Developers VS Funcionals

[Former Member]

Hello everybody, I'm here now to ask for your opinion, I have been working with ByD from about 2 months, before that I worked with R3 systems, as ABAP consultant, in my time as ByD developer I realized that ByD have a bigger and stronger integration than R3 in all their modules, so I start to question if, in ByD, there must still exist that difference, or the developer must try to become funcional too? and the funcional kind of developer? or, if is necesary to keep that difference, it must be the same than in R3?

I would like to have your opinions.

Kind regards

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Both Andreas and I are senior level ByD Functional Consultants, and that is what we mostly do. Andreas has a lot of experience with ByD development and I have about a year of experience.

The bottom line is that you bring much more value to the table when you understand your customer's business, how it will function in ByD, and where development needs to be done.

[Former Member]

I fully agree with Judson...in my opinion the functional consulting part is an important part of a ByD developer, btw. a developer in general. Only if you understand the system for that you develop, only than you can create good and useful apps.

But I think that the developing part is also important for the consulting part cause if you have a better understanding of the technical basis of the system you will faster understand how it works functional...(I began as developer).

In general you are right...with the architecture of ByDesign / with the deeper integration of the system it is more important as before to have a good functional knowledge of the system.

For example, I'm mostly a ByD Service Advisor for Projectmanagement and Financials.

Andreasa

[ThomasSchneider]

I also agree with the statements before. In this context, my may be interested in the following blog by Dan Woods, which is already one year old, but gives some really good arguments on programming languages and business knowledge in our business:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/01/10/is-salesforce-com-wrong-to-love-ruby/

Regards, Thomas

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[Former Member]

Thank you all for your comments, I really enjoy your posts so it's very nice to have your opinion about this topic, I think I have now a better perspective of how to work with ByD.

Again, thanks a lot.

[LeonardoAraujo]

Agree with all the answers so far.

I just would like to emphasize something was said "between the lines" here:

My background is SAP ERP and I have both technical and functional roles. Having these "2 sides of the equation" is a great asset.

However, and here I rest my point, it requires a lot for a developer to become a good functional. It requires learning Functionality AND (even more important) business process knowledge.

Not to discourage you in any way, just saying, if you are willing to it, go ahead, it will not be super easy to become a good functional, but the rewards are worth the effort.

In the context of BYD this is even more true cause you cannot only focus on one piece of functionality, you will have to learn from A to Z of a business process (including sales, inventory, costing and financials, for example).

Keep us posted on how that goes.

All the best

Leo

[Former Member]

I agree with you both.. It is all about the size and philosophy of the Partner we have Implementation Consultants and Technical/Development Consultants.

Our Implementation Consultants are not merely software consultants but Actually Business Consultants, who understand and utilize the software as a tool for the Company.  Our developers are trained on the Software (the Best ones understand Business processes as well as the Software capabilities).  They work with the  Implementation Consultants to develop a strong Development Spec both Technically and Functionally that will meet the customers needs.  From there a Developer can work on the spec while at the same time the Consultant can continue through the implementation process.

That being said the majority of ByDesign implementations will not require any development tools (ByDesignStudio) to be utilized.  A lot of the Minor customization work can be accomplished via Key User Tools. (This is a Selling point for SaaS)

Again this all about your Companies philosophy on consulting.  While we have found great success in how we do it, you might find success in another way.