Hi. Welcome to our session live from Heidelberg. We are Olga and Andreas. And together with you, we will have a look at the role of end to end business processes for the SAP integration strategy.
And we will explain to you how Sweet Qualities, Integration Suite and Reference architecture can help you to run integrated end to end business processes. So in. Yeah. Today. Yeah. The times are very challenging for all companies. Challenges and also opportunities come our way with high frequency and also with high speed. Therefore business processes need to be agile and adaptive but at the same time resilient and sustainable and sustainable.
Of course they also need to be automated and supported by artificial intelligence so that you can stay on top of the competition. Sap's integration strategy therefore focuses on end to end business processes. But it's more than just technically integrating applications. We have defined suite qualities that ensure that you get such business processes, and at the same time, also the experience that you get these processes delivered by a single modern and intelligent suite offering. Let's have a look at the sweet qualities we have been focusing so far. So we want to achieve a seamless user experience.
We want to offer consistent security and identity management at the bottom of the table we prepared. You see a link you have also in the handout material where you can find many more information on all the sweet qualities. Today in our session, we want to give you an impression on a concrete example of a business process example coming from the external workforce management. Mm. So you will in this example then see the SAP Task Center
as a one workflow inbox. You will see applied integration content. And in particular you will get an idea of the end to end process blueprints. We use, we will use to guide you through the our process example and explain to you the process itself, but also the applications which are involved into that and the reference architectures of the process. Blueprints also link to runtime relevant artifacts like APIs, like events, like flows. But before we go there, Holger will introduce the SAP Integration suite to you.
All right. Thanks a lot, Andreas. And now let's have a brief look at the SAP integration suite. Well, I think I'm telling, you know, news that nowadays business processes are distributed, are heterogeneous, and are hybrid in nature.
So what you need is a holistic platform where you can manage your integrations and which also allows you to innovate. And this platform is the SAP integration suite, which you can see here in the middle. The SAP Integration suite is recognized by Gartner as one of the most comprehensive integration platforms in the world, and is ranked in the 2023 Magic Quadrant as a leader again, the third time in a row.
You can see a lot of the functionality here on top, and I don't want to go into all the details, but when we mention one holistic platform, then you should consider consolidating third party integration platforms into the SAP integration suite. Or with the advent now of the Edge Integration cell, you can replace the SAP legacy integrations by the Integration suite. Let's have another look at a little bit more details and some of the components and capabilities.
Let's start with the SAP Business Accelerator Hub. Formerly it was known as API Business Hub, but now we're adding more and more content. So we're choosing a more general name. It is SAP's catalog where you can find all the reference content like end to end business processes, APIs, events, connectors, and the like. You can discover them, you can experience them, try out APIs, and you can consume all this kind of content. And this fastens the time for your integration projects.
Now, if you look at a few of the capabilities here, I just want to first mention event driven architecture there. Please have a look at the Advanced Event Mesh, which is a multi broker where you can deploy event brokers all over the place in on premise, in the cloud, wherever you need to form a real network of event brokers. Service composability. The newest kid on the block is graph. Graph is a powerful semantic mediation capability, which allows you to expose the back end data of diverse systems as connected data graphs which someone can consume, then later on through simple OData or GraphQL. And I want to go come back to what I mentioned before, edge integration cell here.
Edge integration Cell is a new runtime which we just announced yesterday at TechEd. It is a new runtime that can run on any Kubernetes environment, whether it's on premise, whether it's in the cloud, whether it's in private environments. And it allows you now to not only run integrations in the cloud, but also in your local environments. Keep it completely on premise if you want.
So this gives another new quality of the SAP integration suite. Good with that. I'm already at the last part of this little intercourse. And here we have shown a few of the Uber integration patterns. We always reference, of course, the SAP technologies, but you can implement these patterns with a hundred of different technologies as well.
Central mass the data hub here you would probably use SAP Master Data Integration Service to realize this pattern. Or if you want to look at event driven architecture. I already alluded to Advanced Event Mesh where you want to take a look at.
I mean, the event driven architecture is a new paradigm which focuses pretty much on the change of data or the change of business objects and the resulting reactions based on these events. And it's a modern approach to designing systems and integrating systems. Coming to mediated integration, I think it's pretty well known that cloud integration, which is around already for quite a while, is a very powerful integration capability.
With its integration flows. You can incorporate or integrate B2B partners, governments, third party applications, SAP applications. So this is one of the powerhouses for mediated integration. And last but not least, API led integration. I think it's well known nowadays that APIs are the fuel of the digital enterprise.
