The Business Value of Duet Enterprise

The Business Value of Duet Enterprise

White Paper February 2013

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Microsoft and SAP | Business Value of Duet Enterprise | 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 4

The New World of Work ........................................................................................................................................................... 4

Microsoft and SAP in the Enterprise ..................................................................................................................................... 5

THE MISSION OF DUET ENTERPRISE .............................................................................................................. 6

For Business Users ....................................................................................................................................................................... 6

For Enterprise IT and Partners ................................................................................................................................................. 6

BUSINESS VALUE OF DUET ENTERPRISE ........................................................................................................ 7

Access SAP Data and Processes Using Intuitive Tools .................................................................................................. 7

Access Information Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Device .............................................................................................. 7

Eliminate the Need for End-User Training ......................................................................................................................... 8

Save Time and Reduce Training for IT ................................................................................................................................. 8

Take Advantage of Existing Investments ............................................................................................................................ 8

Achieve Longevity with a Future-Proof Platform ............................................................................................................ 9

DUET ENTERPRISE OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................................... 10

Site Templates .............................................................................................................................................................................10

Prebuilt Components ................................................................................................................................................................10

Building Blocks for Manageability and Support ............................................................................................................11

Development Tools ...................................................................................................................................................................11

EXAMPLES OF PARTNER SOLUTIONS ........................................................................................................... 12

SAP CRM Solution Built By Fujitsu for Omnicell ............................................................................................................13

SAP HR Solution Built by Cordis for Ironwood Pharmaceuticals ............................................................................14

PO Solution Built by Capgemini for GT Advanced Technologies ...........................................................................15

IT BENEFITS OF DUET ENTERPRISE ............................................................................................................... 16

Upgrade with Minimal Effort .................................................................................................................................................16

Unlock the Strategic Potential of IT ....................................................................................................................................16

Simplify Development and Maintenance with Existing Technologies ..................................................................16

Streamline Administration with Common Management Tools ...............................................................................16

CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................... 17


INTRODUCTION Duet Enterprise combines the technology that people use every dayMicrosoft Office and Microsoft SharePointwith the technology used to run the businessSAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) and line-of-business (LOB) applications. Duet Enterprise allows employees to use Microsoft tools to access SAP workflows and data, including contacts, calendar, sales, and other data types. Users can work regardless of location (in the office, at home, or on the road), deployment (on-premises, cloud, or hybrid), or device (PC, tablet, or smartphone).

This white paper discusses the business value of Duet Enterprise, a joint product designed to increase the efficiency, flexibility, and effectiveness of companies that use SAP and Microsoft products. Duet Enterprise is especially relevant to todays companies, where employees are increasingly connected to one another digitally and where the pace of change demands that people have rapid access to accurate data in order to increase their productivity.

The New World of Work The world of work is being profoundly transformed by lower costs, higher performance, and faster speeds of communication in Information Technology (IT). In turn, IT itself is being rapidly altered by the evolving workspace. In this environment, enterprises must adapt to four key realities:

Inexorable Rise of the Cloud: The cloud is high on the agenda of business executives today, and the reasons are clear. For example, cloud technologies:

Allow enterprises to outsource selected IT functions and eliminate the purchase and management of expensive hardware, software, and storage infrastructure.

Reduce the need to hire, train, and retrain IT personnel in newer technologies.

Provide flexibility to dynamically scale up or down, based on business requirements.

Provide new capabilities to users without playing catch-up with upgrades.

Access to Information from Any Device, Anytime, Anywhere: Two growing trends in todays enterprises are the relentless drive to reduce real estate costs and the need to provide flexibility to employees to work from anywhere. Among other factors, these trends are contributing significantly to the drive toward the adoption of both cloud and mobile technologies.

Bring Your Own Device: The rapid proliferation of highly capable smartphones and tabletsalong with their easy configuration for Microsoft Exchange and intranet accesshave created both opportunities and challenges for companies. Companies benefit by cutting the cost of telecommunications and device administration, while improving employee productivity. However, IT departments are forced to adapt rapidly to the paradigm shift in device management.

Consumerization of IT: While employees expect corporate tools to support flexibility and BYOD trends, they also expect these tools to be as intuitive and easy-to-use as consumer products. When these expectations are not met, employees either find workarounds or reject the tools that are intended to help accomplish business objectives.


