SAP R/3 Customization with GuiXT

Preamble

This feature examines some of the major challenges faced by industries running on SAP in leveraging their staff and existing investment in an era of constrained budgets and expanded demands. The article is predominantly written from the perspective of the C level executive with some reference to the technical, distinguishing points of the solution. GuiXT product suite is very innovative and readily delivers 4 key economic advantages:

• Reuse of current investment;


• Simplification of increasingly complex business processes;


• Increase in productivity; and


• Lower maintenance costs.

We describe some of the challenges created by the current trends in ERP implementation, specific to SAP, and the potential solution.

Executive Summary

CIOs face the challenge of adapting to an increasingly complex software world with yesterday's tool sets. The Internet, e-commerce, internal integration demands, supply chain re-engineering, and customer relationship management are all contributors to the growing demands on today's developer. How does one deal with all this complexity and the difficulty in employing the necessary IT talent to successfully wade through this quagmire? Conceptually, the perfect system would be one in which we could reuse our software, describe software architecture so that a non-expert could successfully execute and simplify complex business modeling, and automate most user tasks.

Synactive is a products company, always at the forefront of technology since its inception, developing and providing user-friendly solutions, adding exponential value to customer businesses. Synactive GmbH is a member of SAP's Complementary Software Program. Their product GuiXT enables easy reuse of existing SAP investments.

GuiXT Software Suite allows corporations to adopt a user-friendly and intuitive SAP by introducing a modular scripting technology that dramatically increases productivity with its powerful automation and customization features. Web interactivity and external application interactivity with SAP is introduced; which takes business processes to an entirely new level. Repetitive processes cease to be painful with excessive data entry and navigation, and instead become automated and accelerated workflows. All of the above is  achieved without adding to or modifying the underlying business layer (ABAP code) of SAP. Core runtime engine of GuiXT is a part of SAP Front-end and hence is present at every client installation.

End users have realized in years that with complete training and adoption of customized processes throughout an organization, they experience total ROI gains for SAP's past infrastructure investment of 50% plus.

GuiXT layers into an organization's existing SAP implementation to seamlessly bridge together disparate technologies available for enterprise implementation. Most organizations have made significant investments in existing SAP model to achieve the benefits of user-friendly and intuitive interface to simplify their processes; however, these investments have not produced the expected results. This is because they are either difficult to develop using or they achieve the results by altering the business logic of SAP, making it difficult to maintain and change. GuiXT shields the developer from ABAP and allows them to focus on writing business logic.

Challenges

With ever increasing changes, CIOs of companies are acutely aware of the need to choose the right technologies that will enable them to remain agile and to respond rapidly to the changing demands of the marketplace. The pace is demanding with changing distribution patterns, globalization of commerce, and mergers and acquisition activity allowing little time for reflection.
Recently, the push has been for user interfaces to be simple, clear, and intuitive. Users want a system that is easy to learn and use, and is flexible. Challenges faced by CIOs of SAP customers are, having:

• User-friendly screens,


• Error-free and tedium-free data entry,


• Low training and maintenance costs,


• Automated business processes, and


• Integration with web and other applications.

GuiXT solutions have multi-dimensional value, which addresses and overcomes the aforementioned challenges, both in less time and less cost.

Reuse of current investment

With the growth of the Internet and interdependent software systems, the need to leverage existing systems has grown enormously. Call of the hour is ‘reusable’ systems. Solutions that are reusable and scalable to prevent or minimize costly upgrades would be ideal.

GuiXT solution not only ensures reuse of current investment, but also spares future recurring investments, in terms of training and retraining SAP users. Ease of use; scalability; reliability; manageability; and flexibility are some of the highlights of GuiXT solutions.

Solution Overview

You can use GuiXT components to implement a whole range of screen customization options. With GuiXT components, you can:

• Combine and consolidate SAP screens to reduce the number of screens users have to wade through; in most cases up to a single screen,


• Change the layout (i.e., refine terminology or delete/move screen elements) of any SAP screen to improve productivity and reduce errors in data entry,


• Add relevant documentation by integrating web based help within SAP Front end itself, and reduce training costs,


• Add automation driven by one-click process; hence simplifying the business processes.



