SAP Business ByDesign Cloud ERP mobile apps for smartphones

SAP Business ByDesign – SAP’s Cloud ERP for the midmarket – has been providing built-in mobility and collaboration capabilities since its very early days. Examples for this are the built-in collaboration, apps for mobile project management or self-service and approval apps which can be used either on iOS or Android smartphones, tablets or on desktop devices.

Since the general availability of the new Fiori HTML5 user interface (which can be also used on tablets) and the enhanced embedded analytics on SAP HANA we have put our focus since 1811 on bringing our smartphone apps on iOS (>=9.3) and Android (>=5.0) to the next level. The new app is available as free download on iTunes, Google Play  and Tencent in China. It replaces the old (orange) ByDesign mobile app you might know from the past.

This blog features the following topics regarding mobility on smartphones:

• Analytics and customer 360
• Customer 360, contact, activity and lead management
• Service order and confirmation
• Employee self-services
• Manager approvals and administration
• Configuration and personalization of the mobile app
• Using the mobile screens on the desktop
• Building custom mobile apps
• Documentation and more materials

The following videos give you a good overview on the most important mobile apps:

1. Mobile analytics with KPIs, reports and Customer 360 view

1. Define reports views and key performance indicators (KPIs) on e.g. customer and team key figures on the desktop
2. Consume KPIs on the smartphone launchpad and with a separate KPI app
3. Consume any report view on the smartphone by marking them as bookmark in the desktop
4. Customer 360 view for most important facts, key figures and reports of an account
5. Directly navigate to the last activity from customer 360 view

This means that managers and employees are able to define custom or to use sample KPIs from SAP and to adapt them to their needs for smartphone or desktop consumption e.g.:

• Marketing Generated Sales: Measure Campaign success by value of related sales orders
• Lead Quantity and Quality: Aggregates the number of leads for the current and previous years by lead status
• Projected Sales: Sales Target Achievement by Incoming Orders
• Service Requests Completed and more

2. Customer 360, contact and activity management

1. See most important address information and trigger actions like calls and mails
2. Get an overview on open business documents like opportunities, quotes and also the volume of sales orders
3. See and interact with all contacts
4. See and create task, call or appointment activities

3. Lead Management with hand-over to sales

SAP Business ByDesign lead management is also covered with our mobile app.

1. Marketing, sales, service employees and managers are able to
2. Create leads, qualify them and hand them over to sales with our without assigned accounts
3. Sales employees can receive new lead with
   • the “Leads in New Business” app
   • See the list of activities e.g. appointment, tasks, phone calls etc.

Here is a quick demo for lead creation without account just by scanning a business card:

4. Service order and confirmation for service engineers

• Receive and confirm service orders either on the smartphone or on tablets
• See order, contact and item details
• Easy route planning using e.g. Google maps

More on the route planner on the desktop and how to configure it can be found here.

5. Employee self services for shopping cart, expense reporting and leave requests (new in 1902)

Here is a demo of the mobile intelligent expense report scan scenario which is under controlled availability since 21.02:

1. Personalize access to expense reports on the smartphone launchpad
2. Create and track expense reports
3. Approvals can be done by the manager either on the smartphone or on the desktop.

1. Browse product catalog, create and track shopping carts
2. Approvals can be done by the manager either on the smartphone or on the desktop. Manager approvals and Time recording are separate smartphone apps.

Employees and managers are able to create and approve leave requests on smartphones. Manager approvals are done with the separate approval app.

6. Mobile approvals for managers and user administration

Since 2005 managers are able to launch the manager approval app inside the ByDesign mobile app and do not need to install the separate app anymore. Features of the stand-alone and embedded app are equal:

1. Approvals as within ByD mobile app
2. Approve purchase orders, expenses, quotes and more
3. Swipe to accept or reject with flexible grouping of approvals e.g. by cost center, project, task or employee
4. Add comments

Here is the list of approvals which are available on the smartphone:

