Duet Enterprise Links SAP, SharePoint

Duet Enterprise, available beginning in Dec. 2010, provides a platform for “self-service” applications that enable SharePoint and Office users without a full SAP client to view reports, read and update data, approve items, and perform other tasks in SAP’s widely used business management software. Self-service applications can make processes more efficient, reduce errors, and improve the quality of data available to users. However, considerable consulting work and development will be needed to set up and maintain Duet Enterprise systems. And unlike the earlier Duet 1.5, Duet Enterprise does not provide finished self-service applications for specific business processes.

(The full product name of Duet Enterprise is “Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP 1.0”; Duet 1.5 is “Duet for Microsoft Office and SAP 1.5.”)

Self-Service for Efficiency, Accuracy

Duet Enterprise is the latest product of ongoing efforts by Microsoft and SAP to broaden access to SAP’s widely used products for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management, supply chain management, and other functions. These systems are generally the domain of back-office specialists and managers. By allowing more workers to view and update data in SAP systems, self-service applications promise to reduce redundant and possibly error-prone data entry, such as transcribing Outlook appointments into an ERP system to track time worked. Self-service applications also enable workers to generate reports and perform other analysis without someone first copying data out of the source SAP system, which improves the timeliness and accuracy of the data analyzed.