SAP Community - SAP Landscape Transformation

What is a Selective Data Transition to S/4HANA?

2023-05-09T16:04:13+02:00

In the first article of this three-part series, I looked at the global trends that are shaping M&A and the resulting impact on SAP customers, before exploring, in the second article, the relatively recent phenomenon of the SAP carve-out project. A carve-out project is one example of how landscape transformation technology and the landscape transformation concept more generally can help customers drive change in their SAP environments.

In this article, I will examine how landscape transformation can be applied to help customers realise rapid value from the migration to S/4HANA. SAP calls this method Selective Data Transition (or SDT).

Background and history

SAP customers who are on ECC and looking at moving to S/4HANA will know about and understand at least two methods for getting there: a new-build S/4HANA implementation (often known as greenfield) and a system conversion (brownfield). For a while, these were the only two methods that SAP itself promoted to customers.

However, it soon became clear that this was leaving a big requirement gap for many customers – a system conversion allowed little opportunity to deliver wider business change and process improvement, and a new implementation involved companies writing off years of investment in their SAP solution.

I first wrote about this in 2019 when SAP decided to support a more flexible, “hybrid” model for migrating to S/4HANA with the launch, initially in German only, of the grandly named S/4HANA Selective Data Transition Engagement working group.

What is Selective Data Transition?

In my previous article, I wrote that the defining characteristic of a SAP carve-out is the combination of a system clone plus the use of a landscape transformation software to selectively migrate or delete business data. SDT involves taking this landscape transformation approach and applying it to the migration to S/4HANA. First, you create an empty copy of the original SAP ECC application including the technical repository and the configuration and customising of the system but without any application (or business) data; then you move and upgrade this empty shell system; and finally, you selectively migrate all relevant application data.

As with SAP carve-outs, it is this combination of a shell system copy plus landscape transformation software that gives this approach its power and flexibility. The shell copy gives customers the ability to change their SAP solution, and therefore embed business process improvement into their S/4HANA programme, while retaining and leveraging their investment to date. And the landscape transformation software allows customers to migrate fully integrated, historical data to S/4HANA (rather than only master data, open items, open financial balances, etc), transform and improve it in-flight, and exclude obsolete or redundant data.

Selective Data Transition technical approach

Why is Selective Data Transition important?

The SDT approach gives companies the opportunity to strike a balance between reusing and redesigning their existing SAP solution, and plugs the huge gap that exists between system conversion and new implementation. SDT is far quicker and more cost-effective than a new implementation project and significantly more flexible than a system conversion. A Goldilocks option, it is an ideal way forward for companies who want to deliver targeted rather than widespread process change in their SAP environment.

Imagine, for example, a manufacturing business which wants to largely reuse its production and warehousing solution while adopting simplified, standardised finance processes. Or a council which wants to reduce its data footprint from 20 years to 7 years of history as part of a migration to S/4HANA to reduce running costs in a cloud environment. Or an energy business which wants to leave its asset management solution unchanged, retain the full set of historical data in plant maintenance and move to a third-party HR software, all at the same time as implementing a new chart of accounts and currency in S/4HANA.

This last scenario is exactly what we helped West Burton Energy to do as part of their post-divestment carve-out from the EDF SAP ECC environment in 2022 into their own AWS landscape. As well as covering the full spectrum of change which lies between system conversion and new implementation, a major benefit of SDT is that it allows customers to bring together multiple projects into one.

With West Burton Energy, it was a system separation and migration to S/4HANA. With another company it might be the merging of a number of companies from multiple larger SAP ECC system to create one new consolidated business division in its own S/4HANA environment. Or it could involve combining an S/4HANA upgrade with a move to cloud.

One important qualification

Strictly speaking, it is the combination of the shell system copy and the landscape transformation software that defines the Selective Data Transition approach to migrating from SAP ECC to S/4HANA. However, depending on your circumstances and priorities, it might make sense to adopt only a part of the approach. For example, a customer which is currently running its financial processes on SAP ECC and wants to make targeted change as part of its migration to S/4HANA, but which has no real desire to take over any historical financial data, might be better advised to create a shell S/4HANA environment based on its SAP ECC system, but then migrate master data, open items and opening balances using the S/4HANA Migration Cockpit.

Similarly, if your target S/4HANA environment is being created as part of a carve-out of a divestment, you might not want or even be allowed to create that target as a shell of a much larger and more complex legacy environment. In that situation, it might be a better idea to create a new-build S/4HANA environment, taking care to mirror the legacy configuration of the divested companies, before then using landscape transformation software to deliver a full historical data migration for relevant legal entities.

It is not the case that the two core components of a Selective Data Transition have to be deployed together.

So what are the downsides?

As I said earlier, the SDT approach covers a wide spectrum of transformation scenarios but it might not be the right choice for your company. If you are looking to deliver widespread change and standardisation through the migration to S/4HANA, using a model company approach as part of a new implementation might be a more appropriate choice. At the other end of the scale, if you simply want to upgrade to S/4HANA in the quickest, cheapest way without any real change to how your business operates, a system conversation could be a more logical route forward.

There is also the project licence cost of the landscape transformation software to consider. A small number of companies, mostly based in Germany, provide this type of software and make up the SDT engagement community that I mentioned earlier. At Xmateria, we work closely with Natuvion and their DCS technology when delivering carve-out or Selective Data Transition projects for our customers. In our own experience, the project cost of the software is more than offset by the reduction in data migration consulting services made possible by the increased levels of automation.

These caveats aside, while it is not really a drawback, my one frustration with Selective Data Transition is its name! It is both uninspiring and slightly misleading: the term “Selective Data Transition” puts the focus on the purely technical aspect of the data migration and gives no hint at all as to the transformational opportunities it provides to customers. Perhaps this is why technology and consulting firms use a variety of terms in their own literature to refer when talking about SDT. I have heard numerous variants on a theme including Brownfield Plus, Allfield, Bluefield, Rightfield and, from IBM, Rapid Move. All of these terms refer essentially to the same thing and function mainly to confuse the customer.

In summary

A significant proportion of SAP ECC customers are looking for a selective transformation as part of their migration to S/4HANA. The most successful transitions to S/4HANA are those which incorporate real business value which is almost always going to mean some level of change to business process. However, only a minority have the budget and appetite for a completely fresh implementation of their largest enterprise software platform.

The latest research from Gartner estimates that around a quarter of SAP ECC customers will adopt a hybrid model for migrating to S/4HANA. This would mean somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 SAP customers. Whatever you decide to call it, it looks like Selective Data Transition is here to stay.

Define project scope for data protection and compliance projects (DPP) with SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)

2023-05-10T13:26:44+02:00

Business challenges with Data Protection Regulations

Data protection regulations conquer the world: In more and more countries data protection regulations are put in place. Often the EU GDPR (DSGVO) regulations act as role model for a country’s legislation.

EU GDPR has regulated various aspects, which require data controller and data processor to reframe the IT solution.

GDPR Art. 15 (Right of access by data subject) & Art. 17 (Right to erasure) lead to even more direct impact on customers day to day business.

SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is the standard solution provided by SAP to cope with rule-based data retention in SAP S/4HANA OP, SAP S/4 HANA Cloud and SAP Business suite systems. ILM objects are the technical units, which cover data retention functionalities for various data objects within SAP systems. For example, ILM object “FI_DOCUMNT” provides all the necessary functionalities for data object financial posting.

There are more than 1000 ILM objects. Hence, the key challenges before the implementation project can start are:

-       Identification where possible personal data is persisted in the SAP systems

-       Identification of key stakeholders, who need to define retention policies

-       Setup of a manageable project plan

A good starting point for your ILM DPP journey is the technical analysis for SAP ILM to learn about the SAP ILM functionality, possible personal data in your systems and the relevant ILM objects enabling an implementation project with a reasonable scope.

Data Privacy Analysis for SAP ILM in SAP Store

With the data privacy analysis for SAP ILM, we help customers to facilitate the adoption of SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) for data privacy and protection.

As of now, the service „Data privacy analysis service for SAP ILM“ is available as a zero-touch and easily consumable service in SAP Store in more than 20 countries all over the world.

In case of questions on the service or on the delivery, please contact DMLT consulting sap_dmlt_gce@sap.com

Overview

This service is dedicated to support customers to gain a better understanding of data protection features and building blocks provided by SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM). Furthermore, a technical analysis is going to be conducted to identify the relevant ILM objects in customer’s systems. Eventually, advice on how to scope and plan the ILM implementation project will be provided.

Delivery

- One 1-hour kick-off call

- Remote execution of technical analysis on customer system

-       Preparation of the analysis results summary

-       Two 3-hour remote workshops to explain:

-       Information Lifecycle Management - Retention Management

-       Information Lifecycle Management - Personal Master Data Blocking and Deletion

-       Analysis Result

-       Advise on ILM implementation scope and planning

Details on the Data Privacy Analysis for SAP ILM

1. Explain the key purposes of the analysis service and support the Customer in the following points:

-       How to install the analysis tool

-       Required system access and user authorizations

-       Set up of project time plan together with Customer

2. Conduct system scan for the below aspects:

-       Checking database tables, which contain data in personal data domains. SAP team will use only SAP standard domains for table scanning. The scan covers a comprehensive range of personal data domains from SAP standard, but the list can also not be exclusive.

