Dialysis Services Provider Adopts Business Portal to Visualize SAP Data Fresenius Medical Care sought a business solution that would make it easy for employees to work together, visualize data, and access information. It adopted Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and used Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software to convert third-party data into business intelligence reports. The company benefits from a self-service solution that improves productivity and streamlines data viewing and access to resources.

1. SharePoint Customer Solution
Solution Case Study Case Study
Dialysis Services Provider Adopts Business
Portal to Visualize SAP Data
Overview “SharePoint 2013 is one of the best business solutions
Customer: Fresenius Medical Care
Website: www.fmc-ag.com I’ve ever encountered.... You can use it to manage
Customer Size: 75,000 employees
various business needs, from collaboration to business
Country or Region: Germany
Industry: Manufacturing—Life sciences intelligence.”
Helge Hoehn, Senior Expert SharePoint and Project Manager, Fresenius Netcare
Customer Profile
Headquartered in Bad Homburg,
Germany, Fresenius Medical Care is one Fresenius Medical Care sought a business solution that would
of the world’s leading providers of
products and services for individuals make it easy for employees to work together, visualize data, and
undergoing dialysis treatments. access information. It adopted Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and
Software and Services used Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio to convert third-party data into business intelligence reports.
− Microsoft SharePoint 2013
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 The company benefits from a self-service solution that improves
Enterprise productivity and streamlines data viewing and access to
− Microsoft SQL Server 2012
resources.

2. Situation To produce its monthly reports, it executed
Fresenius Medical Care is dedicated to queries on SAP Business Information
delivering innovative products and Warehouse (SAP BW), downloaded data to
therapies to patients with chronic kidney Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and
failure. The company runs a network of aggregated the data by applying complex
more than 3,000 dialysis clinics around the formulas and macros. “We wanted a
world and treats more than 250,000 dynamic, interactive, and user-friendly
patients each year. business intelligence solution,” says Hoehn.
“We needed to replace the difficult manual
The company sought a collaboration processes. We were primarily looking for a
solution that would interoperate easily with data visualization tool that would use SAP
Microsoft Office applications, streamline as the data source.”
Helge Hoehn, permissions management, and provide
Senior Expert SharePoint and access to corporate resources from any Solution
Project Manager, Fresenius browser or device. Fresenius Medical Care The company had been using Microsoft
Netcare wanted also to improve document SharePoint Server 2010 since 2010. In April
management. “We were using IBM Lotus 2012, the Fresenius Medical Care Global
Notes and Lotus Quickr to share Manufacturing Operations adopted
documents, but it lacked document control SharePoint 2013 with a long-term vision to
features,” says Helge Hoehn, Senior Expert migrate all SharePoint 2010 dashboards
SharePoint and Project Manager at and use SharePoint 2013 as the central
Fresenius Netcare, the IT service provider collaboration and social system.
Figure 1 – Fresenius Medical for Fresenius Medical Care. “We needed
Care production controlling easier ways for teams to collaborate.” To test importing production data from the
uses this page to easily access SAP BW, the company conducted a pilot
business intelligence The production controlling department of program with SharePoint 2013. The pilot
dashboards. It uses a tile view Fresenius Medical Care analyzes data by was designed to deliver highly secure
for simple access from mobile using SAP business management software. business intelligence reports to the
devices. company’s executive team. After it installed
the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating
system on a virtual machine, the company
migrated its SharePoint 2010 dashboards
to SharePoint 2013 in a virtual environment
and tested the site.
The business intelligence implementation
(Figure 1) included three Microsoft SQL
Server software components: SQL Server
2008 R2 Integration Services (SSIS) serves
as the engine for extracting and
transforming data; SQL Server 2008 R2
Analysis Services (SSAS) provides predictive
analysis and interactive exploration of
aggregated data; SQL Server 2012
Reporting Services (SSRS) features tools to
create organizational reports. “SQL Server is
the engine for managing multidimensional

