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What's SAP?

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Re: What's SAP?

#431

Post by dfox »

sebazzz wrote: post #266
lewisjoe wrote: post #158

SAP always is an interesting case. It gets close to zero love from HN, yet the platform has some interesting engineering. For example, they had their own language that abstracts and operates directly over a database. They had their own drag and drop UI builder, that compiles down to a HTML page or a desktop widget - which is again not an ordinary feat. They view code as data, as in even the UI is stored as a configur…

Isn't SAP just a plain example of the Inner Platform Effect?

It isn't. Because when they started, there wasn't any "outer" platform the speak of. The platform underlying SAP is essentially an way to have mainframe-like development environment (updates of almost anything without restart, declarative UI library, minimal overhead for inactive users...) on something that isn't a mainframe.

Re: What's SAP?

#432

Post by gbasin »

jasode wrote: post #280
mr_gibbins wrote: post #230

I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP. It's hideous. Hideous. My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree). When you look at the underlying database 'schema' (inverted commas deliberate) you'll find it's a massive, denormalised mess. Much of what SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software. Reports, for…

>changing the business to fit SAP is preferable to changing SAP to fit the business. And it's accurate advice. It shouldn't be, but it is. This is a common misunderstanding. Many people miss the underlying philosophy of SAP software. The reason SAP encourages businesses to adopt SAP's way of doing things is that they did research into the optimal way of doing the common business processes that don't differentiate you…

Very good response, this explains a lot. Thank you

Re: What's SAP?

#433

Post by recursive »

ta999999171 wrote: post #293
hef19898 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last paragraph is the core issue, IMHO. SAP, while as software is cumbersome, user hostile and the opposite of intuitive, has some really great standard processes. Stick to them and SAP as an ERP system will run, almost, like a charm . When your company has the scale to benefit from it. And sticks to 90% of the standard processes. Try to implement it without the necessary scale of operations, with sticking to sta…

If you absolutely need training to understand a UI, your UI sucks. Badly.

So, like vim and photoshop then?

Re: What's SAP?

#434

Post by gbasin »

After reading all these comments, I think the market opportunity is building lightweight SaaSy UIs on top of SAP to make it easier to work with. Someone write me a check

Re: What's SAP?

#435

Post by widforss »

I worked one summer (2014) manufacturing emergency stop buttons for ABB.

We used SAP for our incoming orders. Each order was printed on paper as some kind of report from SAP and put in our physical inbox. When we had manufactured buttons for an order, we would go to a desk with two computers, both logged in to SAP. With the first computer we would scan a barcode from the order to find it in the system, mark the order as done, and print a second paper containing the order.

Then we would proceed to the next computer, scanning a barcode from the second paper, and produce a freight order for the outgoing warehouse. This was printed to a third paper, and attached to the buttons, before they went to the outgoing warehouse.

Note that the freight order did not work as a waybill, so the process of shifting paper was probably conducted a couple of more times before the order reached the customer.

For someone really used to working with computers and not against them, it seemed rather innovative to print a paper to transfer an order to another computer two feet away. It was a learning experience and greatly motivated me to go get some higher education.

Re: What's SAP?

#436

Post by strictnein »

asc_jiji wrote: post #186
lewisjoe wrote: post #158

SAP always is an interesting case. It gets close to zero love from HN, yet the platform has some interesting engineering. For example, they had their own language that abstracts and operates directly over a database. They had their own drag and drop UI builder, that compiles down to a HTML page or a desktop widget - which is again not an ordinary feat. They view code as data, as in even the UI is stored as a configur…

I agree with everything you said, they did some pretty neat stuff! the problem is that they started getting things wrong(from the development perspective) somewhere along the way, not sure if due to backwards compatibility or due to massive lock-in's with their own technology. SAP right now is making a move on cloud using SCP and as open source goes, openUI5 exists. I don't have much to say about SCP, just that the c…

Worked at SAP. We had to use SAPUI5. Felt like it was created by a cadre of bitter enterprise Java (yes, Java, not JS) devs.