-       Checking header tables of SAP ILM objects, which contain data

-       Checking existing archiving sessions

-       Checking business objects, which have attachments (unstructured data)

3. Generate below analysis result and recommendations:

-       List of SAP standard tables, which contain data in personal data domain and potentially contain personal information

-       List of custom tables, which contain data in personal data domain and potentially contain personal information

-       List of SAP ILM objects, which are recommended for implementation

-       List of archiving sessions, which are recommended for conversion

-       List of business objects, which have attachments. Provide advice on attachment handling for data privacy compliance

-       List of "Personal master data objects", which are recommended for implementation

-       List of "End of purpose check applications", which are recommended for implementation

-       System release information and recommendation for system upgrade

4. Conduct two 3 hours workshops (remote) with the following content:

- Introduction of the concept of SAP ILM retention management of transactional data

-       Introduction of the concept of SAP ILM simplified blocking and deletion of master data (customer, vendor, business partner)

-       Introduction of the possibilities of custom development to extend SAP ILM (such as adding custom tables in standard SAP ILM object)

-       Presentation of the analysis result

Conclusion

In order to kick start your journey to adhere to your data protection regulation, the Data privacy analysis service for SAP ILM on SAP Store is the right service to choose.

In case of questions on the service or on the delivery, please contact DMLT consulting sap_dmlt_gce@sap.com

Disclaimer: SAP does not provide legal advice. The following above mentioned service is only about technical features which might help a customer to become compliant with data protection regulations.

SAP Central Finance - CLOUD or On-Premise?

2023-08-08T12:06:46+02:00

There is a continuous buzz that SAP will only support future S/4HANA innovations on CLOUD systems. RISE with SAP is focussed on cloud ONLY. This blog will summarise how Central Finance (as a product/solution) is impacted.

As of now Central Finance is available with SAP S/4HANA from on-premise edition 1503 - deployed on-premise or in the private cloud however SAP Central Finance is not available on Public Cloud yet (source - SAP HELP)

It is also possible to connect an S/4HANA Cloud source system (running in the public cloud) to a Central Finance (on-Premise or private cloud) system however for Cloud Source Systems the transfer of document split information is not supported

Below architecture shows what can be possible source or possible target in cFIN scenario.

Scenarios supported with source cloud system

FI document replication

CO document replication

Cost Object replication

Project Data Replication

Limitations with Cloud source systems

For Cloud Source Systems the transfer of document split information is not supported

Side Panels are not supported

The functions provided by Central Finance source system BAdIs is not available.

The SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution In-House Banking for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Advanced Payment Management is not supported as part of the Central Finance integration. Journal entries from this solution are not replicated.

Credit card payment is not supported for Central Payment when an SAP S/4HANA Cloud source system is connected

For cloud systems, the initial load with intermediate data retention (IDR Initial Load) is mandatory. The IDR Recording can only be started for a future period.

Additional Considerations

The Central Finance Subsidiary Integration scenario is defined with scope items:
- 1W4 / Communication Arrangement SAP_COM_0083 (for FI and CO data)
- 3W1 / Communication Arrangement SAP_COM_0470 (for project data)

We need to create RFC destination to call the RFC-APIs in the S/4HANA Cloud system via Cloud Connectivity

In case of the a cloud source system only the 1:1 scenario is supported - in the SLT Mass Transfer setup the parameter: - "Allow Multiple Usage" has to be unflagged.

The parameter "Read from Single Client" need to be flagged in SLT configuration

The clearing transfer is always activated in the S4HANA Cloud source system. To maintain consistency this needs to be activated in cFIN system before the very first posting

Overall in addition to this many other integration factors to be considered like drill-back from GUI, Fiori, Cost object drill-back as well as SLT integration

Share your thoughts as comments as which flavour of source and target you have worked. Target side will be really interesting

Should you boil the ocean with SAP S/4HANA transformation?

2023-10-02T23:17:12+02:00

I am not a fan of Boiling the Ocean jargon, but when someone tells you not to boil the ocean, one should not attempt the impossible. In the context of SAP S/4HANA transformation, asking you not to attempt the impossible means prioritizing migration to SAP S/4HANA and including all other initiatives as part of your mid to long-term roadmap instead of trying to do everything parallel to the migration program.

Migration to SAP S/4HANA is a complex and critical topic for organizations due to the following decision factors (not an exhaustive list):

Which route to take to SAP S/4HANA

Identifying mandatory process changes

Extent of process transformation and reuse

Developments to reuse or move to standard or develop new

Managing impacts on the integrated systems

Data harmonization

Org structure harmonization

Amount of data to retain in the target system for business continuity or archive

Testing strategy to follow

Change management & training strategy

Deployment strategy to adopt

Fiori adoption

Moving to the cloud with transformation

Clean core and SAP BTP adoption for side-by-side solution developments

Solution replacements driven by obsolescence or functional requirements (a few examples)
1. WM to EWM
2. Foreign trade to international trade or GTS
3. Rebate Management to Settlement Management

Which parallel initiatives to combine with ERP transformation or push further in the roadmap (a few examples)
1. BW to BW/4HANA Migration
2. Middleware switch to CPI
3. Supply chain transformation
4. the SAP SaaS satellites by business segments like IBP, Ariba, Concur, etc.
5. Enterprise Automation (Process Automation)
6. Sustainability
7. Target Operating Models

You must evaluate activities that will form the core of your migration scope depending on the context of your current implementation and transformation requirements. However, you can undoubtedly define the extent of those activities to keep the program scope in control; for example, you can choose to enable Fiori infrastructure in the target, choose mandatory and few relevant apps as part of a migration project plan and implement rest of them as part of your roadmap. The same approach applies to SAP BTP adoption. You can define future development strategy and consider SAP BTP as the first go-to platform for development; however, as part of the project scope, you cannot move all custom applications to the BTP platform. Building a roadmap for achieving your desired goal around custom development would be best. From the process perspective, you can continue with international trade in the target system if it meets your business requirements and defer GTS implementation further in your roadmap.

Do you want to execute all the initiatives parallel to the transformation program? SAP ERP is a core system for business operations; migration of the same to a new data model, database, and platform has an impact on every other integrated system. It is prudent to keep the migration scope mandatory and necessary transformations in the core business processes and defer other transformational initiatives in the roadmap. All other business tracks need to be ready to support core ERP transformation. If these teams are busy with their transformation programs, this may pose a risk to the success of the ERP migration.

I am not saying attempting other transformation programs with core ERP transformation is impossible. But doing them all together puts massive stress on the business, process owners, IT teams and end-users. We must manage the program risk by keeping the transformation scope in check and working towards making it a grand success. You can choose between big-bang transformation or phased wave-based transformation for all your initiatives and ERP transformation. The wave-based approach is more agile, allowing you to engage business at the right time and build your target operating model block by block. The big-bang shift may lead to a business disruption that may not be acceptable to businesses in today’s speed of working.

Working with our Large Transformation Program Methodology and Renewable Enterprise allows us and our clients to shape and reshape the solutions according to the continuously changing business needs.

If you are planning a transformation roadmap and have experience about what to include as part of the transformation journey and what to move as other initiatives in the roadmap, do share your feedback.

SAP Central Finance & AVL data replication from Non-SAP Systems

2023-10-04T11:57:34+02:00

AVL is the functionality where some logistics data is replicated from source systems to SAP Central Finance systems for supporting some of the business requirements. To learn more about AVL – READ HERE.

This blog focusses on AVL functionality with Non-SAP (or Third Party) systems. This is available since S/4HANA 2021 release. Previously AVL was available with SAP source systems only however now it have the capability of replicating data from any Non-SAP systems which makes it the complete solution in any customer scenario where source are combination of SAP & Non-SAP systems.

You can replicate the Accounting View of Logistics Information (AVL), including AVL sales documents (service orders, orders, returns, orders without charge, credit memo requests, debit memo requests), customer invoices, purchase orders, and supplier invoices from a third-party source system to the Central Finance system in two ways.

Let’s discuss each option in details

SAP SLT Solution

With this solution, AVL data and changes from third-party source systems can be continuously replicated to the SAP S/4HANA Central Finance system like it comes from source SAP systems

All Error handling and reprocessing of messages happens in AIF. Separate Interfaces are available for SAP and Non-SAP systems (_EX denotes Non-SAP or external)

Below AIF deployment scenarios need to be extracted/activated

Extraction needs to be done by Customer from Non-SAP systems and data needs to be filled in SLT staging tables. Once the staging tables receives the data that data is sent to Central Finance automatically by SLT.