Microsoft and SAP in the Enterprise SAP ERP and other LOB applications serve as systems of record for many enterprises. These companies have invested tremendous resources to optimize their business processes using SAP, embarking on well-intentioned efforts to make this data widely available to employees. The benefits of such efforts are obviousgetting accurate information about the business in the hands of employees allows them to make smart decisions, reduce guesswork, and improve reaction time to market changes.

However, it is a challenge to bring comprehensive and robust SAP LOB data to employees across the enterprise, while also ensuring administrative ease, compliance, compatibility, security, and scalability. In addition, this data must be made available to employees who are infrequent users of the SAP systems, as they constitute the vast majority of users within most companies. While SAP systems offer deep capabilities to empower users to access and analyze data, an average information worker is unlikely to find these systems easy to navigate. SAP NetWeaver Gateway is designed to address precisely this issue; it is a bridging technology that surfaces SAP data and processes to other platforms and tools, making this data available in different form factors to a wide variety of users.

Enter Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft SharePointthe dominant productivity and collaboration platform and tools for enterprises. Employees have used these tools for years, are intimately familiar with the interfaces, and interact with the tools on a daily basis. Indeed, the breadth of Microsoft SharePoint deployment is remarkable: 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint, and more than 66,000 customers have purchased 135 million licenses of SharePoint worldwide.1

These Microsoft tools have grown in capabilities over the years, and now provide Business Connectivity Services (BCS), a robust application development platform for integrating Office and SharePoint with any LOB platform or application. In addition, Office and SharePoint give enterprises the choice to deploy an on-premises, cloud-only, or hybrid model with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft SharePoint Online.

Microsoft and SAP are two of the largest software companies on the planet, and they have many customers in common. The integration between Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, and SAP presents an opportunity for enterprise customers to achieve unprecedented benefits. This integration gives employees access to SAP data with an ease of use that they have not had before.

For nearly 20 years, SAP and Microsoft have worked together on a partnership that provides their customers with unprecedented integrated solutions. With Duet Enterprise, both SAP and Microsoft have established a framework for integrating SAP ERP with the Microsoft platform. With their investments in research, development, and support for Duet Enterprise, Microsoft and SAP ensure that enterprise customers can establish and plan for a long-term commitment to the Duet Enterprise platform.

1 Microsoft internal data


THE MISSION OF DUET ENTERPRISE The mission of Duet Enterprise is to provide an interoperability foundation and rapid development approach so that companies can take better advantage of their existing investments in Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office, and SAP software.

For Business Users Duet Enterprise combines the technology employees use every day with the technology used to run the business. The technology employees use every day includes Microsoft Office applications, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft Office 365. Mobile devices and browser-based interfaces are increasingly becoming part of this mix. For running the operations of a business, a different set of technology generally is usedsuch as LOB applications like SAP, which come with a distinct set of screens and user interfaces.

Solutions built using Duet Enterprise allow employees to use Microsoft Office and SharePoint to access SAP workflows and data, whether they are in the office or at home. Users can work regardless of the deployment (on-premises, cloud, or hybrid) and can use nearly any devicesuch as a PC, tablet, or smartphoneto tap into the power of Duet Enterprise.

For Enterprise IT and Partners Duet Enterprise provides a solid foundation so that IT departments, systems integrators (SIs), and independent software vendors (ISVs) can build their own collaborative composite applications and reusable site templateswith minimal focus on addressing generic details of the underlying product and maximum focus on crafting needed business solutions.

Duet Enterprise helps to address the dramatic changes in the world of enterprise software since the Internet became central to business. Collaborative mechanisms such as wikis and mashups may be easy to develop, but they are rarely auditable, secure, scalable, or manageable. Likewise, many other techniques, such as portals, screenscraping technologies, and widget frameworks, meet some but not all requirements for enterprise-class solutions. Duet Enterprise addresses the weaknesses in many existing approaches by using technologies such as SAP NetWeaver Gateway combined with the easy-to-use capabilities of Microsoft tools.

With Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft SharePoint in the cloud, IT departments can deploy Duet Enterprise in the cloud, on-premises, or as a hybrid combination.


BUSINESS VALUE OF DUET ENTERPRISE Duet Enterprise is built, supported, and delivered by Microsoft and SAP; both companies are committed to working together to provide customers with ways to maximize the business value of their investments in Microsoft and SAP products. Duet Enterprise is a robust solution that offers diverse business value across a companys operations.

