What needs improvement with SAP HANA?

While SAP HANA is good, it would be better if it comes at a more affordable price. Furthermore, integration and understanding of business functionality can be challenging and require specialized skills.

Actually, SAP HANA has a different application for each purpose. If you want a better UI experience, SAP has its own application. If a user wants to manage an application, SAP has another application. If a user wants to use the baseline command, SAP has its own tool for it where one can manage it. There is always room for improvement in every field, but right now, I can't think of any area. The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

One notable issue is the difficulty in finding consultants with experience in the SuccessFactors product, a human resource management tool part of SAP's cloud-based solutions. For example, learning the Oracle database is straightforward. You can easily go to the Oracle website, download the database, install it on your laptop, and access technical resources and books. However, SAP HANA presents a different scenario. The huge and solid software makes it difficult to install and use without proper training. Mastering SAP HANA often requires attending training centers, which can be costly. The solution's support also needs to be faster.

Continuous improvement is essential for these systems to stay competitive and relevant in the market. Currently, for support, we rely on local implementers who act as intermediaries. This makes it challenging for me to reach out to SAP directly. If, for instance, I encounter any issues during the ongoing project, expanding it to other companies may pose a challenge without direct access to SAP support.

There are no weaknesses in the solution. My company tries to improve its different applications, making it one of the major reasons for us to move from SAP HANA to S4 HANA while also considering the fact that SAP may discard SAP ECC 6.0 by 2027. After that, SAP will provide us with the liberty to upgrade the product. The only downside of the product is that it is an expensive solution that needs to consider lowering its prices to improve the product.

The solution could be more flexible. It is challenging to integrate it with third-party tools apart from SaaS components. Also, they should include a feature like local field in the next release.

The bid process needs to be improved.

As with all electrical products, this is an expensive solution and we'd like to see licensing costs reduced.

The solution could improve by having better migration flexibility. For example, it would be helpful if there was a way for customers could check their nonproduction and production deployments. Integrating SAP HANA with BTP HANA is difficult and there should be guides available.

SAP HANA has almost all the features, and with every new release, they are introducing some new features because of the development team working on the solution. The solution has started supporting its integration with other applications, which can ensure the solution's development. The solution's development platform should be more flexible and scalable to adapt to other solutions. In short, the development environment of the solution needs to improve. Such improvements will make the integration and adaptation of the solution more flexible.

They should develop and improve the solution's data management system. They should also work on the capabilities and features of their mobile and cloud applications.

I cannot think of any features that are missing at this time. In the calculation views, the functions that have been provided to build the graphical views should be enhanced and could be made more flexible. There should be more functionality available. You cannot apply mulit-join inside the calculation views, for example, when you are joining tables. You have to do it in a four-node. You have to join them one by one instead of joining everything together in one step.

The solution could improve in the handling of backup data and the administration tools.

In my limited experience using SAP, the process of granting access to different modules is difficult. Specifically, the requirement to assign roles and key codes to users rather than being able to assign them individually made the process more complex. It would be beneficial if there was a way to assign key codes separately, rather than having to create multiple roles. This would make managing access easier. The grid could be made more user-friendly. While it is functional, it is not as user-friendly as other databases or accounts. In particular, I find that SAP HANA is a bit more complex for users to navigate. This could be improved to better serve the user.

SAP HANA isn't user-friendly, and it's very hard to train newcomers to use it. In the future, SAP HANA should develop and review their offering for the construction field.

We had some issues where the data was not replicating and also problems with the target when some records didn't sync up. Even though we worked on the problem together with SAP, and they were very helpful, it took some time to resolve.

It's still improving there, still improving a lot. Most of the extractors that are now. Most of the standard things don't satisfy the requirements in order to go for the custom build. More standards would help in the future.

The Attack dashboard needs improvement because there are some gaps after sales services.

Perhaps the access to learning could be improved, although it is also very good right now. The relationship with a partner that sells SAP could be better. We depend much more on our own development, and the partner is for selling us the solutions, so we need them to be able to supply help and answers. The partner isn't very helpful, and we have to rely on our own knowledge and research. It could use more organizational functionality. for example, treating and analyzing stock items. I have to work a lot to organize the information, the articles, groups, subgroups, families, and so on.

There are limitations on tables. There is a two billion record limitation on a table. We'd like it if there could be more. If a table passes two billion records, SAP goes down. The pricing is expensive.

While new users to this solution have the benefit of the new design, existing ERP users may experience issues with migrating legacy data. We would like to see development of ready-made tools that allow for easy mapping when upgrading. There is an issue with the programming language that has been introduced in the latest updates to the product, as it does not match the language originally used to develop the solution. We would like to have development tools included as a feature of the solution to help with this. Also, this product has seen a large amount of new features added over the last few versions, and we would like the focus to be on improving those before more functionality is added.

