What connects Adobe, PDFs and SAP Fiori? Good design thinking.

⇨ Adobe's interactive PDF forms and SAP Fiori applications can be seamlessly integrated through a well-designed user experience, emphasizing the need for effective design methodologies in the transition.

⇨ Arch Consulting advocates for a three-phase approach that includes discovering key business drivers, analyzing current PDF forms, and involving all stakeholders throughout the transformation process.

⇨ The end goal of the transformation from SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe to SAP Fiori includes creating prototypes and detailed business blueprints, which result in improved business processes and risk-free delivery.

Imagine Adobe, PDFs and interactive forms making up a venn diagram. Arguably, one connecting point would be design. Adobe is famous for its design software, while interactive PDF forms have a make-or-break reliance on a well-designed user experience (UX).

When talking about various SAP applications and UX, SAP Fiori is, with its mobile working and browser-based UX, often the poster app for the mobile functionality often desired by today’s end users. This doesn’t naturally extend to PDF documents, though: as leading provider of SAP usability software Arch Consulting believes, such forms have functionality Fiori does not easily lend to, such as printing, archiving, digital signatures and offline working.

This means there isn’t a seamless process when converting SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe (IFbA) to SAP Fiori applications. Arch Consulting, also known as Arch, therefore argues for a three-phase methodology where design is key.

SAP IFbA to SAP Fiori: phase by phase

Arch argues that any successful design phase relies on a discovery of key business drivers and business logic. Through analyzing current PDF forms, it is possible to reverse-engineer form templates to understand the current business logic. This helps consultancies like Arch prepare detailed questions for the design phase of projects driving IFbA to SAP Fiori conversion.

This phase doesn’t necessarily mean a like-for-like replacement for SAP-Adobe e-forms; Arch, for example, allows for the inclusion of dashboards and analytics to help improve data capture.

A design transformation is like a change transformation in that an education of the current workforce comes recommended. All key stakeholders should be included in the journey, just like with any good transformation project. A decent consultation should see design workshops held, as focusing on the process and UX design essential for IFbA to SAP Fiori conversion.

Here, as Arch advises and operates, design-thinking techniques include the definition of personas, and storyboarding and prototyping where they can be identified to add most value to the design process.

Good design should see SAPinsiders explore assumptions and identify target users; define an archetypal model of users with detailed identities built up around them; and a refining and review of users as confirmed through workshopping.

Arch’s process design workshops, for example, examine process triggers, notifications, approval processes and system updates. New ways of working are explored, such as overview screens, whilst examining available technology and how to best utilize it. To support this, a technical readiness assessment in the discovery phase can gauge an organization’s current SAP landscape, for example.

The end result comes as a mock-up/prototype of the new Fiori-based app, along with a detailed business blueprint for the new solution. The delivery phase is now possible, which includes the normal project detailed design, development and testing activities.

Arch’s solution for SAP-Adobe interactive form conversion is built using its in-house framework for Fiori processes, Stelo. In addition, Arch assists in the creation of a change management plan and provides technical knowledge transfer of the delivered solution. Again, education is key to ensure self-sufficient ongoing maintenance after go-live.

Any IFbA to SAP Fiori transformation can therefore land with improved business processes and accelerated delivery. It can also be delivered risk-free, meaning no fear of losing any PDF documents made through SAP-Adobe capability.

This is all possible with the power of a well thought-out design framework.