Access SAP Data and Processes Using Intuitive Tools Duet Enterprise allows business users to access relevant, valuable data through the familiar interfaces of Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office. Through these interfaces, the SAP data is presented in a meaningful context; for example, user profile information from SAP may be accessed or updated using Microsoft Outlook.

In addition, with Duet Enterprise, Microsoft productivity tools can be customized easily to fit users needs. Not only can end users create an ad hoc workspace to collaborate around a customer, but they also can add additional web parts.

For example, Sandvik Group2 implemented a Duet Enterprise solution in six weeks and cut invoice approval times in half merely by showing SAP data in the intuitive Microsoft SharePoint interface.

Access Information Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Device In addition to an on-premises deployment, Duet Enterprise can be implemented in the cloud exclusively or in a hybrid cloud and on-premises mode. Duet Enterprise also permits business users to gain remote access to their SAP data using a smartphone, tablet, or any browser offline or online.

Duet Enterprise provides many options to visualize SAP data, including the ability to use a modern, web-style front end with SharePoint, Windows phone, and native Windows 8 applications. This breadth of options enables key consumer-oriented usage scenarios, including customization to address specific enterprise demands.

Further, the ability to deploy Duet Enterprise with Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint in the cloud helps to ensure that companies have continued access to the latest capabilities of these platforms. Cloud deployment addresses the challenge of an on-premises implementation where the standard IT upgrade/update cycles significantly lag the market availability of products because the IT department is constantly juggling multiple priorities.

For example, Cordis Solutions3 built a Duet Enterprise-based expense management web application for 6,500 worldwide mobile users in a quasi-government organization. As all users did not need access to all screens in SAP, it was understood that these users should not have to learn a fairly complex SAP user interface to perform simple point tasks.

2 Sandvik Group Case Study: Global Engineering Firm Speeds Invoice Approval Process, Boosts Business Agility 3 SAP Insider Webinar: How to Shorten Time-to-Value with Partner Solutions Built on Duet Enterprise Foundation


Eliminate the Need for End-User Training The training-related benefits of using Microsoft Office and SharePoint are obvious: End users do not need to be trained to use new tools or screens; they also do not need to be retrained when these tools are upgraded or replaced. This results in reduced downtime, helping to enhance productivity. Moreover, by using self-service tools based on Microsoft Office and SharePoint, employees can increase and improve their utilization of SAP data, allowing them to make better business decisions more quickly.

For example, Daiichi Sankyo Europe4 implemented a Duet Enterprise solution that allows users to enter accounting data quickly into Microsoft Office forms. Because users were already familiar with the standard Microsoft Office user interface, they did not need extensive retraining to learn the new system. Online validation during data entry also reduced errors and improved the quality of data in the system.

Save Time and Reduce Training for IT With Duet Enterprise, IT professionals are not required to deploy yet another technology stack or platform and later follow up with install-update-upgrade cycles. IT professionals also do not need extensive training on new development tools: Ongoing training investments in ABAP and Microsoft .NET technologies allow IT to perform all management, operations, security, and support tasks required to deploy and maintain Duet Enterprise applications.

Further, Duet Enterprise provides the building blocks for IT to create powerful business solutions without the need for writing code. In addition to eliminating the time required to write and test code, this ability negates the need for code maintenance cycles as new SAP versions are deployed.

For example, when Capgemini5 needed to build a purchase order workflow solution for its customer GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT), it chose Duet Enterprise. Capgeminis analysis revealed that Duet Enterprise would allow IT to develop solutions three to five times faster than the alternatives.

In any company, the time savings that IT achieves can be redirected toward performing high-value functions. The IT department can focus on efforts that provide strategic value to the business rather than on routine tasks common in the life of an IT professional.

Take Advantage of Existing Investments Most solutions designed to make SAP data and processes commonly available in the enterprise are incomplete at best, as they require investments in both new platforms and new skills. Duet Enterprise intuitively addresses this challenge because SAP and Microsoft Office tools are deployed and widely used in a large majority of enterprises worldwide. With Duet Enterprise, companies do not need to invest in new technologies, nor do they need to train IT or end users in substantively new technologies. In addition, companies do not need to invest precious cycles (for both the business and IT) to consider, evaluate, procure, and purchase new technologies.

