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The SAP Indirect Access Survival Guide.

A forty-one page field guide to indirect-use exposure across Salesforce, ServiceNow, RPA, and EDI architectures. The case law since Diageo. The document-flow forensics. The seven settlement levers that close the largest claims.

Research Paper 41 pages Published April 2026 Format: PDF Access: Gated
What You'll Learn

Six learning outcomes from active matters.

  1. How indirect access is actually defined under your contract. The four contract vintages we see most often, and why the same Salesforce integration carries different exposure depending on which one applies.
  2. What the Diageo and Anheuser-Busch decisions actually established. A plain-language reading of the case law and the elements SAP still relies upon — and those it does not.
  3. The architecture-first defence methodology. Read-only, write-back, document-creating, batch-exchange, and human-in-the-loop architectures, and the licence basis each one supports.
  4. How to count documents under Digital Access. The nine categories, the volume tiers, the source-system mapping, and the data extraction techniques most customers do not know they have.
  5. Salesforce, ServiceNow, and RPA — three pattern libraries. The most common integration shapes and how each one resolves under indirect-access doctrine.
  6. Settlement language that protects against the next claim. Re-measurement caps, scope-of-use definitions, interface licensing exemptions, and three more clauses that close the next audit before it starts.
Table of Contents

Seven chapters. Forty-one pages.

Chapter IThe indirect-access doctrine, plainly explainedpg. 5
Chapter IICase law: Diageo, Anheuser-Busch, and what they actually settledpg. 11
Chapter IIIArchitecture forensics: the five patternspg. 17
Chapter IVDocument counting under Digital Accesspg. 23
Chapter VSalesforce, ServiceNow, and RPA — pattern librarypg. 29
Chapter VIThe seven indirect-access settlement leverspg. 34
Chapter VIIA casebook: five settled indirect-access matterspg. 38
Who It's For

Four audiences. One reference.

Enterprise Architects

Architects mapping integrations between SAP and the wider estate. The architecture-pattern chapters are the technical core of the document.

Procurement Leadership

VPs of procurement and category managers managing indirect-use exposure and Digital Access conversion conversations with SAP.

In-house Counsel

General counsel reviewing indirect-access claims. The case-law chapter is the doctrinal reference; the settlement chapter is the negotiation framework.

SAM Practitioners

Software asset managers measuring document volume and user counts for indirect-use submissions. The counting chapters are operational guidance.

The opening claim from SAP was eight million dollars in indirect-use exposure across ServiceNow and three custom portals. The architecture review closed it at one point one.

Director, IT ProcurementGlobal Financial Services · Settled Q4 2025
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