When EBS went live in December 2010, HR/Payroll forms used Adobe Interactive Forms technology. We quickly discovered Adobe is not the ideal solution for the complex forms required by university processes. We ran into issues with performance and usability. We needed a new solution.

An SAP system upgrade applied in August of 2011 offered new options for forms creation and processing. The new capability of Floorplan Manager (FPM), with a technology we were already using called WebDynPro, led our development team down a new path. This new path meant developing a new way of doing things, not only for our team, but also for SAP – the software company itself had never done what we were doing.

The planning and prototyping started in July of 2011, we had a working model a month later. From September to early October 2011, the new Temp On Call hire form was developed, tested and shared with management, project staff and end users. The response was very positive. The new web based form was similar to the online forms used before EBS, performed better, allowed the complex business rules MSU needs, and guided the user through form completion in a logical manner. The EBS Development Team did all of this with minimal customization of SAP, very little user re-training, and a high level of end user acceptance.

Because of this ground-breaking development, the EBS Development Team will be sharing their knowledge with SAP users from around the country at the annual ASUG (Americas SAP User Group) conference in May. This also positions MSU as a leader in the SAP user community, gets us on the radar screens of other academic users of SAP and leads to countless networking opportunities for future development.