For many years people have been saying that SAP could not support the complex Australian Agri industry requirements.  It was too cumbersome, required too many transactions, could not support the specific data requirements, was too hard to use, and the terminology did not make sense.  I overheard an individual saying “a plant is something you sit on the window sill and water when you remember – not a site”.

Extend Technologies myCommTrade solution has taken on that challenge and proven that SAP can work for the Agri industry.  We have moved into the uncharted territory.
Our accelerators provide the backbone for managing seasonality, quality and commodity relevant data.  We harness the power of SAP in inventory management, finance, sales and procurement and logistics, and extend that to simplify the process for users.

Some of the main issues facing the commodity traders within the Agri industry are data integrity and early visibility.  The dollars involved are high and small shifts in the market can have a huge impact on an organisations’ bottom line.  Managers want to know what their commitments are to ensure they have sufficient coverage and to mitigate risk.  They also want to improve productivity and minimise the cost of managing transactions.  Our motto is “get it in early” – a transaction sitting on a piece of paper on someone’s desk doesn’t allow any visibility.  The sooner the data is entered, the better visibility within reports; fewer errors up front, the less time spent on analysing and correcting the data and the more accurate the reports.

myCommTrade provides simple to use, single entry screens to manage contract and ticket entry.  Data is checked against business rules to catch errors upfront and improve accuracy and data integrity.   Error management capability allows tracking of information, audit control and visibility for follow-up and correction. Automation of transaction processes reduces training time, manual data and processing times and the amount of time spent on administrative tasks.  Capture of delivery costs at time of processing improves the accuracy of inventory costing and projections for price variances.

Our philosophy is to ensure the accuracy of the data entered to improve the value of analytics applied.

For more information on myCommTrade or to speak to an SAP Agri expert contact us at contact@extendtec.com.au or 02 8908 4200.

Ask most companies what they view to be their most important asset and they will say ‘our people’.  So why are companies not making the most of their assets?

HR departments have until recently lagged behind the trend in analysing data and have traditionally relied on experience or hunches to determine the factors that may be affecting their workforce.

Why is this?  Probably because HR information is seen as more ‘touchy-feely’, and the types of information they deal with is often more qualitative than quantitative, so it can be difficult to spot trends and produce real insights.

As a Business Intelligence specialist, I have found that working with the traditional SAP Business Warehouse HR reporting, the offerings were quite limited.  The standard content focused on merely the basics, such as measuring headcount and staff movements, and the reports available were fairly static and un-insightful.

So I’m really excited to hear about the latest offerings from SAP in the HCM analytics space.  They are about to release a number of much needed Rapid Deployment Solutions tailored to better Business Intelligence and planning in the HCM space.

Later this year sees the release of Executive Analytics a suite of pre-packaged BusinessObjects dashboards which will provide HR executives with an impressive 50 or so key business metrics.  This will allow you to measure all angles of the business relating to HR, including turnover, HR costs, training and absenteeism. This will be based on a truly integrated solution of BusinessObjects and SAP content.

Another release from SAP this year will be its Operational Headcount Planning rapid deployment solution.  This will combine the power of SAP HR, with Business Warehouse (BW) and Business Planning & Consolidation (BPC) to help simplify and automate the planning and forecasting of headcount and labour costs, using rules to forecast based on historical and market trends. Every customer I go to has had the requirement to improve their headcount planning processes so it is fantastic to see SAP delivering such extensive content to be leveraged across the BI & EPM solution landscape.

As a result of this continued effort I’m sure we will also see HCM related SAP HANA offerings being released during 2012. I’m particularly focusing on how SAP HANA will enable much more effective payroll reporting and modelling – particularly for those organisations that have large disparate workforces and need to ensure efficient resource utilisation is optimised.

In 2012 it will also be interesting to see how SAP integrates analytics and planning offerings for SAP HCM and Success Factors. The recent acquisition tells me that SAP are further advancing their cloud based offerings and I can see how complementary these solutions can be with existing SAP HCM investments, particularly in the key areas of workforce planning and talent management.

So there is much innovation happening within the HR space! But the important thing to remember is that with all of this valuable data you will be collecting, not only from your HR systems, but also from all other areas of the business, you need a way to leverage that data to gain insights and win the advantage over your competitors.

