Accelerating Workflows with Joule

Challenge:

• New enterprise software can be difficult to adopt and complex to navigate, e.g. for new cost center owners or operational purchasers
• Traditionally users need to learn entry points and process steps to take (to get to the right transactions or business objects) leading to a slow uptake and loss of productivity on access and changes
• In addition, help is not always quickly available at the user’s fingertips in case of need

Solution: Joule guides users through SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, providing

• Fast navigation to apps in Finance, Sales, Procurement, and Professional Services
• It shows relevant info for business objects and tailored content for different roles
• Enabling contextual transactions and improving end user enablement

Benefits: Faster onboarding and higher day-by-day productivity through

• Accelerated navigation across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
• Guided access to insights on business objects
• Faster resolutions of issues through comprehensive informational support and intelligent search of SAP Help

Imagine working as a financial specialist in the public sector—someone responsible for budgets, grants, and funds. Every day, you’re dealing with a maze of apps, reports, and interconnected business objects. To get even simple answers, you depend on knowing exactly where to click, which transaction to open, and how to move through the system. For new or occasional users, this becomes overwhelming very quickly.

Now picture a different experience: instead of memorizing dozens of app names, you simply describe what you want to do. You type a sentence like "Show me the budget consumption for my cost center", and instantly, the system takes you to the right place or surfaces the information directly. This is the shift that Joule brings to Public Sector Management.

By understanding natural‑language intent, Joule removes layers of complexity. Instead of searching through menus, users receive answers or navigation pathways immediately. That means fewer steps, fewer errors, and significantly less dependency on power users. In practice, this translates into faster task execution, smoother onboarding, and more confidence in daily operations—especially for users who don’t live inside SAP all day.

Before AI assistance, many workflows required patience and persistence. Searching for information often took several minutes: locating the right screen, checking whether the data was correct, and validating whether the user had opened the right application. The same was true for transactional tasks—users first had to confirm they were in the correct context, then execute a series of steps to complete the activity.

With Joule, the experience changes dramatically. Instead of navigating toward the information, the information comes to the user. By interpreting natural language, Joule understands what the user wants and prioritizes the most relevant results. It can jump directly to the appropriate app or object, skipping the usual back‑and‑forth navigation.

The practical effect is a reduction in task duration from minutes to seconds. New users feel more confident because they no longer need to master the system's structure before becoming productive. Experienced users benefit as well—tasks they performed hundreds of times become significantly faster, making a noticeable impact on overall efficiency. For consultants, the core learning is that AI doesn’t just accelerate actions; it removes barriers that previously made system adoption slow and challenging.

To understand how Joule interacts with users in practical scenarios, it helps to think in terms of three patterns that describe the different types of support users can receive.

First is the navigational pattern. This is perhaps the most intuitive: the user wants to reach an app or execute a process, and Joule points them directly to the correct application—no searching, no guessing, no need to remember which tile or menu to use.

Next is the informational pattern. Here, the user is looking for guidance. Maybe they don’t know how to perform a task, or they need a definition or a rule. Joule summarizes relevant help content into short, digestible explanations that users can immediately apply.

Finally, there is the transactional pattern. This allows users to retrieve details about business objects—like grants, funds, or budget documents—without opening the full application. It is particularly useful when users need quick insights to support a decision or check the status of an object.

For consultants, understanding these patterns is crucial. They form the foundation for explaining Joule’s role, designing enablement materials, and advising customers on how AI can best support their business scenarios.

In Public Sector Management, many core applications are used daily by budget and grants professionals. Joule has already been trained on around 50 of the most commonly used PSM apps, allowing it to provide helpful guidance and direct access to key workflows from day one.

This means users no longer need to know which exact application handles which process. When someone says, "I want to create a grant billing proposal," Joule understands the intent and offers either a step‑by‑step descriptive answer or a direct link to the appropriate app.

For a consultant, these capabilities make demonstrations more powerful. You can show how a user moves seamlessly from a question to an actionable step, highlighting how AI reduces onboarding time and helps users learn the system organically. This creates a more intuitive learning experience and removes a lot of frustration that new users often face.

Public Sector Management relies on a diverse set of applications that cover budgeting, grant administration, fund management, and analytical reporting. Joule’s navigational capabilities already span many of these commonly used apps, making it easier for users to jump directly into the exact workspace they need.

Whether someone wants to manage funds, analyze budget consumption, explore grant structures, or examine where specific programs or funds are being used, Joule can point them to the right place instantly. This broad coverage is especially helpful in workflows that span multiple apps, where users might otherwise lose time switching between screens or reorienting themselves.

Beyond navigation and information guidance, Joule also supports transactional insights using Enterprise Search. This means users can request business objects—such as grants, budget documents, or funds—through natural language queries and immediately receive relevant results.

For example, when a user asks for grants created in the current year or budget documents tied to a specific program, Joule returns the matching records without the user needing to filter through multiple search screens manually. From there, users can continue directly into the related applications to take action.

This capability bridges the gap between finding information and acting on it. New consultants should understand that this is where AI becomes particularly transformative: it not only accelerates access to information but also improves the flow of work by allowing users to continue directly into the next step of their process.

In the SAP Fiori Launchpad, you can use the enterprise search to access public sector management objects like Fund and Grant. Depending on your business role, you see a list of business objects in the SAP Fiori Launchpad search dropdown. This AI-assisted feature allows you to use natural language for searching public sector management business data. You can enter your search queries in natural language in the SAP Fiori Launchpad search bar to find the information you need.

Business users can perform search using natural language and generative AI on Joule Copilot.

• End users can now access business objects by typing in natural language queries.
• Simplified interaction, making data access more user-friendly and intuitive.
• Improved productivity for employees to derive insights more quickly and efficiently.

• The user can first enable natural language search on the business objects, by selecting the checkbox ’Enable AI Natural Language Search’ from the user profile settings.
• By typing in natural language queries, the end user is able to target a larger and more specific result set based on a less specific query. For example:
  • 'Show me funds created recently’.
  • ‘Show me funds ending in next month’.
• Joule can provide an overview with details of the object and quick link to the most helpful apps related to the object.

AI capabilities within Public Sector Management continue to expand. In upcoming releases, Joule will be able to support a wider range of PSM business objects, including earmarked funds, functional areas, sponsored classes, sponsored programs, and budget periods.

For consultants, this roadmap is an important planning tool. Knowing what enhancements are coming helps in shaping project timelines, planning training sessions, and advising customers on when to pilot which capabilities. It also allows you to position Joule not only as a current productivity booster but also as a continuously evolving assistant that will support more processes over time.