Rogier Smit
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It is almost November and another quarterly release (17.11) for SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer is just around the corner. Again, the release is packed with tons of bug fixes, new features and enhancements in Sales and Service processes as well as the Platform itself. 17.11 is a ‘Light’ release with respect to business user UI improvements – this release focuses more on platform, infrastructure and administrator improvements. Consultants out there, you’ve read it right… Christmas is coming early this year! These enhancements could make your life easier.
Today’s blog is to summarize the key information SAP published; To provide you with a bitesize update of the upcoming release. We can expect the upgrade of production tenants as of the 5th of November. As a matter of fact, coming weekend all test tenants will already be upgraded so you have two weeks for testing your existing processes for possible regression.
A good thing to mention is that the “SAP Idea place” has been replaced by ‘SAP Customer Influence’ http://influence.sap.com – this is still the platform to search, vote and submit new ideas; but these will now only be reviewed 4 times a year (quarterly basis). We encourage you to keep submitting those great ideas to keep improving the product. This is what Acorel is also doing on a frequent basis.
Did you know that the SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer platform is already equipped with many capabilities to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation? This will be further expanded in the coming releases.
Something else to notice is that we do not have to say our final goodbye yet to the Silverlight UI. Originally the end of life was planned for 1711 but the support has been extended until February 2018. Although Silverlight is not recommended anymore for business users and is becoming less and less relevant for administrators as well.
With regard to the mobility Apps (iOS, Android, Windows) it is really time to switch to the Extended Edition Apps if you have not already done so, as the previous ones are not supported anymore as of 1711.
Key User Tools – We will now have the possibility to review the UI adaption changes before actually reverting them – also it is now possible to select specific changes and revert only these changes – besides this it is possible to search changes based on text and all related UI changes will be displayed and selectively remove those.
Login as another user will now make it possible for admins to create an ‘alias’ test user with the same authorizations as the actual business user without having to interact with the user or screen sharing. Great for providing better support to the business users.
Another great addition is Transport Management (TM) currently in Beta. You will find this new feature in the Service Control Center. With the TM functionality you will be able to centrally transport key user changes like extension fields, change transactions, page lay-outs and code list restrictions through your system landscape. In a future releases PDI developments and workflow rules will be added to TM. This new feature will save a lot of time and effort during projects and will greatly improve the solution’s maintainability.
Mobility & Offline – In-App Update process – mobile users will be prompted when an update is available throughout the release – they can decide themselves if and when they want to install this update. This update process occurs outside the App Store / Play Store, which enables more frequent updates to deliver fixes to the business user.
Fiori UI – Maps have been improved by search nearby and search area for visits and accounts that have GPS location maintained. Also colored pins have been added based on account role to distinguish prospects from customers. Some other minor enhancements: on calendar entries you can now double-click to navigate to the business object to make it more intuitive. A small but visible enhancement, is the redesign of the details page. The UI design has been updated to show different page sections as cards. The Fiori UI is getting more beautiful every quarter!
Integration improvements – S/4HANA – accounts and contact changes will now replicate bi-directional instead of one way. For yCommerce – Request for Quotes from webshop will be replicated to C4C and updates made by C4C employee will be replicated to yCommerce and eventually also to ERP to support the Quote-to-Cash process.
Sales
Business Partner authorizations have been enhanced for Partner Contacts. In case you have (external) partner organizations (e.g. dealers) access C4C, the restriction rule enables the partner contact to access the business objects related to the partner organization and share this with other contacts within the organization. This is without the need of territory management.
As of 17.11 Machine Learning (ML) features also have been added to the Sales Process – You can expect Deal Intelligence features to assist you on improving the win rates by focusing on the deals with the highest tendency of being closed. Later on, as a phased delivery, the lead scoring ML algorithm will also get a lot smarter. More machine learning features will be gradually introduced over time. It is just a matter of time and yC4C will do all the hard work for you.
Sales Contracts – which was limitedly introduced in 1708 has now become general available and also got enhanced too. Quantity Contracts are now also integrated with ERP and contract determination will occur on Sales Quote/Order item level in C4C. Further, the business object now supports approvals and workflows, as well as external pricing, offline visibility, follow-up opportunities and party determination.
Service
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) capabilities have been enhanced as the entered CTI parameters can be passed on from the Live Activity section to the Service Ticket Search. This means improved productivity and a reduction of repeated questions.
Solution Finder has been improved by enabling the agent to reply with multiple articles at once. These articles can also be tracked within the ticket.
We also see the ‘Search Map Area nearby Search’ now for Installed Base and Registered Products.
As of 1711, SAP Leonardo (Machine Learning) is also brought to Service Management for enabling Service Intelligence. Tickets will be automatically categorized based on various attributes and a ML algorithm – for improved response times and customer satisfaction.
Yeah. That’s what’s up! Good stuff is coming this fall and it is good to see the product keeps evolving in this fast pace. It is also exiting to see SAP Leonardo being applied to real life Customer Engagement scenarios. Can’t wait for what’s next!
The Official Pre-Release Briefing can be found here: http://bit.ly/2zhBh01
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