eSpline announces the first in a series of standard software tools expressly designed for the SAP Variant Configurator or IPC customer.  The Avenue Portal and AvenueWizard applications are available immediately to SAP Customers. 

eSpline was organized to provide SAP customers with professional and knowledgeable consultants and to help them design, manage and implement the SAP Variant Configurator and SAP IPC.   During many customer engagements eSpline partners and our consultants have been asked to provide software tools or applications to help the SAP VC or IPC product modeler, configuration manager or a product manager better manage the customer's Variant Configurator product model changes.   There have been few software solutions generally available to the SAP customer base and with this gap in mind eSpline is offering an inexpensive solution to help manage this process.  Download Managing VC Models

This is the first of multiple software releases to help SAP VC users manage their product models and make them more productive. 

Easy VC Product Model Extraction

eSpline created and released an SAP VC extraction solution early in 2008 that is used by both SAP VC customers and eSpline partners.  This software tool extracts a selected SAP VC product model and converts all the rule patterns to XML so that the customer or software developer can reuse this information for internal customer projects or for a developer to be able to expose the Variant Configurator logic for their own use. 

Since the VC logic is complex and used differently from company to company, eSpline invited companies to participate in an early adopter program in mid 2007 and over 30 companies volunteered over 50 different product models for testing the application.  Since then, nearly a 100 product models have been tested, so the extraction is sound and accurate.  The extraction software tool was made available in early 2008.   In early 2009, eSpline extended the extraction capability to include SAP's IPC.

Compare VC or IPC Product Models

Using the Avenue from VC extraction technology, eSpline added the capability to include comparing two product models so that a project manager or configuration manager could quickly compare two versions of the same model.  The result is an application, Avenue Compare, that will quickly identify changes, adds or deletes to the product models being compared.  A generally available, off the shelf software product has never been available to do this.  

It takes only a few minutes to download the product models and perform the comparison.  The changes are readily identified by colored text.  Red identifies rules or code that only exists in the product model selected as number 1 and Green for rules or code that is only in the product model selected as number 2.  Blue identifies rules or code in both product models but different. 

Managing the changes just became easier.

• The model changes are readily identified by color differences and
• Which version and who made the change is illustrated
• Clear html documentation of the product model is available in the Model Viewer
• Hyperlinks quickly get the reviewer to the specific constraint, procedure or selection condition

SaaS Portal available for comparing models

The entire process for extraction, conversion to XML, documenting the model and displaying the differences is now available in a low cost portal managed and supported by eSpline.   Download models using an eSpline provided solution, AvenueWizard.  The process is easy to learn and fast.  The two product models are submitted for comparison in a very secure portal, you quickly look at the differences, and approve or disapprove and watch the productivity and accuracy of your models improve instantly.   No more struggling to find the changes.

The Avenue Portal is available now with low cost introductory subscriptions of 3 months to start and then for a year.   The eSpline Avenue Compare and AvenueWizard can be implemented on a customer SAP instance for a license fee and maintenance if a portal application would not be permitted. 

About eSpline

eSpline is a software development and SAP configuration technology consulting organization headquartered in Columbus, OH, USA, specializing in implementation and deployment of SAP product configuration technology for complex products and services oriented businesses using SAP as its core business application.  eSpline also specializes in developing integration software to and from SAP, and software tools to optimize the use of the SAP Variant Configurator [VC] and Internet Pricing & Configurator [IPC]

eSpline is one of a few premier configurator specific organizations that have consultants that have working knowledge of all the available SAP configurator applications. 

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