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What are the alternatives to InsightZAP?
Some potential customers are very impressed with our product, InsightZAP. However, many are unsure what other products are available, making it difficult to understand InsightZAP’s benefits.
This post is for all SAP professionals interested in exploring the landscape of SAP-related products in the market. While we take pride in our brilliant product, exceptional service, and an impressive retention rate nearing 100%, we acknowledge that many companies praise their products. So, what truly sets our product apart and makes it stand out amidst the competition?
A quick reminder: InsightZAP
Let’s start by giving a short introduction for readers who don’t know us. We specialize in developing user-friendly tools designed for SAP professionals. InsightZAP´s patented technology gives SAP analysts super powers to build business processes directly on production, in hours, and without code.
Our customers report a staggering 90% savings in their SAP development Time and Costs.
How do we help our customers to cut their SAP development time and costs by 90%?
InsightZAP is a low-code/no-code platform that enables SAP users to create and manage SAP business processes without coding. This means that SAP users gain autonomy, enabling them to execute various tasks independently. Usually, when SAP professionals, especially business users, ask for reports (new or edited), dashboards, change logs, Excel downloads, or uploads, the answer is SAP development.
However, with InsightZAP, users can autonomously make these changes. Be it a quick adjustment to an existing report, like incorporating a pivot table, conditional formatting, or an additional column – all achievable within minutes. Even crafting an entire SAP business process from the ground up can be accomplished in just a few hours.
Consider this: A staggering 90% of the requests from the company’s business users can be fulfilled without the need for coding. The implications for time and cost savings are truly substantial.
In cases where ABAP development is an absolute must, InsightZAP simplifies the process of code reuse. There’s no need to rewrite the code for every SAP business process; simply reuse the same code. You can find examples of these processes here.
Let's talk about InsightZAP's competitors
Here is the place to discuss InsightZAP in comparison to our competitors. Let’s divide them into three:
Ad-hoc products
Low-code solutions
SAP Solutions
Ad Hoc Solutions
Many SAP-related products focus on one problem or functionality.
Some cater to tasks such as uploading and downloading Excel files to/from SAP, while others present built-in apps that facilitate SAP views on mobile devices. Additionally, there are reporting tools that extract SAP data and offer ready-to-use reports and graphs.
These tools address particular problems, and that is their key benefit. They offer ready-made solutions tailored to their designated functionalities.
Yet, these tools have two clear disadvantages compared to InsightZAP.
- Competing tools, mainly reporting tools, operate external to SAP. Consequently, although data remains consistently accurate and up-to-date within SAP, information viewed outside of SAP lacks real-time synchronization. Furthermore, these systems override SAP’s security settings. If you export data outside SAP and share it with different people, SAP’s security becomes irrelevant. Additionally, while SAP users access the same data, those relying on external reporting may unknowingly disseminate outdated information, potentially leading to inaccuracies or discrepancies among colleagues.
- Lack of flexibility – the tools have “fixed” features and capabilities. They provide specific solutions, but to address more SAP problems, you might have to use other solutions.
A while back, a potential customer published a tender for a company that offers SAP solutions with a list of features/capabilities they require from their vendor. InsightZAP was able to address all their needs with a single product. One of the runner-ups was a company that offered five different solutions to address the published problems. Moreover, these five solutions put together couldn’t meet all the tender’s criteria.
The result? We secured the tender, showcasing the unparalleled efficiency and completeness of InsightZAP in comparison to multiple solutions offered by competitors.
In conclusion, there are many SAP-related solutions out there. If you are looking for a solution to a specific problem, you might find a good fit that is not InsightZAP. However, if staying on SAP, flexibility, and solving many problems with a single solution is what you are looking for, go with InsightZAP.
Low-code solutions
There is a group of low-code solutions out there. These products allow users to create SAP business processes and specific commands using flow charts or drug-and-drop interfaces. These solutions offer greater flexibility compared to the Ad-Hoc Solutions we discussed previously. Many ABAP developers use these tools to create SAP applications.
These tools are popular among SAP architects and ABAP developers as they can deliver projects faster than coding them from scratch.
Nonetheless, these solutions do require coding; they don’t enable the creation of SAP business processes based on a flow chart with just a few clicks. Thus, these tools are used by people with some coding knowledge rather than SAP business users.
Additionally, while these tools are often very good at creating an app with certain functionality, they are not the ideal choice for complex workflows featuring multiple stages and areas.
When it comes to complex business workflows on SAP, InsightZAP truly shines.
SAP Solution - SAP Build
SAP noticed the growing interest in no-code/low-code solutions and released SAP Build in November 2022.
SAP Build integrated a few applications that SAP acquired in recent years, the most notable being AppGyver.
SAP Build is a low-code solution that helps users build applications. Based on SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform), the platform consists of three parts:
- SAP Build Apps: a drag-and-drop application builder
- SAP Build Process Automation: Creating automation through a visual assistant
- SAP Build Work Zone: website builder with templates
Before the platform was launched, SAP users worldwide were on the edge of their seats, anticipating a revolutionary shift in how they interacted with SAP. However, post-launch, some excitement died down for four main reasons. Like other low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions, SAP users discovered that creating or managing SAP applications from start to finish without any coding was not feasible. That means that they still rely on developers.
Another drawback surfaced when users encountered limitations in the system’s effectiveness for complex processes. While the system handles simple business processes well, many users found it lacking when it came to complex processes.
Furthermore, SAP Build was specifically designed for SAP S/4HANA and SuccessFactors, featuring APIs for connectivity with other SAP products. However, in the initial months following its release, there were reports of SAP professionals facing challenges seamlessly integrating SAP Build with their existing products. We believe that SAP will address and resolve these integration issues over time.
Finally, reusability posed a significant challenge. Users reported that a substantial portion of their work within SAP Build was not reusable. Consequently, they couldn’t leverage processes previously created for another project when tackling similar projects. In contrast, InsightZAP can create and reuse a function or business process across different projects. Unlike other tools, including SAP Build, InsightZAP allows for efficiently reusing code and processes.
In conclusion
Various factors should be considered when determining the most suitable tool for your SAP-related tasks. If your organization’s requirement is focused on a specific problem, numerous products are available to address individual issues. Remember that these tools usually export data from SAP, which might lead to security risks.
Moreover, there are low-code solutions designed to facilitate a simpler and faster application development process for developers and architects. SAP, for instance, provides SAP Build, its very own low-code application builder. Although SAP Build incorporates tools aimed at fostering collaboration between SAP business users and developers in the creation of work processes, business users persist in relying on developers for their workflows and applications.
However, if you are looking for a platform to help you with complex SAP processes, your choice should be InsightZAP. It’s also the only tool in the market that allows SAP analysts to create and edit processes without coding or developer involvement.
InsightZAP stands out as the exclusive tool empowering SAP business analysts and other users to independently create and modify business processes from inception to completion without the need for developer intervention. Even in uncommon instances where coding is essential, InsightZAP’s reusability features position it as the most efficient tool for simple and intricate business processes.