenarios with SAP CRM On Premise.

DatahubThe main tool for the integration of the hybris solution to other systems is the so-called 'datahub'. For the integration with SAP ERP a standard integration scenario is defined in which ERP will send and receive messages using the well-known IDOC based interface setup.

In this integration scenario SAP ERP will remain the master for all master data (except for the consumers in a B2C scenario where consumers will initially register themselves in the webshop). This scenario covers the asynchronous replication of changed or newly created materials, conditions, customers, contacts and inventory from SAP ERP to hybris. Obviously (considering that hybris originates from a non-SAP background), the corresponding data entities in hybris are named differently. A condition record is a price row in hybris, a contact person is a customer in hybris (which could be confusing when you come from a SAP background), a soldto party is a b2b unit, etc.

By nature, hybris does not have the distinction between the soldto party and the shipto party. The only available data entity in hybris is the b2b unit. The SAP hybris integration scenario starts to provide solutions to translate the SAP ERP customer data model to a corresponding setup in hybris using the b2b units. Multiple partner functions, for example, are transated to multiple addresses on a b2b unit. Multiple sales areas on a b2b customer in ERP are translated by creating a parent b2b

unit with a relation to a child b2b unit for each sales area in which each child holds the relevant sales area dependent data.

Order ManagementThe order management integration scenario comes in three flavors:

Asynchronous, available for the B2B and B2C setup (also referred to as the loosely-coupled integration)

Synchronous, only available for the B2B setup (also referred to as the tightly-coupled integration)

Hybrid, again only available for the B2B setup (basically the asynchronous order management scenario, but with the addition of synchronous pricing calls to the SAP ERP backend)

The asynchronous scenario basically uses the same interface scenario as described in the datahub paragraph. The asynchronous order management is based on the order management functionality in hybris. An order is initially saved in hybris and subsequently replicated to ERP using the datahub. SAP ERP will process the incoming IDOC and save the order. The logistical and financial handling of the order will, as always, take place in ERP.

The synchronous scenario utilizes the JCO/RFC interfaces (which we know from previous SAP eCommerce solutions).

Synchronous order management will directly use the order management functionality in SAP ERP for all cart to order steps in the webshop. Both cart and order will not have a representation in the hybris persistence. Pricing and availability are directly retrieved from SAP ERP in the cart. Upside of the synchronous scenario is realtime pricing and stock information (allowing more complex pricing scenario's). Possible downside is the dependency on backend performance and availability.

PricingA synchronous pricing scenario is now available as well. This scenario provides the B2B setup with real-time customer specific prices that can be based on a complex pricing schema in SAP ERP. From SAP ERP 6.0 EHP7 SP04 on a specific pricing API is available that supports this option. The customer specific prices can be retrieved in SAP ERP by a direct API call from hybris. The API has been provided to solve the traditional performance issues around customer specific prices where in most cases we had to execute a full order simulation in the SAP ERP backend.

hybris Marketinghybris Marketing is available as an integration scenario as well. This is basically a suite of solutions including the formerly known Customer Engagement Intelligence, Audience Discovery and Targeting, but also new solutions like a Product Recommendation engine. The corresponding integration scenario basically delivers the triangle integration between the SAP ERP backend, hybris itself and this hybris Marketing suite.