September is just around the corner, we are less than one month away of SAP TechEd 2017 edition, but why you should be excited about it?
SAP TechEd is a 5-day event (now and for the past years) hosted at the Palazzo Congress Center – Las Vegas, created expressly to the SAP ecosystem of developers, engineers, system analysts, data experts and etc., that offers a myriad of opportunities to learn, explore, networking, training, education and collaboration.
It is also an opportunity to discover new technologies that SAP has an it can be applicable to your customer or company and to know what is “out there”. Things that you can’t figure out, see or “taste” just staying seated at your office’s desk or navigating on Google.
This year’s event, in its 21th edition, it starts on Monday – September 25th, with the ASUG Pre-Conference sessions, but to majority of the attendees, it really starts on Tuesday and although the event has sessions running until Friday, many people don’t show-up this day, for different reasons (they already saw what they came to see, others have to travel back home, and there are the ones who did party all Thursday night… it’s Vegas, I can’t blame them), but the fact is, since many sessions repeats in the other days, Friday tends to be less crowd and you should consider attending some sessions on the last day too.
I always take the maximum of this event and although I will not attend any of the ASUG sessions on Monday, I have been invited to an Executive Technology Briefing on this day and I will definitely attend some of the sessions on Friday.
Check here my last year’s review, as some of the hints I shared there might still work to this year’s edition: SAP TechEd 2016
While in the previous edition the SAP S/4HANA took most of the attention, this year, based on what I saw in SAP SAPPHIRE’s event this May in Orlando, I believe S/4HANA will have to share the stage with SAP Leonardo and Big Data. In fact, this year’s agenda has 158 items exclusive for SAP Leonardo and related topics.
ASUG Pre-Conference Seminars
As I mentioned, they are hosted on Monday, but they are not included in the TechEd registration, that is, it requires paying extra for them, price ranging from $545 to $845 and most of the sessions from 8am to 5pm, only one of them is 1:30pm to 5:00pm.
The sessions available this year are:
- Digital Transformation with SAP S/4HANA
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to SAP HANA: A Comprehensive Technical Introduction with Demos
- Enterprise Architecture for the Digital Economy: Frameworks, Models, Tools, and Practices
- Security for SAP S/4HANA and SAP HANA
- Create Powerful and Native iOS Apps to Revolutionize the Mobile Work Experience
- Evaluate, Enhance, and Mobilize SAP Fiori 2.0 Apps
- SAP Cloud Platform: Business Agility for Your Digital Transformation
- Building Enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions with SAP Leonardo
- SAP Solution Manager 7.2 – Ultimate Guide to Adopt the Newest Innovations
- Manage Big Data with Enterprise wide solutions: SAP Vora, SAP HANA, and SAP EIM
SAP Executive Keynote
Gain insight into SAP strategy and product direction from the executive leadership team.
The only keynote session will be hosted on Tuesday morning, and that’s when you have to be there early if you want to have a seat, otherwise you still can watch it from the many TVs and Big screens spread in the show floor.
Once again, Björn Goerke is hosting it (Click here to watch the 2016 replay).
As CTO of SAP, Björn Goerke oversees technology strategy and standards across the product portfolio. He is also president of SAP Cloud Platform, heading the product management, development, operations, and go-to-market/sales, as well as the ecosystem and business development of SAP Cloud Platform.
Educational Sessions
There are +1100 sessions, which makes very challenge to build your agenda. You know for sure that you will miss something that you wanted to see because it conflicts with another session you want to see too. Many sessions are repeated between Tuesday and Friday, make sure you build your agenda wisely.
Click here to check the agenda.
Sessions are sorted in the different types and themes.
