LAS VEGAS– SAP has announced a digital assistant for human resources (HR) as well as an Android mobile app for its SuccessFactors set of tools.
The announcement made at SAP SuccessConnect in Las Vegas, is a step towards what the Germany-based company calls its human revolution as it hopes to simplify workforces while improving productivity.
The digital assistant runs on the SAP CoPilot bot and uses Leonardo, SAP’s machine learning “to deliver a conversational, interactive experience for employees using SAP SuccessFactors,” and will be available on mobile and desktop said Gabby Burlacu, a solution and product marketing manager for SAP SuccessFactors
User can type into the digtial assistant chatbot or verbally interact; it can for example search company information, employees salaries, give directions to an office and help employees enter time worked.
“Digital assistants are very important for human capital management (HCM) applications,” states Holger Mueller the principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc., “they allow time pressed users to find their HR transactions faster and allow them to complete them on their own, directly, often on mobile devices.”
He says that, “SAP took a long time to bring CoPilot to maturity and now it’s time to see how the technology can change productivity for business users and see how SuccessFactors can help enterprises accelerate.”
SAP SuccessFactors also announced a redesign for its Android app with Greg Tomb, president of SAP SuccessFactors stating on stage the importance of keeping up with a workforce that uses smartphones to do their work more and more often.
He noted that since the iOS app was launched almost 12 months ago customers have seen a 50 per cent increase in platform usage by employees. It was through a “special relationship” with Apple and Google that SAP SuccessFactors created the iOS and then Android apps, he said, noting that the company has joint labs with both tech companies.
The Android version of SuccessFactors mobile app, will now be meeting the needs of a large number of clients, said James Harvey, senior vice president of engineering and cloud operations at SAP SuccessFactors. “Android plays an important role in markets like China, and other markets, especially since we’re seeing overall globally that Android has 80 per cent of the market share in smartphone adoption.”
The digital assistant will soon for available in beta for a select group of customers and the Android app is currently available in the Google Play store.
With these two announcements of its digital HR assistant Android app, SAP SuccessFactors kicks off its annual conference which continues through Thursday, with more announcements to come.