This is where SAP Business Intelligence with BusinessObjects can help.  Data from across all areas of the business can be combined and analysed alongside your HR data, putting real meaning behind those headline figures. This will ensure you can answer questions such as “what is my revenue or profit per FTE?”, “which areas of the business are performing the best?”, “who are my top performers, and are they being performance managed and compensated appropriately?”.

Sounds great!  But how easy is it to achieve this kind of competitive advantage?

Using SAP’s Rapid Deployment Solutions or Extend Technologies own SAP fast start program, you could be up and running within just weeks!

Click here to read more HCM blogs or BI blogs.

To speak to an Extend BI or HCM expert contact us at contact@extendtec.com.au or on 02 8908 4200.

Innovation at SAP has strongly accelerated in 2012 – equally in evolutionary improvements (SAP Business Suite 7) and breakthrough solutions (for example: SAP HANA, Mobility, Demand Driven Supply Chain and Commodity Management).

The evolutionary innovation is facilitated by:

• SAP Architecture of SAP Business Suite 7 – SAP ERP 6.0, SAP CRM 7.0, SAP PLM 7.0, SAP SCM 7.0, SAP SRM 7.0 – are now all built on the common SAP NetWeaver 7
• The release strategy using enhancement packs vs major upgrades (Enhancement Pack 6 is finishing its ramp-up process in Q2 and should be available to customers soon after)

SAP also announced at the end of 2011 that SAP Business Suite 7 will benefit from 5 extra years of software maintenance, bringing the end of mainstream maintenance to December 2020.

Below are some highlights and what I consider to be the 3 key features of the 2011 evolutionary innovation that will deliver a very fast ROI:

1. Reducing your database size x 2 – page compression
2. Finding your way through the enhancement package functionality
3. NWBC and the new user interface delivered in EhP5

Page compression for MS SQL Server

This feature applies to all installations powered by Microsoft SQL Server database 2008 or above.  I strongly recommend MS SQL Server 2008 R2 to benefit from the improved encoding for unicode.  If you haven’t upgraded yet, I’m sure this feature will make you consider it.  And there is no more reason not to perform the unicode conversion as a unicode compressed database in SQL Server 2008 R2 takes less space than a non-compressed, non-unicode database.

The page compression allows you to save more than 50% of the database space. Databases have shrunk up to 65% in some of our installations and you can typically expect up to 60%-75% compression rate.  Enabling this feature is simple and safe.  All you need is SAP BASIS support pack level 23 for NetWeaver 7.00, sp8 for NW 7.01 (EhP4) or sp6 for 7.02 (EhP5).  The compression process can take a long time (up to several days) and may consume high resources for some huge tables, but it can be done in background mode by chunk (you have the ability to select which table to compress).  And really, isn’t this a very minor temporary drawback compared to the benefit of saving more than 50% of your disk space required for the database files?

Finding your way through the enhancement package functionality

Enhancement Packs have permitted SAP to provide new features with low disruption to the business.  To me, an Enhancement Pack is similar to a Service Pack in the Microsoft Windows’ world as it contains:

1. A collection of fixes (SAP Notes) via mandatory support packages included in the enhancement pack·
2. Switchable new areas of functionality provided via business function sets

To help you navigate through the new features and improvements, SAP provides the following tools:

• http://www.sapsolutionbrowser.com: Nothing new here, this tool has been available for awhile now and keeps delivering very good information
• http://www.sapimprovementfinder.com: This is a new tool that provides lists of improvements delivered via SAP Notes (which are included in support packages and therefore included in the enhancement package)
• Business Function Prediction for SAP ERP: This is a new and free SAP Service Tool. It gives you tailored recommendations of relevant enhancement package functionality based on the usage of your SAP ERP system.  3 simple steps are required to activate this service:

1. Extract your standard transaction profile via transaction ST03N into a spreadsheet.  This contains the list of transactions used in your system.  Provide at least one month of data.

2. Go to http://service.sap.com/BFP, click on “Request a Business Function Prediction”, it opens up an email template that you need to fill in (12 very simple questions), attach the spreadsheet extracted in step 1 and hit send

3. SAP will send you the Business Function Prediction report a few days later

Go to /BFP to see a sample report or to get full step by step instructions.

