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For many years SAP has been widely known as a global leader and visionary in enterprise software but what many of us don’t realise is that it is also a trailblazer in user experience software. SAP Fiori, launched in 2013, has won numerous global awards including one of the most prestigious design awards, the Red Dot Awards, which commends innovation, concept and vision, competing against Nike and Apple in the Design Concept category with some 5,000 entries.
What is SAP Fiori?
The design language user experience approach was developed by SAP for use in its business applications by SAP itself and its customers and partners. The SAP Fiori concept provides guidelines on implementing user interfaces for designers and developers to create applications that all behave in a consistent and predictable way, with shared services and characteristics and a common look and feel.
What does this mean for you as a business user?
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Modern look and feel …..
You will immediately notice the modern design and feel. Complex menus, with multiple windows open and lots of clicks, as previously required in the earlier version SAP GUI, have all gone. In its place is an intuitive design that makes the most common task easy to find and execute, and training is minimal.
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Productivity gains ….
Increased productivity is a real benefit with features adopted from consumer UIs such as type ahead search and a simplified workflow designed to cut the number of clicks required to complete certain tasks. A common accounts receivable task in SAP S/4HANA Finance reduces in duration by 64% with 71% fewer clicks in SAP Fiori compared to the old SAP GUI. It now takes a single SAP Fiori application to complete a tedious or complicated business process, rather than multiple SAP GUI transactions.
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Enhanced mobile experience…..
Switching to SAP Fiori benefits your mobile and BYOD workforces, enabling users to work from touch screens, with the consistent behavior and design that gives you a similar experience regardless of what device you are using. SAP GUI predates the mobile workforce, having been designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind and behaves differently depending on the version and platform, not always duplicating the full functionality.
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A better fit with your SAP HANA Workflow
SAP Fiori is optimised for a modern SAP HANA workflow. If you have ad-hoc processes built on SAP ECC over time, then SAP Fiori can help you modernise your workflow to get the most benefit from your SAP HANA migration.
One of the most commonly cited SAP Fiori disadvantages was a lack of flexibility; because SAP Fiori apps are individually optimised for certain tasks, and initially only the more common business functions, however the range of SAP Fiori apps has grown rapidly and now covers the great majority of roles. Businesses with niche functionality requirements also have the option to create the Fiori UX in Screen Personas.
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Implementing SAP Fiori
When Fiori started you had one option: a front-end server where the SAP Fiori apps can be launched. The front-end is connected to a back-end such as SAP ECC where the business processes run. Until 2016 the front-end was fulfilled by including SAP NetWeaver Gateway into the organisation’s SAP landscape but you can now deploy SAP Fiori on SAP Cloud Platform, removing the need to up an additional on-premise SAP NetWeaver Gateway system.
SAP Cloud Platform fulfils the role of your front-end server by supplying the SAP Fiori apps with UI data (SAPUI5). But it also fulfils the role of OData provisioning using the OData provisioning service (OData is the protocol used to derive data from your SAP Business Suite).
One thing to consider is that the deployment of SAP NetWeaver Gateway on-premise is an additional burden on the management of your SAP system landscape, so SAP Cloud Platform is the go-to option in the long run.
We like SAP Fiori so much we use it internally
At SOA People we use SAP Fiori for our own internal portals, as well as SAP Cloud Platform and HANA, having developed our own benchmarking tool and an employee attendance app. We also run a “Fiori Factory” model to develop new SAP Fiori apps, bringing together our teams of SAP certified developers, design thinkers and integration specialists.
As SAP experts we are in the business of helping our customers to quickly develop innovative and smart SAP Fiori applications that really make a difference in their business processes and SAP user experience. So call us now to see how SAP Fiori could enhance your business processes.
