SAP Joule Copilot: AI Assistant for Streamlined Work in SAP System

SAP Joule Copilot is a new generative AI assistant designed to revolutionize the way SAP users interact with SAP applications in the cloud. Imagine having a knowledgeable personal assistant by your side, ready to answer your questions, complete tasks, and guide you through SAP functionalities. That's the power of Joule.

Let’s dives deep into SAP Joule Copilot, exploring its functionalities, availability, strengths compared to other assistants, and current limitations.

What is SAP Joule?

Have you used Microsoft Copilot in Edge browser, Bing or Windows 11? Joule is similar but acts as your personal work copilot within SAP applications. It understands your unique role and provides relevant assistance, allowing you to:

• Ask questions in plain language: Forget complex queries or navigating through menus. Simply ask Joule your question, and it will access a vast amount of business data across SAP and third-party sources to deliver intelligent answers.
• Complete tasks efficiently: Joule can handle various tasks within the conversational interface, saving you time and effort. For example, requesting feedback from your manager or finding a colleague's contact information becomes a breeze.

Why Choose Joule Over Other Copilots?

While other AI assistants, e.g. Microsoft Copilot, offer general capabilities, Joule stands out as the perfect partner for navigating the intricacies of your SAP environment. Here's why:

• Unmatched Business Context: Joule leverages the vast knowledge base of SAP, encompassing business process expertise, best practices, and real-time data specific to your organization. This deep understanding allows Joule to deliver intelligent and relevant responses directly tied to your workflows.
• Data Advantage: Unlike generic AI assistants, Joule taps into the rich data pool of your SAP applications. This includes employee information, financial data, operational details, and more. By analyzing this contextual information, Joule provides highly accurate and actionable insights specific to your business needs.
• Seamless Integration: Joule is built within the SAP ecosystem, ensuring a smooth and secure experience. You can access Joule directly from within your SAP applications, eliminating the need for external tools or data migration concerns.

In essence, Joule goes beyond generic assistance. It leverages the power of SAP's data and expertise to become an indispensable AI copilot, tailored to optimize your specific SAP workflows.

Availability: A Gradual Rollout

Currently, Joule is being rolled out strategically across SAP's cloud products. Here's a breakdown of its availability:

• General Availability: Joule is fully functional in SF, SAP Build Code, and SAP Start.

• Early Adopter Program: Joule is available in S/4HANA public cloud through the Early Adopter Care program.

• Future Rollout: Gradual rollout is planned for other cloud products like Ariba, Concur, CRM, and Business Technology Platform (BTP).

SuccessFactors is currently the most developed platform for Joule, offering the most use cases.

Note: There is no plan to launch Joule for On-Prem products.

Licensing and Cost

While powerful, generative AI models require significant resources. To address this, SAP uses a system called "AI Units." These units allow you to access various AI features across SAP's cloud solutions with flexibility. You can purchase AI Units separately and use them across different SAP applications.

For SuccessFactors users:

• Joule is included with your SF license at no additional cost, offering a certain number of free messages per year (Base AI).
• This allocation is based on the number of active users in your organization.
• Messages are tracked annually, and unused messages don't carry over.
• If you exceed your free messages, you'll need to purchase additional AI Units.

How Joule Learns and Grows?

Joule's training data comes from anonymized information provided by over 28,000 global SAP customers, encompassing millions of users. Additionally, SAP partnered with tech giants like IBM, Google, and Microsoft for Joule's development.

As the SAP user community interacts with Joule, it continuously learns and improves. This ongoing process will make Joule an even more valuable tool in the future. SAP envisions Joule becoming the de facto standard for all SAP applications, revolutionizing the way businesses interact with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Prerequisites for Using Joule

To utilize Joule, you'll need:

• Integration of your SAP product (e.g., SuccessFactors) with SAP Identity Authentication Service (IAS), as Joule leverages this for user login.
• An enterprise global account in SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), as Joule is a BTP-based application.
• A license for a supported SAP product (e.g., SuccessFactors) in a compatible data center (refer to this table for details).

How to Interact with Joule?