Re: What's SAP?

#437

Post by tomnipotent »

endymi0n wrote: post #425
tomnipotent wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software No they cannot. ERP's are beasts of expert domain knowledge hidden in shitty codebases, but don't be confused for an even a moment to think you can do it yourself. It's a fools errand, and I'd fire or not hire anyone that tried to intentionally do this rather than just build something basic to hedge time until you have to implement something more se…

The correct answer here is "it depends". SAP isn't (just) a giant pile of steaming data model mess because of the thousands of people involved building that software, but really because it can model every tax case in every country in the world. Thought you had a great model for your sales tax that covered US and the EU? Well, enter Brazil and think again, with four slightly different taxes, some of which are applied…

> configuring SAP to do what you want it to do is often on par with writing your own system from scratch.

Hyperbole. A lot of working with an ERP is developing middleware or custom modules that implement business-specific logic on top of an existing API and schema. It's like saying building a Facebook App is equivalent to rebuilding the entire Facebook Platform.

> So we've dared to build our own multinational and fully integrated CRM and ERP

I hear this all the time, and it's almost always wrong. Engineers and businesses are always convinced they're special and don't fit the mold. That's rarely the case, and the money used on these initiatives was probably better spent elsewhere. Usually when someone thinks they have some sort of special edge case or unique business, it's more often than not they don't understand GAAP/IFRS/IAS etc and how their finances can be modeled.

At the end of the day it's about capital investment. Either you believe you can do it better and you're willing to back it with money, or you realize it's not core to your business and buy something off the shelf because it delivers the best bang for the buck and more importantly lets you focus on other projects that are actually aligned with your business model.

> if you don't know exactly what you're doing

There's the caveat. You either find someone that's worked with ERP's for at least 20+ years, or you build your own over a decade and gain it 1st hand.

Re: What's SAP?

#438

Post by cc81 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #222
kumarvvr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The software is user-hostile, intentionally obscure This a million times. I don't know if good interfaces can not be built in SAP, or if it's very difficult to do, or if the developers of apps on SAP platform just don't care. It's a real headache to use and completely confusing. It's 2020 and one would hope software companies realize the value of a good, clear, effective user interface.

> It's 2020 and one would hope software companies realize the value of a good, clear, effective user interface. Nope. Forget about it! :-) I think another problem with these horrific ERP's is that their tentacles are everywhere in the org. Oracle EBS, my personal "favorite", runs PLM (product lifecycle management), inventory, order management, work orders, customer install base, finance, purchasing, AND PTO entry, F.…

I won't disagree with you when you say they are horrible but there is also a difference between lets say the user interface of something you rarely use and something that is your job. I've never worked in SAP myself but I've seen others do things very quickly in that ugly user interface just because they have learned how to jump around quickly and what fields to fill in.

It might still be bad but for them it works pretty well after they have learned it. As a counter they think my writing commands in a shell as an incredibly bad interface while I think it is very efficient because I've learned it.

Re: What's SAP?

#439

Post by cc81 »

nachteilig wrote: post #252
hef19898 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last paragraph is the core issue, IMHO. SAP, while as software is cumbersome, user hostile and the opposite of intuitive, has some really great standard processes. Stick to them and SAP as an ERP system will run, almost, like a charm . When your company has the scale to benefit from it. And sticks to 90% of the standard processes. Try to implement it without the necessary scale of operations, with sticking to sta…

What would you say is the right scale for something like SAP? We are only at a few million right bald and around 250 people and are starting to think about it.

There are other alternatives such as Workday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workday,_Inc.

Never used it but it does not have to be SAP/Oracle at that size. Could still be the best solution though, I'm no expert.

Re: What's SAP?

#440

Post by jedberg »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #230

I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP. It's hideous. Hideous. My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree). When you look at the underlying database 'schema' (inverted commas deliberate) you'll find it's a massive, denormalised mess. Much of what SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software. Reports, for…

> I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP.... My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree).

If you agree on all those points, why do you teach it?

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