What needs improvement in SAP HANA is its automation, in particular, it needs more enhancements in that area. Right now, what I need is already covered by SAP HANA, so I have no additional features in mind for it.

Ease of use could be improved in SAP HANA. I like SAP because SAP solutions can be used by anyone, which means even laymen can start working on SAP tools, but in SAP HANA modeling, you'll need to know some other technologies and sequel scripting, and you need a separate skillset, so if you don't have the skillset, you won't be able to work on SAP HANA. Making SAP HANA low-code would make it even better.

The pricing on this product could be reduced, and the installation process could be more straightforward.

I would like to see improvement on the feedback from the road-map; it is currently extremely hard to get insight in this area.

The pricing could be better. Finding the solution or adding some additional features that are customized for what we need is difficult. It costs a lot of money. For example, our office has SAP HANA, and the Saudi distributor has SAP, or at least, another version. We are trying now to integrate the two systems together. However, the cost is too much. We'd like to see more integration capabilities. It does take a while to set up.

The product could be improved in several ways. First, before carrying out a project with this environment size, a POC needs to be carried out, for which you would have access to various environments. And those environments are something that SAP should invest in and others should provide. That would be an improvement. Second, some good amount of handholding, guidance, or other validation or certification from SAP at different levels. Third, access to tools for a longer period than the pre-defined trial version license. That's something that we can ask our friends from SAP to extend or make available in a different licensing model at zero cost.

When we are using SAP HANA we have some difficulty with the customization. We would like to be able to add and make customized menus. In a future release, there should be a way to cancel or delete, for example, a tender document. The deleting or canceling of documents is sometimes confusing.

I think a lot of areas need improvement. There seem to be a lot of requirements. In Taiwan, we have a general universal invoice system in our government, and we need more support for this. I would like more technical documentation. I would like it to be easier to find online help or have a better launch-based service. SAP has a lot of functions, so we need more best practices and more detailed documentation on industry solutions. For example, it would be good to have documentation on why a certain process needs to be set up and which kinds of configurations need to be set up. Before SAP HANA releases the next update, they need to run more internal tests.

The SAP ERP processes are quite complex for us and it's a challenge. I don't like the presentation layer tools on the analytics side, it's too complex. I'd like to see a consistent analytic system as those tools and their capabilities are not easy to select. An alternative could be for them to offer the option of access to other solutions.

The product lacks some flexibility in its settings and configurations.

Some production features are lacking. For example, we cannot see any dashboards in the production department. The generation of reports needs to be better. We have sales reports and yet no production reports. It's a complex initial setup. It can be an expensive solution.

HANA could be improved by adding analytics and development models in the institution.

A documents preview could be helpful. Today we have a lot of documents, for example, in PDF formats, which we would like to preview. We'd even just like to click on an icon and have it open another tab. That way, I can see the document directly inside SAP HANA. In the company I was working with, we had a parallel system which meant we needed to go to SAP, see the code, see the drawing number, and then go to another system that is finished by Autodesk, and then find the drawing and open it. This is a lot of work. I really would like to just have it inside this app. I'd like the product to have more mobile aspects. Many younger users want mobility and flexibility. The solution can be expensive. In Brazil, many companies still do pretty much everything in Brazil, and, if they want to try a new solution, they want to try it at zero cost. Many, therefore, will look for open-source solutions before they even consider SAP.

Since we use BW, we are required to use an SLT tool to carry out the data for generating the reports. But, when it comes to in-memory database in respect of the realtime reporting, I do not see why this report cannot be made available from the system itself. This would allow for some partitioning of the database, so that there would not be a need for the EMP in respect of the realtime data. The initial setup was complex. I am talking about how the data is replicated to the site. We had an Oracle Database and did replication to the VR site. Yet, when it comes to HANA, we are forced to work out the method for ensuring that this replication works as it should. It is at this point that the solution becomes stable. Technical support could be better. When we have requested this, the tendency has been to instruct us to implement a note and keep them apprised. In reality, there is no one who helps us with actual troubleshooting of the problem. The pricing is a bit on the high side. While I would definitely recommend the solution, I would caution that one should employ the proper resources that are geared towards the system. Unfortunately, SAP does not provide a structured training program, which means a person must rely on multiple system integrators and some service providers.

SAP HANA is not perfect and they could improve by having more options and more integration.

In the Asian market, we have to customize SAP HANA to fit our needs and if we are implementing any solution from SAP or Oracle it is not recommended to customize them. In a future release, SAP HANA should add a module for taxation, such as income tax and withholding tax.

