Sapphire and DSAG
In the last two weeks something amazing happend: I was able to attend two in-person events. The first one was DSAG Technologietage 2022 in Düsseldorf, the second one was Sapphire Orlando.
Sapphire Keynote
In both events one of my highlights was meeting and speaking to "real" people. It is just amazing how important the time is to walk from one session to the next one. You meet so many people, catch up with them, exchange ideas, … It is incredible how much work is getting done in these 15 minutes.
What happens at Sapphire...
In both events I talked a lot about SAP and Microsoft. About the infrastructure (the amazing thing that thyssenkrupp did when migrating a heterogenes system landscape with 90+ SIDs in 10 months (yes: 10 months) from on-premises to Azure), running SAP on Azure by leveraging Azure Monitor for SAP, Azure Backup for SAP and more combined in a new framework. And of course the extend and innovate story (building new apps on Azure connecting with SAP, leveraging Event Driven Archictures accross Avent Grid and SAP Event Mesh).
You can find a list of some of the latest announcement in our Sapphire Blog post (SAP on Azure Product Announcements Summary – SAP Sapphire 2022 (microsoft.com))
One other highlight for me was also to talk about Low-code!
There is a lot of tracktion at the moment for SAP and low-code.
- steinermatt : kicked-off some controversials discussions around low code: Myth-Busting No-Code/Low-Code | SAP Blogs
- The great paul.mindset and james.wood completed their second season of their SwitchedOn podcast focusing on low code, Podcast Episode! Season Finale! SOMEONE DIES | by Paul Modderman | May, 2022 | Switched On: The Bowd...
- Then very recently daniel.wroblewski published his 100 days of SAP low and no code – join me | SAP Blogs journey
- And ulrich.hoffmann talked about the SAP BTP Roadshow in Switzerland speaking about Low-Code | SAP Blogs
- During Sapphire I was able to talk to a lot of folks from SAP and saw some really good demos on how to use SAP Process Automation and AppGyver, e.g. SAP Sapphire & ASUG Accelerate Orlando | May 10–12, 2022 | Home [unfortunately no slides available yet]
The focus that SAP is putting on low-code is just a reflection what we from Microsoft also see in the market. There are so many customers currently using SAP and low-code. And it makes totally sense.
We all feel and have heard about the shortage of developers and the need to do something.
So I fully appreciate SAP investing in this areas. With tools like AppGyver, SAP Process Automation, SAP Mobile Start, … SAP is helping SAP users to build new applications.
Other partner tools like Neptune (Low-Code Enterprise App Development | Neptune Software (neptune-software.com)) also enable the ABAP developer in a fantastic way to build apps without spending too much time of writing code line-by-line.
What I see complementing all of this -- by addressing a completely different user-base than the tools mentioned above -- is the Power Platform.
addressable users
Not if, but when
First of all: we don't talk about "If" anymore. Cloud based governance address already the typical objections regarding shadow-it, governance, security, pro-code vs. Low-code developers. The Power Platform has good answers for all of this and that's what is clearly reflected by our customers. see Center of Excellence Starter Kit - Overview - YouTube]
With nearly 20 million monthly active users (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2022/earnings-fy-2022-q1.aspx) we also see an amazing big community driving Power Platform (actually I was super surprise to see my kids "developing" with Power Platform; they just used YouTube videos to get started and build some cool Car-Collection and Movie Trackings-Apps).
One of the they key benefits that I see in the Power Platform is the adoption and familiarity to and off the Office users. Power Platform tools are easily available to the Office users. They can quickly create an Excel integration, leverage Outlook as a trigger, create new apps in Teams or build stand-alone mobile apps.
And obviously it is not limited to Microsoft services. With the available SAP connectors (Power Automate Desktop for RPA integration, the SAP certified and endorsed SAP ERP Connector or the (SAP) OData connector [currently in private preview] it is very easy to connect to SAP.
Power Platform SAP Connectors
You can even use the Custom Connector to connect to services exposed by Netpunes API Factory [GitHub - hobru/Power-Platform-Neptune-API-Factory].
Integrating in Office 365
Especially this last topic shows the openness of the platform. Using the Power Platform we bring services to the Office users that they had never thought about: they can use services from the SAP system on-prem, connect to SAP CDS Views, or use other business services from the SAP Business Technology Platform like the document information extraction service. We even have scenarios where SAP Process Automation was used to expose processes in the SAP system and then bring the data to a Power App.
During the DSAG Technologietage I showed the power of the Power Platform. How you could get started with Excel, add a Power Automate flow and switch over to Outlook or Teams.
Unfortunately the session was not recorded, but since this was a 40 minute live demo I had created a fall-back recording (which I luckily did not have to use) which is now published on YouTube.
So if you are interested in Power Platform and SAP, I recommend to take a closer look.
Working with Power Platform and SAP - demo at DSAG Technologietage 2022
105 days for low-code
If I got you interested, then maybe add a few more days to Daniels 100 days of Low-code, so that you can also spend a few days with the Power Platform, or consume Neptuns API Designer APIs to an Power App in Teams, or use a Power Automate flow to consume it from AppGyver.
Extend SAP solutions using Microsoft Power Platform - Deep Dive - YouTube
Let me know what scenario you can think of!
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