Tables created in SLT for relevant purposes. These tables will be enabled by relevant SAP note

Important to Note

SLT content should be updated based on the systems release

Start/Stop replication of data via SLT should be carefully handled

During system upgrades necessary steps should be followed to avoid inconsistencies

OData Services V4 (APIs)

With this solution, AVL data from third-party source systems can be created, updated or deleted in the SAP S/4HANA Central Finance system as required through API calls. Logistics data including its header, item, and other entities, can be available in the Central Finance system. With API calls, you can send specific entity or the entire document from the third-party source system to create, update or delete the corresponding business data in the Central Finance system, to be consumed for reporting purposes.

APIs available for this purpose are

Name	Technical Name	Type
Central Finance Customer Invoice (Replicated)	API_CFinRpldBillingDocument	OData V4
Central Finance Purchase Order (Replicated)	API_CFinRpldPurchaseOrder	OData V4
Central Finance Sales Document (Replicated)	API_CFinRpldSalesDocument	OData V4
Central Finance Supplier Invoice (Replicated)	API_CFinRpldSupplierInvoice	OData V4

Lets share experiences in comments along with the issues/challenges being faced.

SAP Central Finance & G/L Master Data Harmonization

2023-10-10T16:14:42+02:00

In this blog we will focus on several fields in GL master data which are important to consider when you are harmonizing the chart of accounts in SAP central Finance.

Lot of time I get questions from business/consultants as how we should define field status, how should be manage open item indicator or tax indicator. This blog should serve as comprehensive guide and of course the scenarios change per project/per customer so use it as a guidance not full-fledged solution.

Lets first list down the fields which needs to be managed in GL master data

We will discuss each item now in detail.

1. GL Account Type – This field has to be consistent across source & target systems.

- Balance Sheet Accounts map to Balance Sheet Account in CFIN
- P&L Account without Cost Element in source map to Nonoperating Expense or Income account in CFIN
- P&L Account with Cost Element in source map to Primary Costs or Revenues Account in CFIN
- Secondary Cost Element map to Secondary Costs Element (when Source system is a S4 system)

2. Account Currency – Below combinations should be managed

3. Tax Category - The Tax category determines whether the following apply to the G/L account

1. Is it tax-relevant?
2. Is it a tax account?

The recommendation is to set the tax category in target system more or less similar with the source system. If this is not possible or the landscape have multiple source systems with differences then, the settings in CFIN needs to be more permissive than the one in source system. See below table for more details

4. Sort Key – Any value coming from source system is the leading value. CFIN will update this field if its coming as blank from source or any intervention is done via BADI.

5. Posting without tax code allowed - Indicates that the mentioned account can still be posted to even if a tax code has not been entered. If tax code is not entered during posting to this account, the system checks the entry against the tax category. Below settings are allowed

6. Field Status Group – This needs to be determined based on customer processes and requirement however it is important to note that the group on CFIN side needs to be more open. Like if any field is optional in source it can be mandatory in target (technically) but it will lead to error as that field may come blank in transaction since user is not forced to update that. Options can be

- Create the Field Status Group in Central Finance exactly as in source system
- Setup all fields as optional in CFIN (relevant if CFIN is reporting system only)
- Harmonize and map the Field Status Group from source systems to the Fields Status Groups in Central Finance system

7. Post Automatically only - This indicator can be selected for accounts such as for withholding tax accounts, GR/IR clearing accounts, all sales tax accounts, discount accounts, consumption accounts, etc. During replication of documents this indicator has no impact. Its usage is important during document entry (which is done is source system) and not during document reposting, as the account determination was already executed

8. Open item management - Open Item Management allows effective control and traceability of the document chain representing the same business transaction. Items posted to accounts managed on an open item basis are marked as open or cleared. The balance of these accounts is always equal to the balance of the open items. Below are allowed/not allowed

9. Open Item management by Ledger Group - Standard “Open Item Management” indicator does not accept ledger specific postings and this indicator is relevant if Parallel Accounting using Ledger Approach is implemented. The indicator “Clearing Specific to Ledger Group” needs to be activated for the accounts that need to be managed as open items and are used in postings to specific ledgers If you set this indicator, it replaces the “Open Item Management” indicator, which consequently you will no longer be able to set for the same account. This indicator CANNOT be set for the following accounts:

- Goods receipt and invoice receipt accounts
- Accounts for cash discounts
- Reconciliation accounts
- Tax-relevant accounts
- P&L accounts
- Company Codes that have only one ledger active
- Automatic Postings
- Supplement for Automatic Postings

share your relevant experience specially when you have mix of source systems.

SAP Central Finance - All blogs in one page

2023-10-11T11:47:38+02:00

This blog summarizes all blogs i have written till date on CFIN in one page. BOOKMARK IT !!!

(this will will be updated as new blogs will be published in future)

