By leveraging SAP xApps, or Collaborative Cross Applications, companies can improve productivity and agility without needing extensive custom development, all while maximizing the value of their current SAP infrastructure. This article explores the purpose of SAP xApps, their key features, and how they contribute to a more flexible, adaptive, and efficient enterprise technology environment.
What are SAP xApps?
SAP xApps are packaged composite applications designed to extend SAP’s core functionalities and seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise systems. These applications are developed to address specific business needs, enabling organizations to streamline complex processes and enhance cross-departmental collaboration.
By leveraging SAP’s packaged composite application offerings, organizations can access existing IT assets from disparate data sources to enable fully integrated, collaborative, cross-functional processes, facilitating continuous business innovation and growth. To run and build composite applications quickly and easily, users can utilize the SAP Composite Application Framework (CAF).
Key Differences in xApp Analytics and BusinessObjects Analytics
While the user interface and some key contents of SAP Collaborative Cross Applications (xApps) Analytics and the SAP BusinessObjects Analytic Application are similar, there are a few critical differences to consider between the two offerings. Here’s a closer look:
Technology Foundation
The xApps Analytics platform is built within SAP NetWeaver, Business Intelligence, and Visual Composer technology and emphasizes the use of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to execute key business process functions.
The BusinessObjects Analytic Application is built on BusinessObjects, Business Intelligence, and Memory Data storage technology and focuses on leveraging new tools to create a data-centric architecture, including a semantic layer.
Focus Areas
SAP xApps provide flexibility and adaptability for companies to respond quickly to market and organizational changes and drive continuous business innovation over time. By leveraging SAP’s composite applications, companies can extend the value of their business investments, manage key business processes, and maximize return on strategic assets, such as employees, products, knowledge, and business relationships.
SAP BusinessObjects Analytic applications are designed to help users address core challenges in specific industries or lines of business by providing insights and best practices to better understand business risk and identify growth opportunities. These applications are co-created with customers, enabling a better understanding of key operations and facilitating better decision-making across business units.
Included Content
Included content areas are a critical difference between SAP xApps and SAP BusinessObjects Analytic applications, where the older offering (xApps) focus more on ERP core functionality and the newer offering (BusinessObjects) emphasizes industry-specific functionality instead.
SAP xApps support the following content areas:
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Executive Administration
- Marketing
- Technology
- Legal
- Manufacturing
- Logistics
- Procurement
SAP BusinessObjects Analytic applications support the following content areas:
- Telecommunications
- Retail
- Public Sector
- Healthcare
- Banking
- Security and Defense
- Trade Promotion
Methodology
The xApps methodology is based on the existing composite application methodology, an approach to creating applications that combine existing functionalities and services across systems to address complex, cross-functional business processes. Using SAP’s Composite Application Framework (CAF) or similar tools, composite applications are built with reusable components like web services, workflows, and user interface elements.
The BusinessObjects application is focused on Business Intelligence data rather than a service-oriented architecture, which typically involves a structured approach for delivering business insights through customizable, interactive data visualizations and dashboards.
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