Duet Enterprise Released and Available for Download on MSDN!

After a long wait, Duet Enterprise 1.0, Microsoft and SAP's premier framework for SAP integration with SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 has finally been released on MSDN. At Oakton, I've been doing SAP to SharePoint integration for the last 18 months so a framework and guidance like this is quite exciting.

If you have an MSDN subscription, you can get it from here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/securedownloads/default.aspx
Also note that this is not the ONLY way to integrate and alternatives like just using out of the box SharePoint 2010 BCS (Business Connectivity Services), or the Biztalk SAP Adapters Packs are the way to go. It really depends on your requirements. Duet Enterprise provides a few sample scenarios as part of the framework to get you started as a model for integration guidance.

Here is a high level architecture diagram in case you're completely unfamiliar with the product (it requires and utilizes SharePoint 2010 BCS under the covers) :

Basically, Duet Enterprise gives you a head-start in terms of plumbing when you start a new SAP-SharePoint Integration project. It includes the following:

1. A framework for building SAP-SharePoint-Office Integration Scenarios
2. SAP Workflow Integration from SharePoint (though this is not using SAP BPM)
3. Some Pre-canned Site Templates for certain scenarios like retrieving Customer Information through SharePoint
4. Components to allow retrieval of SAP reports from SharePoint
5. Duet Enterprise Document collaboration functionality
6. Communication Monitoring and Support Components to make troubleshooting easier.
7. A security framework for authorization purposes.

There are a couple of known issues with the release (not absolute showstoppers for my clients, but you should be aware of them):

Known Issue (1):


Aggregator Web Part will not work across the Web Apps having different Authentication
Description: Aggregator Web Part is deliverable of the Duet Workflow Feature. This Web Part will provide a support to view the Task for particular user across the Site Collection and Web App.


Current Limitation to the web Part - This Web Part cannot support the Scenario of Web Part is created in one type of authenticated Web App and the Rootsite Parameter pointing to the different Web App which if different authentication. Eg: Web Part placed in Win Claims based Web App can pull/show the task assigned to the User under another rootsite created in another win claim Web App but it will not work for the rootsite created in Win Legacy Web App and then the Page on which Web Part is placed will not accessible.


Viewing the Tasks from the Cross Auth Web App in aggregator web part is not Supported


Workaround: To Fix the Page which is caused by cross authentication issue in Aggregator Web Part in the Page is to remove the web Part through SPD and then add the Aggregator web Part and point only to the rootsite accessible and same authenticated.


Known Issue (2):
Task with attachments cannot be created and assigned to users in Turkish environment.


The following languages are included in this product: Arabic, Chinese-Simplified, Chinese-Traditional, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.


Microsoft will be having some official launch announcements soon and I'll be covering Duet in more detail in later blog posts.

DDK