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ASUG Face-to-face Meetings: Education & Networking in Your Local Area

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ASUG DFW Chapter Meeting

Friday, May 2, 2014 Plano Centre 2000 East Spring Creek Parkway Plano, Texas 75074

(Click on the presentation title to see the corresponding abstract)

8:00 am – 9:00 am Registration, Networking, Continental Breakfast Compliments of our Sponsors

9:00 am – 10:00 Room

ASUG Chapter Updates, Welcome and Introductions Allen Sulgrove, DFW Chapter Chair, Fidelis Companies Thoughts in Digital Strategy (hyperlinked to abstract) Ed Robben, CIO , Fossil

10:00 am – 10:20 am Break & Networking (20 minutes)

Morning Breakout Session #1: 10:20 am – 11:10 am

A&D Track Room

Automating Contract Management and Flow Down in SAP ECC Colin Rose, Senior Consultant, Dassian

Mobile Track Room

Are you thinking about Mobile Device Management? Here’s what you need to know about SAP Afaria Bala Raghuraman, SAP Mobility/Portal Architect, Fidelis Companies

SuperUser Track Room

I Never Knew What I’d Been Missing in Project Communications until I Met Mel Melissa (Mel) Hicks, Marketing Communications Specialist, Aviall Francisco Alatorre, Director, Aviall

Finance/Technical Track Room

SAP CO:PA - RDS for HANA Puneet Chopra, Director, SAP BI Practice, YASH Technologies Inc

HANA/BI Track Room

Delivered to Your Door - How HANA enables The Schwan Food Company’s Journey Mark Albers, Vice President, Hitachi Consulting

Support/Testing Track Room

The Future of SAP is NOW Josh Kleen, Senior Solution Architect, Worksoft Keith Wilson, Senior Director, Worksoft

11:10 am – 11:30 am Break & Networking (20 minutes)

Morning Breakout Session #2: 11:30 am – 12:20 pm

A&D Track Room

GPD Cost Reporting and Auditability with SAP HANA Anthony Plute, IT Partner for SAP Financial Processess, United Launch Alliance Keith Lee, Executive Vice President of Product Design & Developmet, Dassian Inc.

Mobile Track Room

Managing SAP Mobile Applications and Devices on iOS and Android Scott McKensie, Senior Account Executive, Xceliware

Meeting Survey Evaluate sessions throughout the

day and provide meeting feedback bit.ly/ASUG14


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McKesson Super Users: Bridging the Gap for Greater Savings Terrie Walker, IT Change Leadership Delivery, McKesson Terra Fuller, Project Manager, Service First Customer Care & SAP Super User All Star, McKesson


Easy FI Uploading With GLSU Jim Halepaska, President, Z Option

HANA/BI Track Room

SAP HANA -Steps for successful cost effective implementation Roland Bahadoor, Managing Partner, Sigma Business Solutions Inc. Sridar Bendapudi, Solutions Architect, Sigma Business Solutions Inc.


Learn How Johns Manville Reduced SAP Related Support Calls by Over 50% in One Year and Improved User Performance with SAP UEM Marty Markrack, Director of Sales, Knoa Software

12:20 pm – 1:20 pm Lunch & Networking Compliments of our Sponsors

Afternoon Breakout Session #1: 1:20 pm – 2:10 pm

A&D Track Room

Hitachi Consulting's Aerospace Enterprise Solution Mark Christian, Vice President, Hitachi Consulting Ted Olszyna, Senior Manager, Hitachi Consulting

Mobile Track Room

Kaneka: Mobile Apps to Transform Manufacturing and Enterprise Asset Management Alok Pant, CEO, Unvired Inc.

Mobile Track Room

Build, deploy, and run mobile apps using HTML5/JQuery with zero coding Felipe Sutantri, Solutions Engineer, Innowera


Facilitated Business Process Meet Ups Various Presenters


Enforce Reliability and Compliance Through Financial Close Automation Matt Colabrese, Solutions Architect, Redwood Software

HANA/BI Track Room

A field-tested guide to implementing a high-performing SAP BusinessObjects Shankar Muthuswamy, Sr. BI Manager, Method 360, Inc.


