eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Add the Ruum project management app to SAP’s growing list of products that work with Microsoft’s business application and cloud services slate.
During its SAPPHIRE conference earlier this June, the German software maker made waves by announcing that its platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, dubbed SAP Cloud Platform, was officially available on Microsoft Azure. As it turns out, the relationship between the two technology giants goes a bit deeper.
Eclipsed by SAP’s major push into customer relationship management (CRM) and unified enterprise data services was an integration that can help joint users keep their projects on track with a dash of real-time, chat-based collaboration. “The SAP Ruum [pronounced ‘room’] integration with [Microsoft] Teams tightly couples the business processes and team conversations and provides a seamless user experience,” stated Microsoft representative Sreekanth Thirthala Venkata in a blog post.
Linking SAP’s project management application with Microsoft Teams helps users avoid the productivity-halting effects of context switching, the practice of moving from one application experience to another, each with its own interface and specific ways of handling and communicating data.
“For example, let’s say you’re trying to plan logistics around a product launch in Microsoft Teams,” the Microsoft staffer offered as an example. “Being able to access SAP Ruum allows you to keep a record of what people are agreeing upon and what the current plan is—in parallel to the conversation.”
Microsoft Teams is also evolving into a full-featured remote meeting and teleconferencing platform, a fitting development considering that Teams is replacing Skype for Business, the company’s enterprise communications platform.
During another recent event, this time the InfoComm 2018 audiovisual technology conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft revealed that support for Teams meetings is coming to Skype Room Systems by the end of June. Skype Room Systems, formerly Lync Room Systems, are integrated hardware and software systems tailored for conference rooms from partner companies Polycom, Lenovo, Logitech, Crestron and HP.
Later this year, Avocor and Sharp are expected to ship Teams-compatible Windows Collaboration Displays, large-screen devices that are similar to Microsoft’s own Surface Hub. Polycom and Yealink are preparing the release Teams-enabled conference phones, while AudioCodes and Yealink are readying desk phones that work with Microsoft’s chat-based collaboration app.
Of course, Slack, Microsoft’s big rival in the team collaboration space, hasn’t exactly been sitting still.
Employees at businesses that use ADP’s payroll and human capital management (HCM) services can now use Slack to view paystub information, request time off and view their time-off balances with simple slash commands. Slack and ADP announced the integration, available via the new ADP Virtual Assistant app in the Slack App Directory, on June 5. In March, Slack and Workday announced a similar partnership, granting users the ability to view co-worker information and request time off and other human resources activities.
In May, Slack took the wraps off Actions, a feature that nudges tasks to completion using Slack messages. Users can create tasks and follow up on workflows triggered by other applications without having to leave the Slack interface. Slack Actions work with Asana, Jira Cloud, Zendesk and other compatible applications.