6 Ways to Automate Your SAP Systems with Robotic Process Automation
6 Ways to Automate Your SAP Systems with Robotic Process Automation
For companies across many different industries ranging from manufacturing to retail to finance, developing efficient methods to interact, store, and analyze massive amounts of data for technological and business innovation is the key to digital transformation. For many enterprises, making valuable technological advancements is a challenge that needs to be addressed.
What is SAP?
SAP (System Application and Products) is a software pioneering in ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions. It helps companies customize and create management systems for all business departments such as human resources, finance and accounting, logistics and transportation, marketing and sales, transactions, manufacturing, procurement of raw materials, warehousing, and inventory management. SAP is a data-based resource management system that helps businesses analyze and manage data as well as make decisions regarding production, organization, and operation.
Although SAP can assist a company in business processes and provide convenient enterprise automation to a large extent, operating SAP still requires manual labor. Manual operation is not only time-consuming and laborious but also inevitably error-prone due to human negligence or carelessness.
Integrating RPA with SAP
RPA (robotic process automation) is a popular technology that is suitable for clearly defined, repetitive, deterministic processes, such as those that adhere to a large number of established, logical rules.
SAP and RPA complement each other well. When managing SAP, employees must engage in many repetitive tasks. The tasks, repetitive and operating under predefined rules, are the perfect candidates for RPA automation.
RPA has flexible scalability and is non-invasive. It can be seamlessly integrated with the company’s existing SAP system. By simulating people’s operation behaviors between different computer systems, RPA robots can automatically perform routine and time-consuming tasks in the SAP system to improve SAP data quality and automation, helping businesses save full-time equivalents (FTE) and reduce labor costs.
RPA Applications in the SAP System
1. Interface Monitoring. Most enterprise SAP systems come as a suite. Cross-system integration requires interfaces, but interface failures are inevitable. In most cases, users are not aware of interface failures. When a user cannot complete a particular operation, they often rely on the SAP support team to identify and repair the problem.
With RPA, the support team can use robots to monitor all of the interfaces, check the middleware’s interface status, and oversee the business status in the non-SAP system. Then, the robots can generate reports to notify users in time. This way, the support team can focus on troubleshooting before users raise issues.
2. Workflow Monitoring. Implementation using SAP requires an approval process. These workflows are usually complex and need to be customized according to the business’s unique needs. Inevitably, workflow failures will occur during daily business operations, which may halt important business processes at critical moments.
RPA can be applied to workflow management by conducting regular monitoring to identify the problem when a failure occurs and by repairing it. If RPA robots detect a fault that requires changing the source code, the robots can also notify the workflow consultant to repair it in time.
3. Supplier Evaluation. Tracking supplier performance is very important for companies. RPA robots can regularly obtain supplier price, delivery time, product quality, after-sales service information, and other information from the SAP system. They can then compare, analyze, and evaluate data before generating comprehensive evaluation reports. These reports can help the company’s purchasing department negotiate the best price and ensure the timely delivery of goods and services.
4. Following-up on Purchase Orders. After a purchase order is sent to a supplier, the purchasing department must follow up on the order status to ensure that goods and services are delivered on time. RPA robots can automatically obtain relevant reports and transaction information from SAP, follow up on order status, and generate daily reports on open purchase orders so that employees can dedicate their time and energy to processing orders.
5. SAP S/4HANA Migration. Migrating to SAP S/4HANA is a tedious and costly project. RPA can automatically perform tasks such as migration preparation and data verification, thereby reducing costs and migration risks while facilitating the migration process.
6. Data Consistency Check. In a real-time production environment, inconsistent data can interrupt or even completely hinder business processes. For example, if the material master data has not been extended to the correct organizational structure, if the purchase information record has not been updated, or if the purchase contract in SAP ECC or SAP Ariba has expired, business processes may grind to a halt. In the absence of automation, employees must run multiple reports, import the data to Excel, and compare data to find missing content. RPA can automatically perform data consistency checks on a regularly and send reports to all stakeholders.
Getting Started
Get the most out of your SAP system by integrating it with RPA. With automation, your company can operate efficiently and accurately. Here at Laiye, we offer Laiye UiBot, an RPA+AI product that can help you realize your SAP system’s potential. Consult our professional team about how you can get started today.
About Laiye
Laiye, founded in 2015 by Ivy League Ph.D. graduates, is committed to being a leading Smart Robot platform with global influence in the era of human-robot collaboration.
Our portfolio of high-quality, secure products and services covers RPA+AI Solution, including Laiye UiBot (An RPA product), Wulai (An enterprise chatbot platform), and Xiaolai (A companion robot). Join us on LinkedIn, follow us on Facebook, or visit us at www.ui.bot.
