SAP Fiori – Side Chat – Panel Discussion

Fiori Side Chat Overview

We joined the Fiori Side Chat for a panel discussion on innovating with Fiori… right up our street.

Listen to some of the foremost Fiori experts from around the world as all things Fiori are put to them and they reveal. Fiori can be used to innovate your business and customer experience.

For more videos from Bluestonex discussing fiori, check out when we spoke in the Fiori Practitioners Forum here.

If you’re looking into Fiori applications for your business, take a look at our Fiori services here.

What is Fiori Launchpad?

The Fiori launchpad is designed to be a single-entry point to all SAP Fiori apps across desktop and mobile. The GUI of the launchpad displays each app as a tile on a home page- much the same as android or IOS does. These panels are dynamic enough to display live information, such as ongoing tasks or data. Further roles of the Launchpad include navigation, personalization, embedded help, bookmarking, app configuration, notifications, usage analytics, and user info. The launchpad is also totally configurable, so the user has full control over which apps they have ease of access or which information is displayed on the GUI.

What is your experience with SAP Fiori with business innovation?

Recently, there’s been a lot of news from SAP around innovations in Fiori, but how does that bode for customers- the panel discuss.

Innovation means different things to different customers. This could be the mobilisation of processes and Fiori enables this very easily. Simplification of large processes is also achievable with Fiori, which is great for breaking a digital transformation down for a user. For other customers, it’s about the advanced side of Fiori and automating processes or integration. Many customers move to Fiori for that integration aspect as they will be operating multiple systems and they’re looking for a way to simplify those processes and bring their data together.

How do we engage with customers about Fiori?

It’s a common occurrence for SAP customers that the key decision-makers are far removed from the tactical product of Fiori and so it can be difficult to get them to understand what Fiori can bring to the table. One way around this at Bluestonex is to host a design thinking workshop- often using Lego Serious Play for the key stakeholders who ordinarily don’t get hands-on. This helps them understand how this can transform their business first-hand. The Fiori Launchpad is a pathway to many SAP solutions. Taking them through the add-ons and potential of those- like Screen Personas, access cloud platform or use Machine Learning. Information on that level helps open their eyes and convey what Fiori can do for each of their systems.

One of the key messages to take away from this session is that remote design thinking sessions need to be human-centric. In-person sessions have a lot of time segmented for breaks and fun activities, but in remote design thinking workshops, these can break down the flow of a session and can cause potential customers to turn off. Amongst the information and the breaks, human touches are key to keeping engagement and interest high.

To achieve good engagement from a remote design thinking workshop, it’s important to have the right remote design thinking tools, which we wrote about in our blog on the benefits of remote design thinking.

Prototyping Fiori Launchpads

One of the key states of design thinking- and what makes Fiori so successful for individual clients and their requirements is prototyping. So often in this industry, we hear about Fiori’s best practices and the technology is standard and changing managing them on to the clients. However, standardising the Fiori Launchpad deployment in this way misses the point. That point is the users- working with the users of each client is essential to get information that personas can be mapped against. This means the technical side of things can be tailored directly to the users. It’s only then that testing can take place and it’s through this method that we- as SAP AppHaus members build successful Fiori solutions.

Fiori Launchpad Example

Understanding the user first drives you to the right tech for Fiori launchpad configuration.

Some of the new tech in the SAP cloud platform like HANA DB, which could be a standalone database in the cloud can be conveyed through a Fiori launchpad. The beauty of it is you can bring those standalone databases into the Fiori Launchpad- which makes a single unified entry point for the user.

Utilising the Cloud Platform, some of the services may not have any integration to SAP but will help users simplify their IT peripheral landscape. An example of this is our Staff and Visitor tracking application, for on-premises fire safety regulation.

This application start’s Fiori launchpad from a simple GUI and draws its information from a database on HANA DB, enabling tracking of anyone in a workplace via a simple system, which doesn’t require a second thought from the user.

Fiori Launchpad demo

In this Panel discussion, we’ve discussed a huge amount around Fiori launchpad and how configurable it can be, making its applications to a business vast. If you would like more information about how Fiori Launchpads can be utilised by your organisations, we offer free demonstrations and workshops, so you can get hands-on. To arrange a demo of Fiori Launchpad, click here.