Session Types
- Networking Sessions – One thing that I learned by life’s experience is that if you want to be a successful person, you have to be surrounded by the best and brightest people. Is there any better place to connect with technology leaders than in TechEd? In the networking sessions, you will have the opportunity to chat with conference speakers, SAP mentors, and other experts
- Design Thinking Sessions – Design Thinking is a unique approach to problem finding and problem solving with a focus on human meaning and empathy. In these interactive workshops, you will learn how to use design thinking methodology to address a specific problem
- Innovation Talks – These are short, 20 minute presentations that gives you a quick-view into technology topics relevant to your area or industry. Hear many different viewpoints delivered by thought leaders from inside and outside SAP
- Hands-On Workshops – You can pick 2 sessions and reserve a seat. Registration to hand-on opened this Friday, August 25th and they usually run out of seats fast. Sessions are 2 or 4 hours long. You can also in the day of the event go to those session’s rooms and ask to be in a stand-by list (get there EARLY as the waiting list is first-come, first-served), if someone who was registered in advance doesn’t show up, you still can get in
- Lectures – Lectures to deep dive into SAP technology of many different subjects. Lectures are 1 or 2 hours sessions
- Strategy Talks – Provocative sessions to get you thinking about SAP and technology
- Road Map – SAP experts and product’s owners will give a detailed road map understanding on their products in those 30 minutes sessions
- SAP CodeJam (Mini-Editions) – These are 1 hour sessions that will give you the chance to get familiar with SAP’s technology and development tools available for you to start building your apps on SAP’s platforms with the help of the experts. This is an opportunity to meet one on one with SAP development experts, connect with other developers, share knowledge, and have a little fun coding!
- Code Review – 30 minutes sessions to assess real code examples and learn new tips and techniques
- Best Practices – Hear about real-life experiences and customer’s cases to get tips from SAP community members, customers, partners, and others
Session Themes
Sessions were divided in themes, each theme with their sub-topics. The themes are: Engage, Know, Run, Transform and Unlock Big Data
- Engage – Design, prototype, develop, and mobilize the digital experience. Adopt a design thinking mindset for your digital transformation and discover the latest innovations like SAP CoPilot, the digital assistant and bot integration hub. Topics available are:
- Innovation Experience with SAP Leonardo, Design Thinking and BUILD
- Application Experience with SAP Fiori, SAP Fiori Elements and SAP CoPilot
- Technology Experience with SAPUI5, SAP Web IDE, and SAP Cloud Platform Portal
- Mobile Experience with SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services, including SAP Fiori for iOS
- Know – Deliver insights to drive strategic decisions with integrated analytics solutions that help organizations better understand their businesses, plan and predict future business outcomes, and take action to transform their enterprises in the digital age. Topics available are:
- End-to-End and Hybrid Analytics
- Planning, Budgeting, and Consolidation
- Advanced Analytics and Predictive
- Next-Generation Data Warehousing
- Smart Data Discovery
- Run – Hyper-automate business processes, and make your SAP applications more intelligent and capable with SAP S/4HANA, the real-time enterprise resource management suite for running your digital business. Acting as the digital core for the entire business, SAP S/4HANA enables Digital Transformation, Cloud Management, Extensibility and Security. Topics available are:
- Digital Transformation with SAP S/4HANA Cloud
- ABAP Platform and Extensibility
- Cloud Architecture and Data Model of SAP S/4HANA
- Security and Compliance
- Cloud and Hybrid Landscape Management
- Transform – Build and scale new, intelligent applications using technologies offered by SAP Cloud Platform and the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system to connect people, things, and businesses. Topics available are:
- Extensibility
- Integration
- Cloud Application Development and Operations
- Internet of Things
- Machine Learning
- Blockchain
- Unlock Big Data – Orchestrate data of any volume, velocity, and variety with the SAP Database and Data Management portfolio, which features the SAP HANA platform and extends in-memory technology to distributed computing with the SAP Vora engine. Topics available are:
- Database and Data Management with SAP HANA and SAP Vora
- Data Modeling and Processing
- Data Integration
- Data Governance
- Data Warehouse
- Development with SAP HANA
What I want to do?
Here are some of my major focus topics for this year (in progress… my agenda is not ready yet and this may change slightly – See my most interested topics in the end of this post):
- S/4HANA Cloud
- I want to explore how to get the most out of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and details of what the “fit-to-standard” means to my Company in a Cloud context as I believe this is the direction we are going in the future
- I want to talk with customers and partners about their use cases and join some of the Q&A sessions for this subject
- SAP Leonardo / IoT
- This subject was the highlight of SAP SAPPHIRE in Orlando this year and I am sure there will be a lot to explore in this year’s TechEd
- I want to find opportunities to use SAP Leonardo in the Supply Chain area, including, but not limited to Yard Logistics, Transportation Management, Warehouse Management and etc.