A Rapid Deployment Forms and Workflow Solution Steven Branch, President, Configurable Management

2:10 pm – 2:30 pm Break & Networking (20 minutes)

Afternoon Breakout Session #2: 2:30 pm – 3:20 pm

A&D Track Room

Streamline Operations, Increase Productivity & Enhance the User Experience with SAP Personas

Bev Wheeler, Director, Strategic Solutions, SAP America Michael Edelen, Senior Solutions Consultant, SAP America

Mobile Track Room

Mobility and Training for the Modern Employee Stephen Calhoun, Multimedia Developer, Teksoft Ventures, Inc.


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Open Networking


Better Quality with Less Effort – How do we Test SAP Better for Less? Allison Denning, Intellicorp

HANA/BI Track Room

Building and Maintaining a Rock Solid Business Intelligence (BI) Strategy Laura Record, Global Center of Excellence – Business Intelligence, SAP America


Challenges in SAP Testing Thomas John, President and CEO, Calpion Inc

3:20 pm – 3:30 pm Break (10 minutes)

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm Closing Session – Comments, Surveys, and Prize Giveaways Allen Sulgrove, DFW Chapter Chair, Fidelis Companies

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm NETWORKING RECEPTION Compliments of our Sponsors

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Platinum Sponsors

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

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Abstracts Keynote Address Thoughts on Digital Strategy (9:00 am)

Ed Robben, CIO, Fossil Group Inc Mr. Ed Robben has been the Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Fossil, Inc. since July 2012. Mr. Robben served as the Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of J. C. Penney Company, Inc., since January 2011. In this role, he oversaw its information technology, including the design and development of systems and infrastructure to accelerate JCPenney’s plan for growth. He joined JCPenney in 2007 as Senior Vice President of Core Applications ... Development, and directed information technology for merchant, sourcing, and direct organizations. Prior to joining JCPenney, he held a vice president position at EDS, implementing technology solutions for the Navy Marine Corps Intranets (NMCI) program. His background includes significant experience in systems and technology, having built teams across both the fashion and consumer space. He served as a consultant at the Feld Group, an IT management consulting firm later acquired by EDS. He was Executive Board Member for J.C. Penney Company.

A&D Track Automating Contract Management and Flow Down in SAP ECC (10:20 am)

Level: Intermediate

Managing government contracts efficiently and in compliance with federal regulations is imperative to government contractors. Complying with federal regulations such as contract flow down, Defense Priority Allocation System (DPAS) rating and other Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clauses can be difficult to do without the efficiency that an ERP system can provide. Learn how to leverage your SAP investment by automating many critical contract management functions such as tracking contract modifications, producing cost plus invoices, receiving alerts for contract performance thresholds and flowing down prime contract number and DPAS rating to your vendors. See how you can view the DPAS or other aircraft on ground ratings on your stock requirements overview so that you can properly manage priority rated orders. See how you can eliminate the error prone and inefficient manual contract management functions from your business processes and comply with DCMA regulations such as contract flow down. Decrease your Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) with direct submission authorization for an approved billing system. Improve cash flow and reduce invoicing errors with automation including retroactive rate adjustments and expedite your contract close out process. Colin Rose, Senior Consultant, Dassian Colin specializes in Government Contracts & Billing solutions. Colin has been employed in the SAP industry for more than 15 years and prior to joining Dassian, worked for SAP America in the A&D consulting practice and Raytheon Aircraft as an SAP implementation team lead. Prior to his SAP career, Colin was employed in the A&D industry for 13 years and has a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Halton College, Widnes, United Kingdom.