The user interface and CRM need to be more user-friendly, it's abnormally painful. I'm a frontline user of the CRM, and it requires lots of clicks that are unnecessary. Less is more on the internet and quite often I'm clicking five, six, seven times to get where I need, and that's not effective. When an item in a certain category is not done properly, it can either lock up a system or not complete the process. We see it on a daily basis and we have to figure out a workaround to solve it. It's a technical issue that SAP's had since the beginning, and it hasn't yet been solved. With SAP everything has to be categorized. If it's not, it causes system issues and then you have to decipher the issue to try and undo it. It's an algorithm argument flaw. In the near future, I'd like to see better user interfaces and better connectors between modules.

Because SAP HANA is completely in-memory, it requires the use of bigger systems which have a higher amount of RAM. If the system does go down then coming back up is difficult and can take 30 to 40 minutes. It's a big drawback of the solution and one they ought to solve because the multiple downtimes are a problem.

The worst thing about SAP HANA is the price; it's very expensive. The licensing cost, implementation cost, hosting cost, and appliance cost are all high.

Since only some accommodation exists, there is a need to enquire of SAP about which environment would be good. While I know the HANA database on the Azure environment comprises a good solution, for example, it does not easily accommodate SAP. HANA is a new technology which only dates back to 2004 and we must give it adequate time before assessing its room for improvement. This is in contrast to DB2, which has been around for 40 years or more years. Perhaps the flow will be improved. As of now, the technology is too new to properly comment on. The documentation is not an issue and, if anything, a surfeit of it is made available. This is actually one of SAP's stronger points. Capabilities are also not at issue at present. When it comes to how EAP connects with SAP we are looking at a revolutionary paradigm. For now, we could not ask for there to be more features. This area is wonderful. We find the solution to be very helpful, safe, good and secure. Only with the passage of time will we be afforded a proper understanding of where the technology can be improved. This said, it would be nice to know when SAP plans to stop its maintenance of a previous version of SAP ECC ERP because, at this point, anyone utilizing SAP will have no choice but to go on S/4HANA Database. This will be contingent on when SAP will stop doing maintenance for the ECC version 6.0. We saw this with the 4.6 version ECC. Once SAP stopped its maintenance those with SAP were forced to go on the new version.

The main issue that we are facing is with the connectors. The JDBC connectors are very slow. We have been trying to connect with our SAP HANA database to our customers. It's a simple Java driver and there is no proper documentation available anywhere with clear steps. We have to rely on several documents which creates confusion. The initial setup could be simplified. Also, we don't have to option to pull up the data from the object structure in SAP HANA. We can only pull up certain objects. It doesn't provide you with a comprehensive list. There are limitations in connection with SAP HANA. There has to be a better or easier way to connect the databases with other platforms, maybe using Java code or other types of code. It would be very good to have the documentation on how to connect. I would like to have flexible connecting mechanisms for connection with Java or different types of solutions to SAP HANA on cloud or non-cloud solutions. They could come up with something similar to the SAP HANA Studio type of modeling. I would also like to see the capabilities to extend the API. If they had specific APIs, it would be easy for us to connect.

The performance and integration with other products are areas in need of improvement.

There could be better management for faster updates, last year there were some changes in India to the e-invoicing feature. During that time, there was a couple of updates that we had to wait until the release happened before we could do the implementation, this was a time we had to wait. They are pretty good at releasing updates but that time it was not the fastest.

The current version we are using is lacking some unique features, we are upgrading to the newer version of this solution that has these features, S4 HANA.

I'm still researching the features of HANA. In terms of memory, data access and data pitching, HANA has scored a victory, no doubt about that. But when I compare the non HANA architecture with SAP, ERP, the SAP ERP comes in two levels. SAP ECC, which is a non HANA based product, and SAP S/4HANA, which is a HANA-based product. If I compare these two, there are almost around 5,000 to 6,000 tables, which were merged together in HANA, making it a robust architecture. In earlier SAP we used to have fragmented, small-scale architecture. HANA is a robust architecture where one table itself is a behemoth quantity of many, many columns and a lot of redundant data. So my interest in HANA would be how SAP is catering to the demand of reducing the redundancy of data, and at the same time pinning the entire critical tables into the memory so that access to the data is faster. I am researching those factors.

Compared to Oracle, the licensing could be better. SAP HANA is not strong like Oracle when it comes to finance. They are only strong with the logistic business project.

The documentation can be improved in the future. In the next release, I would like to see integration with smart devices.

The product is very demanding on memory requirements. This is a result of it being an in-memory processing product. The choice of the hardware must be done carefully because when subject to other hardware, it gets slow and just crawls. Memory on the other hand is not cheap because you have to buy it from a third-party. The cost of the database is not cheap either, as you have to pay for the runtime for any licenses that you purchase, and that comes each year. Now that is punitive with increasing license requirement.

They can improve their technology for the CRM subsystem. There are other products that are better and more effective for the CRM subsystem. Its price could be better. It is expensive.

The price of this product should be reduced. Technical support should be more customer-friendly. We would like to see better CRM functionality in the future because there are other products that are better and more effective.

