Todd Morrison, News and Features EditorRoughly one year after cautioning users against implementing SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (PI) for more mission-critical projects, Gartner analysts are now saying many of their concerns about the middleware have been addressed and the application now deserves a second look.In a new Gartner Research report, analysts praised the improvements to the upcoming version of NetWeaver 7.3, set to debut sometime in the beginning of the year, including the corresponding new versions of PI and NetWeaver Portal. Customers should look to deploy those applications once their benefits can be proven, it states.Gartner analysts had previously said users should think twice about using NetWeaver PI for strategic projects due to that lack of roadmap clarity and questions over the application's future...How has SAP's NetWeaver strategy changed?Five tips for SAP/SharePoint integration planningTrying to make SAP NetWeaver Portal and SharePoint play nice? Read tips for SAP/SharePoint integration planning from Pete Lagana.Read best practices for integrating SAP and SharePointJury orders SAP to pay Oracle $1.3 billion in damagesThe award in the SAP lawsuit shows the jury sided with Oracle's arguments over the damages done by TomorrowNow.Learn more about the TomorrowNow trial verdict SAP NetWeaver Portal create a transaction iView!You can integrate SAP transactions as an iView with no difficulty by selecting the SAP Transaction template in the iView Wizard. The template is automatically installed with SAP Enterprise Portal.PrerequisitesYou selected the SAP Transaction iView template in step 1 of the iView Wizard and followed the instructions given by the Wizard. For more information see Launching the iView Wizard and General Information.Transactions can be started in different GUI variants. There are different prerequisites, depending on the GUI type you want to use. For more information see Support of GUI Types.If you want to use GUI variant SAP GUI for HTML, the transaction must be Web-enabled. Also read the documentation for SAP R/3 Enterprise Release 4.70.Choose SAP Library Web Transaction Programming Programming the Transaction.Process FlowYou must maintain the following properties in order to display a transaction in the portal as an iView: System Tcode GuiType ApplicationParameter AutoStart OkCode UseSPO1 UseFrog R/3 Logon LanguageYou can find general information about maintaining iView properties in Property Editor and Editing iView Properties.SystemEnter the system alias for the desired SAP System here.This field is required.The system alias refers to a SAP system that was defined in the portal. For more information see Defining the System Alias.TcodeEnter the desired transaction code for executing the program here.This field is required.The transaction code is linked with a screen or, starting with SAP Basis Release 6.10, with a method of an ABAP program.GuiTypeSelect the desired GUI type here.This field is required. By default this value is Webgui. In this case the transaction must be Web-enabled.Transactions can be started in the following GUI variants: SAP GUI for HTML (WebGui), SAP GUI for Java (JavaGui) or SAP GUI for Windows (WinGui).ApplicationParameterYou can enter parameter values for certain screen fields for displaying a SAP transaction here.This field is optional.The parameter values are specified with the following syntax:=&=&<...>=<...>,...AutoStartThe possible values are true and false. By default this field