- Machine Learning capabilities embedded into S/4HANA
- As much as I read about S/4HANA Cloud solution it gets clear to me that the system has capabilities of teaching the computer to support patterns and make connections to process massive volume of data, instead writing programs and coding, S/4HANA will use Big Data and sophisticated algorithms to learn how to perform the task itself
- I want to understand how the system can go beyond of predictive analytics and beyond of what users can do to automate tasks
- SAP S/4HANA
- I want to hear more about the S/4HANA 1709 release including the TM process integration with S/4HANA in this release
What I did?
Find a way to take the maximum you can of that week in Vegas at the TechEd. Here are some of the things I did (that I can publish lol) during last year’s edition:
I got my badge early (on Sunday), casually dressed to spend the rest of the day walking at Las Vegas streets! Hard to decide which ribbon fits me best:
I won a book… well, I collected many other gifts just by walking in the show floor:
That includes a Drone that I won from the guys at Panaya.
Signed up to some hands-on sessions:
I watched Björn coming to stage in a DeLorean, Back to the Digital Future! In fact, I took a picture with him:
I also met Mike Tyson… well, at the Wax Museum 🙂 Thanks to Tobias Queck who arranged to get me into the SAP Screen Personas reception…
And I also enjoyed walking at the hotel and surrounding…
If you are going, don’t forget to tweet or text me so we can meet there!
I hope you enjoy this year’s event!
My tentative Agenda
Updated: 09/07/2017
Quite difficult to attend all of those sessions, but these are the ones that I am most interested in attend. I will have to review in more details to come with a final version. 79 sessions in 4 days, no way, that’s 20 sessions per day!… the question is, what sessions should I drop? Difficult decision!
| SIA43 | SAP Big Data Event | Special Interest Activity |
| SAP Executive Keynote: Björn Goerke | Keynote | |
| HBD123 | Overview of SAP HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H100 | Overview: New Implementations of SAP S/4HANA Using the Migration Cockpit | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H112 | ABAP Strategy | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H124 | SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Differentiators, Road Map, and Strategy | Lecture (1hr) |
| ST100 | Reimagining Business with SAP Leonardo | Strategy Talks (1hr) |
| CPL144 | SAP S/4HANA Extensions for Customers and Partners with SAP Cloud Platform | Lecture (2hr) |
| NET52108 | Accelerating Your Digital Innovation with the SAP Leonardo System | Networking Session (30min) |
| CPL102 | SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain Service: Introduction and Overview | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL119 | SAP Cloud Platform: Overview | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL209 | Edge, Fog, Containers, and More | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX208 | SAP CoPilot | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX209 | The Digital Support Experience – A Use Case for SAP CoPilot | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H126 | SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – Analyze Your Source SAP ERP | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H217 | Overview, Road Map, and Strategy for SAP S/4HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL847 | Road Map for SAP Cloud Platform: Cloud Foundry Environment | Road Map Session (30min) |
| DX812 | Road Map for the SAP Fiori User Experience | Road Map Session (30min) |
| HBD852 | Road Map for SAP HANA, Express Edition | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL113 | SAP Leonardo: IoT portfolio and strategy | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL121 | Getting the Most Out of SAP Cloud Platform | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX151 | Innovation By Design – Interactive Workshop to Transform Your Organization | Design Thinking Session (2 hr) |
| S4H140 | The ABAP Programming Model for SAP S/4HANA | Lecture (2hr) |
| ST101 | Machine Learning, Blockchain, and Conversational AI: How to Get Started | Strategy Talks (1hr) |
| S4H849 | SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Intercompany Scenario Road Map | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL103 | Blockchain and SAP: Use Cases, Scenarios, and New Solutions | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL122 | Transform Your Business: Innovate with SAP Cloud Platform | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H117 | Overview: Transition Paths to SAP S/4HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL857 | Road Map for SAP Cloud Platform Big Data Services | Road Map Session (30min) |