NetWeaver Business Client and BP UIE v2.605

NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) has also been around for awhile now but has not been widely adopted in the SAP user base.  The main current release is NWBC 3.0 but I have been using NWBC 3.5 since November 2011 and I personally think that this version finally provides a better user experience and I am very tempted to use this tool rather than the classic SAP GUI.

This aside, in 2011 SAP delivered the SAP Best Practices User Interface Enhancement v2.605 (based on SAP ERP 6.0 EhP5).  This best practice solution is a framework that provides very interesting features that completely leverage the use of NWBC (3.0 or 3.5).  It includes 7 pre-defined scenarios and pages for NWBC with nice dashboards that pull data directly from ERP or BI.  These pre-defined scenarios and pages will help you to build your own pages for NWBC.

This Best Practices solution uses the Page Builder which is part of SAP NetWeaver 7.02 / ERP 6.0 EhP5.  Page Builder is based on ABAP Web Dynpro and allows you to create UI pages and integrate “CHIPs” (Collaborative Human Interface Part) in these UI pages.  This Best Practice solution includes additional CHIPs such as speed lookups, power lists and XCelsius Dashboards.

Pages are made available to NWBC via the usual security roles you assign to users.  Via these roles, you can configure the pages to incorporate the different CHIPs you want displayed on each page.

Here is an example of a page we have created for myCommTrade, the Extend Technologies Agri solution that facilitates Commodity Trading:

On this page, there are 2 dashboards that were created with BusinessObjects Dashboard (XCelsius), saved as a flash file and imported into SAP ERP as a Dashboard CHIP component.  Each dashboard consumes a very simple web service in myCommTrade SAP ERP system to get real time data for these graphs.  Page Builder and Best Practices UI v2.605 then allows you to add these 2 components into a custom page without any line of ABAP code.

Once you have installed this Best Practices solution and have understood the configuration principles for this framework, it is actually very quick to add a dashboard in a page you have created for NWBC.  We have also created speed lookups, power lists and integrated BI content into UI pages.  Drill down and interactions between CHIPs can also be easily configured.  Overall, this framework definitively provides a better user experience.  It is more intuitive, more attractive and delivers real benefits for the business users who get near real time visualisation of their data, processes and KPIs.

NWBC pages can be displayed via NWBC client but also via Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.  As always, limitations and pre-requisites apply (the higher your ERP enhancement pack level and support pack stack of NetWeaver, the less limitations you will have).  It even works on your mobile phone (see below picture – running on Android)!

For more information on Extend’s SAP ERP capabilities or to speak to an SAP ERP expert contact us on 02 8908 4200 or contact@extendtec.com.au

After reading the ramblings of the mad Scotsman (I am Data, Hear Me Roar blog) it got me thinking about 2 things:

1. Maybe I should ask Malcolm to type everything out, as I can’t understand a word he says – but behind that thick accent he actually has quite a bit of useful information
2. Are existing customers of SAP reading this information thinking “everything’s changing again, what about my existing investment in SAP BW development?”

Yes, HANA is going to significantly change the face of data warehousing and reporting.
Yes, you will want to rebuild some of your data warehouse solution on HANA.
Yes, HANA means you no longer require the multi tier data warehouse you have spent years developing and refining.  However …

No, you don’t have to jump head first into this change.
No, you don’t have to rebuild everything.
No, your current solution is not redundant.

It is possible to migrate your existing SAP BW system from your current database to run on HANA?  What would that do for you?  It would make your existing SAP BW stuff go fast … really fast!

How fast is fast?
Well we have been doing some internal testing on this to find out how some of this would work.  (SAP BW running on HANA is due to be released later this year).  Let’s start at the top with reporting:

• We took some basic Bex reports and ran them on top of HANA enabled SAP BW cubes and DSO’s
• There was no aggregation done on the data which gave us around 125 million records in the warehouse objects
• The queries were run with no filters so returning aggregated results of the 124 million records in around 3 to 4 seconds
• Could you imagine how long that would take on a standard BW system?

