Month: September 2020

S/4HANA Upgrade (Technical, Functional upgrade and Fiori upgrade)

Posted on by stridely

Are you one of the organizations that migrated to SAP solutions and now planning to uplift your business processes upgrading your SAP S/4HANA premise or someone in the middle of the adoption process?

Either way, it is important for you to understand the specifics of the technology and be aware of the recent updates launched by the SAP community. It is seen that even if an organization is in the process of embedding an SAP solution, adhering to the upgrades will only benefit the organization in the long run.

Having said that, let’s move ahead to see why would you need to opt for an upgrade and then highlight the different updates as released by SAP.

Do you really need to upgrade?

Long before we step foot on the SAP S/4HANA updates, a short summary of why should an organization invest time and efforts for levelling up their solution.

Consider that you have been using an SAP solution for years and the same has been working well. The performance is great, the returns are excellent and everything happening within your business is streamlined. So why undergo the pain of updating the same?

The answer to this lies in the fact that consumer behaviour is changing and with this, the industry also is changing. The existing set of customers and employees is different from the new ones. The upcoming generation seeks results faster and better and in order to meet their needs, you need a modern holistic solution. Not to forget the fact that sooner or later, SAP would rescind support to the older solution. Apparently, in 2027, SAP would stop supporting ECC and the organizations still using the same would be exposed to an array of problems.

So the sooner you do, the better it becomes to stay consistent with the industry standards.

Elements of SAP S/4HANA Upgrade

  • Technical Upgrade:

    Irrespective of the type of application you run or the software that you use to host your enterprise solutions, technical updates of the same are always important. Even without considering the performance and efficiency, one thing that mandates a technical upgrade is to turn your system hack-proof. Often, outdated software solutions become the number one reason for hacks, attacks, and security breaches. It is extremely important for organizations to keep their IT infrastructure strong, robust, and secure.

    Similar is the case with SAP S/4HANA. The core features that drive the need for a technical upgrade is to deal with security patches and keep the performance as per the expected figures. Narrowing down the discussion to the improvements in the SAP S/4HANA solution post an update.

    Migrating from SAP ECC would cover the following:

    Prerequisites:

    • Upgrade To ECC 6.0: To migrate to S/4HANA, it is important that your system is currently using SAP ECC 6.0.
    • Split dual-stack ABAP+Java -> ABAP: In case you are currently using ECC 6.0 system and this is active on the dual-stack, you would need to split them. migration to S/4HANA only requires the ABAP-only stack.
    • Convert to Unicode: SAP S/4HANA is shipped with UNICODE and the migration is only possible if your SAP solution is Unicode.

    Preparation:

    1. Start with removing all of the redundant data to prevent storage space dilution.
    2. Clean up all of the custom code to avoid wasting time in moving data that is no longer needed.
    3. Move the existing database to the S/4HANA database.

    The next thing to do is check the readiness of the system and once convinced, you can finally move the system to the SAP S/4HANA infrastructure.

  • Functional upgrade

    Talking about an upgrade, the driving factor irrespective of the type is the increased ROI backed by performance improvements. Now when this happens, it gives users the ease to leverage the change, adopt technologies such as AI and smart data to further improve the way businesses conduct their day to day operations. This is what we term as a functional upgrade.

    With the new SAP S/4HANA technical upgrade , the SAP software gets updated. But talking about the functional upgrade, it takes into account the additional features that come along with the software. SAP functional aspect involves the consolidation of two architectures and implementing the same as a single architecture.

    In addition to the above, SAP S/4HANA has an extended warehouse management system which eliminates the need for organizations to have a separate supply chain management system. Not to forget the in-memory database rolled out that adds to the functional capabilities of the system.

    Use of simplification list:
    A Simplification Item Catalog is one that we can use to gather information about the changes in the upgrade and further allow the analysts to track the overall impact of the update on the system. Significant checks are made directly to the system to find out the impact of the simplifications and further allow them to prepare for the changes accordingly. Once the test has been conducted, it would provide holistic data on the impact of the change on both technical and functional teams.

SAP Fiori upgrade

Besides offering functional and technical benefits on updating SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA also gives organizations the ease to update your SAP Fiori apps. With this, you will have access to an array of apps and features. The new SAP Fiori has 3 specific design improvements and has also fixed bugs in the older version improving the overall performance.

Conclusion

Whether you are just starting out or in the process of an upgrade and looking for an expert to help, you can reach out to Stridely Solutions. We are one of the leading organizations in the spectrum of cloud solutions. We are also a trusted SAP solution partner helping organizations across the globe to embed the same. From consultation to deployment and migration, we provide all kinds of SAP solutions. Our experts are skilled and have tremendous experience in working over enterprise solutions with ease.