• Customer Invoices and credit memos (new with 2011)
• ŸExpenses
• ŸGoods & Services Receipts
• ŸLeave Requests
• ŸŸPurchase Orders
• ŸPurchase Order Items
• ŸŸPurchasing Contracts
• ŸSales Orders
• Sales Quotes
• Service Orders
• ŸShopping Carts
• ŸSupplier Creation Approvals (new with 21.08)
• Supplier Invoices
• Time Recordings

In addition you can also administer business and technical users using the ByD Mobile app if you have the “Application and User Management” work center assigned:

7. Personalization, configuration and adaptation of apps and KPIs for consumption on smartphones

The ByD mobile app provides access to various capabilities like reports, KPI, account and contact management, self-services and more. Prerequisite to use it is that your company gives you authorization to use those additional work areas in your corporate ByD system. If this is not the case you see only the parts for which you are authorized for per default (e.g. self-services). So please get in touch with your ByD system administrator to give you the right privileges and system credentials.

Managers and employees are able to personalize which apps and KPIs appear on the smartphone launchpad. To do this users have to:

1. Activate personalization mode
2. Add or remove a tile by clicking on the plus or x icon
3. Add or remove an app by tapping on the pin icon
4. Similarly mashups and KPIs can be added
5. Save and stop the personalization mode
6. Apps like Accounts, Field Service etc. only appear if the desktop work centers have also been assigned to the user

Here you find a blog which explains this in more details.

Furthermore you can also use the Key User Adaption and Personalization Mode on the Desktop to adapt the mobile screens. With this you can enable e.g. to use extension fields on the mobile user interfaces or introduce custom work center lists.

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To access this you need to logon on your desktop and use a special UI parameter “&sapbyd-agent=MBLHTML” in the URL:

https://my123456.sapbydesign.com/sap/ap/ui/repository/SAP_UI/HTMLOBERON5/client.html?app.component=/SAP_UI_CT/Main/root.uiccwoc&rootWindow=X&redirectUrl=/sap/byd/runtime&sapbyd-agent=MBLHTML

To configure the KPIs in the separate KPI app users have to do the following:

1. Open the KPI app which can display more KPIs which are not directly embedded into the launchpad
2. Click the gear icon to select which KPIs are relevant
3. Check the KPIs needed and confirm with save.

In addition users can configure any report view and selection combination to be shown on the smartphone. To do so users need to do the following steps:

1. Open the report on the desktop
2. Show bookmark page
3. Click on the plus icon and enter name and description which will appear on the mobile
4. Select “On Mobile” and confirm with Save
5. Afterwards the bookmark will be displayed in the reports app on the smartphone.

Finally the ByDesign system administrator can decide to activate fingerprint as authorization method in the default or any other security policy.

1. Administrators can activate in the common task for ”Security Policy” app passwords
2. Users can enter a local password which enables to use fingerprint for future logins

8. Simulate the mobile app on the desktop

You can also simulate using the mobile app on your desktop. You just need to add the suffix “/mobileClient.html” as extension to your ByD system URL and switch to developer tools in Chrome or Firefox:

https://my1XXXXXX.sapbydesign.com/sap/public/ap/ui/repository/SAP_UI/HTMLOBERON5/mobileClient.html

9. Mobile app development and extension

In addition to developing freestyle apps using SAP Cloud Platform or any other tool set partners and customers can extend and build own mobile apps using the SAP Cloud Application Studio:

• Here you can learn in a video how to build custom mobile apps or extend standard apps
• Here you can read more from my colleagues Alex Patterer which has provided the mobile solution template.
• Download the mobile solution template “Mobile Bulletin Board Solution Template” to learn and get started

10. Documentation and more

• PartnerEdge ByDesign Powerpoint (Login is required)
• Demos on the other mobile apps (e.g. manager approval)
• Help: SAP Business ByDesign Mobile Overview
• Help: SAP Business ByDesign Mobile app for smartphones
• Help: SAP Time Recording App
• Help: SAP Manager Approvals App
• More about all SAP Cloud ERP solutions can be found here.

Disclaimer

This blog, or any related document and SAP’s strategy and possible future developments, products and or platforms directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this blog is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality.  This blog is provided without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. This blog is for informational purposes and may not be incorporated into a contract. SAP assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this presentation, except if such damages were caused by SAP’s intentional or gross negligence.

All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.