As for loading data within the data warehouse:

• 17 million records from a PSA to a DSO  in 6 minutes
• 125 million records from PSA to a DSO in 1 hour 10 minutes
• 1 billion records from a PSA to a DSO under 4 hours
• Obviously there are different performance settings that can be and have been done on these loads

Dropping the data from these objects is also really fast …

• 7 seconds to delete 17 million records
• 59 seconds to delete 1 billion records
• I admit these structures are not huge but they are big enough to give us an idea of how BW will  perform on HANA

When you look at some of the timings above, you can start to see the benefits of running SAP BW on HANA in a productive environment.  How many of us have spent long weekends and nights working on data reloads?  Or more importantly, how many times do we need long user outages to carry out data loads?  So, you could migrate your existing SAP BW system to run on a HANA database, and gain substantial improvements in performance while keeping everything you have already invested in.

As I blog, I can hear people commenting on the space usage required by the current best practice data warehouse (staging, transformation, reporting layers).  Yes, the existing best practice is somewhat redundant when using HANA (that is of course unless you want to use non cumulative key figures).

The message I am trying to get across is not that you just simply migrate your existing BW system to HANA and everything will be perfect.  I am just trying to get people thinking about ways they can take their existing build and migrate to HANA with minimal disruption to your existing reporting.  This approach is only one of many you could take, what about a landscape that was part SAP BW on HANA and part HANA modelling?

With changing technology and business requirements we are all going to have the need for in memory technology at some point over the next few years.  If you’re an existing SAP customer you probably should be considering how to integrate HANA into your strategy, now!

There are lots of options on how to take that step forward.  For assistance in making the right decision call Extend Technologies on 02 8908 4200 or email contact@extendtec.com.au

The 5th annual Mastering SAP & HR Payroll event came to a close on Wednesday 29 February after 280 or so HR and Payroll professionals from 94 organisations attended the conference with a number of these also joining instructor led workshops and information sessions.  The conference ran over 4 days with a pre-conference jump start session on Sunday evening, which led into 2 full days of conference before wrapping up with ‘Wednesday Workshop’.

Extend Technologies had an exhibition booth set up alongside our colleagues and partners from Kaba.  In a joint effort we featured an employee on-board process via a mobile registration process through an Apple iPad, where visitors to the stand were able to enter their details through an online form that created their employee record in SAP.  They were then issued with a bar code ID that allowed them to swipe a clock in and out time through the Kaba clock – all in a matter of a few minutes.  Thank you to all that visited us on stand, those that joined us for dinner and congratulations to the winners of our RedBalloon gift vouchers – we hope that you enjoy your experience.

The main conference presentations started on the Monday with an opening keynote presentation from Thomas Otter, Research Vice President from Gartner, who provided a great start and insight into the HCM technology market and the changing dynamics.  This led into another keynote presentation from Catherine Walsh and Rob Makinson from Australia Post – a really informative session covering the Australia Post performance management program.

The conference then broke into 3 presentation tracks offering delegates the opportunity to attend those information sessions that were most pertinent for them.  These sessions were a mix of both strategic and technology based content ranging from system upgrades, talent management (the hottest topic ever!), employee and manager self service, eRecruiting and workflow to name a few of interest from the first day.

After a full and pretty tiring day one, Extend was pleased to host a dinner with our friends and colleagues from the SAP HCM ecosystem.  Thank you all for taking the time to join us and we hope you enjoyed the evening.  A special thanks to SAP Mentor, Martin Gillet for joining us – especially as he had two presentations and a workshop to complete over the following days – a very busy man.

Day two started early with 7.45am breakfast sessions which led into another full day of keynote presentations and the three parallel presentation tracks to choose from.  SAP mobile HCM solutions and HCM Apps took centre stage together with coverage across SAP Payroll, HCM Analytics, Enterprise Compensation Management and that well known challenge of contractor management.  Thrown into the mix was a lunch time presentation by Andrew Lindsay from SAP that provided an overview of some new functionality from SAP’s partner solutions, Nakisa, Open Text, Click Software and Adobe.  These topics were of particular interest to our team as we are currently working on some exciting new HCM analytics offerings ourselves … watch this space for more!