You. So you better secure your APIs and manage their lifecycle very carefully. So and this is the role of API management and graph I already talked about in the previous slide. So with this I will hand over back to Andreas. And now we're going to start with a little demo. Yeah. Let's go to our example of the external workforce process and the solution for cloud deployment.
As as promised we will guide you through the whole process with our reference architecture and process blueprints. You can find them in the SAP Business Accelerator Hub. So in the accelerator hub we we offer different architecture views as the value flow diagrams, the solution component diagrams, the solution data flow diagrams, and the solution process flows in this. In this example we will see most of the diagrams, not the data flow diagrams. The data flow diagrams usually show you then master data distribution in in in typical landscapes or also transactional data flows during the execution of the process. So let's go in. In the first example a solution component diagram.
The solution component diagram displays the major solution components. So business applications and major technical solution components. In our example here we have highlighted with the focus of our demo session today the Fieldglass Vendor Management system. And as for Hana Cloud we will show the collaboration between these two business applications leveraging the cloud integration. So you can see all the different components in this light orange boxes.
And in between you have the communication channels describing the collaboration, the integration between those components. The next type of diagrams we offer are the so called solution value flows. Solution value flow is, I would say, the most simple way to describe a business process from a value perspective.
In. In this case, the external workforce consists of two major parts the recruit to onboard part and the managed workforce and retirement part. Today we will focus on this activity over here the managed purchasing requisition. In Business Accelerator Hub. You can then navigate directly to the solution Process flow diagram.
The solution process flow diagrams are Bpmn diagrams where the different pools represent the solution components introduced before and are relevant for integration. On the right side, you can then see the flow of the of the actual process across the different solution components. In our example, the process we want to show you starts with the approval of the statement of work and the work order approval.
Once approved, we will send then the purchase requisition request via cloud integration to S4. So let's have a look in the application itself. So you see here a work order which is already in the status approval pending. And from here you can approve the work order. When you do that. As mentioned and shown in the flow diagram, the the request for additional Reproval is
sent from SAP Fieldglass Vendor Management System to AWS for. And so we have now seen this part. The message is sent via cloud integration. You will get more information on the cloud integration part later on. But now you continue with the S four Hana Cloud part.
Yeah. Thanks again Andreas. As Andreas pointed out, we have already here the purchase order purchase requisition in S four Hana, and then we take a look at how the rest of the flow actually works. Now taking a look at S four Hana or maybe the SAP Task center first so you can see that the approved purchase order requisition task is already available in SAP s four Hana Cloud, but it's also available in the task center.
Now, if you look at the details, you have two options more or less. Either you can open up the purchase requisition in S four Hana and look at all the details and whatever you want to see, or if you're fine with it already with the purchase order, then the purchase requisition. Then you can approve it directly here on the task center.
So let's assume we approve the purchase requisition directly in the task center. And if we then go back into the field class application, then you can see that the status has changed into created, which means that the approval has been sent back from S four Hana Cloud to Fieldglass and the work order is approved. Except that of course, now the supplier needs to accept it and the right worker needs to be hired.
And if we now go back into the solution process flow diagram again, you have seen everything from Andreas initiation, the purchase requisition. Create the requisition in S four Hana approve it. We have sent back the approval to Fieldglass. But if we now take a look at this diagram, there's even more detail available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
Namely, if you click this nice little plus button, then you can drill down immediately to the full detail of the integration flow, which has been executed between Fieldglass and S four Hana. With all the details, the different steps. There's a mapping step and there's a decision step. And here is for new purchase requisitions. And here is for old ones. So all the details are available even in SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
And of course you can take a look in the monitoring. The message monitoring. You can see that this nice purchase requisition has been replicated from Fieldglass to S four Hana. This was completed, but you can even see more details if you set the log level to trace before then. You can even go back into the monitoring and you can see actually which flow has been taken here in this integration flow to process the message.
I have indicated this with a purple line, but you can really see with this trace level. With the log level trace, you can really see what exactly has been processed. And this kind of concludes our overall demo from the business Accelerator hub Fieldglass S four Hana integration suite. And drilling down to the lowest level of detail and processing. Andreas, back to you.
Thanks, Olga. So I will now give you an additional background on what you have seen from a diagram perspective. So hopefully you can agree that the diagrams we have shared with you helped you to understand the overall, the overall process, the diagrams you have seen follow the so called SAP Enterprise Architecture methodology and belong to the solution architecture domain. So we have seen diagrams from this area over here. The methodology behind is an enterprise architecture methodology. In general enterprise architecture connects business to solutions.