4 Daiichi-Sankyo Case Study: Teaming Microsoft SharePoint and SAP Applications through Duet Enterprise 5 Capgemini Case Study: GT Advanced Technologies - Getting more from SAP using ERP+ with Duet Enterprise


The benefit is clear: When a new Duet Enterprise workspace is rolled out or a new application is released, employees can use the capabilities immediately, without downtime to learn a new program or software. This facilitates rapid adoption and maximizes the value that companies can extract from pre-existing investments in SAP and Microsoft tools.

For example, when Omnicell6 decided to deploy Duet Enterprise for its sales force, the primary reason was because information could be extracted from the SAP customer relationship management (CRM) system and then displayed on Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Outlook. Both tools were already implemented and in use, and Omnicell was able to make centralized and current sales data available to its sales teams.

Achieve Longevity with a Future-Proof Platform Both Microsoft and SAP fully understand the significance of rolling out a product and providing an end-to-end approach to ensure that enterprises are successful at achieving their business outcomes. This includes providing a solid roadmap, manageability features, security considerations, and operational capabilities that are essential to a successful enterprise deployment.

Duet Enterprise is built on a flexible standards-based architecture. This commitment to standards-based technology ensures ongoing support and gives partners the ability to build next-generation solutions with the Duet Enterprise platformwithout the need for extensive coding. With standards-based architecture and no-code business solutions, enterprises

simultaneously can reduce costs and make SAP data and processes more accessible to end users.

Finally, Duet Enterprise is jointly developed by Microsoft and SAP, two world-class software companies who have worked together for the last 20 years, This implies that future versions of Duet Enterprise will continue to interoperate with future versions of Microsoft and SAP products. Both companies are dedicated to maintaining their investments in the Duet Enterprise platform, and customers can be assured that it will be supported and upgraded on an ongoing basis.

With the recent addition of support for SharePoint Online and Office 365, Microsoft also has already demonstrated its

commitment to supporting the Duet Enterprise platform for all future versions of the Microsoft products, whether they are deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration.

For example, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals7 enacted an extremely rigorous process for selecting a solution for its human resources (HR) benefits enrollment. After evaluating all options, Ironwood chose Cordis Solutions to implement Duet Enterprise as the most capable solution that would grow with the companys requirements.

6 Omnicell Case Study: Healthcare Solutions Provider Eases Customer Data Collection, Boosts Agility 7 SAP Insider Webinar: How to Shorten Time-to-Value with Partner Solutions Built on Duet Enterprise Foundation

The selection process was very intense and robust because we wanted to make sure that we made the investment in the right solution that we were going to be able to use long term. Teresa A. Suganski, Director of Enterprise Applications, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals

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DUET ENTERPRISE OVERVIEW Duet Enterprise includes four elements that can be used to create targeted solutions: site templates, prebuilt components, building blocks for management and support, and development tools. Figure 1 shows the components of Duet Enterprise, as well as related Microsoft and SAP tools.

Figure 1: Components of Duet Enterprise and Microsoft and SAP tools

Site Templates Consisting of web pages and web parts, ready-to-use site templates allow end users to rapidly create collaboration workspaces. With these site templates, employees can create workspaces for any of the following out-of-the-box SAP business objects: Customer, Employee, Product, Customer Inquiry, or Customer Quoteall at the click of a button. Site templates in Duet Enterprise use synchronized single sign-on between SharePoint and SAP. Data is populated in SharePoint through SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) using SAP NetWeaver.

Prebuilt Components In addition to site templates, Duet Enterprise includes other prebuilt, ready-to-use components that speed the creation of special-purpose solutions:

Duet Enterprise Reporting allows end users to retrieve SAP reports directly from SharePoint and Office applications. End users can subscribe to, schedule, and receive automatic delivery of reports in all formats supported by SAP.

Duet Profile allows users to enrich user profiles in SharePoint with HR data from SAP.

Enterprise Collaboration features in SharePoint (such as shareable documents, discussion forums, blogs, and wikis) can be used to collaborate around an SAP business object (such as Customer, Employee, and Product).


Duet Enterprise Sites provides ready-to-use Duet Enterprise site definition templates for the five specific SAP business objects. Microsoft SharePoint Designer can be used to easily modify these templates and create new ones.

Duet Enterprise Workflow allows user decision steps in SAP workflows to flow into Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint as workflow tasks. These tasks then can be disseminated through email templates. This means that action can be taken on the tasks through a message in Outlook or from a workflow site in SharePoint, thereby removing the need for a user to log on to SAP.

