SAP

Does anybody use it and think “Hey, this is really good”?

😕

I’m currently in the thick of a project where SAP plays a major part. At no point have I thought “Hey, that’s really good”

We use it. £multibn company, 20,000+ employees and we can’t tell you what we’ve spent on anything from a group prospective. Total shite.

It’s a classic ‘modular and adaptable’ type platform, in the fact that there’s lots of things that it does, but none of them are quite what you want.

The only people I’ve met who love SAP are the ones paid to install, configure and modify it 🙂

You can’t begin to imagine just how good SAP is when it becomes a public sector IT programme…… 😥

I think it depends what it’s replacing – with a payroll of about 15k employees where most of the payroll system dated from the mid-90s and had to be done in Excel or on a desktop calculator, it was a definite improvement, and even the users agreed once they got used to the idea that you couldn’t just key in the numbers to pay what you thought the employee should get, but had to have some backup.
Going from a more modern system, maybe not such an improvement…
Best summed up by a tutor I had once – “If you can think like the Germans do, it can be a good system.”

I hate it and have no idea what I’m doing when using it.

Wait till you get to play with worldwide implementations – when changes to a “minor” system variable in Schleiswig Holstien can result in whole transaction types disappearing in Hong Kong.

Mind you, oracle isn’t any better either.

You can’t begin to imagine just how good SAP is when it becomes a public sector IT programme

I can, because I’m using it on a private sector IT programme.

We’re installing it as a banking platform, and it seems to get confused by the concept of interest, which is worrying 😐

We’re installing it as a banking platform, and it seems to get confused by the concept of interest, which is worrying

SAP was originally designed for manufacturers and box-shifters. Now those canny Germans are trying to take over the world. Im not surprised it gets confused by the service sector.

SAP is only as good as the implementation that configured it.

I have only used it in passing but have implemented Oracle globally for more years than I can remember. Have seen some really good jobs done but also seen some really bad ones. The key things that hinder a good implementation are:

1) Lack of involvement from the end users
2) Lack of understanding from the senior management
3) Lack of commitment from the senior management (trying to cut costs)
4) Lack of basic business processes

I am lucky as I am an accountant that also understands systems and hence can work with the end users and the developers but can also do the more tecky stuff as well.

Am lucky as I have just started a permie role that is home based.

Stupid And Pointless?

We use it at work and it gets moaned about and shouted at a lot.

I think if you use it all the time (purchasing/stock control etc.) and know the system well, then it is OK.
If you are an occasional user, it is awful to use.

The only people who ‘like’ SAP, other than those whose job it is to sell and implement it are the big cheeses and bean counters of multi-national corporations – it’s makes un-raveling and collating various streams of data much easier. Everyone else loathes it.

Mrs Digga is a senior systems analyst for “a very big” IT firm. her experience is SAP is that the ‘experts’ are as batshit as the software – an example being that one of them dropped the phrase “donkey punch” (do not Google if easily offended) into a telephone conference. Mrs D was not entirely sure whether the woman (German) knew the context of the phrase or just had an unfortunately poor grasp of English colloquialisms.

“SAP is only as good as the implementation that configured it.”

This.

We shift boxes and manufacture. Works well enough within the confiems of our particualar implementation.

We have a lot of customization not in standard SAP.

Yeah get Oracle…I work implementing that 🙂 Bit scared by Fusion as so much is changing but should be awesome…

SAP is only as good as the implementation that configured it.

+ loads.

I’ve got a SAP background. I’ve been at two companies where it was very popular with the people actually using it because it allowed them to see what was happening, cut down on admin and to see problems as they were happening and to generate their reports/KPIs/etc automatically. I also know several others where that’s the case via people I’ve worked with.

I also know of many more where it’s hugely unpopular. Almost always it’s where the business have decided that they know best and have cut the implementation or support budget or made stupid decisions to implement parts of it but not others which then makes it horrible.

Basically it’s like bikes. You could get all the best components together and build a horrible bike if they aren’t well suited to eachother (think building a CX frame with DH components and road wheels for example.

reconciling purchases.

all scientific equipment and chemicals have to go under ‘miscellaneous’

there’s about 20 options just for pens.

we’re a university.

That’s config though. And probably poor testing or testing feedback. You could set up new categories other than ‘miscellaneous’. You could also remove the 19 unnecessary pen options.