Sr. No.	Category	Topic	Link
1	Business Case	SAP Central Finance – Measuring business benefits	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/11/02/sap-central-finance-measuring-business-benefits/
2	Business Case	SAP Central Finance – Its more than “JUST” Technology	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/10/29/sap-central-finance-its-more-than-just-technology/
3	Business Case	SAP Central Finance and Mergers & Acquisitions Framework	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/16/sap-central-finance-and-mergers-acquisitions-framework/
4	Business Case	SAP Central Finance – Use case with Single ERP in existence (as source)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/10/sap-central-finance-use-case-with-single-erp-in-existence-as-source/
5	Business Case	SAP Central Finance – How it’s different from Traditional ERP Implementations	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/16/sap-central-finance-how-its-different-from-traditional-erp-implementations/
6	Business Case	Roadmap of SAP Central Finance (CFIN) for delivering business value	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/02/14/roadmap-of-sap-central-finance-cfin-for-delivering-business-value/
7	Business Case	SAP Central Finance Transformations – A Learning Journey continues	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/20/sap-central-finance-transformations-a-learning-journey-continues/
8	Business Case	SAP Central Finance (CFIN) – Business case evaluation	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/11/sap-central-finance-cfin-business-case-evaluation/
9	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – CLOUD or On-Premise?	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/08/08/sap-central-finance-cloud-or-on-premise/
10	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – Lessons Learned	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/04/05/sap-central-finance-lessons-learned/
11	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – !!! Plan your CUTOVER !!!	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/02/23/sap-central-finance-plan-your-cutover/
12	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – Key Challenges during Implementation	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/08/31/sap-central-finance-key-challenges-during-implementation/
13	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – Organizational Change Management	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/08/27/sap-central-finance-organizational-change-management/
14	Project Management	SAP Central Finance – Run Phase (business operations)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/08/11/sap-central-finance-run-phase-business-operations/
15	Project Management	SAP Central Finance Test Strategy	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/07/30/sap-central-finance-test-strategy/
16	Data Harmonization	SAP Central Finance & G/L Master Data Harmonization	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/10/10/sap-central-finance-g-l-master-data-harmonization/
17	Data Harmonization	SAP Central Finance & Configuration Data Harmonization	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/09/05/sap-central-finance-configuration-data-harmonization/
18	Data Harmonization	SAP Central Finance & organizational Data Strategy	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/20/sap-central-finance-organizational-data-strategy/
19	Postings	SAP Central Finance & Key Enhancements/Extensibility	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/03/17/sap-central-finance-key-enhancements-extensibility/
20	Postings	Temporary Postings in SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/04/06/temporary-postings-in-sap-central-finance/
21	Postings	SAP Central Finance – EC-PCA Postings (load & replication)	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/09/10/sap-central-finance-ec-pca-postings-load-replication/
22	Postings	SAP Central Finance & managing performance issues	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/08/17/sap-central-finance-managing-performance-issues/
23	Postings	SAP Central Finance – All about Document Splitting	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/06/19/sap-central-finance-all-about-document-splitting/
24	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Simplifying FI Initial Load	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/05/22/sap-central-finance-simplifying-fi-initial-load/
25	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Intermediate Data Retention (IDR)	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/05/22/sap-central-finance-intermediate-data-retention-idr/
26	Postings	SAP Central Finance & CO (Secondary) Postings	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/11/06/sap-central-finance-co-secondary-postings/
27	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Overview of options/issues in initial load and Introduction to Empty Initial Load	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/30/sap-central-finance-overview-of-options-issues-in-initial-load-and-introduction-to-empty-initial-load/
28	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Staging Tables clean-up process	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/18/sap-central-finance-staging-tables-clean-up-process/
29	Postings	SAP Central Finance & Universal Allocations	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/11/sap-central-finance-universal-allocations/
30	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Central Reversal & Reposting	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/08/sap-central-finance-central-reversal-reposting/
31	Postings	SAP Central Finance Architecture	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/03/sap-central-finance-architecture/
32	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Deletion of Initial Load & Reset/Clean Up system	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/25/sap-central-finance-deletion-of-initial-load-reset-clean-up-system/
33	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Initial Load \| Planning & Sequencing	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/02/sap-central-finance-initial-load-planning-sequencing/
34	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Configuration Consistency Check	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/16/sap-central-finance-configuration-consistency-check/
35	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Pre-Initial Load activities \|Checks, Mapping Test & Consistency Check	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/15/sap-central-finance-pre-initial-load-activities-checks-mapping-test-consistency-check/
36	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Introduction to Initial Load	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/14/sap-central-finance-introduction-to-initial-load/
37	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Filters in SLT during data load/replication	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/08/sap-central-finance-filters-in-slt-during-data-load-replication/
38	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Common errors in Initial Load	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/07/sap-central-finance-common-errors-in-initial-load/
39	Postings	SAP Central Finance or SAP S/4HANA Central Finance?	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/02/29/sap-central-finance-or-sap-s-4hana-central-finance/
40	Postings	SAP Central Finance – What it can replicate?	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/02/28/sap-central-finance-what-it-can-replicate/
41	Postings	SAP Menu for Central Finance (CFIN)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/05/20/sap-menu-for-central-finance-cfin/
42	Postings	Consolidation with SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/04/27/consolidation-with-sap-s4hana-finance-for-group-reporting/
43	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Error simulation before Initial Load execution	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/04/19/sap-central-finance-error-simulation-before-initial-load-execution/
44	Postings	SAP Central Finance – What you need to know?	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/17/sap-central-finance-what-you-need-to-know/
45	Postings	Business Area in SAP S/4HANA & SAP Central Finance (CFIN)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/13/business-area-in-sap-s4hana-sap-central-finance-cfin/
46	Postings	SAP Model Company in Central Finance Implementation	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/05/sap-model-company-in-central-finance-implementation/
47	Postings	Group Reporting in SAP S/4HANA with Central Finance (CFIN)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/04/group-reporting-in-sap-s4hana-with-central-finance-cfin/
48	Postings	SAP Central Finance (CFIN) – A Wider coverage	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/28/sap-central-finance-cfin-a-wider-coverage/
49	Postings	Real time Consolidation (RTC) with SAP S/4HANA Central Finance (CFIN)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/25/real-time-consolidation-rtc-with-sap-s4hana-central-finance-cfin/
50	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Replication of Commitments	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/24/sap-central-finance-replication-of-commitments/
51	Postings	SAP Central Finance – Central Project (Replication of WBS)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/24/sap-central-finance-central-project-replication-of-wbs/
52	AIF	SAP Central Finance & using AIF effectively	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/02/16/sap-central-finance-using-aif-effectively/
53	AIF	SAP Central Finance – Exposing AIF errors for value benefit	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/08/sap-central-finance-exposing-aif-errors-for-value-benefit/
54	AIF	SAP Central Finance (CFIN) – AIF Error handling approach	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/11/sap-central-finance-cfin-aif-error-handling-approach/
55	AVL	SAP Central Finance & AVL data replication from Non-SAP Systems	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/10/04/sap-central-finance-avl-data-replication-from-non-sap-systems/
56	AVL	AVL in SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/03/28/avl-in-sap-central-finance/
57	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Tax Checks after Central Payments	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/01/23/sap-central-finance-tax-checks-after-central-payments/
58	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance & FSCM with Central Payment	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/07/25/sap-central-finance-fscm-with-central-payment/
59	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Business Processes Design view with implementation of Central Payment	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/23/sap-central-finance-business-processes-design-view-with-implementation-of-central-payment/
60	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance & SEPA Mandates scenario	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/11/sap-central-finance-sepa-mandates-scenario/
61	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Central Payments & Withholding Taxes (WHT)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/10/sap-central-finance-central-payments-withholding-taxes-wht/
62	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Managing Central Payment dependent processes – Part II	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/07/sap-central-finance-managing-central-payment-dependent-processes-part-ii/
63	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Managing Central Payment dependent processes – Part 1	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/07/sap-central-finance-managing-central-payment-dependent-processes-part-1/
64	Central Payments	SAP Central Finance – Cross-System Process Control for Central Payment (CSPC)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/05/sap-central-finance-cross-system-process-control-for-central-payment-cspc/
65	Central Payments	SAP Central Payments with Non SAP / Third Party ERP systems	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/06/30/sap-central-payments-with-non-sap-third-party-erp-systems/
66	Central Asset Accounting	Central Asset Accounting & Cross system processes in Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/09/08/central-asset-accounting-cross-system-processes-in-central-finance/
67	Central Asset Accounting	SAP Central Finance & Central Asset Accounting	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/03/08/sap-central-finance-central-asset-accounting/
68	Central Asset Accounting	Central Asset Settlement in SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/02/25/central-asset-settlement-in-sap-central-finance/
69	Central Processing	Central Budgeting with SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/09/07/central-budgeting-with-sap-central-finance/
70	Central Processing	Central Accrual Management in SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/02/25/central-accrual-management-in-sap-central-finance/
71	Central Processing	SAP Central Finance & Advanced Compliance Reporting (ACR)	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/02/17/sap-central-finance-advanced-compliance-reporting-acr/
72	Taxes in Central Finance	SAP Central Finance & all about Tax Management	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/10/04/sap-central-finance-all-about-tax-management/
73	Taxes in Central Finance	SAP Central Finance – Central Tax Reporting	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/05/sap-central-finance-central-tax-reporting/
74	Third Party	SAP Central Finance Transaction Replication via insightsoftware	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/02/06/sap-central-finance-transaction-replication-via-magnitude/
75	Third Party	Replicating from third party system to SAP Central Finance	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/04/replicating-from-third-party-system-to-sap-central-finance/
76	CFIN & JVA	SAP Central Finance & Joint Venture Accounting (JVA)	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/08/11/sap-central-finance-joint-venture-accounting-jva/
77	COPA	Margin Analysis (CO-PA) in SAP S/4HANA	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/02/04/margin-analysis-co-pa-in-sap-s-4hana/
78	COPA	SAP Central Finance & Margin Analysis (new COPA)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/28/sap-central-finance-margin-analysis-new-copa/
79	COPA	Profitability Analysis in SAP S/4HANA and subsequently in Central Finance (CFIN)	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/27/profitability-analysis-in-sap-s4hana-and-subsequently-in-central-finance-cfin/
80	Reconciliation	SAP Central Finance – Reconciliation Approach	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/02/17/sap-central-finance-reconciliation-approach/
81	Release Update	SAP Central Finance – Improvements 2022	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/12/14/sap-central-finance-improvements-2022/
82	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 2022 – WHAT’S NEW!!!?	https://blogs.sap.com/2022/10/12/sap-central-finance-2022-whats-new/
83	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 2021 (Release update)	https://blogs.sap.com/2021/11/07/sap-central-finance-2021-release-update/
84	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 2020 (Preview)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/10/02/sap-s-4hana-central-finance-2020-preview/
85	Release Update	SAP Central Finance – Latest in SAP S/4HANA Central Finance 1909 (FPS1 & FPS2)	https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/24/sap-central-finance-latest-in-sap-s-4hana-central-finance-1909-fps1-fps2/
86	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 1909 Functionalities	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/10/02/sap-central-finance-1909-functionalities/
87	Release Update	SAP S/4HANA1809 – Group Reporting… some basics	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/05/01/sap-s4hana1809-group-reporting...-some-basics/
88	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 1809 FPS01 (Latest release) highlights	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/04/sap-central-finance-1809-fps01-latest-release-highlights/
89	Release Update	SAP Central Finance 1809 Functionalities	https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/24/sap-central-finance-1809-functionalities/
90	Release Update	SAP Central Finance - What's New in 2023 Release	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/10/17/sap-central-finance-whats-new-in-2023-release/
91	Business Case	Beyond Central Finance – A Journey from SAP Central Finance (CFIN) to SAP S/4HANA	https://blogs.sap.com/2023/11/06/beyond-central-finance-a-journey-from-sap-central-finance-cfin-to-sap-s-4hana/

SAP Central Finance – What’s new in 2023 Release

2023-10-17T10:26:02+02:00

In this blog I will explain some new features/functionalities/improvements being introduced in SAP S/4HANA Central Finance 2023. This is the latest major release

Supporting additional FI integrating Currencies

Until now, the second or third FI currency for a company code had to be the same in source and target. Deviating currencies could only be used as non FI integrated currencies in CFIN. This had an impact on processes which required FI integrated currencies. With 2023 this is now possible to define a second or third FI currency which is different in the source and the Central Finance system for a company code.

Set up: When a deviating FI Integrated currency is used, clearing line items need to be created in the source

New IMG activity Central Finance: Source System Settings --> Settings for the Transfer of Clearings

Enhancement for consistency check to checks, that flag is mandatorily set on source side

Postings for a company code with deviating FI Integrated currencies w/o the flag set lead to an error in Central Finance in document replication

App with pending journal entries have filters

Now Fiori App “F7149 Pending Journal Entries Message View” provides new views to the users

Visual filtering based on company code and number of messages by error message

Summarization of messages by message number

Navigation to details including temporary posting app

Support CO Production Order in Cost Object Replication

The CO production order was not supported till 2022 as the source cost object. With 2023 CO Production order is supported in standard Cost Object mapping framework.

