ASUG British Columbia Chapter Meeting – 29Sept2011
I was already in town for the FortisBC TOP Anniversary Celebration, so it was a perfect opportunity to attend the ASUG Chapter Meeting at the Downtown Vancouver SAP offices. The last BC Chapter Meeting I attended was in March when we presented on TOP Software at the BCIT campus. I was looking forward to visiting with the ASUG members again, a good agenda, and a chance to see the city and the SAP offices.
I turned my rental car in Wednesday morning at the airport and used the SkyTrain to travel downtown and check into my hotel. The SkyTrain is extremely efficient and easy to use. I jumped on again Wednesday for dinner and finally on Thursday afternoon to go back to the airport for the flight home. The payment honor system is impressive, as is the cleanliness of the stations and trains. With the sunny weather, I took the opportunity to walk around many of the city’s unique neighborhoods and also do some shopping on Granville Island.
Like many SAP Offices, the lobby was very inviting and included two plant walls that were constructed with fabric, real plants and a water system. The plants are placed according to water needs, with high users at the top since the water starts there and flows down the fabric leaving only a few drops to hit the floor. Inside the conference room area, there were 2 large flat screens with interactive HANA data. You stood back and used your hand image to choose analytic parameters and swipe thru screens. There were comments that it looked a bit like Star Trek, but the analytics were real and fast. I spent a couple breaks comparing sports equipment revenue across countries.
Thursday’s meeting was well attended, considering many were at SAP Inside Track on Tuesday and may not have been able to get away for both events. Over 30 of us filled the presentation room, which included a mix of companies, vendors, and BCIT students. Similar to the March meeting, it was encouraging to see the student’s fresh faces and their excitement about entering the workforce. They are obviously in a supportive program and their presentation outlined past achievements and future plans. I can’t imagine how much stronger I’d have been coming out of school if I also had CAPM and SAP TERP10 certification.
All the presentations were useful and covered automated testing, accounts payable invoice automation, mobility, and SAP’s new social network Streamwork.
The Accounts Payable solution at Tim Horton’s was great to see, since we are also in the business of providing some relief for Accounts Payable departments. As mentioned, AP is a strategic part of all companies, especially when you factor in early payment discounts. Anytime you eliminate paper invoices and provide the means for the vendor and owner to communicate, you are gaining efficiencies and improving the business process for all involved.
Streamwork has a unique look and feel but clearly utilizes all the benefits of existing social networks. It is cloud based and will integrate with your On-Premise SAP and 3rd party systems, but more importantly provides the means to collaborate without email. The goal is to combine people, data, and tools and it went live in March2010 with 140K current users. In the live demo, we saw familiar functionality like feeds, hashtags, @ references, invites, and activities but also saw many sets of tools that help with project management and decision making. We have used Chatter at AccM and I look forward to trying out the free version of Streamwork. All presentation details are on the ASUG website.