Inside GuiXT Components

• GuiXT (Shipped with SAP GUI) – Allows you to change text and remove redundant data-entry fields in R/3 without touching core R/3 data. The runtime engine is bundled with SAP GUI.


• InputAssistant – InputAssistant allows you to streamline business processes by combining stock R/3 screens and transactions into a customized, personalized, error-free data-entry screen.


• Designer – Allows you to add or change R/3 text and remove redundant data-entry fields in R/3 by simple mouse ‘click-drag-drop’ operations, without touching core R/3 data. The result of the screen modifications as GuiXT scripts.


• Viewer – Allows you to embed any HTML or RTF page inside any R/3 screen for Help or Internet lookup.

Strengths

• Ease of use – Screen customizations are done using Designer, a WYSIWYG tool that empowers users to click-drag-drop elements in an editable SAP GUI screen.


• Scalability – GuiXT supports wide range of implementation sizes; from small businesses to large corporations. GuiXT supports R/3 installations 3.x to 4.x.


• Reliability – Since GuiXT is bundled within SAP, it eliminates the need of any additional development activity within SAP.


• Manageability – Personalization and customization are script-driven. GuiXT scripts (simple ASCII text files) can be stored and managed within R/3 database.


• Flexibility – Once GuiXT is activated, all SAP transactions become candidates for simplification and personalization. All it takes is additional GuiXT scripts.

Benefits For Users

• Intuitive R/3; Easy to understand and use


• Process automation; Minimal errors


• Tedium-free; Smart and quick data-entry


• Huge time savings; Allows them to focus on their actual tasks

Benefits For Management

• Proven and scalable (bundled by SAP AG)


• Data consistency and integrity


• No ABAP necessary; Ensures swift implementation


• Transparent deployment


• Low cost; Less training for users


• Error-free, streamlined processes; Increased productivity

For further details, you can visit: GuiXT Site and get in touch.

Business Applications Usability & Recurring Benefits

In your business environment and the spread of IT landscape comprising of huge distributed business applications like ERPs, what are your primary goals when it comes to assessment of the entire system metrics?

Primary Goals

• Reduce training time and increase user comprehension;


• Increase productivity, efficiency, and data integrity;


• Increase speed, ease of navigation, and ensure a comprehensive data footprint.

Depending on specific platforms and technologies in use, without compromising on their internal functionalities and rich features, what are the few generic and common customization approaches to achieve the above goals?

Few ways to achieve customizations in business applications

• Change standard terminology to those your organization's pervasive business terms thus eliminating ambiguity and uncertainty;


• Reduce manual data entry by automating redundancies;


• Rearrange your tabs, buttons, workflow elements and fields to match those of your internal processes;


• Hide unused workflow elements and fields and create validations for all of the fields necessary to achieve a complete set of mandatory data;


• Consolidate multiple tabs, screens within your workflows and create a streamlined and easy to navigate environment;


• Consolidate multiple workflows and shortcuts in a dashboard and one-click interface if feasible and ensure that users provide all necessary data and jump across relevant areas without expending extra effort.

A summary of recurring benefits

• Increase in productivity creates direct full time employee benefits thereby enabling a redeployment of resources to other areas of business;


• Increase in efficiency improves employee experience and reduces training and retraining burden from the company and management;


• Speed, clarity and easy navigation creates enhanced customer satisfaction and leads to more happy and reference-able clients;


• Automation and validation reduces the time required to navigate through systems and ensures a more comprehensive data set for management reporting;


• Consolidation and streamlining creates a cleaner and more scalable environment that is more conducive to retention of existing workforce without the need for additional resource expenditure;


• Survival of enhancements through upgrades ensures that your investment is preserved and additional resources are used for additional enhancements;


• Ease and speed of deployment ensures that you can create a multitude of enhancements in a very short time with near immediate results.

Thoughts?