SAP and Apple Partnership

The much-awaited SAP and Apple partnership kicked off in late March 2017 with the release of the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS. Subsequently, two apps – SAP Asset Manager App and SAP Project Companions App for Managers and Consultants – were released.

Now let’s take a sneak peek into the features of these apps and the SAP Fiori Roadmap for their product direction for upcoming releases.

Fiori for iOS

Fiori for iOS excited developers as it was a melange of Fiori and iOS Human User Interface Guidelines. SAP Fiori has a set of design guidelines that sits over the iOS Design Guidelines. Apple’s set of guidelines works tremendously well with consumer apps, but not so much with enterprise apps, as they deal with a lot of complex data. For instance, let’s say you want to display the purchase order, delivery date, and customer name in a single cell in a list of control; how is it possible to maintain a great UI and still include all those details in a single cell?

The tagline of this partnership ‘iOS Simplicity meets SAP Power’ rings true here; Fiori guidelines steps in to present complexity in a simple manner with the look and feel of iOS. This facilitates the enterprise adopting the apps quickly and solving problems with so much ease.

Let’s move in to take a look at the recently released SAP Fiori Roadmap for iOS apps.

SAP Asset Manager App

The SAP Asset Manager allows you to manage work orders, notifications, condition monitoring, material consumption, time management and failure analysis. It supports the needs of highly skilled maintenance workers who manage enterprise assets with complex information and business logic, either connected to a network or offline.

Key Features

Provides access to different sources of enterprise data in real-time – Drive measurable outcomes for your business with timely and accurate information on asset health, inventory,

maintenance, and checklists.

Mobile-enabled to increase productivity – Remote workers can access and manage work orders and notifications on the go even in networks with low or no connectivity. Users can access the information they need anywhere and anytime.

Simple and intuitive User Interface– Get amazing context-rich visualization and actionable insights that significantly increases user adoption.

Future Product Direction:

Add more functionality to SAP Asset Manager in line with SAP Work Manager, incorporating features such as Meter Management, Customer Service, Linear Asset Management and Inspection rounds, and SAP Multisource Scheduling (MRS) integration.
App integration with SAP Asset Intelligence and SAP Predictive Maintenance Services solution and by leveraging it with SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Leonardo IoT Foundation portfolio, offering field maintenance professionals real-time insights into the assets they service.
Android and Windows Support.
Integration into SAP ERP and S/4 HANA Cloud.

SAP Project Companions App for Managers and Consultants

In today’s business economy, there’s constant pressure to do more, faster and with less. This means a transformation in business processes to optimize project execution. The SAP Project Companions App for Managers and SAP Project Companion App for Consultants expedite teamwork by providing a clear overview of daily actions.

Key Features

Streamlines information in one place – Gives project members access to timelines, budgets, activities, and facilitates in quick creation of reports.

Digitize processes – Improves project collaboration by digitalizing paper-based processes such as task assignments, requests, and follow-up actions. Preserve pictures, notes, and all relevant content.

Improved Communication – Greater efficiency within the team as project related communication is simplified; this increases productivity and reduces the time that unplanned distractions can cause.

Future Product Direction:

Analysis of project data captured
Notifications about incomplete timesheets and apple watch support
Convert emails to actions and connect meetings with actions, topics, and* timelines
Generate consultant availability information

Much more is expected from the SAP and Apple Partnership and we’ll keep you updated. Stay tuned for where the SAP Fiori Roadmap is heading next!