For many, the second day of presentations sadly marked the end of their conference experience.  However, for some there was a final day of workshops covering process efficiencies over the hire to retire employee lifecycle, and a workshop from Martin Gillet which provided a great insight into the configuration and customisation of employee and manager self service (ESS/MSS).

Overall, this was an excellent conference for HR & Payroll professionals with an incredible amount of content and un-biased information available across a wide range of SAP HCM solutions, project approaches and learnings.  Networking opportunities were second to none and if you needed to find an answer or advice for your HR/Payroll challenge, there was unlikely to be a better place to find it!

Look forward to seeing you in Melbourne next year – 4 – 6 March 2013!

In the meantime, if you have any queries please contact an Extend SAP HCM expert on 02 8908 4200 or contact@extendtec.com.au

If you work in the Agri industry you’ll know that one of the most difficult things about the Australian agricultural industry is the terminology.  There are a lot of specific terms used and many organisations use a different word that actually means the same thing.  When I first started specialising in the industry it led to some confused looks and lost in translation moments …

You hear people talking about agents, marketers, traders, trade agents and think “wow there are a lot of players in the market”, only to realise they all mean the same thing – a counterparty who is not a grower! 

Movements must be complicated as they involve SMO’s, GMO’s, and STO’s!  Nerves settle down when you realise that all of these mean the same – an order to move stock out of a storage location.

Terms like “receival average”, “site average”, and “ticket average” get bandied about – each refers to quality measurements related to the commodity grades received.

Ownership, entitlement, or stock – which do I use to talk about inventory I own?

Ownership plant, delivery plant, GHA site, site, or depot – where is my stock held?

GHA, BHA, 3^rd party storage, external storage – who do I deal with for storage and handling of my stock?

What is a grower?  Some use grower to mean the actual farmers while others use growers to mean the farm itself.  Some use it interchangeably for both!  Where does the difficulty come in?  Share farm arrangements where multiple farmers are sharing a field or the costs of growing a crop.  The farm itself is a joint operation between 2 or more farmers.   The farm is a partnership and each of the partners is a payee – who is the grower?

Shrink is one of those sneaky terms.  Shrink refers to the amount of commodity lost through drying in storage or blowing away whenever the commodity is moved.  Is the contract or receipt shrink relevant?  Do we apply shrink, is it shrunk, is shrink applied?  Are we dealing with shrunk or unshrunk tonnage?  All of this determines the actual amount of commodity received or issued versus the amount contracted and/or paid for.

These are just some examples as there are far too many to cover in one sitting.  If only there was an industry body that could standardise terminology in the same fashion as quality standards!

And then we add SAP terminology into the mix as well … this is where I take on the role of ‘interpreter’.

For more information on Extend’s Agri industy capabilities or to speak to an SAP Agri expert contact us on 02 8908 4200 or contact@extendtec.com.au

The recent Mastering SAP HR & Payroll conference in Sydney saw a good amount of topics focusing on SAP Employee Self Service and Manager Self Service (ESS/MSS).  I went to a couple of these presentations and there was a lot of excitement as speakers shared experiences and great outcomes in recent ESS/MSS implementations.  One in particular that was interesting in terms of scope, approach and business benefit outcomes was presented by Rob Makinson of Australia Post.  Rob’s insights were particularly interesting as he is a former SAP consultant and also coordinates the SAUG SIG for HR/Payroll, so is across the challenges being faced by a lot of the SAP customer base.

Businesses currently looking at SAP ESS/MSS solutions can generally fit into one of three broad classifications.  The first group are the “leapers” – those who are just implementing SAP HCM and want to include self services when they go live in a big-bang.  The second group, the “hoppers”, is composed of businesses that have been using SAP HCM for a few or more years and are just looking to leverage the benefits of self services for the first time.  The last group are those who have been using ESS/MSS but are looking to get the benefits of the latest enhancement packs offered by SAP.  This group has been around most of the way so let’s call them, the “steppers”.  There is, however, one common denominator: There is no doubt that everyone, regardless of which category they fall in, wants the best out of what is available.

