Every Microsoft Office user can now access the backend SAP data and business processes through their familiar Microsoft Office applications such as Outlook and Excel. Users no longer need to login to SAP systems to update information such as billable hours, or file paper requests such as personal leave — all can be accomplished within Microsoft Office.

Because the functionalities and features of Duet are seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Office, no additional training is needed upon installation, allowing employees to experience the benefits right away.

Duet enables managers and employees to make timely decisions by giving them the ability to take actions such as approving an employee leave request directly from their Outlook Inbox or making budget changes due to a variance alert in their Inbox without logging into mySAP ERP systems.

Duet significantly increases the accessibility and usage of the powerful enterprise data and business processes by giving every employee access based on their roles and levels in the organization. The increased user adoption rate and low learning curve help companies to achieve higher return on their investment.

Duet enables enterprises to meet state and federal requirements for consolidated information and transparency by eliminating gaps, redundancies, and multiple points of entry into business processes through approvals, notifications, and workflows. For example, the completion of a sales contract is automatically controlled by tracking the changes and notifying sales team using e-mail throughout the document lifecycle from creation to approval to signoff. The same contract document, reviewed and changed individually using Office Word on employee's PC, is saved and stored on the document repository in SAP systems, making it easy for employees to stay compliant with legal contract terms.

Duet allows employees, with appropriate access permission, to interact with business data directly from Microsoft Office to the centralized database repository. For example, a sales manager retrieves a standard contract form and makes changes in Microsoft Word, and notifies his manager and team for approval. All the changes are tracked on the same copy stored in the central database. Duet helps to minimize the use of offline documents, maintaining the integrity of the data.

In today's business world, information and application systems typically reside in two disconnected worlds: enterprise data and business process applications such as mySAP ERP in the backend, and the everyday user-facing productivity applications such as Microsoft Office. Study shows that vast majority of information workers use Microsoft Office to complete their day to day tasks. Duet was designed to work the way people work.

Employees no longer need to toggle between two applications to complete their day-to-day activities. For instance, the same weekly appointments marked on an Outlook calendar associated with the project that an employee is working on are now synchronized simultaneously with the backend SAP time reporting system. Employees' productivity is increased by eliminating the need to enter the same information twice to two different systems.

The partnership between Microsoft and SAP has grown tremendously since 1993. In addition to product integration and collaboration in various business levels, Duet is the first product that is jointly developed and supported by Microsoft and SAP. This initiative underpins not only the commitment of the partnership but also the promise from both companies in delivering the best value and solutions to customers.

With the necessary SAP Applications and information systems infrastructure in place, companies can quickly deploy Duet without downtime and immediately realize the return on their investment.