I don't think that there is a feature that is lacking. It's quite good as a solution and we're pretty happy with most aspects of the product. I'd just like to see some more improvements done on the training, both on the functional training and technical training sides as a part of the complete solution. Currently, training is assumed to be a separate part of the solution. You have to purchase it separately. This should be a part of the solution's mandatory requirements. Most of the time, people fail to purchase training, and they fall back on it afterward, during implementation, as they realize how crucial it is.

SAP HANA is a very proprietary tool and there's not as much support available for it as there is for an SQL Server (which is more popular). It requires some internal SAP knowledge to work with the tool and it's a completely graphical modeling kind of a system. You can't come in cold with no knowledge or understanding of the solution and think you can jump in and start working. You have to work with the very few tools that are given to you. It could probably increase its flexibility and there could be more components added, which would make it more versatile. They could improve the solution by adding more components and by making it more feature-rich and including typical features that other more popular tools have. There needs to be better support from the SAP support team. There needs to be more support for other programming languages like high-level C++, Java, or Python. That could be another improvement. HANA needs more integration with open-source tools, and with general reporting and analytics tools that are out there on the market. Once again, more integration on so many levels would be amazing. It's very SAP-centric and very proprietary right now. There are ways to connect SAP HANA with many tools already, however, in particular with open-source tools, if there could be even more integration, that would be helpful. There needs to be more data transformation and more ELT features that can be implemented in the view.

We use SAP HANA in our projects but it's very expensive for our projects. We need a relational database in-memory that can handle these issues. The solution is very expensive for us. It's hard for us to find test users and sometimes we need them to connect to SAP from Iran, however, this is an issue due to the sanctions against the country.

Oracle tends to have better features than SAP HANA. They should work to add the kinds of features clients expect from Oracle. With Oracle, you can install their cloud and that enables you to see more of the database and multiple accounts. This is better than what SAP has on offer. SAP could really work on its monitoring capabilities. There's data aging that needs to be dealt with on the solution. It's not ideal. You might have a lot of raw data and aging can really affect it. It would be help if the solution had a graph database. They're lacking that right now. There's an issue in the partition. When you record more than two million records, partitioning does not work well. In Oracle it's easy. SAP must resolve this issue in order to be more competitive with Oracle.

The user experience should be better. Its user interface is not good. I also don't like the transition concept.

Unlike other databases, it lacks management features that legacy databases like Oracle or SQL servers have. They need to make the solution easier to manage and offer tools that make management more effective. A lot of things you have on traditional databases you have to develop into HANA.

The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities. There could be some debugging techniques when the solution goes wrong or if some of the data is wrong. The solution needs to work a little bit faster. When you do a report on a non-SAP platform, you face some compatibility problems.

I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement. In the next release, they could separate the modules from the costing of the database. If they bundle it together with a new affordable price then customers will be ready to purchase it. They need an affordable price to achieve most of the minimum requirement assets.

The challenge right now is all databases are on S4 HANA architecture. You're running it for HANA, but not all the functionalities are available. If they can speed up getting all the databases on S4 HANA that would help.

If the developers were to enhance or improve the application logic while processing the transactions, that would be great. For example, if you are accessing a transection, it takes about 10 seconds. So the logic behind the transection usually is part of the development part and a product code is not from the database.

FI, or the financial module of SAP, has room for improvement. It has to have some better localization for the Middle East, especially in regards to taxes and the letter of a credit cycle. I would like to see better localization from the HCM.

One is the menu. There is a part of the menu where the button should be "reject." The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it. Now we have to consult SAP just to do some interface changes. You expect it to be easy to get into the menu, but you can't. Instead of changing the console you wanted to reject it, for example, if a tender that does not meet a specific qualification. Basically, the customization of the interface needs to be more friendly. I think we are also going towards mobile technology, so I would like to see the integration of a mobile app.

In terms of improvement, the speed is not as good as we thought it would be. That is why we are trying different solutions that will be built with different technologies. Also, the cost is an issue. SAP HANA is extremely expensive, especially in the cloud. Right now that has changed because you can actually purchase modules of that size but, for example, two years ago when we had a database of 10 terabytes, then we would have to purchase the hardware on our own and then put it in the cloud foreign location of the vendor. It runs on our own software that we have purchased. It's just placed in the same location as the rest of the cloud of the vendor. They should improve the speed and scalability

The backup solution and time machine should be more accurate, reliable, and comfortable to use. The inclusion of a well-performing Time Machine is vital. If the interface were more comfortable and easy to use then it would be excellent. Sometimes, an incorrect request is taken to production and it will corruption everything in the production database. When there are a large number of records to process in a transaction, it is not any faster than Oracle.

From the deployment-side, I don't have any issues with the solution and haven't heard of any problems from clients. The solution is very expensive, however. The pricing depends on the number of users and many other factors that affect licensing.