Planned Scope for SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities 1.2 (delivered as 1.0 SP03)

[Weiling]

SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities (henceforth referred to as SAP MCF) is generally available now and version 1.1 (delivered as 1.0 SP02) was just released last month. We've got lots of interests in this solution and many valuable feedbacks from our customers and partners, which is quite encouraging. We are committed to continue developing more desirable features to enrich this solution in SAP for Utilities.

One major development for the upcoming release SAP MCF 1.2 is the Responsive App. Our current release already has the Web App coming with it.  On the other hand, our customers have been telling us more and more about the need for a Responsive App, which can be run on any device and the UI will adjust dynamically according to the screen size. With this, our customers need only one App instead of multiple Apps on different devices, which means to them faster time to market and lower costs of implementation. With this, their end user will have a unified experience no matter which device he/she uses.

In addition to the Responsive App, we are also working on the other highly demanded features such as enhanced communication preferences and outage management.

With enhanced communication preference, an end user of a Utility company has the flexibility to choose which way he would like to be communicated (e.g. send paperless bills, send SMS for outage notification, send discount and promotional offers to Email,etc).

With outage management, end user of a Utility company can see an outage map and the important details of an outage (including estimated restoration time), and he/she can easily report an outage as well.

Planned scope for SAP MCF 1.2 (click the image to enlarge it😞

Planed scope for the IS-U only case in SAP MCF 1.2 (click the image to enlarge it) :

[Former Member]

Hi Weiling Xu

This is all good info but I have a questions concerning the roles of SMP or SAP Customer Engagement Mobile Platform after this SP is released.

Is the responsive UI going to need SMP to work or Phone gap?

For the communications preferences like SMS and outage management map integration will it need SMP?

It seems  before this release SMP or SAP Customer Engagement Mobile Platform was needed to put out an app but it used phone gap and was OS specific.  Also the outage integration was done through the mobile  engine also as well as the communication preferences like SMS. Is this saying that the SAP Customer Engagement Mobile  or SMP will be optional?

  Is this now a stand alone product with no dependency on  SMP or

SAP Customer Engagement Mobile?

I think needing the SMP to put out apps makes it more complex than  it needs to be

and the functions of SAP Customer Engagement Mobile Platform are identical to UMCF it just seems like a duplicate product now with allot of necessary configuration and hardware.

I think customers would agree that a break with these two products is preferred they bring enhancements of their own that are worth having but they should not be necessary for UMCF to operate on a mobile device, interact with social media, display outage info,  send SMS or other type of push events to the customer.

[Former Member]

Timely blog I was just asking Juergen these questions this morning.

[Weiling]

Hi Joseph,

Thank you for your comments. To answer your question: the Responsive App comming out can be run without SMP. Samething for the other features in SAP UMC, they don't require SMP. In other words, SMP is optional for SAP UMC.

Best regards,
Weiling

[Former Member]

Thanks Weiling

Thats what I wanted to hear.  I was thinking it could be done with out but saw in an earlier strategy document that apps and other channels would be managed through SMP.  I think to have an option to use either would be best but knowing that there will be an app showing SAPs approach without using SMP will be interesting.

[Former Member]

For web-based applications (running in a browser), SMP is optional.  But if you would like to run in a Cordova container, and leverage integration with native device features (camera, location, microphone) or leverage Kapsel plug-ins (e.g. Offline, Push, App Update) then SMP is required right?  Or will features allow a web based app to say take pictures of an outage situation and geo tag it?

Do the enhanced communication preferences  integrate with BCM?  Is it the idea to have everything write to the Interaction record so there is one version of the truth concerning customer contact?

[Weiling]

Hi Joseph,

SAP MCF doesn't require SMP. Other solutions/plugins might require SMP,
please check their requirements.

BCM is a contact center solution. Our enhanced communication preference is
mainly designed for correspondence. Technically, it mainly uses Correspondence Tool in ERP and Communication Permission in CRM. We will provide more details about this feature when SAP MCF 1.2 is released.

Our solution allows a utility company to save Interaction Record (or BP
Contact in IS-U only case) for any interaction no matter which channel. As a result,
the end user can see all his past interactions via all the channels, and call
center agent can also see the same interactions with more detailed information.

Best regards,
Weiling