| ANA816 | SAP Analytics Cloud: Road Map | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL865 | SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation: A Road Map | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL143 | Supercharge Your SAP S/4HANA with Machine Learning on SAP Cloud Platform | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX108 | Use SAP Build for Better User Experiences | Lecture (1hr) |
| NET52075 | How IoT Removes Shipping Container Blindness from the Digital Supply Chain | Networking Session (30min) |
| CPL141 | SAP Leonardo Machine Learning: A Deep Dive on Intelligent Applications | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL207 | Architecting Industrial IoT | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX107 | Innovation by Design | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H110 | Business Process Improvement to Prepare for the Transition to SAP S/4HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL116 | Blockchain in a Public Sector Scenario | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL150 | SAP Leonardo IoT Reference Architecture | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL212 | How to Integrate Machine Learning into IoT Applications | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX213 | AR and VR for Business Users: The Immersive Experience Framework | Lecture (1hr) |
| ANA206 | Light a ‘Spark’ on Big Data with Predictive Analytics | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL117 | Blockchain in Financial Service: Bonded Loans – a Commercial Lending POC | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL211 | IoT Data Science Projects in Practice | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX206 | From Prototyping to Productive App with the SAP Build Tool | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX256 | SAP CoPilot and Merck KGaA – Co-Innovation with SAP Beta Testing | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H125 | Overview: Architecture of SAP S/4HANA Cloud | Lecture (1hr) |
| ANA265 | Use Machine Learning from Predictive Analytics to Make Better Decisions | Hands-On Workshop (2hr) |
| CPL118 | Blockchain in an Industry Scenario: Secure, Paperless Ocean Shipping | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL137 | Overview of the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Portfolio | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL200 | SAP S/4HANA and Blockchain Integration | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL210 | Connect Things and People: Rules and Workflows | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H119 | Extensibility Overview of SAP S/4HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| ST104 | Reimagine the Future of Your Organization Through the Eyes of Your Users | Strategy Talks (1hr) |
| CPL811 | Road Map for SAP Leonardo IoT Foundation and SAP Leonardo IoT Edge | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL240 | Use Cases and Demo: Integrating IoT and SAP Solution Data with SAP Leonardo | Lecture (1hr) |
| ANA820 | SAP Predictive Analytics: Road Map | Road Map Session (30min) |
| ST109 | Creating the Future with SAP Leonardo IoT Foundation | Strategy Talks (1hr) |
| S4H167 | SAP Technology Highlights | Hands-On Workshop (4hr) |
| CPL810 | Road Map for SAP Leonardo Internet of Things Capabilities | Road Map Session (30min) |
| CPL135 | Innovating SAP S/4HANA with SAP Cloud Platform: Blockchain Integration | Lecture (1hr) |
| CPL114 | Lessons Learned from Building IoT Applications | Lecture (1hr) |
| HBD122 | Road Map for SAP HANA | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX160 | Design Your Own Prototypes with SAP Build | Hands-On Workshop (2hr) |
| ST102 | Developing the Right Skills to Win in the Digital Transformation | Strategy Talks (1hr) |
| NET52102 | SAP S/4HANA and SAP HANA 2 | Networking Session (30min) |
| ANA205 | Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning from SAP: What You Need to Know | Lecture (1hr) |
| HBD127 | Integrating SAP Vora with SAP IQ | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX227 | SAP S/4HANA 1610 Migration Preparation Details: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H837 | Road Map Q&A: ABAP Platform | Road Map Session (30min) |
| ANA111 | Machine Learning in Enterprise Applications | Lecture (1hr) |
| ANA112 | Making SAP Applications Smarter by Embedding Machine Learning | Lecture (1hr) |
| HBD116 | Advances in Machine Learning for Real-Time Streaming Analytics | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H246 | Migrating SAP Business Suite Ecosystem into SAP S/4HANA Platform | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H137 | How to Accelerate Implementations of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Using SAP Activate | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX211 | User Experience Evolution with SAP Fiori 2.0 | Lecture (1hr) |
| DX214 | Boost User Productivity with SAP CoPilot – A Customer Journey | Lecture (1hr) |
| S4H260 | Deep Dive: Explore and Work with SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit | Hands-On Workshop (2hr) |
