GUI-Based Object-Oriented Solutions
With GUI-based solutions, you are basically replacing the SAP GUI with an object-oriented based application. This approach allows you to get away from the standard SAP screens and to develop custom screens with Java, Visual Basic, or C++. This type of solution is quite common when you want to integrate an existing non-SAP application with SAP (to either retrieve or store information).
Pros
The GUI-based solution is a fairly easy way to set up an application that shields people from the standard SAP system. This approach allows you to develop applications that are fairly easy to use and are hardware independent. You can also use GUI-based solutions for specialized situations; for instance, you can develop an application that accepts input from a bar code reader or responds to verbal commands.
Because the GUI solution involves simply feeding data to SAP screens, you don't need technical knowledge of how data is laid out. If your application is written in Visual Basic, the SAP Automation suite has a code generator that will generate code for a set of defined SAP screens.
Cons
The GUI-based solution relies on the sequence of SAP screens, and is therefore vulnerable to changes in the way SAP operates if you upgrade your instance of SAP. Of course, you can develop your own transactions in SAP and then develop GUI interfaces to integrate with the transactions, but this approach requires a significant development effort, along with knowledge of both SAP and the object-oriented language. If you are considering this type of solution, you will also want to look at the DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) connector mentioned later in this chapter.
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