Why audit SAP with ACL (Galvanize) when you have Alteryx & the DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP?

Professionals in the Audit function can often find themselves diving into large "haystacks" of data to find very small "needles". With each passing year those haystacks are getting bigger and the needles harder to find.

​Read on to understand how Alteryx can streamline your audit processes; bringing accelerated, dynamic, and automated solutions, with the possibility of predictive analysis in a package that is easy to use by experts and novices alike.

​Combine Alteryx with the DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP (ACS) and SAP customers have a formidable set of tools to future-proof their audit technology needs.

Why Alteryx?

Answering the question “what should we do?” often requires complex, error-prone spreadsheet models or manual coding.  Alteryx brings optimization and simulation capabilities directly into a drag-and-drop workflow environment that provides consistency and transparency during the modelling process.  Using a range of mathematical models, support for different solvers, and built-in Monte Carlo simulation capabilities, making decisions with advanced analytics has never been easier.

Traditional advanced analytics tools require extracting data from the database, adding time and cost while limiting scalability.  Alteryx in-database blending and analytics maximizes the power of Amazon Redshift, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Cloudera Impala, Spark, and Teradata by applying formulae, filters, and joins, and performing advanced analytics to the data ― in place.  It is the essential ingredient to scale Big Data analytics.

Integrating, blending, and applying the latest machine learning algorithms to discover patterns in data is often an iterative, labour-intensive process. Alteryx provides the necessary advanced analytics tools to perform data mining techniques or leverage existing models through integration with R and Python, or full read/write of IBM SPSS and SAS files, providing flexibility through the analytics lifecycle, from data sourcing, blending, and enrichment to visualization.

​Utilizing regression models, predictive models, and other advanced analytics techniques often requires skilled data scientists. With R and Python integration, and 40+ pre-built tools and macros for data investigation, predictive modelling, grouping, and time-series analysis, Alteryx enables data analysts and data scientists alike to impact future outcomes across their organizations.

How the DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP works

The DVW ACS adds a suite of tools to Alteryx that enable data to be read from a wide range of SAP systems including:

• SAP ECC
• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP BW including SAP BW on HANA and SAP BW4/HANA
• SAP Business Suite applications including SAP ERP, SAP CRM, SAP SRM, SAP HCM, and SAP PLM
• SAP Industry solutions including SAP Oil & Gas (IS-Oil), SAP Utilities (IS-UTIL), SAP Telecommunications (IS-Telco), SAP Retail (IS-Retail), and more

​There are even tools to write data back into those SAP systems.  All tools are optimised for performance and have proven superior capability to pull huge volumes of SAP data at speed, without stressing the backend system, or your SAP Basis team!

​The DVW ACS integrates seamlessly with the standard Alteryx offering to create a powerful engine to extract and transform your SAP data.  Options to pull data directly from SAP tables, transaction codes (T-Codes), queries, and even printer spools, provide almost limitless possibilities to build end-to-end audit processes in a user-friendly workspace.  There is even the possibility to extract SAP documents stored against business objects in SAP.  
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When you consider the ability to then schedule automated workflows and collaborate with other teams using the Alteryx Gallery, this truly is a game-changing technology.

How Alteryx compares to ACL (Galvanize)

​ACL (Galvanize) has been a key player in audit software for some time, but many SAP customers are now moving to Alteryx, as they see the flexibility and depth of function provided as a step-change, offering a new generation of tools.

Here's our assessment of the two platforms:

	ACL	Alteryx / DVW ACS
​Ease of Use	Scripts are coded via commands and require coding across multiple sources (e.g. Joins, Unions etc.)	Workflows created via drag and drop tools (code-free for citizen data analysts, yet code friendly for technical users)
Time to Value	Not conducive to rapid deployment – limited in-application data interrogation capability	Automatic in-application assessment of data quality, completeness, accuracy, and data summaries
Advanced Analysis	Additional coding needed for many advanced statistical measures	Pre-built advanced statistical modelling in standard tools
Cost of Ownership	Developer comments akin to VBA comments in Excel	Visualised workflow and comments allow for easy interpretation
Community	Community generally confined to audit functions therefore mainly limited to script sharing	Large multi-functional community allows for sharing of ideas and collaboration across huge range of business areas
Data Quality	SAP data extraction only available at table level can cause data quality challenges as SAP database technical knowledge required to ensure accurate coding	DVW ACS provides direct access to SAP data across a variety of touchpoints, all respecting SAP data integrity and leveraging Alteryx automated data cleansing
SAP Connectivity	Requires additional code in SAP, accesses data only at table level, and does not support SSO	Majority of DVW ACS tools require no additional code in SAP but rather use native RFC protocols to seamlessly access SAP
Performance	Extractions from SAP to file can bake in inefficiency in the data flow and prevent full automation	​Tested at large scale on live data and proven to provide up to 50% improvement versus ACL when extracting data at volume
Automation	Automation via scripting requires technical knowledge leading to inflexibility and potentially lengthy implementation times	Full end-to-end automation achieved using DVW ACS and standard tools to schedule data extractions and deliver timely outputs and triggered alerts
SAP Documents	No direct access to SAP documents	Dedicated DVW ACS tool to identify and extract documents attached to SAP business objects, such as pdfs of purchase orders
Predictive Analysis	Additional coding required to apply predictive modelling techniques	40+ out-of-the-box predictive tools provide unrivalled depth of function using R and Python integration.

Conclusion

Alteryx, together with the DVW ACS allows unrivalled access to your SAP audit data, provided by user-friendly tools. Tools which are simple enough for business users to self-service, but provide depth of functionality which will sate the most technical coder or data scientist.  This is a step change versus the more traditional code-based approach of the ACL/Galvanize solution.

The DVW Alteryx Connector for SAP also wins out over ACL in terms of performance, integration and SAP solution coverage.  A clear example of this in practise, was a large Oil and Gas corporation running SAP, who recently found that the DVW ACS reduced their audit extraction times by as much as 50%, and promptly moved their entire audit function from ACL to Alteryx.
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Finally, the functionality provided by Alteryx Gallery and Alteryx Analytic Hub to wrap automation around these powerful workflows provides a huge opportunity to streamline audit processes, by removing the time-consuming extraction process from the equation, leaving your audit team to concentrate on the data analysis.