Central

Why use it?

Winshuttle Central helps companies more effectively manage SAP scripts, queries, and user access. As users create custom scripts to load or extract SAP data (using Winshuttle Transaction or Winshuttle Query), Central enables IT to control the use of those scripts within the company and manage them in a centralized manner.

It also enables companies to share files and best practices across business units, and it addresses specific requirements for controls and audit trails to meet SOX and corporate governance policies.

What can it do?

Governance, risk, and compliance best practices require complete traceability of data entered into and data downloaded from SAP. Central provides the ideal integration and control point between Winshuttle, SAP, and Microsoft products.

Central works with IT systems already in place in most companies and offers the following capabilities:

• Added governance and control for the interaction of Winshuttle products with the SAP Business Suite
• Unified repository for shuttle, query, and data files that promotes best practices
• Standard and advanced workflows for managing business processes
• Centralized licensing and administration of Winshuttle products

Key features of Central

• A consolidated file repository enhances collaboration and sharing of best practices across different business units
• Standard workflows drive the business processes behind SAP data entry scenarios
• Centralized license management minimizes the administrative overhead in larger deployments
• Comprehensive auditing and reporting provide full visibility into the use of Winshuttle products and ensure that compliance requirements are fully met

How does it work?

Central can be deployed to a new or an existing SharePoint environment. The minimum requirement is Windows SharePoint Services, which is the basic version of SharePoint freely available for Windows Server.

FAQs

Can Central be deployed without SharePoint?

Central is built on the SharePoint foundation and therefore requires a SharePoint environment. However, Windows SharePoint Services, which is freely available for Windows Server is adequate for deploying Central.

What is the impact on SAP of installing Central?

Central is separate from SAP. Clients handle all communication to and from SAP as they also do with the node-locked versions of Transaction and Query. Central can be deployed without any modifications to SAP.

What is the format of the audit logs?

All Central audit reports can be viewed in a browser or they can be exported to Excel spreadsheets.

Are multi-step approval workflows possible?

The standard Central workflows support one-step approval processes. These workflows can be decoupled and replaced by custom workflows that include multi-step approvals and/or facilitate multiple data contributors. These custom workflows may be configured using a third-party workflow product such as Nintex.

How does Central affect SAP performance?

Central is a completely separate environment without any direct communications with SAP. Hence, deploying Central has no direct impact on the SAP system. In fact, by allowing IT to create usage policies for Winshuttle users, Central can help minimize the load on the SAP system during peak hours of operation.