Overview

Ad-hoc evaluations and analyses: Würth IT makes authorizations more flexible

The growing Würth Group uses a state-of-the-art BI solution with decentralized access for corporate reporting. However, in order to generate special operational evaluations or process-related problem analyses from ERP data, only SAP standard transactions and MS Excel were previously available. Comprehensive data protection and ad-hoc reports were therefore difficult to reconcile. The reporting tool top se16XXL changed that.

When companies tackle digitalization, they oftenembark on a comprehensive transformation: they develop innovativebusiness models, create efficient production and administrative processes or ensure end-to-end business analytics. Würth IT GmbH provides consulting services, services and a broad portfolio of modern IT solutionsfor all of these challenges. The subsidiary of the globally successful Würth Group offers its services primarily within theparent company. For the parent company, the cooperation between subsidiaries, branches andplants independent of location subsidiaries, branchesand plants plays a central role. Würth IT takes care of this – and of smooth 24/7 support, which the Württemberg-based company offers for every time zone via its Würth IT locations in Europe,Asia and America.

Great effort for business intelligence

The parent company has long relied on SAP throughout Germany and internationally. The independent Group companies also usecompanies also use SAP ERP and benefit from the enormous database that the system provides centrally. The analysis of the data is usually initiated by requests from the Group companies and then implemented by Würth IT. For typical business intelligence (BI) requirements such as salesreports, key figure dashboards or ad hoc analyses by so-called power users. by so-called power users, a state-of-the-art business intelligence system is available.

However, in order to handle spontaneous, operationalreporting queries or process-related problem analyses highly qualified employees previously had torely on standard SAP transactionssuch as the Data Browser, i.e. transactions SE16/N and SAP Query. Although thesetransactions provide a deep insight into the SAP data, a large number of steps are usually required for the results list, as SE16/N only allows access to one database table per query. Harald Holl, Head of Infrastructure at Würth IT, recalls: “In our day-to-day work, we had to search forinformation scatteredacross several database tables, select it individually and transfer it to Excel for further processing. That was time-consuming and inconvenient.“

Authorization control costs time

Even searching and selecting the data required some SAP know-how. So did the meaningful evaluation. Above all, however, many queries entailed considerable programming work. Particularly for complex queries or recurring evaluations – such as weekly reports – the Würth IT employees had toprogram automated jobs. Once such a report had been created authorization issues had to be clarified . After all, a lot of data is sensitive and may only be available to certain roles. In times with many reporting requests, days or even weeks could pass before the desired report wascreated and available to the client.

“Comprehensive data protection with appropriate authorization management is a top priority for us,” says Harald Holl. “But at the same time, data protection and speed should not compete with each other: Information and information andreports must be available promptly – depending on the role and authorization.” In particular, a rapidly growingvolume of inquiries from the equally growing Würth Group exacerbated the problem. The quality and meaningfulness of the information provided was also occasionally criticized. This was because Würth IT was often only able to compile raw data via the standard SAP transactions – without any qualitative evaluation of the key figures. In this situation, Holl began his search for a comprehensive solution.

Empowering Group subsidiaries

In practice, the German and international Würth subsidiaries should be able to view and process their own business data and use it to generatead-hoc reports independently. At the same time, it must be ensured that there is no access to data from other companies or that employees without the appropriate role can access sensitive data. With SE16/N, such restrictions between individual organizational units cannot be implemented. On top of this, existing authorization roles should be “inheritable”. This means that anyone who was previously authorized via SAP standard transactions should be able to automatically transfer their authorizations to the new system.

Harald Holl: “During my research, I quickly came across top se16XXL from top flow and immediately had the impression that the solution could be a good fit.” Shortly after making initial contact, the infrastructure manager was shownthe capabilities of top se16XXL in a web session. “The demonstration made it clear that we didn’t need to contact any other providers for the time being and instead wanted to plan a proof of concept for the tool with top flow ,” says Holl. After the successful PoC with Colleagues from the USA finally realized that the reportingtool fully covered the technical and functional requirements.

“The functions that we have always wanted for SAP SE16/N are provided by top se16XXL out of the box. The top flow solution therefore fits perfectly with our corporate strategy, in which business intelligence and data protection belong together.“
Harald Holl, Head of Infrastructure

Reach your goal with just a few clicks

The option of implementingthe solution directly via the SAP Add-On Installation Tool (SAINT transaction) also spoke in favor of top se16XXL. “In fact, theeffort wasminimal. A single employee was able to install the tool and set up the tool completely within a few hours.set up. Access to the operating system was not necessary,” says Holl. Training was similarly easy: “A lot was achieved with short workshops or web sessions. This is because we have comprehensive documentation for IT and good training material and click instructions within the solution for users. Anyone who understands a bit about SAP databases can quickly get to grips with it.”

Top se16XXL is now in use at Würth IT and several international Group companies. The employees there employees there now implement their requests autonomously and create meaningful reports with just a few clicks. Harald Holl: “They use the easy-to-understand selection masks from top se16XXL, in which values and results can be filtered almost at will.” Using aggregateddata from the ERP and BI, Purchasing is now able to create ad hoc extra reports to compare prices and product quality of suppliers or their delivery times and delivery reliability. More complex or recurring queries can be saved as scripts and run again by other users if required. BI reports can can be easily supplemented with special evaluations – with comprehensible and repeatable parameters.

Secure for data protection and compliance

One feature is crucial for Würth IT: SAP tables can be linked directly with each other. Table joins based on the result of a previous query are alsopossible – and they can build on each other multiple times. In addition, data no longer needs to be loaded and inserted into Excel. “This has the nice side effect that practically no more data ends up on employee PCs,” adds Holl. In combination with the sophisticated authorization control the Group subsidiaries now meet all relevant compliance and data protection regulations.

“We are pleased to have solved this problem with a manageable amount of effort . We are therefore planning for all Group companies to use top se16XXL in the near future ,” says Holl. He has one more basic tip at the end: “Wewanted to have this solution in order toassignrights in a controlled manner.During implementation, this naturally led to individual employees losing their usual editing rights. It was important to talk to colleagues at an early stage, to clarify whether they really needed access to all tables and to emphasize that the measure was not a demotion of any kind. Then there are no problems.”

Success Story top se16XXL – Würth IT GmbH



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Overview