Caseware SmartExporter Specification

SmartExporter supports the user when extracting data from an SAP® system.

SmartExporter is not just a data pump to extract any kind of data volume. It goes far beyond, as it provides substantial support for the user in selecting the required data and preparing these for further analysis purposes, particularly in combination with, for example, IDEA Apps.

Auditors and other people interested in SAP® data do not have to be experienced SAP® users with a thorough knowledge of SAP® table structures anymore. SmartExporter allows the wizard based download of data from several SAP® systems depending on the authorization level of the user.

Additionally, the join definitions supported by SmartExporter enable you to extract data from several tables at once. This limits the volume of the data to be extracted and the data can be prepared for further processing.

Due to a detailed authorization concept the SAP® administrator can define a user- and group-specific authorization for tables and joining tables. Thus he can make restrictions based on field values, such as company code and fiscal year, to prevent unauthorized access.

Furthermore, the SAP® administrator can protect confidential data by anonymizing or pseudonymizing fields as part of SmartExporter Data Privacy.

SmartExporter contains a Client and a Server component and can be operated in an offline or online mode.

The following modes are available in SmartExporter:

  1. Online synchronous:

    The external SmartExporter Windows client is connected to the SAP® system and downloads the specified data synchronously. You can either transfer the data directly using a dynamic filter calculation method or carry out the provision and transport of data separately using a buffer table method. If you use the buffer table method, the data will be placed in a buffer table in a background job, in turn the buffer table is read by the client asynchronously. Especially, when dealing with huge data volumes with complex filters this will lead to a considerable increase in performance.

  2. Online asynchronous:

    The external SmartExporter Windows client is connected to the SAP® system and initiates an asynchronous background job processing the Data Request. As a result of this process files are generated on the SAP® application server, which are then transferred to the SmartExporter Windows client.

  3. Offline:

    Being in offline mode the SmartExporter Windows client creates and saves a Data Request which will be processed by another SmartExporter Windows client which is connected to an SAP® system and it will process the Data Request either synchronously or asynchronously as described above.

The result of the data extraction can be subject to further analysis by other auditing tools like e.g. IDEA apps.