SAP Enhancement Pack 5 (EhP5) is a game changer for ESS/MSS.  While the self service applications continue with what has been great and valuable in previous releases, EhP5 addresses a few things that take out some potential hurdles in a typical implementation.  There is definitely a long list of changes and improvements but perhaps one of the more widely raved about is the use of Web Dynpro ABAP (WDA) as the new technological basis.  Through ESS EhP5 and MSS Add-on 1.0 for EhP5, the overall user experience is improved by presenting an efficient and consistent user interface across WDA services.  To the “jumpers” and “hoppers”, or even the “steppers”, this potentially means a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), thanks to having a single ABAP stack and the portal agnostic deployment option.  (For additional information on this topic, please see our previous blog with links to downloadable content)

Portal Free?

Yes, it is now possible to have ESS/MSS without the need for the SAP portal.  The deployment of ESS/MSS services can be done through NetWeaver Business Client thus making the portal optional while still leveraging only SAP technology.

ESS/MSS accessed via NWBC

In addition, with NWBC for HTML, ESS/MSS can be accessed through an internet browser window, such as Internet Explorer, making this a very quick rollout approach as most employees have a browser on their desktop/laptop or mobile device!

ESS/MSS accessed via Internet Explorer (without SAP Portal)

There is a variety of reasons why some organisations want ESS/MSS applications outside the portal (eg existing non-SAP portal, intranet, cost, etc).  I can recall spending hours after hours of meetings with a few organisations discussing options to achieve this pre EhP5.  Now, the ability to deploy without the portal is possible straight out of the box.  Of course, to those who still want to use the portal, the option is still available through a lightweight portal role.

The steps to roll out self service functionality in an organisation has become even easier through Rapid Deployment Solution (RDS) for ESS/MSS.  For “jumpers” and “hoppers”, RDS provides a good foundation as it includes the most common yet valuable applications: Display payslips, apply for and approve leave, view leave balances, timesheets, and team view, just to name a few.  As a predefined solution, business can do the “jump” or the “hop” in a quick and cost-effective manner.  It is important to note that RDS will also provide great value for the “steppers” as it should prove to be a good accelerator.  By allowing the RDS to handle the base services, effort can be spent on other specialised services.

Watch this space for more information on Extend’s RDS offering for ESS/MSS (and more!)  in coming weeks …

As someone who has been involved in ESS/MSS implementations since its early Internet Transaction Server (ITS) and Manager’s Desktop (MDT) days, I am pleased to see the application mature into what it is now and what is coming (hint: Enhancement Pack 6).  With Enhancement Pack 5 and the available RDS, organisations looking at ESS/MSS solutions are definitely just an easy leap, hop, or step away from realising its benefits.

If you are a stepper, hopper or leaper who wants more information contact us on 02 8908 4200 or contact@extendtec.com.au

Addtional links/information:

SAP EhP5 content download

SAP EhP5 HCM benefits

Screenshot of specialist Extend solution MyCommTrade ™ via NWBC

SAP Netweaver Business Client (NWBC) FAQs

So, the first thing I notice when I step off the boat is the weather.  It is exactly the same as bonny Scotland’s.  It’s cold, wet and miserable.  Australia is not delivering on the promises of the glossy brochure.  I turn up the collar of my government issued raincoat and think about my mission …

Your mission Agent Data is the establishment of a Big Data Colony in New South Wales.  Expect resistance from the locals.  Repeat – the locals may be hostile.  Remember your training, remember what we taught you.

Data is important.   Data is an asset.   Data underpins every transaction and every decision an organisation makes.  Data is a gold mine!

This message will self destruct in 5 seconds …

Anyway, a few days into my stretch I get very excited.  I begin to start playing with SAP’s new offering – HANA.  For those of you that may have been living under a rock for the past year, HANA (High Performance Analytic Application) is SAP’s real time In-Memory computing technology and it is a real game changer.  No more ifs or buts about it.  Exploiting the advantages of In-Memory computing HANA is going to let you, the user, hook into massive quantities of real time data in the memory of the server as events unfold.

Hmm … In-what now?  Hanna Barbera?  That all sounds a little bit complicated.

No not really.  Think of HANA as any other database, just that this one resides In-Memory.  This is a massive step forward as traditional disk-based systems have limits to the data they can process within a reasonable time.   HANA does not have these limitations and can therefore deliver a full spectrum of information that allows you as a user to make better decisions faster, not only on real time data but on data which will keep growing at an exponential rate.  Gasp!

