EnjoySAP from the Viewpoint of the Treasury Development Department

Implementation of the Project Objectives

Treasury is an application component in the R/3 system that has developed in recent years from a dedicated electronic banking system into an integrated package for risk, investment and financial management. A focus application wasn’t defined for the Treasury department, so the department had to organize its own support rather than get it from the UEC. An action team was therefore set up within the framework of EnjoySAP by the usability coordinator of the Treasury department. This team began a series of activities in the late summer of 1998 to identify potential areas of improvement from the user’s viewpoint and to take action to implement such improvement in Treasury. On the basis of an analysis of problems and development requests from customers, possible areas where there was a need for action or where there were problems were identified.

Site visits were made to eleven companies: banks, insurance companies and corporate groups. A total of 55 users were observed at work. Besides the usability experts, the site visit team also contained software engineers, who were thus able to make direct contact with users and see the application system in action. Before each site visit, the software engineers received training in the methodology from the usability coordinator.

In parallel with the site visits to selected customers, a questionnaire on usability was sent by post to all Treasury customers and made available on the Internet. In addition, in-company suggestions for improvements received from those in consulting, training and sales were collected, compiled in a list of requirements together with other findings and included in development planning for Release 4.6A.

Selected application areas in Treasury (including transaction and loan management and securities master data) underwent a special development process. The design of the user interface was laid down in design sessions. Some PC-based paper and software prototypes were used in order to evaluate alternatives, while taking into account the task and user context. At the same time, the Treasury user interface was modernized in Release 4.6A in a broad-based action. During site visits to customers it emerged that they wanted improved spreadsheet integration. As a result, an Office integration was implemented by way of example. The Treasury trader can thus start a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 in the R/3 environment, enter or calculate financial market data such as exchange rates or interest rates and transfer them at a click to R/3 Treasury. Automatic quality checks (Usability Monitor) and usability reviews took place across the board toward the end of the development process for Release 4.6A. In the majority of cases it was possible to implement the solutions found in the Enjoy Release 4.6A.

Figure 2: EnjoySAP in the Treasury Development Department

Figure 2 outlines the procedure model for Treasury. The general procedure model was adapted by building up the system of suggestions for improvements and intensifying the customer orientation by means of questionnaires and site visits. In figure 2 everything centers around the customer activities. Process steps 1-5 are grouped together around this and are surrounded, in turn, by the factors that influence the procedure model.

Source:  EnjoySAP - Success Factors