Leveraging the openness of Microsoft .NET and enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) infrastructures, Duet software exposes selected business process functions and data from SAP applications through Microsoft Office.

As a result, information workers can use features such as extended application menus, SAP-specific smart panel, and business analytics – delivered through Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook synchronization between Microsoft Exchange and SAP processes – to perform self-service functions, such as:

• Time management – Streamline time entry and ensure time reporting compliance by reporting time in the Microsoft Outlook calendar, with time automatically recorded in the SAP ERP application.
• Reporting and analytics – Access reports and analytical data from SAP Business Suite applications. Schedule reports or generate them on an ad hoc basis and access key performance metrics through personalized views from Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Excel.
• Budget monitoring – Receive financial reports from SAP ERP in the Microsoft Outlook Inbox and work with them offline. Monitor budgets through proactive alerts and triggers based on time-critical information.
• Workflow approval – Approve and reject SAP business workflows directly from Microsoft Outlook. Workflows are delivered as e-mail with contextual business process data to enable rapid and informed decisions.
• Sales management – Manage accounts and contacts, create sales activities, and easily access sales reports from the SAP Customer Relationship Management application in Microsoft Outlook.
• Team management – Access up-to-date information from SAP ERP about employees, organizational structures, and managerial approvals directly in the Microsoft Outlook contacts area and Microsoft Office documents.
• Leave management – Submit leave requests as calendar items that are then processed according to approval guidelines in SAP ERP.
• Travel management – Book travel reservations, submit requests for approval, and view contextual reports and analytics to ensure cost-effective travel that is in full compliance with corporate policies supported by SAP ERP.
• Recruitment management – Collaboratively schedule interviews with job candidates, capture feedback about each candidate, and generate rankings to automate the selection of the best-qualified person for a position.
• Purchasing management – Approve purchase requests, understand spending patterns, and analyze supplier performance in a rapid and cost-efficient manner using the SAP Supplier Relationship Management application directly from Microsoft Outlook.
• Demand planning – Use Microsoft Excel to create planning sheets and analyze and manage demand planning data from the SAP Supply Chain Management application.
• Contract life-cycle management – Create and share legal contracts using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook, then manage the contracts using SAP SRM and gain from its support for collaboration, workflow, templates, and automated integration of responses.