Should My Business Deploy SAP Work Manager or SAP Asset Manager?

[NidhiDeep]

Should My Business Deploy SAP Work Manager or SAP Asset Manager? 

Depending on your business’s cloud strategy, you might have begun to consider which SAP enterprise mobility solution your team should be implementing. There are only two key contenders, SAP Work Manager and SAP Asset Manager, when comparing mobile offerings. As a quick recap, SAP Work Manager was created to help field maintenance workers visualize their tasks on an electronic device and record their work. More recently, SAP came out with SAP Asset Manager as the newer version of this product with an increased focus on workflow focused design.  

To provide you with the necessary information, we put together a couple of key considerations for each solution. Additionally, for teams that are currently running SAP Work Manager, it is likely that you have begun to wonder if it is time to make the transition to SAP Asset Manager. 

Determining Your Strategy 

Some of the preliminary questions we recommend your business begin asking are:  

How relevant is Cloud to your business / IT strategy?  

• If your business is not looking to transition to Cloud, SAP Work Manager is the only on-premise offering. This question alone won’t determine what solution your business should proceed with. We also encourage businesses to do a functional comparison of the standard OOB Fiori Web apps available Fiori App library. Opportunities also exist to build custom Fiori Web applications/Native/Hybrid/Fiori client apps.  

Does your business require a specific mobile OS to be supported (Apple iOS, Android or Windows)? 

SAP Asset Manager does not support Windows Devices. Therefore, if your business primarily uses windows laptops or tablets, SAP Work Manager will likely be a better fit for your team. If your team works primarily on iOS/Android, SAP Asset Manager will support your team’s requirements. 

Are you an existing SAP Work Manager on Premise customer? 

SAP Work Manager Cloud edition and SAP Asset Manager can connect to an existing SAP on Premise backend. SAP Asset Manager features like SSO with SAML2, improve sync performance over Work Manager, AIN integration and GEF integration etc. This increases the functional feature disparity between SAP Asset Manager and SAP Work Manager. Therefore, if your business doesn’t require an on-premise solution switching to SAP Asset Manager might be in your best interests. 

What is your timeline to have your new solution live? 

Subscription-based services on Cloud tend to require less set-up time, especially if options for Qualified Partner Packages exist. 

Once your team has reviewed and answered some of these preliminary questions, it will be time to make a more in-depth comparison between the two. 

SAP Work Manager vs. SAP Asset Manager 

SAP Work Manager or SAP Work Manager cloud edition likely makes sense for your business if your organization requires any of the following features that are currently available in SAP Work Manager and are not available in SAP Asset Manager: 

• Support for Windows OS 


• Vehicle Stock 


• Create/Edit Maps 


• Inbound Transaction queue 

• SAP Visual Enterprise Integration 

SAP Work Manager might also make more sense if your team: 

• Requires infrastructure for the mobile solution needs to be in OP deployment (SAP Mobile Platform) 

On the contrary, SAP Asset Manager is likely a better choice for your business if your team will require: 

• Asset/location hierarchy view 

• Analytics (Line Charts/Bar Charts) 


• Dynamic forms  


• Integration with SAP Intelligent Asset Management 


• Integration with SAP Geographical Enablement Framework 


• Single Sign-on (SSO) 

A complete feature comparison is included in the section to follow. 

SAP Asset Manager and SAP Work Manager Feature Comparison 

Even if the features that your business requires don’t exist on SAP Asset Manager just yet, it doesn’t mean the features won’t ever exist. This feature comparison provides a roadmap for new releases that can help your business identify when the right time to deploy SAP Asset Manager might be. 

Feature	SAP Asset Manager (2010)		SAP Work Manager (6.5)
	iOS	Android	iOS/Android/Windows
Work Order Management	Y	Y	Y
Notification Management	Y	Y	Y
Measuring Point Management	Y	Y	Y
Timesheets	Y	Y	Y
PRTs	Y	Y	Y
Classification Data	Y	Y	Y
Technical Object Overview	Y	Y	Y
Equipment Install/Uninstall	Y	Y	Y
Warranty Overview	Y	Y	Y
Partner View	Y	Y	Y
PM Confirmation	Y	Y	Y
Push Notifications	Y	Y	Y
Geospatial Map View	Y	Y	Y
Geospatial Feature Layers	Y	Y	Y
Add/Edit Geospatial Objects			Y
Geospatial Offline Map Caching	Y	Y	Y
GEF Integration	Y	Y	N
Crew Reporting	Y	Y	Y
Customer Service	Y	Y	Y
Linear Asset Management	Y	Y	Y
Meter Management	Y	Y	Y
Vehicle Stock			Y
Field Operations Workers/Rounds	Y	Y	Y
Attachment Upload	Y	Y	Y
Attachment Download	Y	Y	Y
Inbound Transaction Queue	N	N	Y
Visual Enterprise Support	N	N	Y
Asset Hierarchy View	Y	Y	N
Location Hierarchy View	Y	Y	N
Analytics (Line Charts/ Bar Charts)	Y	Y	N
Dynamics Forms Controls	Y	Y	N
PdMS Indicators	Y	Y	N
ASPM Questionnaires	Y	Y	N
Single Sign-on Support using SAML2	Y	Y	N

 

Side by Side Comparison of SAP Work Manager and SAP Asset Manager 

Although many considerations must be made, this summary table provides a good overview to use in your decision-making process. 

	SAP Asset Manager(2010)	SAP Work Manager(6.5)
Backend Support	ECC 6.0 EhP7 SP10+  *raise OSS if SP06~SP13  S/4HANA 1610+	ECC 6.0 EhP7 SP10+  *raise OSS if SP06~SP13  S/4HANA 1511+
Device Support	IOS, Android	iOS, Android, Windows
Feature Set	Increasing parity to Work Manager  Additional features planned for subsequent releases  Integrates with IoT and predictive capabilities  Best native user experience on modern devices	Mature product; fully developed feature set.  Additional features planned for subsequent releases.
Deployment Options	Cloud only	Cloud and On-Premise
Connectivity	Complex offline capabilities for asset-intensive industries	Complex offline capabilities for asset-intensive industries
Architecture	Metadata driven technical architecture enabling configurability and extensibility	Metadata driven technical architecture enabling configurability and extensibility
Licensing	Subscription	Subscription and On-Premise
Platform	Mobile Development Kit	Agentry on SAP Platform or SAP Cloud Platform

 

Conclusion 

While both products will provide your team with the mobile capabilities necessary to improve response time, extend asset life, and increase ROI, the best option will depend on your organization’s unique processes and long-term goals. 

If you have any questions about either SAP solution, I encourage you to reach out. 

Best regards, 

Nidhideep Bhandari