3. no matter what device an employee uses to
access the information.”
Fresenius Netcare intends to deploy
SharePoint 2013 for Fresenius Medical Care
and for the Fresenius Group, a collection of
four Fresenius business groups, and take
advantage of improved features for setting
permissions and sharing documents. “It’s
now possible to drag documents directly
onto the site, and My Site functionality
features improvements for saving,
synchronizing, sharing, and moving
content,” says Hoehn. “Its new features
make SharePoint 2013 a central place
where employees can easily access and
manage applications and information.”
Figure 2 – The Variance
Analysis dashboard page shows
positive and negative Earnings Benefits
data,” says Hoehn. “We use it to enrich and By adopting SharePoint 2013, Fresenius
Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT)
modify our data with formulas, which Medical Care Global Manufacturing
impacts.
cannot be done with our former SAP BW Operations provides executives with
implementation.” dynamic data visualizations, gives
employees access from almost anywhere,
Because SAP BW aggregates data in cubes, increases productivity, and solves
Fresenius Medical Care replicated this data permissions challenges. “SharePoint 2013 is
to SSAS by using the CountERPart for SAP one of the best business solutions I’ve ever
tool available from Neudesic, a member of encountered,” says Hoehn. “It’s easy to
the Microsoft Partner Network. The work with and it interoperates well with
company updates SSAS data cubes other Microsoft technologies. You can use
automatically daily, and users can run it to manage various business needs, from
manual updates through the SharePoint collaboration to business intelligence.”
interface. “It’s possible to create an SSAS
cube that has the exact same structure as Provides Dynamic Visualizations of
the SAP cube,” says Hoehn. “Once you’ve Business Data
done that, you can use the business Key executives at Fresenius Medical Care
intelligence stack available in SharePoint to can make better decisions with data
make your data look pretty.” visualizations in SharePoint 2013 based on
SAP data. They can use the high-quality
The company uses PerformancePoint views of performance indicators to assist
Services 2013, a component of SharePoint with their decisions, and data conversion is
2013, to generate reports, key performance automated so that the reports are always
indicators, and charts on its dashboards up-to-date. “We are very satisfied with the
(Figure 2). “With the SharePoint 2013 accurate data visualizations that we’re
rendering engine—which uses HTML5 and seeing with the SharePoint 2013
JavaScript—the dashboards appear similar dashboard,” says Hoehn. “Furthermore, it’s
possible to use the business intelligence

4. For More Information features available with SQL Server—which SharePoint
For more information about Microsoft are not available with SAP BW.” SharePoint is the new way to work
products and services, call the Microsoft together. A simplified user experience helps
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- Enables Access from Multiple Browsers you organize, sync, and share all your
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft and Devices content. New social capabilities make it
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- Fresenius Netcare is looking to the future easy to share ideas, keep track of what your
2495. Customers in the United States and to ensure that employees from Fresenius colleagues are working on, and discover
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing Medical Care can access SharePoint 2013 experts you never knew existed.
can reach Microsoft text telephone corporate resources from anywhere on any
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. device that is connected to the Internet. For more information go to:
Outside the 50 United States and “Access from multiple browsers and mobile www.sharepoint.microsoft.com
Canada, please contact your local devices is becoming important and in
Microsoft subsidiary. To access demand—especially for our executives,”
information using the World Wide Web, says Hoehn. “With SharePoint 2013, we’re
go to: prepared for that.”
www.microsoft.com
Improves Employee Productivity
For more information about Fresenius Once Fresenius Netcare deploys SharePoint
Medical Care, visit the website at: 2013 across the Fresenius group,
www.fmc-ag.com employees can more easily work together,
share documents, visualize data, and access
corporate resources. “It’s much easier to
navigate SharePoint 2013 because every
task involves fewer clicks,” says Hoehn.
“Plus, SharePoint provides smooth
interoperability with Microsoft Office
solutions. There’s no such interoperability
between Lotus Notes and Office. We will
save a lot of time.”
Streamlines User Authorization
The IT professionals at Fresenius Medical
Care no longer have to find workarounds to
coordinate user permissions in SharePoint
2013. Says Hoehn, “One of our biggest pain
points—the authorization of users on
documents and sites —has been resolved.”
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2013