SAP Forum App: live exchange of ideas

Business context

SAP, a global leader in enterprise software, has been bringing the business community together for years during SAP Forum Poland. The event gathers leaders, experts and practitioners, with a strong focus on sharing experience and building relationships.

To increase interaction and reduce the distance between participants, a mobile communication channel was introduced in 2014. The goal was to create a tool that would make it easier to follow the agenda in real time, take part in discussions and effectively manage one’s own schedule.

Leaware was engaged to develop an application supporting the forum. The key objective was to deliver a solution designed for intensive, single-day use, ensuring simplicity, reliability and broad accessibility.

Challenge

The greatest challenge was to design an application capable of handling the dynamics of a live event: rapid information flow, updates throughout the day and multi-threaded discussions between participants and speakers. The solution had to fit naturally into the rhythm of the forum and instantly deliver what mattered most.

Equally important was full availability across different devices. The application had to work consistently on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, providing the same experience regardless of the handset, with no compromises in performance or usability.

In addition, the interface had to minimise user effort: a clear agenda, quick session sign-ups, unobtrusive notifications and intuitive access to discussions. All of this was aimed at increasing attendance at presentations and stimulating a genuine exchange of ideas.

Solution

Leaware delivered the SAP Forum App using Xamarin, which made it possible to create a single, consistent solution running simultaneously on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. As a result, participants received the same polished product regardless of their device.

The application provided key event features: real-time updates, discussion modules, a full agenda with participation planning options, as well as reminders and push notifications. These mechanisms supported session discovery, encouraged debate and made on-site time management easier.

Product analytics was also built in, enabling measurement of user adoption and engagement after the event. The data became the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the solutions implemented (e.g. reminders and scheduling) and for further refining the approach to event applications.