Just another working day in the life of Thomas S., an employee who works in the marketing department of a medium-sized company. It’s Friday morning when he notices that he urgently needs to send an invitation for an interesting event to a very important customer. “E-mail address wrong in the system” - no problem he thinks, “let’s change it quickly, add the contact to the target group and get the invitation out”. But, he is not authorized to change the e-mail address. Asking his colleagues indicates that it’s only him who isn’t allowed to change that field.
Log Entry: Friday, 10:10h am, spend 10 minutes talking to colleagues and investigating to find the cause of the problem
So what. Let’s start the SAP application and request the necessary privileges. But how? Let’s look for the documentation that’s provided somewhere on the Intranet.
Log Entry: Friday, 10:15h am, spend 5 min to search for the documentation – finally found it
Get set, go. Login to SAP, request the privileges, but remember not to not use your iPad – that’s not supported by the application. Open another window with the documentation and walk through the process step by step.
Log Entry: Friday, 10:20h am, After 20 minutes the request is on its way.
When Thomas S. realizes that he is not able to modify the e-mail address of the customer, he opens an application based on UI5 and developed according to the Fiori design guidelines of SAP. In this application, he is now able to see all the roles and privileges that are assigned to him at first sight even with his iPad or any other mobile device.
Log Entry: Friday, 10:02h am, got it, the necessary privilege is missing.
Now click on the tile „request permission”, search for the required privilege, select it, add reason and submit request. That was easy. No documentation needed.
Log Entry: Friday, 10:04h am, request is one his way after only 4 minutes.
The use of WebDynpro interfaces requires specific know-how in working with SAP software. A fact that can have a strong impact on the internal processes of your company as described above. Productivity is lost and the runtime of processes becomes unnecessarily long. Thomas S. looks for the documentation that enables him to stick to internal process regulations, but many other of his colleagues are taking a simpler path. They deal with painstaking self-services by simply opening a ticket for the IT department so they can take care of the request.
The result is a vast number of routine tasks for the staff in the IT department, making them a bottleneck for other processes. IT does not have the time to deal with innovations that pushes the company forward and create competitive advantages.
Alternative solutions that are already available show that it can be different. They bring functionalities from a WebDynpro environment into a SAP UI5 user interface. Users in business departments are thus able to quickly carry out their own administrative tasks that are related to their daily routine (here an example from SAP IdM). The workload is shared between several departments which will release resources that can now work on activities the company directly benefits from.
And that's exactly what SAP's UX strategy is all about. A simplified user experience that allows the user to quickly complete his / her work steps while supporting the entire process across departmental and even corporate boundaries. To calculate the positive effects of simplified UIs on a company's productivity in a particular case, SAP provides a costing tool on the Web at http://www.sapcampaigns.de/us/UX_Calculator.
One might ask the question why the user interfaces of all SAP products are not adapted accordingly. For SAP IdM e.g. there are still no plans for an alternative to the WebDynpro client, which is why we have decided to remedy this situation. Our SAP UI5 solution for SAP IdM was developed according to the Fiori Design Guidelines and supports all central processes in Identity Management.