All this HANA mumbo jumbo got me thinking about the long hot summer nights back in Blighty when I was carrying out covert operations for some of the larger Government Agencies (ahem … the DWP) and how this HANA beastie would have saved me many long hours of hair pulling.

1) First off, like any large government agency, the DWP was data rich but information poor.  It took me months and months of gathering requirements, designing data models and building ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) routines just to answer some pretty customary business questions.  The volumes were just huge.  It really was a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

With HANA that overhead is gone.  Using a replication engine (a fancy way of moving data), we can move all the operational and transactional data sets you want to query into HANA, create an analytical data model and bingo the data is then available for you to query.  Did I mention all this is all carried out without impacting existing applications or systems?

Hey wait a minute.  How much data are we talking about?

Lots … and lots.  Probably more than you can throw at it.  I think I read it has the power to scan 500 billion point of sale (POS) records in seconds.

2) Of course information in government agencies tends to be spread out across data silos sitting on multiple disparate systems.   I want a report that gives me the big picture – how are we going to solve that pickle?  I know, the traditional method is to use ETL to pull all the information together into a staging environment, cleanse and standardise the data and then load it into a data warehouse for reporting.  Seem familiar?  Well how about we bring all that data together into a single environment and integrate it all at time of execution In-Memory?  Faster, less time consuming, bigger consumable volumes?  You betcha!

3) “Ok Agent Data, have you forgotten about the Predicative and Statistical Modelling you have to support?  We need a strong data sample to answer a pressing MP question.  Everything must stop until this question is answered and this statistical information better be right, it will be quoted in Houses of Parliament!  We can hang you for treason!”

“OK, what’s the sample size?

“Give me 10% of the total record set.”

“Ok, that’s going to be a pretty limited set of data I’m afraid.”

“Oh well, I suppose it will have to do.”

So how would HANA handle it?  With In-Memory Data Mining and Statistical Analytics of course, on huge volumes of Big Data.

“Does it support open source R integration?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Oh, why is that important?”

“Well R is a programming language (open source means free) that gives you access to over 3000 predicative analysis algorithms written by some of the greatest minds in the world!”

“So that’s all my forecasting, customer churn, future trending, segmentation analysis, emerging buying patterns etc taken care of?”

“It sure is …”

“Wow!  I didn’t know Data Scientists are the future rock stars of the Geek world?”

“Believe it!”

4) Regional Manager – “I wish we could have a report that was like a map view of all the job centres in the UK, highlighting the top performing job centres by the number of unemployed people in terms of population.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could drill down through the map to city areas and highlight hot spots and have all this information real time on my smart phone?”

IT - “Hey that sounds like a really cool concept.  It sounds a bit like a geographic information system (GIS), whatever that is?”

Report Developer – “Sorry, I’m afraid that reports going to take a while to produce and it will be out of date by the time you get it.  As for getting it on your phone, I can email you a PDF but it won’t be interactive.”

HANA – “Sure can, how about we bring this information together using SAP BusinessObjects Mobile Analytics, Google Maps and HANA and push this information straight to your iPad which will give you the ability to highlight specific points of interest or identify issues on the map?  What other statistics would you like me to present?  Do you want me to split by age, sex, average income and number of job seeker interviews etc?”

Regional Manager – “Cool.”

As Bob Dylan once sang …”The times they are a changing …” and in the brave new world of Big Data and fast moving information, the public’s perception of your organisation is shaped, not only by the speed of which you can react, but to what extent you make a decision based on meaningful, reliable information.

For more information on HANA or to speak to our Data experts, call Extend Technologies on 02 8908 4200 or email contact@extendtec.com.au

Extend Technologies recently drew a number of our senior consultants together to update our customers in relation to HCM and EHP5.

