Azure DevOps vs. SAP Integrated Product Development

Azure DevOps works well when you’ve got larger delivery efforts with multiple teams and a lot of moving parts, and you need one place to plan work, track it properly, and see how everything links together. It’s especially useful when delivery and development are closely tied and you want backlog items, code and releases connected rather than spread across tools. Where it’s less of a fit is for small teams or simple pieces of work, as it can feel like more setup and process than you really need, and non-technical users often struggle with the interface. It also isn’t great if you want instant, easy programme-level views or a very visual planning experience without putting time into configuration.

Incentivized

I have used IPD for Material collaboration, where the design and specifications were maintained as per the country need. When there is a change based on local country compliance rules, it makes easy to refer and adjust the material specifications as per the new compliance defined. Handling this for multiple materials in a go makes a difference in this tool. But drawback is that navigation of the EDP interface, where it takes more time to adjust and needs more training for new users. Like making them understand the business need and change needed takes time.

Incentivized

• Utilize Git as a repository to share work between multiple users
• Ability to configure Pipelines to build containers to run virtual deployments and testing scripts.
• Split individual tasks and relate to master documents for quick navigation and ability to see overall picture of project.
• Track status of each task
• Integrate with Git to utilize branches, merging, approvals, history, etc.

Incentivized

• It allows us to strategically control operations by product monitoring and production changes.
• Gives you the ability to source upcoming products because you have a complete and total view of all resources at all times.
• It allows us to control batch management in the production process, this is a key element in our industry.

Incentivized

• I did mention it has good visibility in terms of linking, but sometimes items do get lost, so if there was a better way to manage that, that would be great.
• The wiki is not the prettiest thing to look at, so it could have refinements there.
• It could improve the search slightly better.

• The interface is that of your typical SAP program, it's not very user friendly to a person who doesn't use it every single day.
• Some simple Windows commands do not work in SAP PLM, such as a copy and paste.
• Right click menus generally produce unconventional results if the user is more familiar with Windows right click menus.

Incentivized

I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.

Incentivized

We may not renew as SAP Integrated Product Development tool don't match considering our line of business with limited product lines.

Incentivized

It's a great help to get more information about new feature release and stay updated on what the dev team is working on. I like how easy it is to just login and read through the work items. Each work item has basic details: Title, Description, Assigned to, State, Area (what it belongs to), and iteration (when it’s worked on). See image above.They move through different states (New → Discovery → Ready for Prod → etc.).

Incentivized

We just need to think about where we were back in the past and where we are at now! We used to have total chaos where everyone was working their own way. Now all involved groups work together as one team. This has increased the overall efficiency and the results are really astonishing!

Incentivized

When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.

Incentivized

Have received support in a timely and very effective manner.

Incentivized

Was not part of the process.

Incentivized

Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.

Incentivized

The "One Version of the Truth" Mandate: Most organizations select SAP IPD not because it has the best CAD tools, but because it eliminates the "wall" between engineering and the rest of the company. If you need to know the real-time cost of a design change or its impact on your carbon footprint, SAP IPD provides that instantly because it lives inside your ERP.

Incentivized

• We have saved a ton of time not calculating metrics by hand.
• We no longer spend time writing out cards during planning, it goes straight to the board.
• We no longer track separate documents to track overall department goals. We were able to create customized icons at the department level that lets us track each team's progress against our dept goals.

Incentivized

• It has advanced reporting capabilities, and its analytical features have enabled efficient decision-making, improving overall productivity.
• The centralized data management system has helped improve efficiency and reduce errors.
• I would say overall, it has reduced our manual effort by at least 20%, which has enhanced the resource utilization.

Incentivized