Update Active Mapping Scenario of Cost Object Replication

In previous releases if we fins some values missing and need to adjust characteristics after running cost object mapping the standard recommendation was to delete existing cost objects and reconfigure the mapping scenario and rules and then reload the deleted cost objects. This was not practical from business perspective. With 2023 the solution is available which does not impact the historic data and new scenarios can be created in UPDATE MODE

Support of Universal Parallel Accounting in FI Online Replication

Universal Parallel Accounting (UPA) provides the full integration of different values per ledger and currency type. This allows to have deviating amounts for each ledger in the same transaction. In Central Finance only the amounts of the leading ledger were used for all ledgers.

Central Management of Open Items in General Ledger

At times when there are many source systems and customer want to manage the GL open items in central system the central clearing was introduced in 2022 releases. But this was not working for the GL accounts with – Ledger Specific Open items specific open item management, and there was no solution to handle historic G/L open items which were posted before activating this functionality. With 2023 the new feature is introduced

Enable managing and clearing of ledger specific G/L open items centrally, by setting ‘ALE extern’ for related G/L open items in the source system when the open item is posted or reset.

Technically clear open items in G/L accounts in the source system which were created before activation of central management of G/L open items via a report, to prevent clearing activities in the source system.

This can also be done for historic open items

Customizable Validations for Accounting View of Logistics Information

Till now the AVL data was not validated and that impacts the data quality in cfin when AVL data is used for reporting. With 2023 new checks can be built by the project itself. This is applicable for SAP and Non SAP source systems

Permanent Consistency Check - Additional Objects

Permanent Consistency Check was enabled in 2022. With 2023 new objects are added as below

Cost Element, Cost Center, Cost Object

Document Type

Tax Code, Tax Processing Key

Company Code N:1 Value Mapping

There are some more minor changes but those may not be significant rather those are operational. I will add here as I am now working on 2023 Proof of Concept for a project.

Enjoy reading

Lift and Shift Migrations exceed their definition

2023-10-24T00:24:40+02:00

The article aims to explore the cloud migration of SAP, using the Lift and Shift approach. The scope and impact of this migration method extend beyond its apparent simplicity, encompassing both IT and business domains. ‘Lift and Shift’ is a topic woven between Cloud Adoption Strategy, Digital Transformation, and Innovation.

What moves, what changes, what not

Migration to the Cloud is an opportunity for on-prem teams, especially business teams, to know that business design and processes are not changing however environment is changing. Environment is made up of physical servers, operating system, network, storage, firewall, central IT components and tools etc. SAP’s database and application are tightly integrated with the environment.

Database moves, application is mostly recreated at target and same goes with the environment (target components differ as per chosen cloud provider – that’s a different topic).

Picture given below depicts what changes and what not.

what changes what not

Lift and Shift Migration in SAP

In SAP environments, one typical cloud migration strategy adopted is ‘Lift and Shift’ (called Rehosting). Generally, a large focus remains around bringing database and applications into target. Database-native and SAP-native methods are evaluated for Database and Application. This matches the lift and shift/rehosting definition & scope. However, in the migration process, environment gets changed as it must be recreated at target. It does not change business processes directly, but indirect impacts are common.

Environment Consideration

Tightly integrated environment at source, where SAP database/applications are running, is unique. Business processes running within SAP landscape, could be part of business ecosystem beyond organization boundaries (using PI or Cloud Connector or any other middleware tool). SAP is designed to keep and process data within SAP however application extension might have taken data and logic outside SAP area (i.e., cron jobs, batch processing tools, business data in mounted file systems etc.). Other peripheral tools/applications coupled with SAP, are integral part of environment. Servers, various storage types and Network setup also constitute the environment.

The complete environmental stack plays a role in application design and consumption. Many times, it evolved over years. Same complete stack with its elements needs to move with SAP. It gets transformed in the design and mapping process of target environment. This transformation is not necessarily part of lift and shift/rehosting but comes under replatforming.

In other words, the attention to environment should be part of replatforming, where As-Is is first discovered and then adopted as per To-Be (based on Cloud Provider components). This cycle is the time when a natural transformation is happening, and some cloud advantages come by default.

Environment on cloud side is different in term of design and building blocks, both. The design goes through architect lens. Most cloud providers have reference architecture which are based on best practices and robust design principles i.e., different landing zones for common platform and applications. These design patterns are mostly future-ready and the mapping from As-Is to To-Be brings digital transformation and Cloud based innovation at the front yard. This is the first sweet spot of Cloud Adoption and Innovation. This is where business and IT teams can take interest in design and building blocks at target. This all happens under the ‘Lift and Shift’ umbrella quietly. This is where ‘Lift and Shift’ word is insufficient to justify its scope and impact.

Example

Lets see an example of environment below and understand why it gets changed and how it impacts application.

Consider on-prem S/4 on HANA database with SUSE has to be move to Azure/AWS. Following are few example components which may go through transformation:

Component	Description	Technical Impact	Business Impact
Database/Application Version	Source Database/Application may not be compatible with target Cloud	Upgrade would be needed impacting scope and timelines of the project	Upgrade may change how business processes/UI behave
High Availability	Cloud HA implementation depends on many Cloud provider specific technical components	The design would generally be changed so the maintenance/options/SLA	Application Availability may be impacted - should be positive ideally. Maintenance methods would change positively too
Disaster Recovery	Cloud providers have many innovative options/offerings available for DR	This should be explored in time to align with business/technical requirement	Application Availability may be impacted - should be positive ideally. Maintenance methods would change positively too
Network Ports	How ports are opened at on-prem and how they are opened at target would be different. Method would differ based on Cloud Provider	The change may impact many jobs, interface not to run	Related business processes may not work at all until ports are rightly opened
Internet facing scenarios	On-prem may have Webdispatcher/HW-Load Balancer and target may have software Load Balancer and its placement would mostly be in landing zone	Placement change, LB type and number of hops change would need right testing	Scenarios using WD/LB, should be thoroughly tested for impact and resolution
Storage Types	On-prem would be an stable environment tuned over years however target cloud storage may need to be tuned to get to right-sized storage	Various options at target are available and right-sized solution should be chosen from beginning	Appropriate solution and config is necessary to avoid wider performance bottlenecks.
Logging and Monitoring	Traditional methods of log analysis and monitoring can have alternate & innovative solutions from cloud-provider	The extractors should work seamlessly	The extractor should work seamlessly
Security	Irrespective of on-prem status, target may ideally enable ssl, encryption and other security hardening at db, application, os and network layer	This needs thorough analysis, planning and testing	New or changed security measures may impact functionality which was working before
Move to SaaS products/tools	DNS server can be replaced with DNS-services. Active Directory can be replaced with AD-services.	The setup/config may or may not have impact on name resolution, SSO etc	It would have indirect impact on application/availability

Conclusion

Referring to ‘Lift and Shift’, SAP migration should be approached with environment rebuild. Instead of merely considering it as rehosting, look at it as replatforming. This would ensure the migration process appropriately addresses the volume, opportunity, and stakeholders’ involvement.

Early awareness can trigger wholesome planning. The seemingly small migration can be linked to larger Cloud Adoption Strategy which can define various W (Why, When, Where and How much among others). These W questions and discovery of their answers would bring IT and Business team working together. Apart from cost consideration as one of the answers, the real motivators would be found in the realms of digital transformation and innovation. The initiative would get a boost in momentum.

Feedback and additional thoughts are welcome. Please follow my profile for similar content.

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent my employer's positions, strategies or opinions.

Accelerate Your Transformation with LeanIX

2023-11-06T14:50:09+01:00

I have worked on several Application Portfolio Assessment Rationalization projects. All such engagements started with objectives to reduce TCO (total cost of operations), simplify the product and technology landscape, identify inefficiencies and redundancies across processes and applications and create a flexible landscape that helps accelerate transformation deployment. The primary outcomes were to create a vision of the end state that allows flexibility in adopting technological innovations and a clear view of the impact across business capabilities, process landscape and application portfolio.

The typical method to deliver such engagements begins with gathering information about the overall system and application architecture, process models across the enterprise, application inventory, integration landscape, technology stack, databases, operating systems, and product or application vendors. As part of the data gathering exercise, we also spent significant effort in understanding the architecture principles and standards defined by the enterprise and if these need to be updated given the changing business and technology landscape. The next step was to process the information and build an integrated view of this information, such as mapping applications, technology, or products to a level 3 process. This phase also included having several workshops with enterprise architects, process owners and IT managers to validate the data and integrated view of the data. The final stage of such engagements was to develop a point of view on the current enterprise architecture strategy and list all the application optimization opportunities. The list was then discussed with relevant stakeholders in workshop mode to arrive at and confirm these opportunities and create a roadmap.

