Simplify & Automate your

Business Processes in SAP

Using Excel and Lower Your
Risk with Data Governance
Unify your ERP & Excel Data with
Governance & Automation

www.innowera.com
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Table of Contents

Introduction:
The Excel Paradox in Data Governance & Workflow Management 1

The $600 Billion Imperative:

Why It’s Time to Upgrade the Excel Experience 2

Mitigating the Biggest Risks in Spreadsheet Workflows

Clear Audit Trails & Traceability 3

Ownership of Spreadsheet Processes 4

Sustainable Spreadsheet Maintenance 5

A Blueprint for Better Governance & Control:

The Innowera Process Runner Difference 6

Connecting the Dots with Innowera Process Runner 7

The Comprehensive Solution

to Managing Risk & Automating Processes: Innowera 8

Elevate Excel-SAP Workflow Management 9

Take the Next Step Toward Superior Data Governance 10

Simplify & Automate your Business Processes in SAP Using Excel

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The Excel Paradox

In Data Governance & Workflow Management

What are the main ingredients of organizational

success? The answer can be found in how
companies approach their pivotal processes for
workflow approvals, rejections, and data governance.

The difference between remaining competitive

and continually wondering what went wrong can
sometimes be as small as a single Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet error. One mistake can balloon to huge
proportions, since the entire company relies on
spreadsheets for everything from closing its books
to managing the details of sales orders.

Data processing all but requires Excel. However,

it has real limitations when used alone to manage
processes. This is the Excel paradox, in which an
essential and inescapable app is routinely leveraged
for tasks it can only handle with additional support
from advanced workflow management solutions.

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The $600 Billion Imperative:

Why It’s Time to Upgrade the Excel Experience

Excel remains the go-to app for managing data

for ERP transactions, processes, and more, but it
struggles with advanced workflow management,
especially for the associated controls and approvals.
Spreadsheet-driven
These shortcomings lead to cell/calculation errors,
frequent delays, and fundamental problems processes catalyze
with data quality. as much as

In fact, highly manual, spreadsheet-driven processes

$600 billion
catalyze as much as $600 billion in economic losses in economic
annually. They’re also difficult to dislodge; over 80 losses annually.
percent of companies rely on such workflows to
collect, organize, and analyze business data.
OVER

80%
Conventional solutions integrated with SAP, like
add-on apps, often produce complications due to
the limited amount of flexibility of the applications. OF COMPANIES
Accordingly, they still leave too much work to perform
in Excel itself, where the same issues persist. rely on such workflows
to collect, organize, and
Resolving the Excel paradox requires regaining control analyze business data.
of your workflows. That sounds like a tall order, but
it’s easier than you think. With SAP automation,
you can reduce manual processing and streamline
connections between spreadsheets and databases.

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Mitigating the Biggest Risks

In Spreadsheet Workflows

Taking a traditional, Excel-only approach to

managed processes is akin to assembling a jigsaw
puzzle with some of its pieces missing.

In the case of your workflows, here’s what’s

missing—though this is a partial list:

Clear Audit Trails and Traceability

Without workflow standardization across

spreadsheets and databases, auditability suffers.
Your teams lose confidence in spreadsheet accuracy,
and spend too much time reconciling discrepancies
and ensuring the right versions are disseminated,
including to your SAP infrastructure. An Adra Match
survey even found most finance teams didn’t trust
their month-end close numbers, yet still felt pressure
to close faster.

Fortunately, by extending the capabilities of Excel

via a top-notch SAP automation tool, you gain
comprehensive business process automation linking
Excel and SAP, leading to more consistent data
governance and a clearer-cut audit chain.

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Ownership of Spreadsheet Processes

Standard Excel-based processes aren’t all that user-

friendly, making some employees feel left out.
Non-technical managers and approvers likely feel
The right SAP automation uncomfortable creating scripts and/or are unaware of
tool is easy to use. By the most recent version of a critical sheet.
pairing it with additional
In contrast, the right SAP automation tool is easy to
process control and
use. By pairing it with additional process control and
traceability, you get traceability, you get a smart and flexible workflow
a smart and flexible system for SAP, all within a seamless user experience
workflow system for SAP. combining workflow management, approvals
and notifications.

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Sustainable Spreadsheet Maintenance

It’s too easy to break an Excel file, either by inserting

new entries disrupting a template, updating a formula
which behaves unexpectedly, or simply losing track
of key changes. Along similar lines, coding mistakes,
and circular references have led to major real-world
issues in the economics and finance sectors.
90%
of spreadsheets
The right SAP automation tool addresses these contain major errors.
issues in multiple ways:

■■ It provides predefined mappings and templates for

the most popular SAP transactions, while offering
Effective SAP
the flexibility of a simple drag and drop interface
to modify and then standardize these templates automation
if needed, or to create standardized SAP Tcode streamlines the
automation scripts from scratch.
processes between
■■ It finds the right values the first time, helping avoid Excel and SAP
duplication while putting important information
right at your fingertips.
SAP
It provides reliable data conversion, loading and
testing. Almost 90 percent of spreadsheets contain
major errors. Effective SAP automation streamlines
the processes between Excel and SAP, and allows
full validation testing before you make
updates in production.

