As one of the leading industrial gas and engineering company in the world, Germany-based Linde knows a thing or two about scale. With roughly more than 80,000 employees, its business processes need to be efficient and consistent across the company in order to maximize productivity. They used SAP Fiori elements to build apps that simplify how their employees interact with their SAP system.
Updating a legacy system from 2009
In Linde’s engineering division, the Project Data Portal (PDP) presented an opportunity to utilize the simple app development processes that SAP Fiori elements provides. The portal offers a comprehensive look at the company’s projects, from management-level overviews to detailed reports for specific departments. Originally launched in 2001, the PDP provided access to 150 pages at its peak, of which about 50 different pages became hot spots for the various user groups within Linde engineering’s global project execution teams.
The portal was built using a mix of disparate technologies, including Excel, Java, JavaScript, WebSphere and a non-SAP database. Development ended in 2009.
Ready to deliver an all-new experience, Linde decided it would aim for efficiency and consistency in all processes — including development. The company strove for consistency through and through: from a SAP HANA database, through a SAP application server, all the way to SAP Fiori: the user experience of SAP.
With this mission in mind, the company began its journey to deliver a new and improved experience for its users.
Delivering the SAP Fiori User experience
With its SAP foundations in place, Linde now faced its next challenge: delivering a large number of apps within a tight project schedule.
In order to meet these requirements, the team at Linde decided to use a combination of SAP Fiori elements and standard SAPUI5 development. The decision to use SAP Fiori elements was based on a need to maximize developer productivity, enforce UX consistency, as well as minimize the amount of coding required.
The SAP Fiori launchpad provides 1-click access to a variety of role-based apps.
Over the course of 8 months, the Linde team delivered 35 SAP Fiori apps. 30 of these were developed with SAP Fiori elements. The combination of traditional freestyle development and SAP Fiori elements allowed Linde to innovate and iterate quickly, as well as to meet their diverse requirements. SAP Fiori elements also ensured a consistent look and feel throughout the company’s applications.
The overview page show key information at a glance, with the ability to drill down for more information.
“SAP Fiori elements allowed us to accelerate our development timeline and to ensure apps built by different teams looked and performed the same,” said Thomas Schoen, Head of IT Systems for Business Administration, Linde Engineering. “The floorplans cover most of our scenarios and give us a basic structure we can use to create SAP Fiori apps quickly and easily. They fit well into our agile processes and allow us to create apps and capture user feedback on a shorter timeframe.”
Sample list report with search bar on top. Format and navigation provided by SAP Fiori elements.
With its strong start, Linde is poised to continue its user experience transformation. Over the next 6 months, it plans to roll out 30 more SAP Fiori apps — creating a greater reach for the SAP Fiori UX and delivering a better work experience for even more users.
The flexible column layout gives Linde employees access to the information they need to make decisions.
“The feedback from our end-users on the new apps has been very positive. We were able to meet most of their business requirements with SAP Fiori elements plus a little tuning from our development teams,” commented Wolfgang Lechner, Inhouse IT Consultant, Linde Engineering. “We can provide a rich and modern user experience that reduces the training requirements significantly. SAP has been very open to our feedback and continues to refine their tools to address our requirements.”
Learn more
www.linde.com
www.sapfiorielements.com
Getting started with SAP Fiori elements video series
Updating a legacy system from 2009
In Linde’s engineering division, the Project Data Portal (PDP) presented an opportunity to utilize the simple app development processes that SAP Fiori elements provides. The portal offers a comprehensive look at the company’s projects, from management-level overviews to detailed reports for specific departments. Originally launched in 2001, the PDP provided access to 150 pages at its peak, of which about 50 different pages became hot spots for the various user groups within Linde engineering’s global project execution teams.
The portal was built using a mix of disparate technologies, including Excel, Java, JavaScript, WebSphere and a non-SAP database. Development ended in 2009.
Ready to deliver an all-new experience, Linde decided it would aim for efficiency and consistency in all processes — including development. The company strove for consistency through and through: from a SAP HANA database, through a SAP application server, all the way to SAP Fiori: the user experience of SAP.
With this mission in mind, the company began its journey to deliver a new and improved experience for its users.
Delivering the SAP Fiori User experience
With its SAP foundations in place, Linde now faced its next challenge: delivering a large number of apps within a tight project schedule.
In order to meet these requirements, the team at Linde decided to use a combination of SAP Fiori elements and standard SAPUI5 development. The decision to use SAP Fiori elements was based on a need to maximize developer productivity, enforce UX consistency, as well as minimize the amount of coding required.
The SAP Fiori launchpad provides 1-click access to a variety of role-based apps.
Over the course of 8 months, the Linde team delivered 35 SAP Fiori apps. 30 of these were developed with SAP Fiori elements. The combination of traditional freestyle development and SAP Fiori elements allowed Linde to innovate and iterate quickly, as well as to meet their diverse requirements. SAP Fiori elements also ensured a consistent look and feel throughout the company’s applications.
The overview page show key information at a glance, with the ability to drill down for more information.
“SAP Fiori elements allowed us to accelerate our development timeline and to ensure apps built by different teams looked and performed the same,” said Thomas Schoen, Head of IT Systems for Business Administration, Linde Engineering. “The floorplans cover most of our scenarios and give us a basic structure we can use to create SAP Fiori apps quickly and easily. They fit well into our agile processes and allow us to create apps and capture user feedback on a shorter timeframe.”
Sample list report with search bar on top. Format and navigation provided by SAP Fiori elements.
With its strong start, Linde is poised to continue its user experience transformation. Over the next 6 months, it plans to roll out 30 more SAP Fiori apps — creating a greater reach for the SAP Fiori UX and delivering a better work experience for even more users.
The flexible column layout gives Linde employees access to the information they need to make decisions.
“The feedback from our end-users on the new apps has been very positive. We were able to meet most of their business requirements with SAP Fiori elements plus a little tuning from our development teams,” commented Wolfgang Lechner, Inhouse IT Consultant, Linde Engineering. “We can provide a rich and modern user experience that reduces the training requirements significantly. SAP has been very open to our feedback and continues to refine their tools to address our requirements.”
Learn more
www.linde.com
www.sapfiorielements.com
Getting started with SAP Fiori elements video series
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