Most of the time in these engagements was spent on gathering and validating information and very little time discussing and deciding on rationalization opportunities. If I put this in the perspective of project duration or effort, around 70-75% of the time was spent on data collection & validation and remaining on discussing opportunities for rationalization and building the roadmap. This approach resulted in a rushed process for a critical phase of the application portfolio rationalization engagements.

Ideally, I would like to spend over 80% of the project time discussing business and IT pain points, inefficiencies and redundancies, optimization opportunities, building the roadmap for the future and less than 20% time gathering and validating information. This approach is possible if you adopt LeanIX for Enterprise Architecture Management.

I recently evaluated LeanIX for Enterprise Architecture Management and its integration with Signavio. My quick view on the tool:

LeanIX enables one-time information gathering and allows you to update the information as part of day-to-day enterprise architecture management activities.

Your application portfolio rationalization project can prioritize ways to meet key objectives and create desired outcomes faster than before.

The impact of a transformation on users, technology, applications, processes, and business capability is easier to visualize as compared to the manual approach.

The integration between LeanIX and Signavio works both ways, and you can easily choose to define the source of truth. For example, you can maintain application inventory in LeanIX, make it available in Signavio through integration and use it to update your business process model steps with the application.

LeanIX provides information dashboards in reports and diagrams on various dimensions such as application inventory, end-of-life views, interface views, world maps of applications, data flow diagrams, etc.

Once you fully leverage LeanIX capabilities, I foresee application portfolio rationalization becoming a continuous improvement activity of the enterprise architecture management team.

Please share your experience of using LeanIX and its integration with Signavio.

Beyond Central Finance - A Journey from SAP Central Finance (CFIN) to SAP S/4HANA

2023-11-06T16:44:34+01:00

I have written a lot about cfin via my blogs, however this blog will be focussing on topics which needs to be considered beyond Central Finance.

This blog will not consider - Logistics and other migration scenarios rather it just talks on the scenario where CFIN is used a stepping stone and now the customer want to move to S/4HANA

In an organization when Central Finance is already live from some time there could be below starting points:

Customer is still using Central Finance as reporting solution

Customer is using Central Finance with Central Processing where the Finance processes are carried out in cfin box (which is of course S/4HANA)

We will focus one by one on each starting point

SCENARIO – 1:

Customer using Central Finance only as reporting solution

When this scenario is applicable then it means all logistics and finance processes are executed in source systems and cfin system is used for reporting or even for consolidation (Group Reporting, OneStream or HFM). Its assumed form here that all master data in cfin project is harmonized. Now from this point if customer have to move a step from CFIN to S/4HANA then below areas needs to be considered:

Asset Accounting (Asset Transaction Processing & Reporting)

Asset Accounting is being used in source systems (SAP or Non-SAP) and the GL balances of asset Accounting are updated in CFIN via load/replication of data over the period of time. Now with full-fledged migration to S4HANA:
- The Asset accounting needs to be stopped in source systems
- All asset master data and Sub ledger balances needs to be migrated to S/4HANA
- Balances in GL in CFIN system needs to be adjusted.

This end to end functionality is delivered by Central Asset Accounting and it means that as a transition step Central Asset Accounting needs to be activated

AR & AP Open items handling

In this scenario the transfer clearing scenario must have been activated where open items are replicated to CFIN as open and when the clearing happens in source those are cleared in CFIN (this is mostly for SAP source systems).

Open items loaded/posted in S4HANA CFIN system CANNOT be paid from S4HANA system given the case where source is the leading system for payments.

Solution can be
- Central Payment needs to be activated as a cutover step so that open items can be paid/received in S4HANA system but this comes with certain restrictions like the items cant be reversed in S4 etc. Detailed solution and approach should be considered while working out the strategy
- Enhance the SAP data which is loaded/replicated by CFIN to make system believe that the data is not replicated rather originated in S/4HANA system. This also have some limitations like reconciliation reports may not work for CFIN. Careful decision required based on business alignment as data will be used by business in future for processing & reporting

Other satellite systems/interfaces

All other necessary satellite systems/interfaces needs to be connected and well tested.

GL Clearing

Items replicated via central finance can not be directly cleared in CFIN. Right solution needs to be identified based on business strategy. It needs to be worked out whether Centra clearing of open items is needed to handle the GL open items or any enhanced solution needs to be introduced to fit based on data and processing/reporting needs

Stopping SLT

SLT replication should be stopped but at the right timings. First periods needs to be closed in source and then SLT should be stopped as a part of cutover activity

SCENARIO – 2:

Customer using Central Finance with Central Processing including Central Payments

All relevant points mentioned above are applicable for this scenario also. Only change will happen is in

AR & AP Open items handling

Central Payment is already activated and open items are paid/received in S4HANA system. This can continue however this comes with certain restrictions like the items can’t be reversed in S4 etc. Detailed solution and approach should be considered while working out the strategy. Any reversals, billing cancellations should be processed in target systems directly and lot of times for such scenarios the fresh document (inverse) needs to be posted as reversal/cancellation will not be possible for a replicated document.

Feel free to add more via comments based on what you have seen in such projects. There is too little happing in this space as of now and very few customers are planning to move from CFIN to full S/4HANA

SLT - Calculation job in sender system could not be started

2023-11-13T09:15:46+01:00

Introduction

The SAP Landscape Transformation (SAP LT) Replication server is one of the tool provided by SAP for data migration. This tool can be used for real-time (and non-real-time) data replication sourcing from SAP or non-SAP systems into SAP systems.

This blog explains the process to troubleshoot where Calculation job in sender SAP system could not be started. The table replication status in SLT remains in Calculation step for sometime and then the status changes to Calculation failed.

The SAP systems which are involved in the troubleshooting process are as below:

System Details:

CAR : CARAB 5.0 , DMIS 2018 SP08

SLT : SLT 3.0, DMIS 2018 SP08

ECC : EHP8 for SAP ERP 6.0, DMIS 2011 SP23.

DB : SAP HANA 2.0 SPS06

Issue Details

This SLT configuration is a RFC connection for both Source CAR to Target ECC System.

LTRC - Screenshot

In this scenario, we have only few tables that are getting replicated from CAR to ECC. These are custom tables that were created in CAR & ECC. And the data gets populated in CAR for those tables which then get replicated to ECC via SLT.

So, I got a replication issue for which I needed to do the initial load for the table. While doing the initial load I got the error “Calculation job in sender system could not be started”.

LTRC - Application logs

Troubleshooting Steps

I checked the system logs in the sender system (CAR) and found that there is an error in scheduling a batch job named R_JR_BTCJOBS_GENERATOR. The reason was that SAP_SYSTEM user was not existing.

SM21 - System Logs

But this user generally doesn’t exist until manually created. Then I checked to execute the report R_JR_UTIL_1 which shows the step user that is being used in the standard technical job repository.

Report R_JR_UTIL_1

Then I checked DDIC user status and found that DDIC is locked and SAP_SYSTEM user also doesn’t exist. Hence, the job was getting error in scheduling.

Here there are 2 ways to fix it.

Unlock the DDIC user if that is allowed.

In certain projects DDIC user is kept locked and, in that case, if you don’t have an alternate DDIC like super user in the system then create a system user with SAP_ALL access and make that user as default step user for the standard jobs by using either the report R_JR_UTIL_1 or directly using T-code SJOBREPO_STEPUSER.

Using the Report R_JR_UTIL_1 :

After that if you check again for the Job repository status, it will show that user as default step-user which you had set.

Using the T-code SJOBREPO_STEPUSER :

After that the job R_JR_BTCJOBS_GENERATOR scheduling error got resolved and the calculation job gets triggered in the sender system (CAR) and the table gets replicated to ECC without any issue.

Hope you find the above troubleshooting information useful.

Referred SAP Notes in support to the above troubleshooting process:

2806958 - Calculation job in sender system could not be started - SLT

2864455 - Replication fails with "Calculation job in sender system could not be started" - SLT

2190119 - Background information about SAP S/4HANA technical job repository

Thanks,

Biswamber

SLT - Replication with Additional Fields and Changing Operation Type

2023-12-14T22:20:19+01:00

Hello All,

I am sure many of you who use SLT (SAP Landscape Transformation) would have encountered a need to add additional fields to their table structure or to modify existing field types. This could be for various reasons. To process certain data, to add additional parameters for the destination system, support data, etc. This is quite common and can be easily achieved using Table and Rule settings on LTRS transaction. One specific need we had was two fold. First, every record replicated should have its timestamp (of replication) and a flag that indicates what operation was performed (Insert, Update or Delete). Some of you I am sure would have probably worked and solved this same scenario or something similar.

I hope the below post is useful for people looking at this scenario or similar where the solution may be applicable.