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A Blueprint for Better Governance & Control:

The Innowera Process Runner Difference

Innowera Process Runner is the key to

resolving the Excel paradox. It transforms
Excel into a powerful engine capable of
meeting the workflow demands regularly Innowera Process Runner is a
placed on it. highly intuitive tool for integrating
SAP and Excel. At a high level,
Innowera Easy Workflow in conjunction it enables:
with Process Runner provides full workflow
management and SAP automation for ■ Seamless data exchange
Excel, making your spreadsheets into between SAP and Excel
more manageable and sustainable parts of without requiring coding.
a company-wide infrastructure. Innowera
■ Business process automation
Process Runner, in tandem with Innowera
via almost any SAP module,
Enterprise Apps and integrations, enables
meaning you don’t have to
this transformation by easily connecting
juggle numerous tools, or
Excel and SAP.
worry about data quality
and system reliability when
performing major SAP
operations with
many touchpoints.

■ Verification of data existence

and validation checks to
enable accuracy while
uploading data to
SAP systems.

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Connecting the Dots

With Innowera Process Runner

Innowera Process Runner is extensible as well as highly synergistic with other Innowera
apps. Through the combination of Innowera Process Runner, Enterprise Apps like Control
Panel, and integrations such as Innowera Easy Workflow, you have everything you need
to drive organizational success through superior use of Excel and SAP. Innowera Process
Runner Excel Add-in in conjunction with Innowera Easy Workflow revitalizes your Excel-
SAP workflows with many new, easy-to-use capabilities. Its intuitive interface lets you take
control of your workflows.

Anyone with a working knowledge of Excel and

SAP can simply drag and drop—or point and click—
pulling data from SAP tables, scheduling jobs, and
creating QM notifications.

The Innowera Process Runner Excel Add-In also

lets you perform these SAP tasks without ever
leaving Excel. You can upload and download to/
from SAP, validate data with simulations and test
runs, perform one-click batch error processing, and
Anyone with a working
integrate with other Innowera tools for a unified,
knowledge of Excel and streamlined user experience.
SAP can simply drag
and drop—or point and
click—pulling data from
SAP tables, scheduling
jobs, and creating
QM notifications.

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The Comprehensive Solution

to Managing Risk & Automating Processes: Innowera

With Innowera solutions, you can support full-fledged

workflow management within Excel through new controls
that eliminate risk and improve visibility. Innowera Process
Runner is the engine of this approach, while Enterprise
Apps and Innowera Easy Workflow integrations implement
additional complementary features for controls,
approvals and notifications.

With Innowera Control Panel and Innowera Easy Workflow,

you can extend standard SAP security, organize your
notifications, and automate numerous steps in common
managed processes. These applications ensure everyone—
from the HR department to the finance team—is up to date.

Overall, the straightforward user interface and

process automation capabilities of Innowera Process
Runner, Control Panel, and Innowera Easy Workflow
mean that once-complex tasks, like staying on top
of approvals and rejections, are simpler
than ever before.

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Elevate Excel-SAP Workflow Management

Innowera Process Runner and its supporting

Innowera applications transform your Excel sheets
into much more than calculation files. In addition
to the specific features we’ve highlighted so far,
these applications revolutionize how you access SAP,
connect it to Excel, manage its mass processing, and
create a continuous audit trail.

Each application has rich functionality addressing

the multiple spreadsheet-related challenges we
highlighted earlier. For example, Innowera Easy
Workflow lets you process multiple steps
concurrently via Parallel Steps and can provide an
audit trail, so that you’re never in the dark. And
that’s just scratching the surface of what Innowera
Easy Workflow can deliver in tandem with Innowera
Process Runner.

For advanced automation, these solutions together

can also support your robotic process automation
needs, and provide the last mile of deep integration
for your SAP processes.

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Take the Next Step

Toward Superior Data Governance

Excel is a fixture of business. The time and

energy you pour into it should produce
positive change rather than frustration.
Innowera Process Runner, Innowera Easy
Workflow, Control Panel, and the rest of
the Innowera suite make sure that it does.

To learn more, visit our Technology

Overview page. Our team is also always
available to help with any questions.

Innowera, a Magnitude company, is a leading global software provider that empowers business
users with agile data management productivity tools that make SAP easier at all levels of business.
TM

Innowera’s automation technologies deliver time efficiencies and lower total costs.

To learn more about Innowera, contact: 1-877-SAP-4-ALL | innowerasales@magnitude.com

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