The purpose of the session was:

1. To provide an overview of the EHP5 HCM specific content across the various process areas
2. To show a snapshot of the improvement from EHP1 through EHP4 for HCM for those who had not yet started the EHP journey
3. To drill down on HR Talent Analytics specifically to provide our perspectives on where there may be a disconnect between the stakeholders driving BI reporting requirements and those who ought to be; what can be done about this and why you should look at taking control of the HR/Pay reporting agenda in your business; We also touched on how this can be done without EHP5
4. There are always technical aspects to these types of projects; in the Basis part of the agenda, we highlighted the tools now available to customers to analyse the impacts and dependencies of applying packs and provided some high level guidelines and timeframes to use as a rule of thumb from a technical perspective. This provided some useful information for people to take to their next HRIS stakeholder meeting
5. To get a glimpse of SAP’s roadmap for HCM post EHP5, specifically around SaaS for Talent and Mobility

The session was fully booked out in both Sydney and Melbourne and some lively discussion ensued during the break and after the session concluded.  A lot of attendees expressed an appreciation for the various perspectives provided (BI, HR and Basis) – as we tried to do this from a HCM stakeholder perspective – which, from the feedback received, resonated well.

The full slide deck is now available for download and we also welcome any requests on future breakfast topics.  To summarise, this slide deck contains:

• EHP1 – EHP4 summary content for HCM
• EHP5 summary by process and detailed screenshots; new user experience, ECM updates, Nakisa ‘look and feel’ in MSS, freedom from NetWeaver Portal and much more
• EHP5 HCM Analytics; information from the experts in relation to ‘why?’ and benefits; some information on how to engage on a project pre-EHP5
• How to get there – a technical (Basis) perspective, showing the tools available; suggested technical timeline, etc
• SAP roadmap: EHP6, Renovation and HCM Mobility

As a teaser, Extend Technologies have started to plan our HR/Payroll HR Analytics session and to discuss options for enabling rapid take-up for our customers. Watch this space for more or get in touch directly via our contact form.

Thanks again to everybody for attending and for those that couldn’t join us, we look forward to seeing you at our next event.

Click here to dowload the slides from the AP EHP5 HCM Information Session.

For more information or to speak to one of our experienced consultants contact us on (02) 8908 4200 or contact@extendtec.com.au

Each release of SAP Enhancement Packages offers the opportunity for companies to implement richer functionality and enhanced end-user experiences across a number of HCM processes.  How many times do we hear “can’t you make the screen more intuitive”, “surely you must be able to do …?”

Being able to establish exactly what benefits can be realised from an Enhancement Package implementation, versus the amount of effort, system dependencies and risks require considerable research that can be time consuming and frustrating. 

Building a business case to secure the funds for an Enhancement Package implementation and being able to demonstrate tangible and non-tangible benefits that the implementation will deliver can be equally difficult.

Enhancement Packages are not HCM specific and their implementation has to be considered in conjunction with the other SAP applications that are being used, and the overall system landscape.

Extend Technologies will be running a 2 hour breakfast briefing where we will provide an overview of the business benefits that Enhancement Package 5  can provide to the HCM processes in your organisation,  and discuss implementation strategies with a view to accelerate your decision making and planning preparations.

Presentations will be given from a business process and functional perspective covering key areas such as:

• Building the workforce
• Developing a high performing workforce
• Driving efficient HR operations

We will also cover HCM analytics through Business Intelligence and a ‘how to get there’ session to help you understand the technical considerations and dependencies.  Our Business Intelligence and Basis experts will be presenting and will be available to answer your questions.

What is coming beyond Enhancement Package 5?  HCM solution experts from SAP will give us a preview of what to expect in future releases and an idea of timeline for these.

This information session will bring together representatives from a number of organisations throughout Australia who are using SAP HCM solutions. You will be able to network with others and we are sure will gain benefit and be better informed of Enhancement Package 5 content after attending this event.

The breakfast briefing session will be held in the following 3 locations:

Sydney – 10 November  | 9:00am -11:00am
Extend Technologies Sydney Office – Level 8, 124 Walker Street, North Sydney

Melbourne – 10 November | 9:00am -11:00am
Extend Technologies Melbourne Office – Level 9, 409 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

Brisbane – 11 November | 8:00am -10:00am
Extend Technologies Brisbane Office - 5 Florence Street, Newstead

For more information on this event click here, or to register submit your Name, Job Title, Company and Email Address to contact@extendtec.com.au with subject title “EHP5 Briefing”.