Building Blocks for Manageability and Support Duet Enterprise provides several building blocks for enhancing the manageability and supportability of customer data and processes:

Administration and Support Toolsincluding Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, SAP Computing Center Management System (CCMS), and SAP Solution Managerare used to manage Duet Enterprise and minimize training requirements for IT teams. Duet Enterprise provides tools that enable administrators to trace a message through its communication path using standard Microsoft and SAP monitoring and support features, as well as to monitor the status of applications, deployment components, and users logon/logoff activity.

Security and Single Sign-On capabilities help to ensure that Duet Enterprise users have highly secure access to all data residing in SAP or Microsoft applications. These capabilities are implemented with mapping tables in Duet Enterprise that map SharePoint user accounts to SAP user accounts. More granular privileges are enabled using graphically intuitive SharePoint tools and data ported from SAP.

Landscape Management capabilities permit Duet Enterprise to enable failover scenarios, use mechanisms such as load balancing, and connect to multiple back-end systems.

Application Lifecycle Management tools and practices allow the entire lifecycle of application components to be maintained through the commonly understood stages of Expose, Compose, Consume, Deploy, and Innovate. It is important to note that application components can include Microsoft or SAP products, components of Duet Enterprise that run in SAP, or even custom-developed elements.

Offline Support is enabled within Duet Enterprise by allowing selected data elements (such as contact information) to be extracted from SAP and stored in Outlook or SharePoint in an offline mode. Offline data has the same security protections and encryption as online data.

Development Tools Duet Enterprise uses standard development tools for the Microsoft and SAP platforms:

Microsoft SharePoint Designer enables power users to create new sites, applications, workflows, and document lists.

Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET development environments can be used to build components for Duet Enterprise applications, including Microsoft Silverlight, HTML5, Outlook Task Panes, custom user interfaces, and advanced business logic.

ABAP Workbench is used with the service consumption layer in SAP NetWeaver to implement web services invoked through BCS to communicate between SharePoint and SAP.


EXAMPLES OF PARTNER SOLUTIONS Duet Enterprise provides a foundation for the extensibility of solutions that combine the power of data residing in SAP applications with the ease-of-use and familiarity of Microsoft tools. SI and ISV partners use this foundation, along with their real-world knowledge of the needs of enterprise customers, to craft innovative and long-term solutions.

When partners build solutions using Duet Enterprise, they know that the applications will function, with minimum customization, in another Duet Enterprise environment. This allows them to focus on developing customer-specific features rather than rebuilding the foundational elements for every customer.

Microsoft and SAP have worked closely with partners to build a variety of solutions tailored to specific customer scenarios. The solutions created by partners span all industries and functional spaces, including HR, CRM, Procurement, Finance, Manufacturing, and others. Three of these solutions are highlighted on the following pages.


SAP CRM Solution Built By Fujitsu for Omnicell Challenge: Omnicell8 provides automation solutions for healthcare facilities. While on the road, the Omnicell sales force is frequently disconnected from the Internet. Historically, sales contacts and activity information were fragmented across a variety of locations. Sales contacts were captured as paper business

cards, through third-party contact tools on mobile devices, or in Outlook. Sales activity was captured in email messages, day planners, or the SAP CRM system. Documents existed in email, on SharePoint, or on individual laptops.

This fragmented sales information prevented executives from gaining a 360-degree view of the sales cycle, increased the risk of the loss of important account-related information when sales personnel departed, and hindered marketing teams attempting to access the latest information for demand-generation campaigns.

Solution: Omnicell selected SI partner Fujitsu to deploy a Duet Enterprise-based solution that provides the front end of Microsoft Outlook on top of SAP CRM. With direct integration and automatic updates to SAP CRM, the Outlook interface enables sales personnel to add or modify customer contact information in Outlook, input tasks in Outlook, forward emails to an SAP CRM account, and run sales reports directly from a SharePoint-based intranet portal.

Benefits: Omnicell has seen remarkable benefits from implementing Duet Enterprise. The easy and familiar interface of Microsoft Outlook provides a standardized mode for capturing data in SAP CRM. Running sales reports that access SAP data from SharePoint is quick,

and the reports are meaningful because all data is being captured in a centralized and organized manner. In addition, marketing campaigns are efficient and targeted because they are based on accurate information.

