"We wanted to create a portal to allow users to access specific financial data without going through SAP."
Laurent Godineau - IT Manager at the SAP Skills Centre - La Poste Group
Since its launch in 2016, the SAP HANA in-memory database has been the basis for a multitude of new services on the German software company's cloud platform. SAP has been promoting this cloud-first development method for 3 years, allowing many users of this DB to host it themselves in a private cloud. This is the case of La Poste.
ACCESSING DATA STORED IN SAP HANA: WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES?
In order to offer askR.ai's data assistant services to La Poste's Purchasing teams, Laurent Godineau, head of the SAP BI environment, worked hand in hand with the start-up. In the case where the DB is hosted in the cloud, SAP provides a way allowing for a direct connection. This is the easiest solution, but it does not always reassure companies that prefer to host their data themselves.
This is the case for La Poste, which prefers to use a gateway to connect third-party applications to the SAP environment. This method of governance allows flexible management of a complex environment, while securing a well-defined perimeter of accessible data. "Having moved to BW on SAP Hana two years ago, we wanted to create a portal to allow users to access specific financial data without going through SAP." says Laurent Godineau.
ASKR.AI ADAPTS TO ON-PREMISE ON SAP: FLEXIBILITY AND PRECISION FOR LA POSTE
The project started in May 2019 with a collaboration on the connection and network part. For La Poste, it was a question of checking the connection between the askR.ai solution hosted on the cloud and their DB hosted on a private cloud. The data-assistant team is therefore using the VPN provided by the group to secure access to the gateway. The OData protocol must then be setup to query the Business Warehouse (or SAP Data Warehouse) based on SAP Hana technology.
In July, the connection work was carried out. Purchasing data is now available in real-time for askR.ai through instant and synchronous updates. Here begins the learning process!
REAL-TIME DATA ACCESS
For Laurent Godineau, the typical constraints of a SAP environment have been overcome to reach new users with askR.ai. "People who need this data but don't want to (or don't have the time!) to navigate in SAP, including a number of managers, will now have access to procurement data in a matter of seconds through different ways: Web browser, corporate portal, Microsoft Teams...".
From now on, askR.ai has been directly connected so that data access is instantaneous. No more daily updated data-extraction, and even more efficiency !