But we do not only have a process view to it, but we we have in the methodology also a capability view, a data view and an organization view. What's typical for enterprise architecture is that everything you you model in the business architecture domain is fully agnostic from any vendor and especially SAP solutions, but the different models are linked to the solution architecture domain. So what is the value of that. So you can easily understand for example, when you go from right to left you can easily understand the impact and the value the solutions have. And the other way around, when you start from the left side, you can get out of our models clear guidance for a business driven transformation project.
I want to highlight that all the different models here are interconnected, interrelated with each other, and give a comprehensive overview which help you to understand. On the left side what capabilities, process, views, data, views and organization views are in focus and you can get a clear understanding of the solution architecture behind. As you might have sensed and hopefully have sensed in our little demo, these two architecture domains, Business Architecture and Solution Architecture domain are embedded in the business strategy, in the business model, in the business metrics on the left side. And when you are in a concrete engagement on the right side also, then with other domains like landscape planning and roadmap planning.
The methodology. I just gave you a first impression. How powerful it is belongs to the SAP architecture framework, which consists of four pillars the methodology, the content, tooling and services.
As mentioned, the methodology offers for a broad range of of architecture work practices, typical deliverables, concepts you can use and they are all based on on established industry standards like the open Group Architecture Framework, Bpmn and UML and so on. But we do not only offer you the pure methodology, but it comes with concrete reference business and reference solution architecture content, which allows you a jump start in your project. You don't have to to start on a on a white sheet of paper, but can start with content we have prepared for you and validated for you. Of course, you are aware that especially in the last couple of months, SAP is investing significantly in E tools, in development of tools, and also of acquisition of tools so that we can provide a rich tooling to support your architecture work. And last but not least, the fourth pillar is then offered by our Customer success organization, standardized Enterprise Architecture services to to to support you.
Now look at the time. If we. Yeah, I think we can we can also say a little bit on, on on this slide the, the, on the left side, you, you see what those of you who are familiar with the enterprise architecture discipline, the architecture development cycle as introduced by the open Group, what what we have done at SAP in our methodology is that we concretized the the deliverables mentioned there.
We concretized the practices mentioned there and give therefore clear guidance and help and starting points in all of the different phases, what deliverables you should go for and why, what is the additional value of that and and give concrete specifications, what to do and how to do it. And as mentioned, another support offers the broad reference business architecture and the SAP solution architecture content. So this is for me a key value. And the next step to concretize the the overall open group framework and make it ready to use for you not only but of course, especially for your SAP and transformation projects.
So summary with the key takeaways. Yeah I think you can read the key takeaways here. You've seen the SAP integration strategy of integrated business processes and sweet qualities. You've seen the SAP integration suite and how end to end business blueprints work which support all of these with the demo. And Andreas has lately shown you the SAP Enterprise Architecture framework.
I think with this, we're at the end of our presentation. Yeah. Maybe before you kick you out, there are no questions yet passed to us. May maybe a highlight I want to emphasize on is go through the material we have attached to the handout. You will find.
Yeah free trainings. You will find discounts for certifications. So for example we launched this year an SAP professional certification for SAP Enterprise Architecture and also for integration suite offerings. We have similar certifications.
So we have the the interest group enterprise architecture in the SAP community. So in case questions come to you later on please look at this community, joined community. We will also publish a blog on with more details to this session over here. And feel then really free to to add their questions. We will take care of them. And while I'm talking, I think there are two questions coming in.
Yeah. Okay, so we have two questions. I can take the first one because it's related to the enterprise architecture framework. So Vito, thanks for posting.
Very nice question. Like to to answer that. It's how to get more information on the SAP Enterprise Architecture framework. And I think the first place to go is really our SAP community, where we have introduced the interest group Enterprise Architecture. You will see in the handout material the underlying link over over here, go there.
And yeah, it's a very active community. And and we will give all the updates in interesting for you in, in this community especially also the links to training opportunities to certification opportunities and so on. Thanks, Andreas. There's another question from Rajesh. Do we have an architecture to handle? Very high, heavy volume in more decentralized ways? Well, first of all, taking a look at the integration suite so cloud integration can scale very, very, very well with more resources. And also now we brought in the edge integration cell.
So we have means for example to decentralize traffic if it's going to be executed locally in your private environments for example. Or there may be another option nowadays I mentioned already twice advanced event mesh. You would want to take a look at it, where you can have a fully distributed mesh of event brokers all over the place and you can distribute load. So I think there are many, many ways, depending on your scenario, Rajesh, how you want to solve these problems within the cloud integration edge integration cell or advanced event mesh. Okay. Okay, then we are at the end of our session already in time.
I would say thanks a lot for for your attendance. Hope it was interesting and see you in the in the communities. Bye bye bye.
2023-12-24