Innovation Discovery from ASUG Webcast – Important Information to Know

This was an ASUG Webcast that SAP gave last month.  There is a new Innovation Discovery tool on Service Marketplace.  Please note the usual legal disclaimer applies that things are subject to change:

Source: SAP

The SAP speakers said it helps you come decision to implement for your company

It used a product feature database so that the quality of data in innovation discovery is as high as possible

SAP is trying to consolidate existing tools

Figure 1: Source: SAP

This has been available since February.  The link is service.sap.com/innovation-discovery

It is a self-service tool, should be able to find on your own

You can use it to judge functionality, price, what do you need to install, can you use without an upgrade

It takes Early Watch data from SAP Solution Manager you can get enriched analysis

SAP met with customers, started with Max Attention customers, as these customers said they have difficulties finding functionality

SAP went to DSAG user conference and performed a usability test; they also had usability tests with VNSG

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Who is the target group?

Main person using business area IT or LoB Tech (in the middle of Figure 2)

They find new functionality for the line of business and get aligned with IT

It is also aligned for IT to obtain a link that new functionality is implemented

Link is service.sap.com/innovation-discovery

Then SAP showed a demo.  I followed along taking screen shots of the Innovation Discovery tool myself.

Figure 3

Click start application (right of Figure 3)

Read documentation link is on right of Figure 3

Figure 4

You can type in a search term at the top of Figure 4

You an also personalize

Figure 5

For more granular, click on Solution Areas

Figure 6

Figure 6 shows a description of the solution

Figure 7

You can see the breadcrumb path above (Results > Cross Industry > Finance > Accounting and Finance Close > Entity Close ERP

You can see by the icons this innovation is designed to run on HANA

It has a UX improvement

It runs on mobile devices

The $ means it requires additional licenses

If it used analytics you would see a column chart icon

Figure 8

Click on UX and click on UX Explorer icon for more information

Figure 9

Figure 9 shows the technical information about products from the Technical tab.   You can add to favorites or e-mail to your colleagues

Figure 10

You can create  a group  of favorites too

Figure 11

Figure 11 shows search prompt suggestions, or you can search by selections

Figure 12

This feature has a recording attached in the reference links, along with screen shots

System requirements:

Need an S-USER on Service Marketplace

Figure 13

To see your system specific part, you need read authorization to a specific system (I do not)

From the SAP demo:

Figure 14: Source: SAP

This is the view if you click the Systems hyperlink

Normal looking boxes – early watch data is available

Orange boxes – early watch data is not available

Figure 15: Source: SAP

Activation status tile lists what is not activated in your system

High impact tile lists all innovations quite frequently used on company – top 100 transactions  and the measure is how many users using transaction and compare whether something is used

You can then judge / realize whether you get process improvement

Ready to use tile requirement of new functionality – use without an additional upgrade

Return to standard tile is planned – “return to standard” – you modified transaction, and SAP has plans for new innovation for that transaction

Figure 16: Source: SAP

Figure 16 shows where the innovation discovery data comes from

Product content is coming from authoring backbone

Process ensures the products teams are providing content – provided by product & solutions team – not marketing

How ensure high quality? Product availability matrix

Consistent terminology uses corporate taxonomy

Figure 17: Source: SAP

Figure 17 shows that some tool consolidation has taken place with the Innovation Discovery tool; some is planned

The plan to consolidate other services into Innovation Discovery

Business Function Prediction  – by end of 2014 it goes away

Ehp InfoCenter & Solution Browser – covered by Innovation Discovery – replaced later this year

SAP Improvement Finder is planed to be replaced in 2015

Left side – Solution Explorer – service on sap.com that gives you overview of end to end SAP solutions

So I encourage you to check this out.