This book introduces the fundamentals of SAP, including the new SAP tools and technologies. SAP R/3 business objects and BAPIs are implemented and a guide to the SAP Business Framework is illustrated. The SAP R/3 Automation tools are used to replicate SAP functionality from VB and the DCOM Component Connector is used to generate business object proxies, aswell as programming the core components of the DCOM Component Connector. Browsing the SAP R/3 Business Object Repository is demonstrated and working code samples of both inbound and outbound SAP R/3 operations are included. This book will demonstrate how to combine existing Visual Basic tools with the new extensibility tools, so that you can develop robust enterprise applications based on SAP R/3 from a non-SAP programming environment.