GPD Cost Reporting and Auditability with SAP HANA (11:30 am)

Level: Advanced Grouping, Pegging, and Distribution (GPD) is an SAP manufacturing component that is used to provide project-based actual costing combined with efficient and flexible manufacturing. GPD is used by government contractors to be


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compliant with federal procurement policy and Cost Accounting Standards (CAS). Dassian's GPD PACE is a reporting module that ensures customers can clearly and concisely provide the right data to their government auditors to "follow the money trail" with GPD data. PACE also has reports to provide better visibility into the complex GPD processes for project-based manufacturing that helps improve program profits and solidifies cost estimates on bids. GPD PACE was developed for extreme data volumes using the latest SAP development techniques including HANA, web enablement, graphical reporting using SAP UI5, and MS Excel pivot table via MDX provider. Keith Lee, Executive Vice President of Product Design & Developmet, Dassian Inc. Keith is responsible for all aspects of engineering and product development. He has over twenty-five years of integrated program management experience in the A&D industry, working both directly in industry and with numerous A&D SAP customers. With in-depth knowledge of project planning, earned value management, and grouping, pegging, and distribution (GPD), Keith is spearheading Dassian’s next generation solution suite leveraging SAP’s in-memory computing and web-based application capability. Prior to joining Dassian, Keith was a consultant with SAP Systems Integration as well as Price Waterhouse Coopers. Keith was formerly in program plans and controls for Lockheed Aeronautics. Anthony Plute, IT Partner for SAP Financial Processess, United Launch Alliance Anthony is responsible for spearheading ULA's strategic focus for SAP HANA, BI-Analytics, and Mobility. Anthony has more than 13 years of experience in implementing solutions for SAP financial processes including project accounting and GPD costing. He serves as the national ASUG A&D GPD Special Interest Group chairperson. In this role, Anthony is responsible for oversight pertaining to GPD customer best practices, education, communicating customer concerns to SAP, and facilitating change in the overall functionality. He also co-leads the ASUG National A&D Year Round Community that coordinates webinars which educate the A&D community on SAP strategic solutions and best practices. Anthony is a Certified Public Accountant and has an MBA from Regis University. Prior to joining ULA, Anthony was employed by Resources Global Professionals as an SAP functional consultant and at Arthur Andersen in the compliance and audit area.

Hitachi Consulting's Aerospace Enterprise Solution (1:20 pm)

Level: Intermediate The Hitachi Consulting Aerospace Enterprise Solution (AES) for SAP provides a rapidly deployable solution. Designed as a pre-configured solution, AES SAP leverages industry best practices minimizing customization for discrete manufacturing suppliers in aerospace and defense. Hitachi Consulting AES for SAP builds on the core strengths of the SAP product suite, and adds the industry best practices, templates and change management methodology that only Hitachi provides. Attend a brief 60 minute presentation and find out if Hitachi's AES Solution is right for you.

Mark Christian, Vice President, Hitachi Consulting Mark is a VP in the US SAP practice with Hitachi Consulting. He is focused on the Oil & Gas, Aerospace, Fabricated Metals, Chemicals, Mill Products, and Industrial Manufacturing sectors. Mark is a dedicated, results-oriented professional with over 25 years of project management experience and 18 years of SAP implementation experience. Ted Olszyna, Senior Manager, Hitachi Consulting Mr. Ted Olszyna is a Senior Manager in the US SAP Practice with Hitachi Consulting. Mr. Olszyna is focused on the Aerospace, Fabricated Metals and Industrial Manufacturing sectors. Ted has over 18 years of SAP experience with broad functional knowledge of Supply Chain and Accounting in addition to deep skill sets in SAP MM and FI modules. His background includes full Purchase to Pay Cycle experience.


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Streamline Operations, Increase Productivity & Enhance the User Experience with SAP Personas (2:30 pm)

Level: Beginner One way to empower factory, field, and office workers is by simplifying their enterprise software with a consumer-grade user interface. SAP Screen Personas makes employees more productive by streamlining data entry screens. Users gain can access all the information they need, and nothing additional, in the proper context of their specific job role. They can now enjoy an uncluttered, intuitive layout that makes them more productive and more satisfied with SAP usability and performance. IT benefits from fewer support calls, lower costs for training business users, and greatly reduced cost of personalizing SAP screens. Personas also contributes to improved data quality as Personas presents users with fewer opportunities to make errors. We will: 1. Learn how you can improve end-user productivity through more intuitive screens

