SAP Breathes New Life Into R3; Improves Interface

Computergram International, March 16, 1999

SAP AG yesterday showed off much needed new, user-friendly interfaces for its R/3 range of enterprise resource planning applications. At a series of demonstrations in its research labs in Palo Alto, California, the German software giant unveiled the changes as part of its EnjoySAP initiative, a strategy announced at its user conference last year in a bid to make R/3 easier to implement and use. SAP said the improvements focus on three key points: making the user interface more friendly so that "the esthetics of the software make its use obvious at first glance; understanding of how people interact with the applications and changing the software to suit their needs and personalizing the applications for individual's, or groups of individuals, needs." The changes will be included in release 4.6 of R/3, which is due out later this year, the company said. The overall front-end interface has been redesigned to make it look much more like a standard web site. It includes 3-D animations and graphics, from a partnership with Engineering Animation Inc in Ames, Iowa, SAP said. Under the EnjoySAP initiative, the company has also developed different interfaces for different users, including versions for database administrators, sales staff and executives. At yesterday's event, SAP showed off the new features of EnjoySAP running on the forthcoming R/3 release, new intranet solutions for employee self service applications and new solutions for business-to-business procurement. All the applications were launched from an employee workplace portal that can be personalized, SAP said. The company said it had enlisted the help of leading usability and design experts, and as well sending its developers to more than 1,000 customer sites during the past year to see what improvements needed to be made. And to ensure a continued tight link between users and developers, all SAP applications will now include a new "Click SAP" feature, which enables users to deliver feedback directly to developers. Users wanting to take a look at the improvements can take a peek first hand at http://www.sap.com/enjoysap.>