Just before the holiday break in December 2014, we released a brand-new SAP Jam mobile application on the App Store - a stand-alone app for iPhone and iPad. This was the culmination of a journey that began at the start of 2014. As the product manager responsible for SAP Jam’s mobile experience, I’d like to share with you some of the key design concepts we employed and the exciting features they led to.
Consumer-style experience
We wanted to create an initial sign-in experience that is familiar to users, leveraging their experience with consumer applications. For example, a user can trigger a configuration email to be sent to him or her directly from SAP Jam containing a configuration link that when opened on the mobile device will open the new application and fill in the necessary configuration information. This feature drew inspiration from email validation common to a lot of commerce mobile apps.
Of course, we understand that in an enterprise environment, authentication/authorization technologies are diverse and security is a key consideration; therefore in upcoming releases, we will continue to enhance the application, adding new features such as single sign-on (SSO) and mobile device management (MDM) solutions support.
Optimized for quick multitasking
Another design concept we embraced is quick consumption and easy sharing of information when interacting with a mobile application. A key observation we made while working with our mobile customers is that users typically interact with mobile enterprise social applications in between appointments or in response to a notification which demands the ability to quickly navigate to the right information, share content with the right people, or respond to updates.
Since groups are the primary collaboration unit in SAP Jam, we wanted to make it easy for users to monitor groups they care about for updates and allow them to share content with those groups quickly. To achieve this, we introduced a feature in the main feed screen that allows users to quickly navigate to the feed of the last five groups accessed on the device.
Once a group is selected, users can also post updates, photos, and videos to that group simply by tapping on the post button on the upper left of the screen, dramatically reducing the number of taps needed to share content with a group. Start up the SAP Jam mobile app and tap on the “All” text near the top middle of the screen and a drop down menu will appear, allowing you to quickly navigate to the feed of the last accessed groups.
Note that the menu will be empty if you haven’t visited any groups from that device. If that is the case, tap on “Groups” at the bottom of the screen and look at a few of your favorite groups to have them automatically be added to your quick navigation menu. Once you have your favorite group selected on the main feed screen, try sharing a photo with the group!
Next time, I will cover other interesting design concepts and features of the new SAP Jam mobile app. In the meantime, head over the App Store and try out the new mobile app on your iPhone or your iPad!
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