Process automation has become an integral part of every organization’s digitization strategy. Automating complex workflows is an ever-growing business need for many businesses. As per a global survey from Statista 49% of business workflows were automated using low-code platforms. ERP systems play a critical role in workflow automation as they interact with all the business functions in an organization.
SAP comes out to be a robust ERP for most organizations’ needs. As a result, managing processes efficiently with SAP automation and a low-code platform like Microsoft Power Platforms is emerging as a priority for business transformation.
SAP ERP systems play a pivotal role in engaging with finance, HR, sales, marketing and clients processes and they act as a centralized system of record for all the critical data and processes. With the ERP connectors within Power Platform, the process to connect this data to automate workflows with Power automate and apps with Power Apps also became simplified.
Why SAP Automation with Power Platform
Better performance – The ERP connector with Power Platform runs on SAP’s API layer and it will offer better performance than SAP GUI. The performance improves significantly as more users transition off the SAP GUI.
Ease of use – Pre-built canvas apps and automate flows can be accessed immediately and leveraged for business needs. In case if users need any SAP standard fields or any custom fields, it can be done in a few weeks.
Compatibility with SAP products – The Power automate flows or the canvas apps that can integrate with SAP can be triggered by any software or product with custom REST or SOAP connectors. You can leverage Power Platform with acquired products like SuccessFactors, Ariba, and Concur as well.
Speed to market – Whether it is SAP automation or customer experience, automation or custom apps can be built in a few weeks with minimal resources. This not only improves the time to market but reduces costs significantly.
Common Use cases for SAP automation
Organizations can always look for custom apps and flows to automate their process workflows. But Power Platform offers a few pre-built templates to easily transform a few processes. Let’s talk about a few of them that work with SAP systems
Finance
a.) Purchase order management
A few enterprise templates in Power platform helps integrate the data from the SAP systems, procurement template is one among them. The template has all the multiple screens needed for purchase order management like creating, modifying and adding a new purchase order in one screen in Power apps. The further automation processes behind the screens will be managed by Power automate flows. As all the screens are simplified, procurement team members can easily complete these details without any data errors and minimal time.
b.) Vendor management
Vendor management is also part of the procurement management template in the Power platform. You can easily integrate this with the SAP system and work instantly to add, modify, and link vendor data to other needed systems. There are multiple ways to load the vendor information in the template using the vendor’s recent history, vendor name and any known payment number. This will simplify the process in a single step and you can also manage all the vendor information in a few clicks.
c.) Invoice management
The SAP vendor invoice management is also part of the procurement template as discussed above. You can view any recent invoice by the vendor, check them for status, verify, and process for payment in a few clicks. As we integrate the system with Power Automate, the backend rules are checked, and flows are triggered as per the rules. All the above use cases were part of the procurement template, so with one pre-built template organizations can perform multiple SAP automation in one-go.
d.) Financial reporting
Unlike the above use cases, this is not triggered by any enterprise business template. However, organizations can simply customize flows and apps according to their need to track their financial performance periodically. Most importantly, data can be captured without any errors.
Human Resources
a.) Employee shout-outs
Peer-to-peer recognition is now simpler with Microsoft Power Platform. Organizations can integrate the canvas app with SAP and give access to their employees in a few hours to embrace the recognition culture. Opt-in options, security, and notifications are managed by in-built flows with Power Automate to make the experience simpler and minimal resources to manage the application.
b.) Recognition
Unlike peer to peer recognition, awards should be reviewed periodically and approved. You can set up simple flows in Power Automate to approve and provide sign off for the awards. The data can be centralized and reports can be customized too to view monthly recognition data as per the teams or functions. By adding more functionality from Power BI this can be more appealing to organizations and it also comes with lower cost of ownership.
c.) New hire onboarding
Most organizations have a buddy for new hires. But certain processes are very task oriented. Such tasks can be automated by leveraging Power Platform. The first checklists, document submissions, and process manuals can be shared within a virtual buddy linking the SAP HR system to custom apps as per the organizations’ needs.
d.) Expense submissions
Expense submission and verification is the most cumbersome process for most HR teams. By leveraging Power Platform, organizations can build simple apps to manage these submissions and automate the approvals by creating the rules and flows with Power Automate. You can easily create these apps within a few weeks with minimal technical knowledge.
Information Technology
a.) Hardware requisition
Many organizations have ever growing technology needs from their employees. Every time employees need to follow up with a lot of teams to upgrade their systems or any software needs. Organizations can create simple self-service apps with Power Apps and automate the approvals with Power Automate.
b.) Scheduling
Though there are a lot of scheduling apps available, it still becomes a concern as most of them do not have end-to-end automation. You can now create a simple appointment booking app with the template within Power Platform to create availability, book the availability and send automatic email notifications. You can also integrate with Teams and Outlook to sort out the calendar as per any set rules.
Though these are not the exhaustive list of use cases for SAP automation leveraging Microsoft Power Platform, we tried to list a few of them to give a picture to the users. So what are the benefits of automating complex workflows beyond the SAP system.
Benefits
- Visualize the data and streamline the usage through the central system and make the best usage of the data
- Understand the operations behind the scenes to trigger simple and complex flow with Power Automate
- Better customer engagement with simple apps and an easy approval process
- Minimal errors as we have simple apps to replace manual forms
- Strategic insights into data
Are you excited to reap more benefits from SAP automation with Microsoft Power Platform? Our experts are just a click away!
