SAP's Business Technology Platform development environment has played a key role in modernizing the human capital management system at the British Broadcasting Corp.
While the BBC has state-of-the-art external applications for viewers and listeners, its internal applications for employees were languishing on legacy SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) systems, according to Gary Midgley, manager of systems engineering at BBC.
When Midgley joined the BBC in 2016 to manage its SAP HCM applications, the company was planning to move from the standard ECC UI to SAP Fiori, a tile-based UI that was designed for self-service, flexibility and mobile apps.
The migration wasn't simple, taking several years of working with SAP to remove the customizations and prepare the HCM-based processes for Fiori, according to Midgley. The goal was to streamline processes and develop Fiori apps.
SAP BTP provides development structure
"We were looking at the different options that we had available -- Fiori Launch Pad and some of the standard apps -- and we were looking at building some custom apps, which we have now," he said.
Some apps were developed for internal HR processes such as employee leave and absence requests. Another app focused on well being, offering employees such as journalists reporting from war zones information on how to get wellness or crisis support.
Moving some development onto BTP has allowed us to structure and create a proper environment to make it easier to manage the development, proof of concept and understand what needs to be delivered and make it smarter.
Gary MidgleyManager of Systems Engineering, BBC
In order to have a more structured development environment, Midgley began using the SAP Business Technology Platform not long after it was released in 2020.
"Development before that was essentially a free-for-all -- it was messy and nothing was structured," he said. "Moving some development onto BTP has allowed us to structure and create a proper environment to make it easier to manage the development, proof of concept and understand what needs to be delivered and make it smarter."
SAP BTP has evolved since its launch, and the BBC HCM development team has been looking more at using the technology that has been integrated into the platform, Midgley said.
"We're trying to withstand not just the smaller use cases around BTP, but the bigger architectural side as well and how each area can benefit from the use of BTP and the technology behind BTP and what that can bring," he said.
BTP Monitor tracks application usage
One tool that has proven to be valuable is BTP Monitor, a platform management and application tracker from Bluestonex, based in Shropshire, U.K.
Midgley's team wanted to understand how employees were using the Fiori apps and if they were able to complete transactions, which it could do through BTP Monitor's app tracker capabilities. The team saw that the most-used app is Leave and Absence, that Friday is usually busy for some applications such as new-hire requests or payments, and Monday or Tuesday peak on actions such as employees changing their hours.
"We get really good trend analysis of when people are doing stuff and we better understand the business, which is 24/7," Midgley said. "A majority of the business works nine-to-five, but we are 24/7 globally. We can see people using it on the weekends and can offer support if they don't complete transactions."
Midgley's team uses BTP Monitor trend analysis to better understand use cases for the apps. For example, the analysis showed that employees seemed to wait until Fridays to perform certain work duties, he said. This enabled Midgley to improve the forms they used and the processes.
"By understanding what the users were doing, we've changed the form to allow multiple payments on the same form," he said. "Rather than the user saving everything until Friday and processing 20 forms, now they only have to process three or four forms. We're improving processes by understanding how everything's being used."
BTP Monitor also tracks where employees are using the apps -- desktop, mobile or tablet -- as well as the operating environment.
The development team is focused on making apps mobile-friendly, but knowing what apps are used where helps guide their decision making, Midgley said. For example, if BTP Monitor data shows that not many people use an app on mobile devices, the team doesn't need to go through the mobile app development process, which can be complex, and instead focuses on desktop development.
Although there might be some squeamishness around the "Big Brother" aspects of monitoring app usage, the process is vital because it provides the data to drive decisions that result in better apps, Midgley said.
"It's about end-user experience, not stakeholder experience," he said. "Every decision we make is not just about what a director wants, it's about whether it's beneficial to our customers, which for me is our employees."
BTP to help with SuccessFactors migration
Beyond Fiori app development, the BBC HR team is looking for more use cases for BTP, according to Midgley.
The BBC is currently running SAP ECC HCM in a private cloud environment via Rise with SAP, but is planning a move to the cloud-based SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, he said. Some ECC processes won't translate to Employee Central and will need to be built in BTP, Midgley said.
"We've been doing some proof of concepts and mock-ups in SAP Build Work Zone [in BTP] that allows people to [try the apps]," he said. "The fact that we can just lift and shift our current Fiori apps directly onto Work Zone in minutes has been a massive advantage."
Jim O'Donnell is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial who covers ERP and other enterprise applications.
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