7 Things You Need to Know About SAP Start

[Maier_Michael]

SAP has introduced SAP Start, the new default central entry point, designed to easily engage with all cloud business solutions across the SAP portfolio. It is now generally available and included out-of-the-box, at no additional cost, with all integrated SAP cloud business solutions. For customers with Rise with SAP, Grow with SAP contracts (public cloud) as well as existing SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition subscriptions, SAP Start can be used by all eligible users at no extra costs. For other customers, there is a fair-use limit of 1.000 active users per month. In this blog, we answer the top 7 questions we received from customers and partners.

1.) What is SAP Start?

SAP Start is SAP’s new out-of-the-box default central entry point running on the SAP Business Technology Platform. It is based on SAP Build Work Zone technology. SAP Start gives users a powerful, yet simple, home page experience when adopting SAP’s cloud solutions.
SAP Start makes use of SAP's suite qualities like consistent security and identity management, seamless user experience and one workflow inbox (SAP Task Center) to provide a consistent, integrated experience across SAP's product portfolio.

SAP Start offers key capabilities including:

• To Dos : Integrating with SAP Task Center, SAP Start pushes your workflow to dos from all SAP cloud business solutions into one place as action cards. To Dos are prioritized to ensure you can access relevant information quickly, and can take actions where they are most needed.


• Interest Cards: Based on your individual role and business needs, interest cards consist of rich and relevant business content tailored to you. Today, SAP Start includes interest cards from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP SuccessFactors. Additional SAP cloud business solutions (SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass) are a priority and will follow over time.


• Search: Search and start applications from any connected SAP cloud solution. SAP Start remembers your most frequently used applications. In addition, the search functionality supports launching a content search in any of the connected cloud solutions, for example, to find an employee in SAP SuccessFactors or a sales order in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.


• Joule is already integrated with SAP Start and currently available in an Early Adopter Care program. Joule is the AI copilot that truly understands your business. Joule revolutionizes how you interact with your SAP business systems, making every touchpoint count and every task simpler.


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2.) What makes SAP Start special and how does it provide value?

As an out-of-the-box offering, SAP Start enhances our cloud portfolio experience across multiple SAP line of business solutions. SAP Start:

• Delivers immediate value and requires minimal configuration, reducing time and costs of setup through automation, and maximizing your return on investment.


• Delights users by providing them with a home page experience which helps to quickly see and act on important & relevant data across their various SAP cloud solutions.


• Makes it simple for end-users to access and act with their SAP cloud applications by intelligently delivering personalized, prepackaged content for end-users based on their business roles.

As SAP Start is built using SAP Build Work Zone Standard technology, it can easily be extended by using SAP Build Work Zone Standard. Look at SAP Start as a pre-defined, out-of-the-box, SAP Build Work Zone Standard site and page; you can either use it as is and directly benefit from all its features, or you can extend it if needed.

3.) Will SAP Start replace the home pages of SAP’s cloud business solutions?

No, SAP Start does not aim to replace any product home pages. SAP Start aims to bring together the most relevant business content across all SAP cloud solutions into one place for the end user who needs to access and work with more than one SAP Solution. Thus, SAP Start will not offer the level of detail the individual product home pages do, nor will it offer all the deep business functionality; instead, SAP Start focuses on bringing together what matters truly most across all business solutions in one place.

4.) What about a native mobile client for SAP Start?

Great news! While SAP Start is designed for the web, there’s a great native mobile counterpart to it : SAP Mobile Start. It’s available for iOS and Android devices. Get the latest news on SAP Mobile Start here and learn about the roadmap here.

5.) Any advice on how to setup SAP Start?

As an out-of-the-box offering, one of our top priorities is to ease the setup of SAP Start. The first step in that direction is a dedicated BTP booster (which can be found and executed in the SAP BTP Cockpit) that automates the service creation. In addition, establishing LoB system connectivity is simplified, starting with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. Visit the SAP Start help page with instructions on SAP Start setup.

6.) Where can I learn more about Joule?

Use cases from SAP SuccessFactors are available in an Early Adopter Care phase in Q4 and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition will be available in Q1 2024. Joule and its content will be available for all SAP Build Work Zone editions. The press release can be found here and you can learn more on our webpage.

7.) What is next for SAP Start?

SAP Start is generally available for only a few weeks, and its scope and reach are constantly increasing. While it already includes To Dos from all major SAP cloud business solutions, the business content in terms of Interest Cards is limited to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, and SAP SuccessFactors only. This will change over the next releases, and all remaining major SAP cloud business solutions will add relevant content for SAP Start. Feel free to check out the SAP Start roadmap for that.

In parallel, we are eager to include customer feedback, both from early adopters and a customer engagement initiative, in our further planning.

Ultimately, SAP Start will grow stronger over the coming releases, to ensure the vision of SAP Start – to be the single place to go to when you start your day, or the single pane of glass into all business information relevant for you – is met.

Want to learn more?

• Try out SAP Start and let us know what you think.


• Stay updated on the SAP Start roadmap.


• Watch the recording of our SAP Start session from SAP Sapphire here.


• Engage & Connect in the SAP Community:
  https://community.sap.com/topics/integration-strategy
  https://community.sap.com/topics/mobile-experience
  https://community.sap.com/topics/work-zone

[LuisF]

Hi michael.maier

Amazing! By providing centralized actionable visibility, SAP Start is a great asset to enable the knowledgeable worker in their journey, while having a great user experience. Thx for sharing!

[Juliuspereira]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for sharing.

2 questions.

1. Is there any difference between SAP Build work zone - standard edition and SAP Start from a UI perspective - look and feel. We are in the process of rolling out SAP Build Work Zone - Standard Edition as the central entry point (aka SAP launchpad) to everyone in the organization.
2. Will SAP Start as a default entry point become mandatory at some point in the future or will customers always have to option to either deploy it or just stay with build work zone - std edition for example. 

[former_member872941]

Hi Julius,

thank you for your post!

Regarding your first question: SAP Start is a preconfigured Work Zone page that contains search, the Task Center widget and the Interest Card widget. It cannot be extended/changed by the customer. It works without a paid Work Zone license through what is called Work Zone Foundation for all cloud customers. Within Work Zone Standard meanwhile you can also set up SAP Start while additionally being able to create other Work Zone pages with 3rd party content, customisations and more. Customers can add the Task Center and the Interest Card widget to those custom pages. The SAP Start page itself will not be adjustable with Work Zone Standard though.

To your second question: There are no plans of making SAP Start mandatory. It is rather a complementary offer to illustrate and move along an integrated SAP cloud suite.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask!

Kind regards,

Tina Berlin

[00022111734]

Hi Michael

 

Thanks for sharing,Nice efforts,Appreciated

[abhijeetgc]

Hi Tina,

Slightly confused here. The blog says "As SAP Start is built using SAP Build Work Zone Standard technology, it can easily be extended by using SAP Build Work Zone Standard. Look at SAP Start as a pre-defined, out-of-the-box, SAP Build Work Zone Standard site and page; you can either use it as is and directly benefit from all its features, or you can extend it if needed."

However here you mention: "It cannot be extended/changed by the customer. It works without a paid Work Zone license through what is called Work Zone Foundation for all cloud customers. Within Work Zone Standard meanwhile you can also set up SAP Start while additionally being able to create other Work Zone pages with 3rd party content, customizations and more. Customers can add the Task Center and the Interest Card widget to those custom pages. The SAP Start page itself will not be adjustable with Work Zone Standard though."

What can I customize and what can I not? Can you kindly clarify.

[AlexDong]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully China customers can get access as Work Zone standard is still not vast used here.