Streamlining Joint Venture Data Sharing with the Cruise Framework

In the oil and gas industry, sharing joint venture data securely and efficiently has always been a challenge. Many organizations still rely on manual spreadsheet exports or complex custom development to share critical financial information with their partners. Here we demonstrate how the Cruise Framework offers a modern, secure approach to this common business challenge for businesses that are running SAP and using SAP Joint Venture Accounting.

The JV Data Sharing Challenge

• Security Concerns: Emailing spreadsheets with sensitive financial data poses significant risks
• Development Overhead: Traditional SAP development requires specialized skills and significant maintenance
• Data Currency: Keeping shared information synchronized and up-to-date is time-consuming.
• Scale: Large data volumes can be difficult to transfer efficiently.
• Access Control: Ensuring only authorized partners can access relevant information

Understanding SAP JVA

SAP Joint Venture Accounting is essential for managing complex financial arrangements in the oil and gas industry. It handles important financial processes like:

• Cutback Processing: Distributing expenses and revenues based on equity shares
• Partner Billing: Generating invoices and cost summaries for non-operating partners
• Financial Reconciliation: Managing complex cost and revenue sharing arrangements

The Cruise Solution

Cruise (an data acceleration tool) offers a modern approach to exposing SAP JVA data through secure APIs. Here's how it addresses the key challenges:

1. Security First

• Built on SAP-certified Neptune DXP
• Leverages existing SAP authorization frameworks
• Secure API endpoints with modern authentication

2. Rapid Implementation

• Pre-built data provider classes for common SAP objects
• Configuration-driven approach instead of custom code
• Reusable building blocks for quick deployment

3. Real-time Data Access

• Direct connection to SAP backend systems
• Built-in pagination for handling large datasets
• Efficient data retrieval through optimized queries

4. Enterprise Scale

• RESTful microservices architecture
• Server-side processing for large data volumes
• Built-in caching mechanisms and leverage your existing SAP infrastructure for HA and redundancy

5. Granular Control

• Fine-grained access control with detailed audit logs available
• Field-level security options and server side data control (if required)

Implementation Steps

Define Data Requirements (typically done with JVA specialist)

• Identify required standard JVA tables (e.g., JVS01, JVS02, JVT01)
• Map necessary fields and relationships needed for data extraction
• Configure field transformations and business rules (if needed)

Configure extraction APIs

• Generate the data provider classes (this is done automatically and only requires changing if there are complex business rules that need to be implemented)
• Define API endpoints and configure endpoints and authentication

Establish Access (with your SAP authorization team)

• Create dedicated SAP system accounts with the configured authorization objects
• Set up partner access credentials

Test, Deploy and Monitor

• Configure the end-points and undertaken testing with your functional and technical teams
• Configure logging and monitoring

Benefits of using Cruise Approach

1. Reduced Development Effort
   • No custom ABAP development required, with configuration-driven setup
   • Pre-built components and templates are offered as a baseline for getting solution running quickly
2. Enhanced Security
   • Modern API security standards
   • Built-in audit trails
   • Controlled access mechanisms
3. Improved Partner Experience
   • Real-time data access in consistent format
   • Self-service capabilities
4. Lower Maintenance Costs
   • Standardized approach
   • Reduced custom code
   • Simplified updates

Need a demo?

Please contact one of the VMG Labs team who will be able to demonstrate the framework on our SAP test and demonstration system and discuss steps to deploy onto your own SAP environments if solution is a good fit.