How to realize process extensions on SAP BTP

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a cloud-based platform that enables companies to design, execute, and monitor their business processes in a unified and scalable way. SAP BTP offers various benefits for companies that want to optimize their processes and achieve their strategic goals.

Building extensions on SAP Business Technology Platform

Benefits of business processes on SAP BTP

The key benefits of moving processes to SAP Business Technology Platform are:

• Improved efficiency and greater process visibility and control

  SAP BTP enables companies to automate and streamline their processes. This reduces manual tasks, errors and delays. Users can monitor and analyze their process performance and results using dashboards and reports.

• Greater process flexibility and adaptability

  With SAP Business Technology Platform, users can quickly and easily customize, update, and deploy processes. As a result, they are able to respond to changing business needs and customer expectations without requiring extensive work or IT involvement. SAP BTP also supports integration with various systems and applications, allowing companies to leverage their existing data and capabilities.

• Faster and easier process development

  SAP BTP provides a graphical user interface that allows users to model and configure their processes without programming a single line of code. One of these services is SAP Workflow. Here, you can design and automate business processes using a graphical editor and a cloud-based engine.

In-app extensions vs. side-by-side extensions

In the SAP context, process realization means implementing a business process in an SAP system. It includes configuration to meet business requirements and testing to ensure the process works as intended. Process enhancement, on the other hand, is a process of adding additional functionality to an existing SAP system. This can be done either through in-app extensions or side-by-side extensions using SAP Extension Suite on SAP Business Technology Platform.

In-app process extensions are developed within the SAP solution that is to be extended. They are tightly integrated with the underlying solution and leverage its data model, user interface, and business logic. In-app extensions are limited by the scope and capabilities of the SAP S/4HANA cloud system and can only meet individual requirements to a certain extent.

Side-by-side process extensions, on the other hand, are developed on SAP Business Technology Platform as standalone applications that communicate with the SAP solution via APIs. They are loosely coupled with the underlying solution and can access data and functions from different sources. Various programming languages such as ABAP, Java, Node.js or Python and different runtime environments – ABAP runtime, Cloud Foundry runtime or Kyma runtime – are available for the development of side-by-side extensions.

When is which extension suitable?

The choice between in-app and side-by-side process extension depends on several factors. For example, the following aspects are relevant:

• Complexity and scope of the process extension

  If you need to extend a simple and isolated process within an SAP solution, an in-app extension may be sufficient. On the other hand, if you need to orchestrate a complex and cross-functional process involving multiple SAP solutions or external systems, side-by-side extensions on SAP Business Technology Platform are likely to be more appropriate.

• Flexibility and scalability

  Process extensions on SAP BTP offer greater flexibility and scalability compared to in-app extensions, and are capable of meeting more complex and diverse requirements. They are also decoupled from the SAP S/4HANA cloud system and not dependent on its upgrade cycles.

SAP Business Technology Platform can be integrated into the existing IT landscape via various methods, such as APIs, events, destinations and cloud connectors. Thanks to SAP Integration Suite, SAP BTP also enables seamless connectivity and orchestration between different systems and applications.