The Need

Add a Specific Field Timestamp that holds the Data and Time of Replication

Add a Specific Field Flag that indicates what Operation was performed - Insert, Update or Delete

When a record is deleted in Source System it should not be deleted in the target as the need was to have this information in the Target System but with the flag as "D" to indicate it was deleted in the source system.

The Solution

The solution for the all 3 of our needs was in fact interlinked with a single piece of reusable code that we had to insert within the Rule Settings of any table that is set up for Replication. Briefly this information is below. We will consider VBRK table as an example here. But, we have used this solution for more than 100 tables so far and counting. It remains the same.

Step 1: Add 2 Custom Fields on Table Settings at the End of the Table

Figure 1 - Adding Timestamp and Operation Flag Fields

Step 2: Add a Field-Related Rule with a Custom Include to Populate said Fields

Figure 2 - Field-Related Rule with Custom Include

Step 3: Reusable Custom Include Development

This is a one-time action as the code is table independent. Can be reused for all future tables. The only setting to change is the "Input Parameter 1" in the Field-Related rule. Here, we use "<wa_r_vbrk>". It needs to be changed according to table. See Figure 2. The code is fairly simple and available below. Please Note, where we modify the operation flag to "U" when it is "D" to meet the third part of our need.

FIELD-SYMBOLS: <ls_data>      TYPE any,

               <lv_operation> TYPE any,

               <lv_delete>    TYPE any,

               <lv_timestamp> TYPE any.



ASSIGN (i_p1) TO <ls_data>.



DATA tstamp TYPE tzntstmpl.       " Timestamp Long - UTC Timestamp



* Assign the Time Stamp to ZZSLTTIMESTAMP field

ASSIGN COMPONENT 'ZZSLTTIMESTAMP' OF STRUCTURE <ls_data> TO <lv_timestamp>.

GET TIME STAMP FIELD tstamp.      " Get Current Timestamp Long

IF sy-subrc = 0.

  <lv_timestamp> = tstamp.

ENDIF.



* Assign the Operation to Operation field

ASSIGN COMPONENT 'IUUC_OPERAT_FLAG' OF STRUCTURE <ls_data> TO <lv_operation>.



* For Delete Operation

IF sy-subrc = 0 AND <lv_operation>  = 'D'.

* Change this to a update operation – so the record will not be deleted and a flag is added

  <lv_operation>  = 'U'.



* Update the ZZSLTFLAG to store D (for Delete)

  ASSIGN COMPONENT 'ZZSLTFLAG' OF STRUCTURE <ls_data> TO <lv_delete>.

  IF sy-subrc = 0.

    <lv_delete> = 'D'.

  ENDIF.



* For all other operation, Update the ZZSLTFLAG to store appropriate record type

ELSEIF sy-subrc = 0.

  ASSIGN COMPONENT 'ZZSLTFLAG' OF STRUCTURE <ls_data> TO <lv_delete>.

  IF sy-subrc = 0.

    <lv_delete> = <lv_operation>.

  ENDIF.

ENDIF.

Now, we are ready to start replication/initial load and the two new fields will be updated as per the above needs.

Thanks for taking your time to read this blog. I hope it was helpful. Kindly share your comments and your ideas in case you have a different approach to this problem and also on similar scenarios that we may encounter when using SLT. As we just started using SLT, I think we will encounter more complex scenarios as we replicate more and more tables.

SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server - Book Review

2024-02-22T08:52:50.707000+01:00

In this blog post you will find the Book Review of SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT)

About the Book
Here is the book which is published by SAP Press about SAP SLT.

About the publisher
SAP Press is reputable due to its status as the leading worldwide publisher of SAP software manuals, known for producing high-quality, authoritative, and cutting-edge content in the field of SAP. The SAP Community boasts a vast membership, comprising millions of users and consultants who are well-acquainted with the great reputation of SAP Press

The authors of the book are

Shashidhar Garimella is a principal architect at SAP America Inc., known for his exceptional skills and expertise in the field of enterprise software solutions.

Prathyusha Garimella is a senior consultant at SAP America Inc. With over a decade of IT experience spanning the globe, Prathyusha has successfully deployed various SAP solutions for large corporations, mostly featuring in the Fortune 100 companies worldwide, enabling financial and business transformation capabilities.

What's the latest and greatest book about SAP SLT?

The book "SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server: The Practical Guide," and upon reading i am convinced that it will serve as an invaluable asset for SAP consultants, especially those with a focus on SAP Analytics and Data Management. This comprehensive guide caters to a wide audience, from novice SAP Consultants to seasoned enterprise architects, offering a well-structured explanation of the core concepts of SAP SLT, complete with architecture diagrams and detailed information, making it highly beneficial for beginners. Advanced SAP architects and consultants will find significant value in the book's comprehensive coverage of overarching topics. Furthermore, the book serves as a practical guidebook for typical SAP consultants and developers, providing detailed steps, screenshots, and elaborate explanations that can be directly applied to project implementations.

What sets this book apart?
What sets this book apart is its emphasis on pragmatic customer implementations for advanced consultants, a perspective that is often lacking in many blogs, articles, and even official SAP documentation. The meticulous attention to practicality makes this book an indispensable resource for consultants working in the field of SAP Analytics and data management. Notably, the book's coverage of topics such as Troubleshooting, Monitoring, and Performance Tuning fills a crucial knowledge gap, particularly for support consultants engaged in live projects. Overall, "SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server: The Practical Guide" stands out as a meticulously crafted resource that caters to the practical needs of consultants working in the dynamic realm of SAP Analytics and Data Management. This book also covers niche topics such as SLT integration with SAP BW and BW/4HANA, Data Intelligence, Data Services.

If you are working on migrating your SAP system to the cloud(Azure, GCP, AWS,etc), transferring data between SAP systems, or initiating a new SAP project that need SLT, this book is an indispensable resource that should be at the top of your reading list. Kudos to the Shashidhar Garimella and Prathyusha Garimella for their exceptional work in crafting a book that truly encapsulates the expertise derived from decades of experience in the field. Their wealth of knowledge and practical insights are evident throughout the book.

Where can you get the book?

From the SAP PRESS website and bookstore (all formats; hardcovers also sold elsewhere)

Thanks
Renjith Kumar

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Business Technology Platform – Blog 1

2024-03-14T15:09:45.713000+01:00

Today, companies are exposed to unprecedented combinations of threats and uncertainties by economics, new competitors, wars, extreme weather events, etc. Therefore, businesses must react to this. One the one side, they need to increase agility to become as flexible, fast, and resilient as possible. This involves a new speed of innovation and the capability to tailor customer experience to individual needs. On the other side, they need fully digitized processes within and beyond the company, across the complete value chain.

In such a demanding environment business needs a powerful IT that can implement new business requirements fast and leverage new technologies such as AI.

Many SAP systems such as SAP ECC have been up and running for decades. Technologies available at that time looked totally different. Today most processes need to be automated to minimize the number of manual steps and maximize the transaction speed. By embracing the cloud, processes can be implemented much faster. Accordingly, one important step in transformation is to determine which components remain on-prem and which processes and systems should be moved to the cloud. Especially extensions and apps are often developed faster in the cloud due to much smaller lead times.

Modernization is not limited to a single ERP and should include data management, development, integration, and steering across the full enterprise architecture, covering SAP and non-SAP systems.

This is exactly where the SAP Business Technology Platform comes into play as a booster of the Digital Transformation of your systems across 4 dimensions:

Extend your applications.
Automate & integrate business processes.
Unleash your data with Data & Analytics.
Modernize your Steering.

On top of the four domains, Clean Core and AI become key in 2024.

Clean Core:

The concept of Clean Core customers can adopt to make their IT future-proof. The Core of the system, the ERP has very often a long history of modifications. Upgrades take a long time and can be very costly. New requirements often took one to two years until they were taken up into the next release schedule. With the faster changing business environments and the need to digitize much faster, the ERP systems need to be cleaned up to become more flexible and agile.

This is where the Clean Core Concept can help. The goal is to eliminate modifications with three toolsets available:

The Key-User extensibility in S/4 to enhance fields and small logic.
The On-Stack extensibility based on the ABAP Cloud. This is a complete toolbox to adapt ABAP coding. The name ABAP Cloud is a bit misleading because it can available directly embedded on your S4 system on-prem and doesn’t require any cloud services on SAP BTP.
Side-by-side extensibility on SAP BTP. Bigger developments, mobile apps and automations would typically be done as loosely coupled side-by-side extensions on the BTP.

In the concept, customers determine which type of developments they do on which tool. With eliminated modifications and a “clean system” new requirements and new apps can be implemented much faster and upgrades go faster and with reduced costs. Clean Core is not a one-time task but an ongoing exercise making your IT systems future-proof.

AI:

AI is experiencing a huge hype. The challenge is to implement the technology into real business processes. AI today at many customers is technically capable but somewhere disconnected. It is trained on some data but it doesn‘t know much about the data, the processes, the people that can use it etc.