2. See how you can increase data quality without any investment in user training

3. Discover how you can significantly reduce the time to personalize SAP screens

Beverly Wheeler, Director, Strategic Solutions, SAP America Beverly Wheeler is Director, Strategic Solutions for SAP with a focus on Focused Business Solutions and the User Experience solutions. She started her career as an IT director and brings 27 years of technology sales and management experience to SAP. Her focused passion is on change management and leveraging technology to get the job done more efficiently. Most of her tenure has been consulting and selling to the Government market – State, Local & Higher Ed, Federal Civilian, DOD, Aerospace and Defense along with Utilities. Beverly attended college in Southern California and has continued to study operating systems, database design and change management over the course of her career. Michael Edelen, Senior Solutions Consultant, SAP America

Michael Edelen is a Senior Solution Engineer for SAP with focus on usability and manufacturing execution. He started his career as an FAA certified A&P Mechanic / Pilot and brings 18 years of A&D manufacturing / production operations / management experience to SAP. As part of this experience, Mike was General Forman overseeing Final Assembly of the first 10 F/A-18 E&F aircraft. While at McDonnell Douglas, and while working in a paper based world, a summer intern introduced Michael to Microsoft Excel on a Macintosh SE and the fire was set. Michael attended Fontbonne University for his bachelor’s degree and studied available classes on database design at Washington University. He created a database program to coordinate the assembly process of those first 10 E&F aircraft and his career changed from production operations to information technology. With this background, Michael is a strong advocate for usability and process simplification in manufacturing execution.

Mobile Track Are you thinking about Mobile Device Management? Here is what you need to know about SAP Afaria (10:20 am)

Level: Intermediate Enterprise is mobility is here to stay, and it is just getting started. Organizations are enabling their employees with smart-devices and giving them access to enterprise data, thereby increasing efficiency. With this power comes responsibility - the responsibility to keep information safe, secure and updated. Several Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools are available to address this need. In organizations that use SAP as their enterprise application suite, the task of identifying and implementing a MDM solution becomes critical since any tool of choice should work well with the SAP suite of products. Afaria is a tool offered by SAP for this purpose.


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In this session, we will try to educate the audience on the basics of Afaria and why it might be looked at as the MDM solution that fits a SAP landscape. The intention is keep this session as interactive as possible, so audience participation is encouraged. Bala Raghuraman, SAP Mobility/Portal Architect, Fidelis Companies Bala is an Enterprise Mobility and Portal Specialist in SAP. He has more than 14 years of consulting expertise implementing these solutions across various industries. Bala is a SAP certified Mobility consultant and has been helping clients with strategy, design, development, and support of their enterprise mobile landscape. He is also a former IBM Global Business Services employee having worked on multiple SAP Netweaver portal implementations at Fortune 500 companies. Bala is from the DFW and has a Masters in Information Management degree from Central Michigan University.

Managing SAP Mobile Applications and Devices on iOS and Android (11:30 am) Level: Beginner The attendees will learn the about the available tools for mobile devices that allow them to:

Manage mobile devices from a single pane of glass

Secure access to corporate content

Isolate and manage mobile SAP applications

Remotely access and support SAP mobile applications Scott McKensie, Senior Account Executive, Xceliware Scott McKenzie brings a unique perspective having split his career between large and small companies. Early in his career he spent time with Itochu and Avery Dennison learning how large companies operate. For the past 11 years he has worked as Project Manager, Implementation Lead and Sales Executive of smaller mobility product companies getting more involved with operational details. As a former sales and operations executive, Scott understands the entire realm of how a business runs.

Kaneka: Mobile Apps to Transform Manufacturing and Enterprise Asset Management (1:20 pm) Level: Advanced This session is based on a Case Study of a Houston based SAP customer that manufactures chemicals. We will share their experience in building a Mobile strategy and deploying various mobile applications. Converting a traditional disconnected manufacturing plant into a digital/mobile connected plant will be discussed. Mobile business scenarios for Equipment Rounds Management, Work Orders, and Warehouse/Inventory processes will be discussed. We will discuss how data from SAP Plant Maintenance, SAP Materials Management and Microsoft SharePoint is presented on Kaneka workers’ iPads to execute Work Orders, record compliance documents, create notifications, check Inventory levels and count physical inventory. Business benefits to Kaneka and learnings will be shared. Alok Pant, CEO, Unvired Inc. Alok is the CEO of Unvired Inc., a Texas headquartered firm that develops mobile applications for SAP, SharePoint, and other systems leveraging the Unvired Mobile Platform. Before joining Unvired, he was the Senior Vice President, Marketing at NTT DATA, and prior to that he was at SAP. Alok holds an MBA from Texas A&M University, and a Masters in Chemical Engg. From The University of Akron, Ohio.


