Last week I had the opportunity to speak at our local SAP Inside Track event with some of my fellow IT colleagues here in Vancouver (shout out to Rey, Dylan, Rahul and Kishore). The theme for the event was Mobility Madness and we spoke about some of the trends we’re seeing in Enterprise Mobility and some of the solutions that SAP Global IT has implemented to keep up with them. So as might be expected, in preparation for the event, I've done a lot of reading and experimentation on mobile, specifically SAP mobile, over the past month or so. I went crazy installing basically every SAP app in the AppStore and set up my iPad and iPhone for all our 3-letter IT services like VPN, SSO and WTS.
But it wasn't until today, when my trusty laptop wouldn't boot, that I realized the true value of the work we've already done mobilizing our own enterprise. I had a lot things to do today and it wasn't a good time for my laptop to crash. I didn't have time to take my laptop in to be repaired (yes, even IT employees need support now and then), so I started to wonder if I could work mobile for the day and still be productive.
I already had instant access to my email and calendar, which is pretty standard. I also had access all the files I needed to work, synced to my mobile devices with SAPBox, our internal Dropbox-like application. I had the SSO app and VPN configured on my iPad and iPhone, so access to our Portal and internal Communities was no problem either.
After spending the morning working on email and other administrative tasks, I was able to quickly dial in to the North America All Hands call using our internal EasyConnect app on my iPhone (sparing me the hassle of having to look up the password in my email first). I wasn't able to view the SAP TV broadcast on my iPad though, unfortunately. But if the meeting had been presented via SAPConnect, I would have been able to connect via the AdobeConnect app.
Even my development work, that I thought I'd never be able to do without a real computer, was possible using VPN and Citrix Receiver to connect to my WTS desktop. I was even able to simulate a desktop environment by pairing a bluetooth keyboard and mirroring my iPad display wirelessly to my TV via AirPlay. With a little extra configuration, I could even use my iPhone as a trackpad for my iPad Citrix session.
Finally there's this blog post, easily retrieved and finished in Evernote before being submitted to SCN. All in all, it was a productive day, despite the fact that my laptop has been off since last night.
Sent from my iPad.
