SAP fiori apps | Mitie Case study

MIntroduction to the Client

Mitie Group is a British strategic outsourcing and energy services company. It provides infrastructure consultancy, facilities management, property management, energy and healthcare services. Mitie initially engaged with Bluestonex Consulting to deliver a proof of concept user experience initiative for purchase requisition administration in conjunction with the deployment of SAP Screen Personas V2.0 SP2 across Mitie’s SAP landscape.

MBusiness Challenge(s)

o Business users were unhappy with existing excel catalogue process
o Mobility (Tablet and Mobile) was a key requirement.
o Negative perception of overall SAP usability.
o E-catalogue vendor did not have the capability of providing a web-service to expose data.
o NetWeaver Gateway version was 7.31 SP05 with SAP UI version 1.24
o Speed of the app because of the number of products contained within it

Because of limitations with technical services from the e-catalogue vendor we had to give a fast, reliable and importantly a great mobile experience for the users. First step was upgrading to Gateway version 7.31 SP17 and SAP UI version 1.28.13.

A custom SAP Fiori app was favoured by Bluestonex as there was no Fiori app available for purchase requisitions in the system version we were using and we didn’t have any SRM system in place.

Secondly our UX partner Bluestonex, were working alongside the e-catalogue vendor to review options for exposing data from their website. We were able to get information from the e-catalogue vendor into our core ERP where a purchasing contract was created with relevant line items. We held URL’s to images all within the standard contract in SAP (ME31k transaction) which was crucial for the users to review product data in the Fiori App.

Bluestonex also provided some clever search functionality for our users like the use of templates. We had circa 2,500 products being read from a purchasing contract so response time had to be sub second. Bluestonex used for great techniques to reduce app latency and speed of the app was very quick indeed.

We gave the users a really nice navigation and easy search functions (previous last 60 days purchase requisitions created, last 5 purchase requisitions for certain WBS codes and also the user could search the whole catalogue for products). One challenge was the responsiveness of the app.

Following a number of iteration cycles, the final outcome developed was a lean, intuitive user interface that was available on all devices. If you hadn’t seen SAP before you could be forgiven for thinking this was a consumer grade app (like an experience you get on amazon).

o The app consisted of a ‘user default app’ (for users to maintain their favourites like most used fields) & a e-catalogue app.
o The e-catalogue is like SRM but more simple in its user interface with images and simple navigation.
o The main app consists of a header screen for delivery info, choice of catalogue, and cost assignment information.
o The detailed / line item view is like a consumer grade application with the ease of ordering using various options to search mi-previous orders, mi-most used WBS elements and also search mi-product catalogue.
o The app facilitated the transition of purchase requisition processing on excel to business users using the app on all devices in more self-intuitive UI with our own branding
o Reduced the number of data entry fields by 30%.
o Ordering via the UI’s that Bluestonex developed takes an average of 20 seconds for a user to complete the task removing manual excel/email/SAP processes.

‘The project brief was to develop a fully mobile catalogue purchasing solution. The Bluestonex team ensure they understood our requirements from the start and developed an App with user experience at its heart. The solution is multi-device, simple and intuitive and has been very positively received by our business users in the field. We look forward to continuing our journey with Bluestonex to provide further user experience enhancements as part of our overall SAP user experience roadmap. ‘

M

Mitie - Using Fiori Apps for e-Catalogues (& not SRM)

MIntroduction to the Client

MBusiness Challenge(s)

MSolution Overview