Efficient and convenient: Migration of the University of Basel's existing travel management solution to the new S/4HANA system
As part of the introduction of S/4HANA Finance, the University of Basel intended to migrate the travel management solution it was using at the time to the new S/4HANA system. For this purpose, among other things, the existing, once individually programmed expense workflow was to be replaced.
THE CHALLENGES
Existing financial production system meets modern travel management functions – a pragmatic transition from old to new was to be developed without too much effort.
Three required expense workflows, which had been individually programmed for the university by SAP in the past, were to be successfully replaced by a standard solution and the travel management integrated in S/4HANA. A complicating factor was that different multi-level approval stages were to be possible for each expense type and travel information. Due to a corresponding cost distribution per expense type, it can happen that the same trip has to be approved by different people. These requirements had to be mapped and expandable in the flexible expense workflow.
ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF BASEL
The University of Basel is a university with an international reputation, which excels in research and teaching. Founded in 1460, it is the oldest university in Switzerland and can look back on a successful history of more than 550 years.
As a comprehensive university offering a broad range of high-quality education, it attracts students from Switzerland and around the world and provides them with excellent study conditions at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. Today, the University of Basel has around 13,000 students from over a hundred nations, including around 2900 doctoral students.
OUR APPROACH
The central element of our solution approach is the Fiori Launchpad with several standard Fiori Apps in interaction with a flexible SAP workflow. The use of the standard Fiori Apps ensures SAP support and further development. The following Fiori Apps were introduced:
- Manage Workflows (ID F2190)
- Expense Entry V2 (ID F0584A)
- MyInbox expense approval (ID F0410A)
- Email templates (ID F1306)
THE RESULT
The complexity has been massively simplified: A streamlined workflow has been defined from three different workflows with over 55 steps.
The new solution relies on efficient standards without sacrificing individual functions. For example, approval levels can be adapted independently and flexibly by the University of Basel. This saves time and costs - and is highly convenient at the same time.