As I said, it’s down to how it’s been implemented. You could get a consultant in to make the changes above in less than an hour most likely (though if all 20 pen categories have actually been used it may make that harder now)

it’s adminosphere bullshit. a way to dump work onto the people who are supposed to be supported.

I’m not a fan.

rhid – Member
I hate it and have no idea what I’m doing when using it.

+1

For a double whammy of crapness ‘integrate’ SAP with Teamcenter.

It does a few things well but yes, 90% of the time it is shite. Possibly the most un-intuitive software I have ever had to use.

For a double whammy of crapness ‘integrate’ SAP with Teamcenter.

And yet, I’ve seen that work well…

Stupid And Pointless?

Close.
Stops All Production.

I’m getting used to it and can use it for what I need, but it’s pretty much horrible.

I recall us being very impressed when it was put in

To be fair that’s largely because it’s precursor was an early nineties HP developed custom logistics solution… Now THAT was unintuitive!

OK, I’ll explain how bad implementations that most of you are experiencing go.

1. Company decides it needs new ERP to improve its profitability/efficiency/because it wants something new and shiny.

2. Company gets quotes. SAP (or a third party really) provide a quote, explaining what it’ll do and tell them that SAP is not the cheap option but that it does deliver benefits beyond what other ERPs will

3. Company chooses SAP but company either:
– doesn’t commit good staff to the project
– doesn’t let good staff spend enough time on the project
– goes against the advice of people who know SAP and cuts corners/insist on specs that don’t make sense
– won’t fix broken, existing business processes and instead tries to make SAP work how they want it to even if that makes no sense
– decides half way through that they actually can’t afford all the things they said they need and cuts the budget/scope

End results – users hate it and it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. Or at least not as well and users blame ‘SAP’ for being crap.

OK, I’ll explain how bad implementations that most of you are experiencing go.

1. Company decides it needs new ERP to improve its profitability/efficiency/because it wants something new and shiny.

2. Company gets quotes. SAP (or a third party really) provide a quote, explaining what it’ll do and tell them that SAP is not the cheap option but that it does deliver benefits beyond what other ERPs will

3. Company chooses SAP

4. Implementation starts. Company either:

We have to pay a consultant for the rest of the post?

Select Another Package

Sorry 🙂 Hit enter too soon, was editing…

Configuration (consultancy) budget is often what’s cut in part 3 which leads to problems…

So, which ERPs do people think are universally popular out of interest? I’ve heard horror stories about them all which really comes back to my point that it’s not down to the ERP but rather the implementation.

Of course, maybe some companies are missold how hard it will be to implement an ERP which would certainly cause problems but IME, that’s not the main cause.

Its the most unintuative pile of cr*p I’ve every used. How SAP is as successful as it is is a mystery. I can only suppose the competition is even worse.

I’d be really interested (geek!) to hear specific issues.

I do actually agree that sometimes SAP isn’t intuitive – they still rather arrogantly insist on their GUI not conforming to the unofficial standard for how MS type things work but really, people get past that pretty quickly IME. Most of the issues I hear are that they need to do multiple transactions with too many options to do simple tasks (though they’re multiple transactions because some companies do need all the steps). Of course that’s quite simple to manage but companies often cut this bit.

We have the joy of working with Maximo mostly, sometimes SAP. If I’m honest I try to stay as far away from both as possible as they make life a misery.

Setup right there is not much better. When badly implemented being used by badly trained (or motivated) staff it is a pita.

if SAP was a person, i can’t imagine getting bored of doing awful things to that person.

(i’d start off with a small hammer, and break some fingers. then i’d get a cheesegrater and… i should probably stop typing now)

in that way, it’s like Tony Blair.

nemesis – Member

I’d be really interested (geek!) to hear specific issues.

for a start, right now, i can’t log on.

some shit about “SSO logon not possible; browser logon ticket cannot be accepted”

Are our servers just slow or does it just take ages to do anything?
There are some transactions I do tens of times a day and a couple of times a week it’ll want more parameters inserting. No logical reason, just randomly decides it particularly wants me to throw things at the computer at that specific time.

SAP HR person here – have to say I like it.
Not found anything it can’t do which we want it to.

For the people not liking it… Maybe it’s user error 😀