Product Information
SAP Asset Manager 2010 Now Available — What’s New?
The last few months have been challenging for all. While this is our first SAP Asset Manager release developed completely remotely; our development team carries on with the same commitment to deliver a best-in-class solution. Our team brings together a wealth of asset management experience to build an enterprise-grade mobile solution that enables easy and timely execution of end-to-end asset management on the go.
Which features were delivered in the 2010 release?
We continue to expand the features and capabilities of SAP Asset Manager to meet the demands of customers across a diverse industry landscape. The 2010 release introduces significant new capabilities by bringing new data sources to the mobile device and improving the efficiency and accountability of the maintenance process.
Quality Management (QM) component
Our customers use the collection of SAP Asset Manager component add-ons, such as Field Operation Worker and Customer Service, to bring new data to the application from backend ERP components. With the new Quality Management (QM) component, an inspector can use the mobile device to execute criteria-based inspection plans.
When an inspection is performed, the results of the inspection should be recorded for each of the inspection points. The Quality Management component adds support for the calibration and inspection lot recording process with multiple inspection points. An inspector may view and edit quantitative characteristics to valuate material conformance against inspection specifications.
An inspection lot may be accepted as being within tolerance or rejected if the inspection finds the results do not meet the specification for a certain characteristic. If rejected, the inspector may easy create a defect notification.
Online visibility and tracking of incoming raw materials, parts, and subassemblies are critical to a successful quality control program. The Quality Management component for SAP Asset Manager will be a valuable tool for fast, efficient, and accurate processing of inspection information.
Signature capture
For many of our customers, especially those in regulated industries, capturing a signature is an essential part of the maintenance process.
We are introducing a new signature capture control in this release which allows a technician to sign directly on the device. The signature is saved as an attachment to the order and sent to the backend system on the next sync.
When to require a signature capture is easily customizable in the application metadata, i.e., on work order, operation, or sub-operation complete.
We are pleased to bring this often-requested functionality to the application and we are actively working on digital signature support for an upcoming release.
Enhancements to Consolidated Form for Inspection Readings
We continue to improve to user experience for completing inspection rounds, common maintenance procedures where technicians gather multiple measurement readings at once.
The Work Order detail view now includes a “Readings taken” indicator to gauge progress, which also doubles as a quick link to open the “Take Readings” form view. The form consolidates measurement readings for all equipment and functional locations across all operations. When using a tablet device, the form view is now full screen to provide a distraction-free experience.
We have also added a new “Show only PRT” filter option show only measurement points by production resources and tools (PRTs). This gives technicians yet another way to narrow down the list of readings to best suit their process.
Additional Linear Asset Management Support
Technicians are now able to add and update linear data when creating or editing work orders and notifications.
Linear Asset Management data is critical to many industries, providing flexibility to describe, display, and manage linear assets such as pipelines, roads, railway tracks, power lines and cable. This important functionality builds on our previous release which introduced the ability to view linear asset data.
When working on a linear asset in the field, a technician may discover a discrepancy in location data relative to a marker, such as a milepost, and need to correct it. Furthermore, when working on a segment of a linear asset the technician may need to record measurements and associate time confirmations for that linear segment.
All of this is now available on the mobile app when Linear Asset Management is enabled in Plant Maintenance.
Integration with SAP Geographical Enablement Framework (GEF) and SAP ArchiveLink
Our customers rely on a variety of SAP products and services. The valuable feedback we receive from stakeholders helps us evaluate and choose the integrations that will provide the most benefit. I have two such integrations to announce.
The Geographical Enablement Framework integration enables the application to fetch geo-enabled business objects as well as Esri basemaps and feature layers that are configured in GEF. Data management is simplified when additional data mappings are no longer necessary.
Since SAP systems are usually co-located with GEF, customers often report performance improvements and security concerns are minimized when working within SAP systems.
SAP ArchiveLink
The SAP ArchiveLink integration allows the application to connect with external document management systems, such as OpenText. Technicians will be able to download attachments to the mobile device regardless of their locations, while the ArchiveLink service will manage their uploads with links to the proper objects.
These backend enhancements will bolster a technician’s important work with the ability to access additional data sources and services.
Additional updates
Lastly, we have implemented some smaller yet notable improvements.
End-user license agreement (EULA) and privacy policy statements are now available in the language set on the mobile device, assuming the language is supported. This update advances compliance with China’s Cybersecurity Law (CSL).
Also added is support for SAP Asset Strategy and Performance Management checklists for functional locations.
When is the release available?
SAP Asset Manager 2010 is available now. The application is publicly available and includes an offline demo mode for viewing and testing the extensive functionality with Quality Management, Field Operation Worker, Crew Reporting, and Customer Service add-on components included.
The application may be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Hi Zack,
Thanks for the useful information delivered. I wanted to know: for the signature capture, you said that it can be easily customized in the app metadata: can you detail how it needs to be configured please? Is it a metadata to be activated in the Mobile Kit Development? Is something else to configure next in the config panel?
Let me know if you have more information on how to implement it please.
Thanks,
D.R.
Dany,
The metadata configuration is done using the Mobile Development Kit. Please look at the Help Portal section Customizing Metadata using the Mobile Development Kit for more information.
Zack
Hi Zack,
In the case (which I have) the customer has the gas distribution grid represented in their Esri GIS, is it posible to represent this grid in the map in SAM, through the esri layer integration in configpanel?
Also, in the demo version, I have noticed that when opening a direction/route from the map through Google Maps or Here Maps, SAM sends correctly the object location. However it seems to not work the same way with Waze, as it opens Waze but Waze does not show the location. It has too be an enhancement to work with Waze?
Thanks in advance,
Gonzalo.
Gonzalo,
It should be possible to display the grid from Esri GIS on the SAP Asset Manager map through configuration as you describe.
Thanks for pointing out the Waze issue. We support only Apple Maps and Google Maps but I will log this for further investigation by our team.
Zack
Dear Zack -
Can we run SAP Asset Manager 2010 on on-premise SAP Cloud Platform, or, do we have to deploy it using SAP Cloud Mobile Platform? We would prefer SAP Cloud Platform Mobile, but it seems we are missing some quotas in SAP Cloud Platform.
Thank you,
Hi Ronald,
SAP Asset Manager runs on SAP Cloud Platform, utilizing the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services. There is no on-premise version of SAP Cloud Platform available.
I recommend you refer to the Cloud Platform Overview in the SAP Asset Manager Help Portal. In this same document, you will also find quota details in the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services - Setting Up a Cloud Foundry Environment, Single Instance section.
Zack
Zack Frazier - Thank you so much.
We are working in a NEO environment, and I am getting ready to go through the required docs. I just needed to make sure we can remove a requirement for On-prem SAP Mobile Platform servers from our BOM.
Kind regards,
Dear Zack,
Thanks for the useful information.
Can you please let me know if we have SAP reference documentation for enabling the new feature 'SAP ArchiveLink Support for Document Management in our internal system where we have set up SAM 2010?
Regards,
Anselm
Hi Anselm,
There is no special configuration from the SAP Asset Manager client perspective. As long as the configuration for ArchiveLink works with the SAP backend, SAP Asset Manage should work with regular document flow.
I'll refer you to Configuring Document Management in the SAP Asset Manager Configuration Guide for more details on the methods available.
Zack