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Build, deploy, and run mobile apps using HTML5/JQuery with zero coding (1:20 pm) Level: Advanced Attend this session and learn about an innovative approach to mobilize SAP processes that can be deployed quickly without making any changes to your SAP back end. Step through a live demo and see how Innowera makes mobilizing SAP super simple, faster, and cost-effective. Felipe Sutantri, Solutions Engineer, Innowera As a Solutions Engineer, Felipe Sutantri is responsible for driving awareness and familiarity of Innowera's technology through demos, webinars, training and business case studies. His understanding of various company products from the technology & business perspective helps customers map their business problems to solutions.

Mobility and Training for the Modern Employee (2:30 pm)

Level: Intermediate

The use of smart phones, tablets, and the apps they utilize has grown quickly within the corporate space. These devices provide educators and developers with an exciting new way of reaching audiences.

This session focuses on how mobile technology can significantly improve the quality of learning as either the primary medium for delivery or as supplemental material. Employees can now access and engage with learning content – where and when they want it – on virtually any screen.

Expect discussions around the evolution of mobile training, how to distribute content to mobile devices, and why SAP users specifically are a good audience for mobile training. We’ll also discuss some common challenges to mobile development and practical solutions.

Stephen Calhoun, Multimedia Developer, Teksoft Ventures, Inc.

Stephen is a multimedia developer at Teksoft Ventures where he designs online courses and mobile apps for SAP and other software. These courses and simulations help enhance and empower an end user’s SAP experience. He is also married and has 3 kids who like to break his mobile devices.

Super User Track

I Never Knew What I’d Been Missing in Project Communications until I Met Mel (10:20 am) Level: Beginner Aviall, a Boeing Company, boasts an entrepreneurial spirit and a find-a-way company culture. In preparation for Aviall’s SAP Go-Live, Melissa (Mel) Hicks capitalized on the company’s corporate culture and implemented a communications plan that not only prepared, but engaged, more than 1,500 employees across 40 locations. In this presentation, we’ll demonstrate the methods, tools and techniques Mel leveraged to build a successful communication strategy. Unburdened by traditional SAP communications methodologies, and with support from forward-thinking leaders like Francisco, Mel explored communications that ensured all employees received project information in ways that were creative and engaging. At the end of this session, you will understand the importance of capturing and telling the business story before, during and after a large system implementation. Melissa (Mel) Hicks, Marketing Communications Specialist, Aviall


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Melissa Hicks is a Marketing Communications Specialist at Aviall. She currently fulfills a full-time role as the lead for all internal and external communication activities related to Aviall’s business implementation, which recently went live on SAP across 40 locations globally on Feb. 2, 2014. Prior to this role, Melissa contributed to company-wide global communications and internal marketing efforts as a marketing coordinator. Her work ethic, creative eye and entrepreneurial spirit made her the perfect fit for this project. Francisco Alatorre, Director, Aviall Francisco Alatorre is a Director at Aviall with an extensive background in the aviation industry with expertise in supply chain management, marketing and sales.

McKesson Super Users: Bridging the Gap for Greater Savings (11:30 am)

Level: Beginner McKesson’s SAP CRM DC Super User success story, where these Super Users have ‘bridged the gap’; standardizing best practice process across businesses that historically worked in silos.

First: Meeting the Need: o Issue: Offline Order processing by DC partners; most having different processes that bypassed

shipping fees. o ‘Meet & Greet’

Brought DC Super Users from all over the county for SAP CRM training Introduced User Sustainment as IT partner

o What was accomplished: Communications, refresher training bringing everyone onto same process, ensuring that

revenue was not lost.