8 Omnicell Case Study: Healthcare Solutions Provider Eases Customer Data Collection, Boosts Agility

We went from distributed, non-centralized contact data to being able to organize and categorize the contact data in one system. Having a centralized repository of customer information is critical to improving the efficiency of our sales and marketing operations. Rob Johnson, IT Manager, Omnicell

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SAP HR Solution Built by Cordis for Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Challenge: Ironwood Pharmaceuticals9 is an entrepreneurial company with a passion for discovering, developing, and delivering human medicines. Ironwood has been growing very rapidly and has more than 500 employees. It is committed to maximizing SAP investments through strategic solutions that

encourage strong user acceptance and utilization, support business processes, and increase functionality.

Ironwood HR required a highly configurable, branded, customized, intuitive, and user-friendly employee interface to manage annual enrollment for benefits. Due to its strong growth, Ironwood also wanted to build out this system in the long term to support employee self-service and handle ongoing changes to personal data and benefits.

Solution: Ironwood conducted an elaborate selection process to select the right product and partner, ultimately choosing ISV partner Cordis Solutions to implement a Duet Enterprise solution. Cordis utilized Duet Enterprise to deploy myData and myCompensation applications, which allow employees to select health insurance, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment benefits as part of their annual enrollment process. In addition, Ironwood intends to extend the solution to other HR functions, such as performance management.

Benefits: During deployment of the myData and myCompensation solutions, Cordis obtained complete

user acceptance sign-off from Ironwood within an unprecedented six weeks. In addition, the ability of Duet Enterprise to surface SAP HR information in Microsoft SharePoint is expected to provide rich benefits to HR users at Ironwood.

9 SAP Insider Webinar: How to Shorten Time-to-Value with Partner Solutions Built on Duet Enterprise Foundation

To have a partner and a product, both in Cordis and Duet Enterprise, that are nimble and able to be easily configured was really important to us. Teresa A. Suganski, Director of Enterprise Applications, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals

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PO Solution Built by Capgemini for GT Advanced Technologies Challenge: GT Advanced Technologies10 (GTAT) is a leading global manufacturer with manufacturing operations that require the company to purchase large amounts of raw materials; therefore, employees must handle more than 300 purchase orders (POs) every day. However, the GTAT PO approval process

was not standardized across the company and took an inordinate amount of managers time.

Although GTAT had deployed SAP for the PO approval process, managers were not using it extensively. While SAP provides tremendous capabilities to power users, it was difficult for the managers, who are occasional users of the system, to learn and navigate the native screens to perform approval tasks.

Solution: Capgemini designed, developed, and delivered a PO approval portal based on Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint, and Duet Enterprisewith Duet Enterprise acting as a fully integrated bridge between SAP and Microsoft technologies. With this system, POs in SAP are synced with SharePoint, effectively in real time. End users can easily create, view, and approve or reject POs using the

familiar Microsoft interface.

When a PO is presented for approval, PO details and contextual information appear together on a single screen, facilitating quick and accurate decision-making. Besides providing senior managers with a dashboard that displays up-to-date PO data, the solution also offers bulk approve and reject operations.

Benefits: With Duet Enterprise, GTAT implemented a standardized and streamlined PO process across the company. In addition, GTAT managers now can review and approve POs from their mobile devices while they are outside the office.

10 Capgemini Case Study: GT Advanced Technologies - Getting more from SAP using ERP+ with Duet Enterprise

Our executive teams and mobile users now have the ability to review and approve purchase orders from outside of the SAP environment, and from their mobile devices while travelling. This has greatly improved the purchase order approval process. Tom Doyle, VP of Information Technology, GTAT

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IT BENEFITS OF DUET ENTERPRISE There are a number of compelling considerations for IT while implementing Duet Enterprise. These considerations range from simplified deployment through add-ons to streamlined security, management, and support.

Upgrade with Minimal Effort Duet Enterprise is deployed by adding capabilities to existing platforms. That is, no new platforms are required to be deployed. Duet Enterprise add-ons must be installed on SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft SharePoint instances that use existing capabilities, but no changes are required on client applications. The ability of SAP NetWeaver Gateway to abstract SAP version changes from external applications that rely on SAP data and processes saves time and effort for IT departments.

Unlock the Strategic Potential of IT Duet Enterprise allows IT departments to focus on value-added activities instead of daily low-end tasks. With the framework provided by Duet Enterprise, end users can own and manage simple tasks, such as creating product-focused workspaces, without having to engage IT. The framework also enables IT to roll out useful and high-quality applications faster by using prebuilt components.

