[open-government] Extracting data from SAP (& other ERP systems) - advice welcome

Wed Jul 6 06:11:42 UTC 2011

An open source project for data excavation seems like an intriguing
prospect. I'm surprised that it doesn't already exist. I know that it's
fairly simple to export a table, however complex data leads to complex
problems.

I would really like to nudge people towards providing written content for
the Open Data Manual, rather than events. Events should happen alongside
written material, however we need to be able to reach people across the
entire world.

I was thinking about short help material:

 - how to export a table to CSV
 - how to generate a CSV file by joining and denormalising two tables

Generating these snippets would be a few hundred words of content. They
would provide great value to people looking at diving deeper, because they
demonstrate that opening data doesn't need to include the chequebook.

Does my thinking compute?

Tim McNamara
Professional \\  paperlessprojects.com
Personal \\  @timClicks <http://twitter.com/timClicks>  |  timmcnamara.co.nz

2011/7/5 Maria Mercè Rovira <merce.rovira at udg.edu>

> Yes, Tim, that's my feeling too... mainly if we look at local gov, smalland always
> busy!****
>
> Until we are able to create an easy-to-adopt, open tool able to automating
> the whole tasks flow for publishing raw data the issue will remain as an
> innovators' project, not a general aim for govs. We've been talking a lot
> on some tiny solution just to try... but never engaged seriously****
>
> ** **
>
> *M Mercè Rovira *
>
> *Ajuntament & Universitat de Girona *
>
> *Parc Científic i Tecnològic, edifici Monturiol, CRITIC - 17003 Girona *
>
> *tel. +34637431338 (+34972110810)*
>
> *merce.rovira at udg.edu *
>
> * *
>
> *[image: critic-color-+petit.jpg]    [image: 4T+petit]*****
>
> ** **
>
> *From**:* open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:
> open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] *On** Behalf Of *Tim McNamara
> *Sent**:* Tuesday, July 05, 2011 10:56 AM
> *To**:* open-government at lists.okfn.org
> *Subject**:* [open-government] Extracting data from SAP (& other ERP
> systems) - advice welcome****
>
> ** **
>
> One of the things that I have heard recently is something along the linesof "
> Okay, well I would really like to go about this open data thing - but how
> do I get it out of SAP?". SAP has its own COBOL-like language, which is
> fairly intimidating to application users. However, I'm fairly certain that
> other systems, such as SAS and other ERP offerings provide similar
> problems. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Would anyone be willing to contribute some content about how to exportdata
> from these systems for the open data manual? There is some good content
> around[0], however it would be great to be able to produce some with anopen
> licence.****
>
> ** **
>
> Regards****
>
>
> ****
>
> Tim McNamara****
>
> Professional \\  paperlessprojects.com
> ****
>
> Personal \\  *@timClicks*  |  *timmcnamara.co.nz*****<http://paperlessprojects.com/>
>
> ** ** <http://timmcnamara.co.nz/>
>
> [0] *www.sdn.sap.com**/irj**/scn**/weblogs**?blog=/p**ub/wlg**/20046*****<http://timmcnamara.co.nz/>
>
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