#67: Alternative SCN, AI Agents, UX
In this issue:
Alternative SAP Communities
It's been seven months since the disastrous SAP Community platform migration, and there's still no sign of major improvements or a shift in strategy. Meanwhile, fellow SAP professionals are building their own communities “with blackjack and hookers”.
SAP sub on Reddit is a place to find an occasional very detailed technical information, honest conversations about technology and events. Of course, Reddit being Reddit, it’s also home of “Fiori sucks” types of posts.
Björn Schulz writes top notch ABAP content on this website. Highly recommend following if you’re interested in practical tips and latest/greatest in SAP development.
For controversial posts about SAP in general from Tobias Hofmann, check out his It’s Full of Stars blog.
SAP Professionals Discord server is not very active at the moment but I think has a good potential because many SAP professionals (myself included) use Discord anyway. I sometimes sneak in on a weekend to see which games fellow SAPers are playing. ;)
Latest addition is SAP Development squad on daily.dev platform. This site looks like what Reddit (or formerly popular Digg) was meant to be, development-themed and with slick UI. SAP squad is brand new and it’s up to the members to fill it up with something useful. This can be a convenient place for developers who have broader interests than just SAP development.
Is there another good blog or SAP-themed community? Let the world know in the comments! JP
Sponsor: Nuve
Brought to you by Nuve
SAP pros, are you tired of spending countless hours on mundane SAP operations tasks? Do you dream of a world where system refreshes don't eat up your entire week, or worse, weekend?
Look no further than Nuve Platform! While everyone's buzzing about AI, Nuve is quietly revolutionizing SAP operations with practical automation that actually saves you time and headaches. Imagine refreshing your system from a productive backup with just minutes of downtime. Picture hundreds of tedious steps condensed into a single, efficient process ensuring consistency and eliminating manual refresh nightmares.
Don't let the AI hype distract you from the real productivity gains waiting at your fingertips. Contact Nuve today, your sanity will thank you! #BoringButBrilliant
[PM: I use this product, and it truly delivers. Read my review here.]
Not-So Secret Agents
The fall business tech conferences have been an AI agent polycule. What's been in vogue among the serious generative AI nerds for over a year has finally hit the shelves of business software. Here's what's happened:
Microsoft announced Copilot agents. Copilot has been the early entrant into business generative AI chat that many business users are already familiar with. I predict that getting everyday users to plug their umpteen gazillion SharePoint folders into AI agents will result in both productivity and chaos.
Salesforce dropped Agentforce at Dreamforce. Say that 10 times fast. I see, among others, a sales development representative (SDR) agent. I'm very curious about how SDR agents continue to mature (Salesforce isn't the first) - I hate when I know I'm dealing with an AI SDR.
Oracle announces more than 50 agents in Fusion Cloud. Included is a contract researcher agent; I've seen homegrown versions of this make powerful additions to several enterprise functions.
Workday says they've now got several new AI agents. There are probably reasons to be excited about the optimize, succession, and recruiter agents, but I desperately want the expenses agent. I am the worst employee in the world when it comes to timesheets and expenses.
I am first in line of the hyper-connected techno-optimist crowd. But for business software like the above, color me extremely skeptical that the first few out-of-the-box agents live up to the sky-high hype. PM
Everything Everywhere All UX
The other day at work, we had a conversation about our dental insurance provider (it’s the thing in the US). My main complaint about them was lack of coverage for modern restorative procedures, but the close second was poor UX provided by their website. It’s like adding insult to injury, literally.
UI and later UX held a prominent place at SAP TechEd events for many years (this year’s motto: “Joule is the new UX” - we have yet to see how that plays out). However, in the enterprise world, UX has historically been a low priority. Oh, you don’t like the ugly website where you submit timesheets or expense reports? Well tough luck, buddy. You want to get paid, don’t you? Suck it up then.
In the consumer world, UX can already make or break a business. And I suspect that even for enterprises, the free ride on The Suck It Up Express is coming to an end.
