In my previous article, I discussed the SAP support experience transformation (https://www.asug.com/insights/ongoing-support-innovation-to-maximize-the-sap-support-experience). Now, it’s time to dig deeper into two features: SAP Cloud ALM and real-time support. These are key to your best support in SAP environments. If you still haven’t used them, this perspective should get you moving.
Streamlining Cloud and Hybrid Environments Across Your Business
The application lifecycle management solution SAP Cloud ALM helps streamline how you implement and operate cloud and hybrid environments across an entire business. This is big-picture thinking—holistically, based on your needs, it enables you and/or your partners to understand how to manage all functions of any SAP cloud product.
SAP Cloud ALM lets customers manage project teams, business processes, and integration with optimum efficiency. It works intuitively and is available, without any hardware investment, for all SAP cloud customers through SAP Enterprise Support cloud edition—an integral part of your cloud subscription. And, for on-premise customers, it’s available through SAP Enterprise Support or higher.
This means that during implementation planning, SAP Cloud ALM can be used to specifically plan or design the project. It can identify what needs to be done by when, and who’s doing it. Testing and deployment activities can be planned, along with onboarding checklists during the deployment. I contend that it’s everything you need to know when doing good project management.
SAP Cloud ALM supports:
- Designing the to-be solution
- Managing all build activities
- Managing all tests centrally
- Consistent deployment to production
Operations in View, Too
In addition, SAP Cloud ALM for operations can help build understanding of the solution and operations health, with a focus on five key areas:
- Actively monitoring business processes with issue/problem alerts
- Reliable data exchange between cloud services and systems
- End-user performance and utilization
- Transparency around job execution and automated activities
- Checking the application health of cloud services and systems
Akin to the ASUG mission, SAP Cloud ALM’s goal is to help organizations gain maximum business value out of technology.
Customers help make the case:
- “The SAP Cloud ALM solution, which includes built-in guides and best practices, has been a key enabler to accelerate adoption of cloud solutions from SAP. We help our clients leverage the power of SAP Cloud ALM for complete lifecycle management of multiple cloud solutions. Our solutions have enabled SAP Cloud ALM to extend across collaboration platforms.” [Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Private Limited (India)]
- “Task management functionality in the SAP Cloud ALM solution brings the SAP Activate methodology to life and helps us orchestrate implementations end to end. It guides the project team with its embedded analytics capabilities and provides the necessary motivation to bring activities to a close. Tightly integrated process and requirements management allows us to extend best practices supported by SAP and adopt solutions with industry-specific demands.”
- “SAP Cloud ALM enables us to connect all of our cloud products to better streamline our daily operations. It gives us transparency into system status, from both a business and integration-scenario perspective.” [REHAU (China)]
Partnerships to Serve and Support Needs
To drive business transformation, SAP plans to deeply integrate SAP Signavio and Tricentis test automation into SAP Cloud ALM. Business transformation starts with rethinking business processes based on best practices. SAP Signavio will be natively embedded in SAP Cloud ALM. This improvement will deliver the best possible user experience for business users. Governance efforts to synchronize process landscape in process modeling and application lifecycle management are eliminated.
For test automation, Tricentis test automation cloud will integrate into SAP Cloud ALM. This will automate testing during SAP projects and validate business processes when new SAP releases are applied in the environment.
This foundational support provided by SAP Signavio and Tricentis is included in usage rights for SAP Cloud ALM at no additional charge. If business process management and testing exceed this foundational support, the full portfolio of SAP Signavio and the SAP application testing solution portfolio is available.
In addition, SAP partners extend SAP Cloud ALM’s value and options for businesses. Earlier this year, at SAP Sapphire in Orlando—together with IT Senior Director Applications, Jeff Wyatt, the Chemours Company—we presented Chemours’ experience in using SAP Cloud ALM during its SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementation. Using SAP Cloud ALM, Chemours is managing the whole project implementation step by step, from the milestones and testing, to deployment. While Chemours has been an SAP customer for several years, its latest experiences with the build function of SAP Cloud ALM still left them deeply impressed.
Gain Back Time and Resources from Support Tickets
In my previous perspective, I noted that there are different real-time support chat options for quickly processing incidents. Did you know that only one in five customers currently uses real-time support for immediate support answers? Are you one of them? Let’s discuss how you can gain time and save resources.
Real-time support has different chat options that fit your incident needs:
- Expert Chat is a live-chat function that connects you directly to SAP technical support experts
- Schedule an Expert gives a one-on-one 30-minute call to discuss a technical topic, at a time that’s convenient for you
- Schedule a Manager for a 15-minute call with an SAP product support manager to discuss medium- and high-priority incidents and to give your feedback
- Ask an Expert Peer to discuss technical, product-related questions, one on one, with a qualified, approved expert outside of SAP
Take a moment to consider your past tickets and how many times you went back and forth, as well as the amount of time between each response. You have reaction-time delays and need to read into them again each time you receive a response. Plus, there are time delays as the ticket rests in the queue.
With real-time support, much of this time collapses because you and the expert are on the same line. These real-time interactions are completed, on average, in 30 minutes! Plus, two out of every three issues are solved in the first chat. Imagine freeing up time and people resources!
I see this as customer time better spent on the business—and real-time support gives you that time back. Those of you who are using it are loving what you’re seeing. You’re using real-time processes and your real-time business needs real-time support.
Have I convinced you to look further into real-time support and SAP Cloud ALM? Our customers, such as Wockhardt Limited and Ezentis, can tell you more about the time and resource savings they’ve realized. Bookmark the real-time support link and check out more specific details on our product support and SAP Cloud ALM landing pages.
This is the last piece in a series of Guest Perspectives from Andreas Heckmann. Heckmann is Executive VP of Product Engineering and Head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at SAP. Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.