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top MES and top xRM: high user experience thanks to SAP Fiori

How top flow’s solutions benefit from Fiori technology

Business solutions from SAP have always been confronted with the prejudice of being cumbersome to use. What’s more, user expectations have changed dramatically in the meantime: If you use your smartphone to complete tasks in your private life, you don’t want to get lost in cumbersome dialogues at work. Rather, software should also be fun at work.

SAP has long since reacted to these new requirements. With SAP Fiori, an initiative was launched years ago to ensure contemporary user-friendliness.

What is SAP Fiori and why do I need it?

SAP’s new interface technology was to be web-based and was also to be realised exclusively with HTML5, CSS and JavaScript at the beginning. In order to be able to comfortably realise more complex business applications, SAP created its own control library – collectively calling everything SAP UI5 (SAP User Interface for HTML5).

These unwieldy technical terms were not very easy to understand for customers and users alike – nor were they effective for marketing purposes. The technology’s goal – a contemporary user experience – along with its action-guiding design guidelines were therefore entitled “SAP Fiori” – after a term used in the art world. The aim here: Realise a contemporary user experience in all SAP applications.

Fiori: No replacement of WebGUI and WebDynpro

SAP Fiori itself isn’t a technology – but a term for a certain type of user experience and a guideline on how and with which technologies this experience should be created. On this basis, SAP has gradually developed new applications (Fiori Apps) that have expanded the functional scope of the classic ERP system.

With the introduction of SAP S/4HANA, the expectation also arose that this new ERP system could only be operated with new Fiori apps. Yet it was simply not possible for SAP to redevelop thousands of dialogue functions with SAP UI5. That’s why it expanded the Fiori definition – in other words the Guideline – without further ado: Since then, SAP Fiori no longer exclusively contains UI5 technology, but also WebGUI and Web-Dynpro – each visually adapted to SAP Fiori and SAP UI5 respectively. In essence, though, it involves the previous SAP functions and transactions.

How are top MES and top xRM connected with SAP Fiori?

With SAP Fiori, we need to distinguish the brand new SAP UI5 apps from traditional user dialogues.

top flow was one of the first SAP partners ever to offer certified standard solutions with the new web-based frontend technology SAP Fiori. Users of top MES and top xRM have since benefited from innovative user interfaces – especially in digital files, reporting and the visualisation of key figures in dashboards.

This means that top flow products meet the demands of today’s customers. However, SAP Fiori is not simply imposed in top MES and top xRM. Rather, the surface technology can be activated at user level. For good reason: When evaluating the user experience, efficiency must also be taken into account. Beautiful and simple doesn’t necessarily entail fast and efficient. Especially users of complex applications with a lot of data input and, at the same time, a great need for information benefit from web technology only to a limited extent. The same applies to users who want to retain the views they’ve grown fond of from their tried and tested ERP system. It can be said: Activating SAP Fiori on demand allows the highest degree of personal customisation to be achieved.

How do companies and employees benefit from SAP Fiori?

While SAP ERP solutions such as SAP S/4HANA focus on contemporary functions and processes, SAP Fiori can be used to create suitable applications with a focus on design, user-friendliness and user experience. The younger generation in particular wants software that can be operated intuitively – this makes SAP Fiori a powerful argument in the competition for skilled workers. UX is known to contribute to higher employee satisfaction and also to better collaboration.
SAP Fiori applications are simply called up in a web browser via the so-called Fiori Launchpad. That means they’re basically device-independent and also mobile-compatible. This is what makes location-independent, flexible and cross-departmental work with SAP possible in the first place. For example, all necessary information and functions can be accessed directly via a tablet in every meeting. Important key figures from production can also be viewed directly on the smartphone. Last but not least, entire solutions can be interlinked: the CRM process of cloud application, for example, can be displayed and processed continuously with the ERP order processing.