Joule supports three conversational patterns, allowing you to interact with it in a natural way:

• Transactional: This mode helps you complete tasks directly within the chat interface, saving you time navigating through menus. Imagine needing to request feedback from your manager. You can simply tell Joule, "I want to request feedback from my manager." Joule will then collect your questions and send the request directly to your manager.
• Navigational: Need help finding a specific function within the SAP platform? Joule can guide you there. For instance, you can ask, "Show me the time off instructions for my organization." Joule will understand your request and provide a link to the relevant page, eliminating the need for manual searching.
• Informational: This mode empowers you to retrieve information from existing documents, reducing the need to contact HR for assistance. Let's say you need to understand a specific company policy. You can simply ask Joule, "Explain my organization's X policy," where X represents the specific policy you're interested in. Joule will then retrieve the relevant information and present it to you.

Joule Use Cases: Streamlining Workflows in SAP SuccessFactors

While Joule offers functionalities across various SAP applications, SuccessFactors is currently the most developed platform for its use cases. Here's a breakdown of how Joule can be utilized within SF to streamline workflows:

Employee Self-Service (ESS):

Joule empowers employees to manage their own information directly through the chat interface. Here are some examples:

• View and update personal details: Need to change your contact information or update your emergency contact details? Joule can help you do it seamlessly.
• Request time off: No more navigating complex menus to request vacation days. Simply tell Joule, "I want to request 5 days of vacation leave starting next week." Joule will guide you through the process.
• Access payslips and tax documents: Retrieve your latest payslips or tax documents instantly by asking Joule to show them to you.

Full roadmap is available in SAP roadmap explorer.

Manager Self-Service (MSS):

Managers with proper permissions can leverage Joule's capabilities to manage their direct reports' information. Here are some examples:

• Approve/reject leave requests: Joule can display all pending leave requests from your team members. You can then directly approve or reject them within the chat interface.
• View employee information: Need to access an employee's profile quickly? Ask Joule to show you their information, including contact details and performance data (if permitted).
• Provide feedback to employees: Joule can facilitate the feedback process by helping you draft and send feedback directly to your team members.

Worker:

Joule allows authorized users to access information about their colleagues, fostering better collaboration and communication within teams. Here are some examples:

• Find colleague contact details: Need to reach out to a colleague but can't remember their email address? Joule can help you find it by name or department.
• View team organizational structure: Gain a quick overview of your team's structure by asking Joule to show you the organizational chart.
• Learn about company policies: Unsure about a specific company policy? Joule can provide explanations and relevant documentation for your reference.

For a comprehensive list use cases currently available, please refer to Transactional Use Cases and Navigational Use Cases on SAP website.

Current Limitations and Looking Forward

While Joule offers significant benefits, it's important to acknowledge its current limitations:

• Language Support: Currently, Joule only operates in English. You'll need to set your system language to English for interaction.
• Platform Availability: Joule is currently a web-based application and not yet available on native mobile apps.
• Single Chat Session: Maintain a single chat session for optimal interaction. Using the same account across multiple tabs or browsers may lead to unexpected responses.
• Limited Information Output: Joule provides one piece of information per request. For instance, you won't receive both location and cost center details in a single query for "show my location and cost center."

Despite these early limitations, SAP is actively working on improvements. We can expect to see:

• Multilingual Support: Expansion to additional languages is expected to cater to a wider audience.
• Mobile App Integration: Joule functionality will likely be integrated into native mobile applications for on-the-go access.
• Multi-Information Output: Joule will likely evolve to deliver more comprehensive responses in the future.

Final Thoughts

SAP Joule Copilot is an AI assistant poised to transform the way users interact with SAP applications. Its ability to understand your role, answer questions, and complete tasks within a conversational interface makes it a valuable asset for increased productivity and efficiency.

While currently in its initial stages, Joule's potential is vast. As it gets embedded in all cloud products and evolves with additional use cases, languages, mobile support, and advanced features, Joule will likely become an indispensable tool for anyone working within the SAP ecosystem.

SAP customers can benefit from free AI units while trying this new technology. As SAP launches and evolves Joule, these free units allow your users to experience the power of AI assistance within their SAP workflows at no additional cost. This fosters early adoption and valuable insights that will also contribute to Joule's ongoing improvements.