Since yesterday SAP Plant Connectivity 2.2 is finally generally available! I have attached a presentation on the new features.

Here are the main new features:

• New RFC destination to SAP ODA (and thus to XSteps and PI Sheets)
• New RFC destination to SAP Business Suite in general (wow!)
• New web service destination which mainly aims at SAP ME
• New Agents:
• AspenTech IP 21
• Citect SCADA
• File Monitor

RFC Destination to SAP ODA

This is essentially a replacement of the old SAP ODA Connector which you could download from SAPs site. In the documentation of the SAP ODA Connector it was stated that it supported Windows versions up to Windows 98 / Windows NT. Since these are quite old now we had decided not to re-test the old software but to include the functionality inside PCo 2.2. If you want to use PCo 2.2 only for the ODA connection (and not for the new SAP Business Suite integration) the license is free of charge. 🙂

RFC Destination to SAP Business Suite

With this new feature it is possible to read/write shop floor data directly inside any of the SAP Business Suite applications (ERP, SCM, CRM,…)! It is also possible to subscribe to data points. It is important to note that this requires own development of coding. It is also a good opportunity for partners of SAP to build something like an MES system based on ABAP. To get started there is an OSS note available with an implementation guide attached as PDF: 1576651

There is a license fee required to use this feature. However if you already have a license of SAP MII or SAP ME  you can use this feature freely.

Web Service Destination (to SAP ME)

This is a new destination with a more generic approach to consume SAP ME services. Before there was an add-on solution available which included a lot of coding and was difficult to maintain. This destination should also be capable to consume other web services though but I am not 100% sure.