Plus, the ability to deploy Duet Enterprise in the cloud means that IT departments are not required to manage new hardware and software infrastructure associated with Microsoft Office and SharePoint. This means that IT professionals can focus on measuring and monitoring the quality of service rather than, for example, provisioning additional memory due to slow email delivery.

Simplify Development and Maintenance with Existing Technologies Duet Enterprise is built on technologies that are proven and familiar to IT departments. Enhancing and maintaining it requires only existing tools and well-known frameworks, platforms, and development environments. IT teams do not need to learn new skills to work with Duet Enterprise; their existing skills in Microsoft .NET and SAP development are sufficient.

From an application perspective, Duet Enterprise extends the use of standard forms of information, such as SAP roles and profiles. Similarly, Duet Enterprise can deem processes and workflows as standard forms of information that can be surfaced and used from within SharePoint and Outlook.

Streamline Administration with Common Management Tools A major benefit of Duet Enterprise is that the management tools required to administer Microsoft and SAP are the same tools that can manage Duet Enterprise components. These toolsMicrosoft System Center Operations Manager, SAP CCMS, and SAP Solution Managerhave been used, tested, and refined over many years. With Duet Enterprise, IT professionals do not need to gain new coding skills to develop applications, and IT administrators do not need to learn a whole new management stack.

The single sign-on authentication implemented in Duet Enterprise provides an important additional benefit: IT professionals are not required to build and maintain yet another custom authentication mechanism because the capability is built and maintained out-of-the-box and works seamlessly with SAP ERP and Microsoft Office productivity tools.


CONCLUSION Microsoft and SAP have jointly created Duet Enterprise to unite the intuitive user interfaces of Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint with the power of SAP applications. Fundamentally, this enables business users to access SAP data and processes more seamlessly, and makes it easier for IT departments to deploy and maintain relevant business solutions. In addition, Duet Enterprise provides many other business benefits, including enhanced user productivity, reduced training for end users and IT, and better platform adoption and longevity.

With Duet Enterprise, business users can access relevant data using tools that are familiar and comfortable, helping to increase both productivity and user adoption. Likewise, because Duet Enterprise can be implemented on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid model, users have the flexibility to access SAP data whenever and wherever, using any device.

In addition, training for both end users and IT is streamlined. Because Duet Enterprise uses well-known Microsoft Office and SharePoint interfaces, end users do not need training on new tools or screens. Moreover, with self-service tools based on these interfaces, Duet Enterprise enables users to increase their use of SAP data and improve their productivity. For IT, training is simplified because there is no need to learn new development tools. IT professionals can maintain Duet Enterprise applications using their existing skills with ABAP and .NET technologies. Also, because Duet Enterprise-based solutions can be created without writing code, IT can redirect time traditionally spent writing, testing, and maintaining code toward performing high-value, strategic functions for the business.

Finally, because Duet Enterprise takes advantage of existing investments in platform technologies and employee skill sets, companies do not need to invest in new tools or expensive training programs. This promotes rapid end-user adoption and negates the time and effort required for IT to research, purchase, and implement new technologies. Further, both Microsoft and SAP are committed to maintaining Duet Enterprise as a future-proof platform. Built on a flexible standards-based architecture, the Duet Enterprise platform delivers the ability to build next-generation, no-code solutions and ensures ongoing support across versions of Microsoft and SAP products.

TABLE OF CONTENTSINTRODUCTIONThe New World of WorkMicrosoft and SAP in the Enterprise

THE MISSION OF DUET ENTERPRISEFor Business UsersFor Enterprise IT and Partners

BUSINESS VALUE OF DUET ENTERPRISEAccess SAP Data and Processes Using Intuitive ToolsAccess Information Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Device/Eliminate the Need for End-User Training/Save Time and Reduce Training for ITTake Advantage of Existing Investments/Achieve Longevity with a Future-Proof Platform

DUET ENTERPRISE OVERVIEWSite TemplatesPrebuilt ComponentsBuilding Blocks for Manageability and SupportDevelopment Tools

EXAMPLES OF PARTNER SOLUTIONSSAP CRM Solution Built By Fujitsu for OmnicellSAP HR Solution Built by Cordis for Ironwood PharmaceuticalsPO Solution Built by Capgemini for GT Advanced TechnologiesUpgrade with Minimal EffortUnlock the Strategic Potential of ITSimplify Development and Maintenance with Existing TechnologiesStreamline Administration with Common Management Tools

CONCLUSION