In his excellent article, fellow SAP Mentor alum Gareth Ryan writes, “Good UX is advocating for the user”. I think that’s the most accurate description of what should be at the core of every UX initiative. It’s not just “prettier screens” or “we got SAP Fiori, mission accomplished”. JP
The 5 Stages Of Tech Books
What makes a great tech book? I’ve read (parts of) hundreds over the years. This is how I sort them into groups, from worst to completely awesome.
"X Certification Guide". Those "turn this certification checklist into 400 pages" tomes. I made it through one, like 20 years ago. NEVER AGAIN. If you have the mental fortitude to author or read of one of those, my hat's off to you.
"X, The Comprehensive Guide". Yeah, I'm a co-author on one of those. I shouldn't have done that. Not because those books shouldn't exist, it's just that they're written like you're supposed to go all the way through them. I never could. There are people who plow through the comprehensive guide to something, find some nits to pick, and angrily email the book's editors. Trust me. I've been the target of such emails.
"Practical X" - this is (often but not always) the author's way of distilling their lived professional experience down into something that mixes technical knowledge with real-world advice. You're going from knowledge to wisdom here.
“Make me laugh while I learn” - like Joel Grus, author of "Data Science From Scratch". Done right, humor makes tech books incredibly more readable.
“Pour your whole self into it” - think “Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby” or Randall Munroe’s “What If?”. There’s no substitute for passion, artistry, and deep knowledge. You can read these technical books and suddenly you’ve improved in every dimension, even the ones that the author didn’t cover.
I’d love to see readers’ favorite tech books of all time. Send them my way! PM
DRIFT with SAP?
I bet quite a few readers will see this story and be like “ugh, not this RISE s*t again”. And it’s exactly my reaction these days when I hear it mentioned. But recent article in The Register, as well as resurfacing conversations about customers not quite rushing to meet 2027 ECC support deadline made me think about this subject again.
It’s anecdotal but there has been a resurgence of social media posts and articles suggesting that RISE might not be that great. 61% of surveyed DSAG members don’t plan to sign up for RISE and 8% haven’t heard of it. (How did they manage to avoid the too-warm embrace of SAP marketing? I’m jealous.)
I bet quite a few customers will opt out to just drift for some time with their perfectly working systems. There are many things one can do even with older SAP systems. And it might as well be a more sustainable option. JP
Work Sucks
In Apple TV's Severance, Adam Scott's character is implanted with a device that splits his mind in two. His "outie" is the person who he is at home, away from work. But when he comes within a certain distance of a device at the office, his outie switches off and the totally separate "innie" wakes up. Outie and innie have no memory of one another - the outie only remembers going down the elevator in the morning, and then wakes up as the elevator goes back up in the evening. The innie just remembers waking up on the elevator and doing his work tasks.
The whole thing may seem dystopian (and believe me, the mood of the series is not positive on this “innovation”), but I’ve had it up to here with some really aggravating work stuff lately.
So as Chief Something Officer, I am directing the Boring Enterprise Nerds R&D department to devote all resources to reproducing this technology. I want to be able to switch off my normal self and have no memory of the following situations:
Having to sit through an SAP roadmap presentation.
Reading another stupid AI slop blog post that starts with “in today’s fast paced world…“
Needing to tell a support person my account number right after I typed that account number into the automated phone system.
Trying to find something useful on the SAP Community web experience (see Jelena’s post above).
R&D team, your budget is infinity dollars. PM
Meet Jelena and Paul in person at ASUG Tech Connect conference (also official SAP TechEd “stop” in the US) on November, 12-14 in the sunny West Palm Beach, FL!
Pumpkin latte season alert! Support the nerds by buying us a cup or two of coffee. Thank you for your continuous readership and support!
The reddit community has just a new "Fiori sucks" rant with 160 likes an counting. Looks like the fanbase for Fiori among the SAP professionals is not very big.
Maybe better staying with the SAP community where marketing is big and criticism is unknown.