Next: Evolving to a community of Super Users who meet regularly to: o Share best practices o Deliver training o Solve system and process related issues (examples provided)

Today: 3 years later o Evolution of a strong team that works together, bridging traditional “boundaries” o Example of a ‘community of practice’ other business units are looking to mirror o Partnership with IT who introduces new technologies and User Analytics to identify further

opportunities for improvement and savings across McKesson Terrie Walker, IT Change Leadership Delivery, McKesson Terra Fuller, Project Manager, Service First Customer Care & SAP Super User All Star, McKesson

Facilitated Business Process Meet Ups (1:20 pm)

Level: Beginner Join your peers in small group discussions on a specific SAP enabled business processes. Join the discussion group that interests you from Financial Close, Purchase Order Processing, Inventory Movements, and more. Various Presenters

Open Networking (2:30 pm)

Level: Beginner Did you identify a person or company that you want to connect with? Take this opportunity for open discussions in the Keynote room.


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Finance/Technical Track SAP CO:PA - RDS for HANA (10:20 am)

Level: Advanced This presentation and discussion is about the Rapid Deployment Solution (RDS) for CO:PA for HANA, for customers who wish to use CO:PA to access and use the benefits and prerequisites for this RDS. A brief discussion of HANA data load facility and reporting will also be included. Puneet Chopra, Director, SAP BI Practice, YASH Technologies Inc

Easy FI Uploading With GLSU (11:30 am)

Level: Intermediate Find out how Z Option customers like Owens Corning leverage the GLSU (FI Spreadsheet Uploader) solution to streamline everyday accounting tasks. Learn how the use of GLSU can improve the efficiency of financial data entry functions, everything from importing cutover data to everyday FI postings to processing vendor invoices. Understand how GLSU complements standard SAP functionality by using Microsoft Excel to validate and post more than 1,000 lines, attach source documents, utilize pick lists, create flexible user-defined templates, etc. Jim Halepaska, President, Z Option Jim Halepaska is the president of Z Option. After graduating with a BBA/Accounting degree, Jim worked in the banking and software industries while earning his CPA certification. After being introduced to SAP in 1993, he began a career in SAP consulting. Specializing in FI/CO, Jim worked on several SAP implementations before forming Z Option with 3 colleagues. Having one foot in both the accounting and technical worlds gives Jim a useful perspective on user interface and integration issues.

Enforce Reliability and Compliance Through Financial Close Automation (1:20 pm) Level: Intermediate Learn how to take the hard work out of your financial close by automating many of the standard SAP transactions. Our Financial Close Automation for SAP® eliminates wasteful manual effort and human errors, which in turn, results in accurate consistent reports, quality assurance and a faster more efficient close. With less manual effort needed to close and total connectivity across all your processes there is no need to translate or watch over each process stage, this frees up your time for more strategic duties. Our discussion will cover how to develop a methodology and document your financial processes. You will also learn how to project and measure the benefits from automation. We will demonstrate the return from financial close automation using multiple actual customer use cases. Matt Colabrese, Solutions Architect, Redwood Software Matt Colabrese is a Solutions Architect at Redwood Software that is responsible for analyzing new automation opportunities and implementing process automation architecture. He works closely with Redwood customers in every industry to identify and design strategic automation solutions that improve enterprise efficiency. Matt is a graduate of Duke University’s Computer Science Department and has over 3 years of experience in business process analysis and automation.


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Better Quality with Less Effort - How do we Test SAP Better for Less? (2:30 pm) Level: Intermediate

In this session, we highlight how to integrate best-of-breed intelligent lifecycle optimization technology with test management software tools such as HP ALM. Change is the one constant in the SAP lifecycle. Change comes from many sources and takes many forms. Changes from SAP include support packs, enhancement packs and version upgrades. Internal changes include emergency fixes and custom releases. How we manage change is crucial to reducing both time-to-market and cost-to-market. This session focuses on one aspect of change management: testing. Often companies using SAP find that the benefits of automated testing can be significantly outnumbered by the challenges that come with test script creation and maintenance. Learn how to maintain test asset health and better understand what test scripts to run when using automated testing tools. Three Key Learning Points: 1. Effective integration of the SAP landscape 2. How to leverage innovative technologies to enable better testing and change management 3. How to maintain test asset health across multiple SAP change cycles Allison Denning, Intellicorp Allison Denning has over 9 years of SAP experience. She joined IntelliCorp in 1998 and is responsible for implementing and training on IntelliCorp products in support of SAP lifecycle events. Previously Denning worked on the SAP implementation team at Amoco. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Finance.

