Power Platform | Team-up with SAP ecosystem

„Microsoft Power Platform and SAP ecosystem? Yes, why not? – this is how a conversation started via LinkedIn the other day and inspired me to publish this article as a first starter.

Even though there´re some overlapping toolsets, there´re tons of scenarios where Power Platform and SAP in action can boost a companies effectiveness or digital transformation. This covers all four main product offers from within the Power Platform, but of course resonates well with additional offers like the common data model and data flows as well. A simple use case you could think of could be the lookup of a product being in stock in a depot via Power Virtual Agents. Or as we move into the holiday season, a simple employees lookup on remaining vacation days to plan holiday season accordingly without being in the need of using SAP GUI or asking HR department via E-Mail. Need more inspiration? Sign-up on this free on-demand webinar by Microsoft.

When it comes back to connectivity, there´re many options that can be discussed with an IT- or SAP Maintenance department. From on-premises to cloud, from out-of-box available connectors via Custom Connectors based on OData to RPA (robotic process automation) based connectivity on SAP modules where there simply is no API-based connectivity option. All secured by the Azure Active Directory and Single-Sign-on layer that allows to control and maintain easy access to SAP related modules. Need more info on this? Follow this blog on SAP side.

Talking about Security and Governance, the #1 question that pops up during conversations with SAP teams is: Will Citizen Developer all of a sudden be able to access our SAP resources in an uncontrollable way?

In this case, I´d like to show and discuss above visual. We´re stepping into the shoes of John who wants to create a new application as a low-coder that he knows needs SAP related data. Because of this, his first task would be to lookup in a connector catalog, if there´s a connectivity offered by the company that allows accessing the data needed from SAP in a low-code fashion.

Because he cannot find a connector that fits his requirements on data, he can initiate a request – think of a simple form that collects some information around purpose of the app and what connectivity / data would be needed, if the app/flow would be used in a single-user, teams or org-wide context.

Power Automate behind the scenes helps to improve and automate the process for all parties being involved. Meaning Peter inside the Center of Excellence Team (Governance) would review the request, approves the new app to be created in a secured environment and initiates a request for Maria based on information provided by John.

Maria is a subject matter expert on SAP and understands all SAP logic ongoing behind the scenes as well as how to expose an API access via a Custom Connector published for Power Platform. So she takes care of creating a new connectivity based on the information she had from John as well as offering a new description on this SAP connectivity that should be published in the companies connector catalog.

This information and the connector being ready for publishing gets pushed back to Peter who can perform a final review on the description and connectivity provided and ensures both approval and deployment of the connector, as well as setting up or updating Data Loss Prevention Policies to match compliancy for the new connector created.

Once these tasks are done, Power Automate picks-up the status and notifies the app maker John that all pre-requirements are now met and an environment is ready for being used to develop, test and publish his application.

You might ask around how to setup a governance concept like this as you might not be familiar with the Center of Excellence Starter Kit that Microsoft is offering as a starting point. In fact an app approval concept is already part of the CoE Starter Kit and you could think of an extension or customization of this, to implement the approval process needed for above scenario.

Hope, you´ve seen that Power Platform + SAP ecosystem is woth a discussion. Until then, …