SAP ArchiveLink: What is it and Why use it?
The Key to Streamlined SAP Document Management
The Challenge in Traditional Document Attachment and Retrieval
Struggling with Attachment Chaos in SAP? Do your users waste time switching between screens to attach and view documents in SAP? Are you tired of a bloated SAP database overflowing with attachments? If so, you’re not alone. Many businesses struggle with inefficient attachment management in SAP.
Companies frequently utilize the Generic Object Services (GOS) attachment feature within SAP to store documents. However, this common practice can hamper user productivity and inflate costs. The two main challenges are:
- User Inconvenience: Users have to switch between screens to attach and view documents, wasting time and productivity.
- Database Bloat: Storing attachments in the SAP database increases its size, impacting performance and driving up storage costs.
For businesses planning to migrate or already operating on S/4HANA, continuing this practice can be exorbitantly costly and is actively discouraged by SAP.
Introducing SAP ArchiveLink: A Better Way to Manage Attachments
SAP ArchiveLink offers a powerful solution to these challenges. SAP ArchiveLink works as a bridge for linking SAP business documents with their attachments stored in an external archive storage. This not only streamlines the archiving of ADK data files into third-party storage devices but also extends to print lists, message outputs, and more.
SAP ArchiveLink stores the logical assignment between the application documents and archived documents in a link table. It works with several repository options, ensuring compliance with enterprise content management and governance standards. It supports various SAP environments, including ECC, S/4HANA on-premise, Cloud Private, and on Rise. However, it’s crucial to note that ArchiveLink is not supported for S/4HANA Cloud Public edition and for this use case CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Standard) will need to be used as an alternative.
SAP ArchiveLink provides several significant benefits:
- Improved User Efficiency: With ArchiveLink, attachments are linked directly to SAP business objects. Users can easily view them within the same screen, eliminating the need to switch between screens and improving productivity.
- Reduced Database Size: By storing attachments outside the SAP database, ArchiveLink helps you to significantly reduce its size. This is essential for businesses migrating to S/4HANA and can also improve performance for businesses using SAP ECC.
- Enhanced Collaboration: ArchiveLink lets you store attachments in a centralized archive that can be accessed from inside or outside of SAP. This facilitates collaboration and information sharing across departments.
- Improved Governance: ArchiveLink provides a central location for managing and governing all your enterprise content records. This ensures compliance with data retention regulations and simplifies information retrieval.
- Process Optimization: Opens opportunities to implement content and workflow automation and eliminates tedious workflows like making copies and manually searching for process information.
- Cloud Integration: Transcends on-premise limitations, providing an avenue for moving content workloads to the cloud, reducing costs and enhancing scalability.
How Does SAP ArchiveLink Work?
Once a document is received by the SAP system, it triggers the creation of an application document and a corresponding business object within SAP. This business object defines important parameters that distinguish it as unique and identifiable. SAP ArchiveLink generates a unique logical link based on these parameters from the application document in the SAP system to the document in the SAP content server or a SAP-certified third-party content server, following SAP’s standard specifications. SAP’s certification program ensures that these content servers not only meet SAP performance standards but also comply with their specifications.
Take the Next Step
SAP ArchiveLink provides a standardized and integrated way to archive, access, and manage documents and data from SAP systems in a secure and efficient manner. It can help you improve user efficiency, reduce database size and improve performance, enhance collaboration, improve governance, and more.
Ready to Learn More? Get in touch to explore if ArchiveLink or a more modern solution like docuflow for SAP is the right solution for your SAP document management.
You may also like our blog on 3 Big Reasons to Modernize SAP® ArchiveLink.