HANA/BI Track

Delivered to Your Door - How HANA enables The Schwan Food Company’s Journey (10:20 am)

Level: Beginner Companies are facing increasing pressures to deliver real time insight to businesses. Challenges of complex analytics, across a wide variety of user profiles and technologies while dealing with large data sets are causing leaders to look for new answers. Learn about the SAP HANA Journey from Vision to HANA Enterprise Data Warehouse Implementation. Mark Albers, Vice President, Hitachi Consulting Mr. Albers is a Vice President in Hitachi Consulting’s SAP Practice and leads the SAP HANA Center of Excellence. He has more than 20 years of experience in consulting and industry. He focuses on Business Intelligence, Analytical and Big Data solutions and is a strategic advisor to clients across industries. Mark has developed SAP HANA powered BI strategies and reference architectures since 2011 and he has lead the implementations of many HANA based solutions. Mark is based in Minneapolis, MN and can be reached by email at [email protected].

SAP HANA -Steps for successful cost effective implementation (11:30 am) Level: Advanced This presentation covers the key considerations for a successful, cost effective SAP HANA implementation. We will share our experiences from actual HANA implementations. Topics include:

Identifying the best use case for HANA

Planning and Preparation activities

Sizing and Hardware selection

Reduction of HANA adoption costs via minimizing data base through archiving solutions

Typical challenges and solutions


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Roland Bahadoor, Managing Partner, Sigma Business Solutions Inc. Sridar Bendapudi, Solutions Architect, Sigma Business Solutions Inc.

A field-tested guide to implementing a high-performing SAP BusinessObjects BI4 solution that your users will love and adopt (1:20 pm)

Level: Intermediate-Advanced Attend this session and learn how a senior BI consultant has helped dozens of companies overcome SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 implementation/upgrade challenges and pitfalls that can result in poor system performance after go-live. The speaker draws on personal experience in the field to provide you with:

Methods to identify & overcome typical BI 4.0 implementation challenges and best practices to prepare, size and configure systems in a heterogeneous landscape for optimal performance

Tips, tricks and proven solution options for the growing BI 4.0 reporting portfolio and ideas to help identify pitfalls ahead of time & speed up your development

Gain more technical insight into the BI 4.0 reporting platform and take home guidelines to size, tune, configure & fully leverage your BI 4.0 deployment to unleash the true potential of SAP BI.

Shankar Muthuswamy, Sr. BI Manager, Method 360, Inc. Shankar Muthuswamy is a senior manager in the Business Intelligence practice with Method360. He specializes in BusinessObjects and serves in leadership roles on both the delivery and practice development sides of the business. He has deep expertise in the BI domain and is passionate about re-defining information delivery through emerging trends such as Big data, in-memory analytics and Cloud computing.

Building and maintaining a rock solid Business Intelligence (BI) strategy (2:30 pm) Level: Intermediate Business Intelligence has been a top CIO investment priority for five years running. The return from BI can exceed the cost of the entire IT budget. Find out how an effective BI approach benefits IT and line of business teams alike, from aligning business partners, formalizing business needs, to removing limits of a departmental focus. Learn how this repeatable framework will help you engage with line of business teams and bring together the priorities of both CIO and business executives. Explore critical success factors and learn best practice approaches for developing and delivering a comprehensive BI strategy. We will: 1. Learn how to recognize and avoid the challenges involved in building a BI strategy

2. See the importance of a BI strategy and how to define one

3. Discover the best practices for creating a BI strategy

Laura Record, Global Center of Excellence – Business Intelligence, SAP America

Support/Testing Track

The Future of SAP is NOW!!! – Strategies for streamlining the adoption of SAP HANA and Cloud technologies (10:20 am)

Level: Beginner Innovative technologies, such as SAP HANA and Cloud solutions, have the potential to fundamentally transform busi-nesses and offer unparalleled competitive advantages for companies willing to embrace them. But with IT landscapes that often include more than 20 enterprise systems — many of which are not SAP systems — companies are often challenged to figure out how to help the business take advantage of these new technologies while smoothly navigating the resulting changes.


