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In the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) development and runtime environment, has come a long way, to create innovative ABAP applications and extensions in the cloud alongside the Java or Node.js environment. Although announced in September 2018, the Platform as-a-Service (PaaS) offering for the ABAP developer community has grown in the last few years to mature into an enterprise-ready environment for Cloud development. Today, although many Customer SAP systems are running on ABAP and largely on-premise, with SAP BTP, ABAP Environment (aka Steampunk), Customers and Partners have an approach to transform existing ABAP assets to the cloud by offering Cloud-ready extension mechanisms that survive upgrades. Steampunk offers an innovation platform to develop and run innovative ABAP apps on PaaS in the Cloud. Steampunk provides an opportunity to maintain a clean core by running the custom ABAP development by decoupling from the core business system.Customers and Partners can immediately benefit from and adopt the newest innovations of the ABAP stack powered by SAP HANA, which are delivered every quarter. With its many enhancements being announced, do refer to florian.wahl#content‘s release blog posts for all the Steampunk details.
With the aim to support Partners leverage their existing ABAP know how, their need to reuse their existing on-premises ABAP assets and to encourage development of new cloud apps in ABAP which are decoupled from the digital core, the SAP Co-Innovation Lab in cooperation with ABAP Product management and development unit and Partner Solution adoption teams, commenced the Hack2Build initiative for partners across the various regions held between April 20-27, 2022.
SAP BTP enablement was offered to Partners by the Partner Solution Adoption unit in March 2022. The offering covered specifically Cloud Native Architecture and SAP BTP, ABAP Environment, as a developer bootcamp series. The bootcamp sessions prepared the Partners with predominant ABAP skills on how to build cloud ready applications and extensions leveraging SAP BTP, ABAP Environment. This set the stage for Partners to bring their current understanding of the ABAP PaaS to practical use by applying it to build Industry and Line of business focused ABAP cloud assets.
In this blog, we focus on Partners from Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) who had participated in this Hack2Build initiative on SAP S/4HANA Cloud extensions with SAP BTP ABAP Environment.
10 Partners brought out inspiring use-cases spanning many scenarios such as dealers tracking order status of Spares Parts in Automotive Industry; how to manage the Profitability of products sold by channel partners; get Retail Cloud Point of Sale (PoS) to synchronise orders, get stock and availability information, which are just a few examples amongst many other interesting ideas depicted during the final demo jam day. Like in the previous Hack2Build initiatives, the partners were able to showcase a working prototype in just 7 days which impressed the panel of judges.
Here, we highlight the Winners of the Hack2Build initiative held for the APJ Partners.
Winner: LTI
LTI focused on Life Sciences industry where their customers need was to have an efficient, low cost and configurable Label Management solution within the SAP system. The labeling process is critical for maintaining compliance and is a unique identifier to prove authenticity of drugs and devices to health care professionals. It also ensures that active ingredients and concentrations are clearly understood. As there was no ready to use label templates within the ERP system causing the need for costly customizations or dependency on third party solutions was paramount. LTI demonstrated an In-process label management solution which comprises of a generic template with a generic data-service, that is scalable to multiple label formats. Currently, there are 15 In-process labels identified, right from Quarantine label for Raw-material inward at factory gate to Loose-box carton label for finished good. LTI solution enables Customers to quickly deploy changes in case of new requirements and additional labels. The label formats include QR code with traceability information which can be integrated with Internet of things (IoT) devices as well as Art-work systems. The label management, a cloud native app was built on SAP BTP, ABAP environment factoring other SAP BTP services like workflow management, API Management and SAP Analytics Cloud.
Image 1: Label Management for Life Science by LTI
1st Runner Up: Blueprint Technologies
A Swift Freight solution mainly themed for exporters was showcased. The freight management solution was built as a side-by-side extension using the RESTful ABAP programming model. The solution utilizes SAP BTP services like conversational AI to simplify complex processes for freight partners of Transportation; in addition to leveraging Machine Learning for decision intelligence of selection of Freight Partners and for evaluating quotations. Using the role based SAP Fiori apps, for both logistics teams and freight transporters, the solution offers ease of collaboration to monitor shipments and to maintain freight compliance documents. The process flow spanning raising tenders, quotation process; shipment creation and processing; and analysing transporter performance was depicted to highlight the swift freight solution.
Image 2: Blueprint Swift Freight Solution
2nd Runner Up: Capgemini
Sustainable Procurement Cockpit was shown by Capgemini to help drive the sustainability agenda in the procurement function with better sourcing decisions. The cockpit solution is a cloud extension in SAP BTP, ABAP environment with SAP HANA capabilities such as the Core Data Service (CDS) to derive analytical dashboards with SAP Fiori elements Analytical List Page (ALP) using sustainability parameters and procurement transactional data. The existing sustainability data for Vendors and Materials in SAP S/4HANA to support vendor & material evaluation for purchasing has been leveraged to enable a 'Sustainable Procurement Cockpit' and a 'Sustainability Assistant' - A Conversational AI Chatbot for Sustainability.The cockpit offers Sustainability Evaluation by calculating sustainability impact of day-to-day purchase transactions (Purchase Orders). It offers supplier Sustainability Insights to provide a 360° sustainability view of the suppliers for better sourcing decisions. The Sustainability Level Analyzer measures’ sustainability levels for day-to-day purchases using supplier sustainability score and the Sustainability Assistant provides the sustainability data for materials/suppliers interactively on-demand and in real-time during the procurement transactional activities.
Image 3: Sustainable Procurement Cockpit by Capgemini
With special thanks to the SAP Judges, the SAP Product Management ABAP Platform unit, Partner Solution Adoption teams, and the Regional Partner ecosystem success organisation playing a key role in ensuring the success that all 10 participating partners were able to build in 7 days and demonstrate their innovative solutions during the Hack2Build SAP S/4HANA Cloud extensions with SAP BTP, ABAP Environment in APJ region. sudeesh.k philly_ played a significant role to elevate the Partner Experience as an organising team.
Going forward, the Hack2Build team will collaborate with all the interested partners including the Winners of this initiative to pursue the full scope of the use-cases on SAP BTP, ABAP Environment.