With us, you will never have to worry about the support and maintenance job along with the complexities posed by the same as we cover all.

 

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice – What it is and what makes it good for your Organization?

Posted on by stridely

A couple of days back, Microsoft rolled out it’s a new application or the app of the week, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice. While some consider it to be the rebranded version of Microsoft Forums Pro, others regard it to be something different, and something more than the Forums Pro. Keeping this as the core of our discussion, we move ahead to highlight what exactly this application is, what are the different features, and how will an organization benefit from it.

What is Dynamics 365 Customer Voice?

Customer Voice of Dynamics 365 is a feedback management system designed specifically to automate and regulate the job of taking feedback from the end customers. Employing an AI assistant, the solution is such that it can garner results in real-time and further provides a holistic view of the customer data and corresponding views.

Put simply, it is a people’s product, focusing solely on gathering customer sentiments, assessing and analyzing it to further connect with them and build better relationships. The solution can be used both for internal as well as external assessments and the prime cause behind the launch of the same is to gather customer feedback in real-time. The data here would then be used to make better and smarter decisions.

Features of Customer Voice

  • Intuitive Dashboard:

    Customer Voice has a simple yet intuitive dashboard that provides a holistic view of the customer and his/her data. The customer executives can get hold of the customer data and track their experiences. For instance, consider that a customer has rated your services to be less effective. All you need to do is click on the customer’s name to gain insights on the data.

    The dashboard displays the information, the history of customer interaction, and the reasons specified by the user as to why they gave a bad rating. Based on this, customer executives can take appropriate actions to reach out to the customer and resolve the problem at the earliest, creating happy customers.

  • Predefined Templates:

    Designed specifically as a feedback management system or one that helps conduct surveys, Dynamic 365 Customer Voice has predefined templates and questions that can be used to gather information from the user. The tool allows you to add personalized questions or extend the existing one to be part of the survey.

    In addition to the above, customer executives have the liberty to add metrics such as the Net Promoter Score to assess the performance or the efficiency of the service provided. One thing to note here is that it is not only the survey questionnaires that are preferred in the system. For customers that have had poor experiences, the customer voice application has solution templates for that as well.

  • Third-party Software Integration:

    Besides offering predefined metrics and the set of questions as tied to them, the customer voice application can seamlessly integrate with third-party software to expand the scope of the solution. To be precise, the tool can gel well with other Microsoft apps like the Dynamics 365 apps or any other third-party CRM-related applications.

    This helps consolidate all of the customer’s information under a single roof. Meaning that your executives need not switch between applications, instead get all fed in a single platform. In addition to this, an application such as Power Automate helps external system integration. Customer voice can also integrate with Power Platform tools such as Power Apps and Power BI to gain in-depth insights about the customer’s journey.

    Read more: Streamline processes& tasks to boost your business productivity, with Microsoft Power Automate!
  • AI-Assistant:

    Customer Voice is an application that is extremely rich in technology. It is equipped with the technology of artificial intelligence which helps conduct sentiment analysis on the data gathered by the same. Every time a survey is conducted, the data is fetched to all of the applications.

Advantages of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice

Having said all of the above, we now understand how the solution benefits your business.

  • Ready-to-use templates that can be used to get quick feedback and corresponding reports. Having a predefined set of questions saves the time required to build one.
  • Customer voice also gives the ease to create custom-fit questions or reports depending upon the application or the service provided.
  • Compatible with all the devices making it easier for the customers to connect and engage with your business.
  • Integration with third-party applications helps get better and deeper insights about the customer, their views, and their opinions. Also, it provides a holistic view of the customer’s data, enabling the executives to analyze better and make decisions in real-time.

Conclusion

While announcing the launch of the new platform by Microsoft Dynamics 365, one question that surfaced every now and then was how the solution is different from the existing feedback management application: Forums Pro. The fact is that the newer incorporates all of the tools as part of Forums Pro, so people speculated that it wasn’t anything new but a rebranded solution of the existing one. In short, customer Voice seems to be the enhanced version of Forums Pro.

Adhering to this, Microsoft GM Ray Smith explained to the audience that Customer Voice is more about a natural up-gradation or evolution of Forums Pro. If you want to start using Microsoft Dynamics 365, customer voice or any of the Microsoft services, experts at Stridely Solutions can help you out.

It is expected that soon Forums pro would be transitioned to Customer Voice with a few changes and enhancements. While the core of the two remains the same, the modern-day solution is more user-friendly and rich in technology.

In the end, it is all about what a customer expects and what has been their experience. Where a thank you note is sent in normal cases, the one with poor experiences are reconnected to solve the problem and create happy customers.