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During this session, attendees will learn about different strategies companies have used to help drive innovation into their organizations as well as work through the challenges they faced as these solutions were adopted. This will include a discussion on the tools used to help identify the risks associated with these broad changes, as well as tools and methods used to validate that their core business processes continue to work as expected to ensure any unexpected problems are eliminated prior to go live. Josh Kleen, Senior Solution Architect, Worksoft Josh works with customers to identify unique solutions to leverage next-generation test automation software for SAP applications. He leverages his prior responsibilities of managing and maintaining SAP infrastructure and working with the business to develop creative solutions to help other organizations maximize their investments in SAP Keith Wilson, Senior Director, Worksoft Keith has a background of consulting and project management on large scale SAP implementations. His experiences have included developing centers of excellence for quality assurance, business process improvement, change management, and leveraging technology for operational cost improvement and accelerating project timelines.

Learn How Johns Manville Reduced SAP Related Support Calls by Over 50% in One Year and Improved User Performance with SAP UEM (11:30 am)

Level: Beginner While in the process of gaining full utilization of the company’s new SAP environment, Johns Manville realized it needed to know where SAP was actually being used, who was using the software and where problems existed, if any. At the time Johns Manville averaged about 1,500 help-desk requests per month which translated to 300-500 email issues per day and an average of 800-1,000 support request phone calls per month. The organization demanded a solution that would precisely identify existing and potential problem areas in order to ensure that a timely and proper resolution occurred. Using SAP UEM by Knoa, Johns Manville has been able to provide its manufacturing plants with a valuable approach to streamlining SAP user data collection for use in improving operational outcomes to support business productivity, efficiency and agility. With the deployment of Knoa Software, Johns Manville has reduced SAP support calls by over 50% within a one year timeframe. Johns Manville has seen substantial improvement in baseline performance and service satisfaction surveys of its users, propelling user satisfaction from 10% to 27% in under six months.

Marty Markrack, Director of Sales, Knoa Software

A Rapid Deployment Forms and Workflow Solution (1:20 pm) Level: Intermediate Business Process Automation is a broad topic and many business processes are not necessarily SAP centric. Solution offerings are generally very SAP focused or they were not designed with SAP in mind and, therefore, do not easily integrate with SAP. Imagine for a minute if you could automate any business process, SAP related or not, with dynamic web based forms wrapped in a workflow that includes out of the box email integration (including mobile devices), reminder events, escalation events, re-routing capability, Key Performance Indicators and detailed audit trails. Imagine having the option to easily update SAP through this form (or other third-party systems). Now imagine designing and deploying that solution very quickly.

Steven Branch, President, Configurable Management


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Challenges in SAP Testing (2:30 pm)

Level: Beginner/Intermediate

With constant business changes due to Mergers & Acquisitions, Reorganizations, ensuring zero defects in critical business processes while reducing cost is a significant challenge SAP customers face today. The underlying IT infrastructure often mandates a thorough end-to-end testing before going-live. The impact amplifies as the SAP landscape expands due to high level of customizations and integrations with non SAP & legacy systems. This is further aggravated when organizations do not follow best practices in testing, such as having well structured QA governance, proven SAP testing methodology using solution accelerators and frameworks, etc. This session will enable the audience to understand about : - Benefits of Automation Testing in SAP - Comparison of various testing tools that can be leveraged for SAP Testing - A typical SAP Automation Testing approach - Cloud enabled SAP Testing as a Service Thomas John, President and CEO, Calpion Inc Thomas John is the President & CEO of Calpion Inc a Dallas based SAP Services company. Thomas provides thought leadership to the SAP Testing as a Service (TAAS) offering at Calpion. He is a strong proponent SAP customers leveraging a Cloud enabled and SaaS based SAP testing infrastructure combined with third-party on-demand SAP automation test execution & maintenance. He has 21 years of IT industry experience of which the last 15 has been leading ERP services companies in Dallas. He leads a team of SAP testing experts state side as well as offshore at Calpion's Bangalore India TCOE.

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