SAP Intelligent RPA

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation is a low-code design studio and cloud service that allows users to save time and cost by automating a wide range of tasks, applications and processes, like SAP software and websites.

When?

04.2020 - today

What?

Design lead, team & workload management, backlog planning, UX design

With?

Team of 10 designers

Weblink

Official SAP Intelligent RPA Website

The Project

When thinking of the future of business developer platforms and digitalization, the magic word is low-code/ no-code. This refers to the ability of a platform to enable users to accomplish complex tasks, like digitizing business processes, by using easy-to-learn visual interfaces - where traditionally adavanced IT knowledge would be required. This entailed a broad range of challenges for SAP Intelligent RPA, a feature-rich and complex on-premise tool - and SAP was not exactly known for its intuitive user interfaces in the past.

Goals and Challenges

The crowded Windows dektop-style UI required extensive JavaScript coding knowledge, which needed to be reworked into a future-ready low-code/ no-code interface that was citizen developer ready. This had to be balanced with reaching feature parity in the Cloud, as well as providing designs for new monthly features to keep up against the strong competition on the RPA market.

To properly tackle these challenges with the freshly founded UX design team, so proper processes needed to be put in place that would tie into and harmonize with product management and development sprints.

My Contribution

In my role as UX design lead, I contributed with a variety of different tasks, including:

  • Task and workload planning of the team.
  • Exploration of appropriate processes to better anchor design and user experience in the transition to the Cloud.
  • Joint backlog and release feature planning with product management and development.
  • Facilitation of daily meetings and design workshops.
  • UX design for the automation Design Studio.
Work Examples
Fortitude Chest Opening Gif
The new Design Studio wireframes were based on Fiori3 Floorplans (left) and adapted to the specific needs of automation designers (right).
Feature Lifecycle Process
Our introduced iRPA feature lifecycle process included a discovery phase for thorough problem and solution shaping on new features, before going into design and implementation.
iRPA old vs new Comparison
The old and the new automation Design Studio: Progressive disclosure hides most of the side panels' complexity, while the canvas area has received a visual overhaul for better readability. The number of drag and drop activities available has multiplied, so that JavaScript knowledge is not longer necessarily required.
Results
Achievements

Through the following two years until the end of 2021, I feel honored to have been able to contribute in implementing a "UX first" mindset throughout the product teams, with user experience receiving much more attention and weight starting from the early planning phase. The newly implemented processes created a productive work environment and stronger bonds with adjacent teams like User Assistance and Development by shortening the communication paths.

  • UX involvement in the product backlog refinement and prioritization.
  • Mandatory UX feature signoffs after implementation to ensure design and experience of every integrated item are up to standards.
  • Special budget granted to the UX team for regular user research and testing activities.
  • UX team growth: from a size of six plus three external colleagues to a size of ten internal team members - the strongest UX team in the SAP Process Automation unit.

Although reworking a tech-heavy SAP product is an enormous feat, I am proud of the experience of leading an incredibly talented team. Together, we have modernized the Intelligent RPA experience in many ways, which include:

  • Simplification of the experience for the new bot-building Cloud Studio, with a new look-and-feel and a strong focus on drag & drop functionality.
  • Simplification of the Cloud cockpit for project administration and automation monitoring, as well as a new “Agent” desktop interface for the automation end-user.
  • Extension of the existing visual automation debugging capabilities to be more approachable for citizen developers.
  • Fiori 3 harmonisations and library extensions tailored to iRPA.
Reception

In 2021, The new experience of Intelligent RPA 2.0 was rewarded by renowned "Forrester Research", which raised its rating of SAP’s solution in the RPA market from "Contender" to "Strong Performer", the second highest possible category.

My contribution was recognized by SAP with three Spot Awards for outstanding performance over those two years.

Thanks to the strong and extremely dedicated customer base, we also get a lot of feedback directly from the users. They lauded the progress that the product has made so far, but also provide lots of valuable insights into improvement opportunities. As the journey for the perfect user experience never truly ends, we will be happily continue the close collaboration with them in the years to come, as part of the SAP Process Automation suite.

"Intuitive user experience with the new Cloud Studio, great to see features like automated data type generation in Excel and find all the functions from the Desktop Studio now as activities for easy use with drag & drop."

Villeroy & Boch

"Great job, we saw and experienced many steps that have become much easier [...] and [place] functionality in the hands of the Citizen User and no longer dependent on experienced developers. The look and feel and the user experience was really great and I can only see the product getting richer with additional features [...]."

Zuellig Pharma

"Ganz besonders freut uns das neue Kleid der Technologie. [...] Es ist wunderbar zu sehen, dass unser Feedback in einigen Aspekten des der neuen Oberfläche von den Kollegen rund um Jonas Placzek aufgegriffen wurde. [...] Für uns ist es großartig zu sehen, wie rasant sich die Lösung weiterentwickelt."