This is where SAP Business AI comes into play with its business centricity in three dimensions:

The business context with access to semantic data, which is always available and using AI as an extension of the business process and the context being aware who can perform at which point which task and why they need to do it.
The business-friendly experience with integrated seamless access and embedded into the normal SAP business user.
The accelerated business outcomes with prebuilt content, actionable use cases that can be directly rolled out, automation with built-in AI, and smart support based on the context and business know-how.

The offering is relevant, reliable, and responsible. It is relevant - because AI will be embedded into all SAP-cloud-based applications. It is reliable because it is based on the customer’s unique business data and business context. And finally, it is responsible - because we will deliver AI with the highest levels of concern for security, privacy, compliance, and ethics.

The Blog Series 10 + ways to reshape your SAP Landscape with SAP BTP will be published regularly and the newest blogs can be found here: Video & Blog Series - SAP BTP MEE Overview (brandcast.io)

To get more insights, please also visit one of our BTP Innovation Days:

Innovation Day Vienna: Vienna 04-Apr-24 SAP BTP Innovation Day Vienna
Innovation Day Switzerland: Bern 14-May-24 SAP | SAP BTP Innovation Day Switzerland
Innovation Day Germany Essen 16-May-24 SAP | SAP BTP Innovation Day

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Business Technology Platform – Blog Series

2024-03-18T17:56:24.598000+01:00

Blog 1: The Central Role of Clean Core and AI

Summary: In this blog series we will look at the role of the SAP Business Technology Platform to reshape your SAP landscape including SAP and Non-SAP systems. In this first blog we discuss why Clean Core and AI are so important on your path to a future-proof IT.

Today, companies are exposed to unprecedented combinations of threats and uncertainties by economics, new competitors, wars, extreme weather events, etc. Therefore, businesses must react to this. One the one side, they need to increase agility to become as flexible, fast, and resilient as possible. This involves a new speed of innovation and the capability to tailor customer experience to individual needs. On the other side, they need fully digitized processes within and beyond the company, across the complete value chain.

In such a demanding environment business needs a powerful IT that can implement new business requirements fast and leverage new technologies such as AI.

Modernization is not limited to a single ERP and should include data management, development, integration, and steering across the full enterprise architecture, covering SAP and non-SAP systems.

This is exactly where the SAP Business Technology Platform comes into play as a booster of the Digital Transformation of your systems across 4 dimensions:

Extend your applications.
Automate & integrate business processes.
Unleash your data with Data & Analytics.
Modernize your Steering.

On top of the four domains, Clean Core and AI become key in 2024.

Clean Core:

This is where the Clean Core Concept can help. The goal is to eliminate modifications with three toolsets available:

The Key-User extensibility in S/4 to enhance fields and small logic.
The On-Stack extensibility based on the ABAP Cloud. This is a complete toolbox to adapt ABAP coding. The name ABAP Cloud is a bit misleading because it can available directly embedded on your S4 system on-prem and doesn’t require any cloud services on SAP BTP.
Side-by-side extensibility on SAP BTP. Bigger developments, mobile apps and automations would typically be done as loosely coupled side-by-side extensions on the BTP.

AI:

The business context with access to semantic data, which is always available and using AI as an extension of the business process and the context being aware who can perform at which point which task and why they need to do it.
The business-friendly experience with integrated seamless access and embedded into the normal SAP business user.
The accelerated business outcomes with prebuilt content, actionable use cases that can be directly rolled out, automation with built-in AI, and smart support based on the context and business know-how.

The Blog Series 10 + ways to reshape your SAP Landscape with SAP BTP will be published regularly and the newest blogs can be found here: Video & Blog Series - SAP BTP MEE Overview (brandcast.io)

To get more insights, please also visit one of our BTP Innovation Days:

Innovation Day Vienna: Vienna 04-Apr-24 SAP BTP Innovation Day Vienna
Innovation Day Switzerland: Bern 14-May-24 SAP | SAP BTP Innovation Day Switzerland
Innovation Day Germany Essen 16-May-24 SAP | SAP BTP Innovation Day

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP: Blog 2 Interview

2024-03-26T08:00:00.043000+01:00

Blog 2: The role of Business Technology Platform as an extension and innovation platform - Background Interview

I interviewed my colleague Pinaki Ray @pinakiray from SAP to get some more background information.

Timothy Kaufmann: What does get you excited about SAP BTP?

Pinaki Ray: SAP BTP represents a paradigm shift in enterprise transformation. SAP BTP is home to a ton of innovation services, which allows business and IT to jointly push modernization, innovations and intelligence into their business processes in a rapid fashion. The most important aspect in my view is, users can now use information which is relevant to them and take actions. That’s empowering the user and their role, and ultimately the enterprise.

Timothy Kaufmann: In your opinions, which type of extensions would you recommend to develop on BTP?

Pinaki Ray: I will recommend fast, agile, and modular extensions to my customers. This can be done in two modes. First mode: use SAP BUILD to develop extensions rapidly, alongside your core applications. With BUILD, I can automate processes, build intuitive apps with AI services and make them available on any device of choice for the users. The second mode: CAP based extensions, to build complex applications extensions with integrations. CAP based extensions are preferred by developers for rather complex scenarios.

Timothy Kaufmann: Why is the BTP relevant to drive innovations and for which type of use cases?

Pinaki Ray: There is a multitude of use cases that come to my mind to drive innovations. Smart mobile apps, single point of entry for users to deal with SAP applications and functions, embedding analytics stories into user dashboards for timely actions, enterprise integrations and automations, making SAP application more intuitive using Gen AI. All these use cases are tangible and will bring value to our customers.

Timothy Kaufmann: Why should every customer be enthusiastic about the BTP?

Pinaki Ray: Traditional development methods are time consuming, that’s the reality. Plus the availability of skills is an issue our customers face. BTP is an industry standard environment, where simplification, modernization, and innovation are key. It encompasses cloud solutions that brings newer and faster ways to deliver value to business.

Timothy Kaufmann: Which functionality do you like most on SAP BTP?

Pinaki Ray: I personally like the idea of automating processes, injecting machine learning and orchestrating workflows across systems with dedicated user prompts. This has clear benefits in gaining efficiency and reducing costs in the process.

The other important aspect for me is BTP makes SAP core solutions upgrade-proof. New innovations can be turned on quickly, if required you can de-commission use cases no longer required, and I reuse BTP resources for new and urgent scenarios. That’s agility.

Timothy Kaufmann: Do you have examples of what customers have done with SAP BTP?

Pinaki Ray: Customers have built interesting extensions on BTP. One client has implemented Service Cloud, and identified a feature gap whereby service technicians could be directly entered in the service order by presenting the user with a list of technicians. The client extended Service Cloud application using CAP and leveraged Integration Suite content to integrate with Field Service Management. The time to complete a service order is reduced from more than 12 mins to less than 2 mins. Huge productivity gain with no manual errors anymore.

Another customer in the process industry has used AI to understand notifications resulting from factory issues, Gen AI is employed to find previous orders based on similar notifications and generate a list of work order activities, and components to be sent to the planner. This greatly reduces the time consumed to generate work orders.

Another interesting use case developed by an Oil and Gas customer provided analytics on mobile applications via dashboards to enable oil containers make spot deals, thereby increasing profitability on their trades. As you can see, there are a multitude of use cases which we can build on BTP, using data, analytics, integration and automation capabilities.

Timothy Kaufmann: When you get asked by our customers what they should develop on SAP BTP and what on Hyperscaler platforms, what is your answer?

Pinaki Ray: SAP BTP is available on all Hyperscaler platforms. We understand the benefits of the scale, and customers now understand the business centricity of BTP in the SAP context. The symbiotic value is unparalleled. SAP BTP is an open platform, which means we can apply industry standard technology provided by Hyperscalers, be it machine learning algorithms or bot technology, and combine that data with SAP data to provide business semantics and actions to users. An example that I can cite is IoT based projects, where customers can rely on connectivity solutions and data from sensors provided by Hyperscalers, and SAP can take on the responsibility of interpreting that data and execute business processes and necessary workflows across SAP and non-SAP solutions.

Additional Blogs of the Blog Series:

Blog 1: The Central Role of Clean Core and AI: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
Blog 2: The Role of BTP as Extension and Innovation Platform: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
Blog 3:How SAP Clean Core Strategy can accelerate your Transformation SAP Clean Core Strategy: The Key to Business Transformation

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP - Blog 3 Interview

2024-04-08T15:40:19.020000+02:00

Blog 3: How Clean Core can accelerate your business transformation - Background Interview

I interviewed my colleague Holger Seubert @hseubert from SAP to get some more background information.

Timothy Kaufmann: What is from your perspective the key benefit of Clean Core?
Holger Seubert: A significant advantage of the SAP Clean Core strategy is that it enables customers to maximize their investment in SAP standard solutions, such as SAP S/4HANA, unlocking access to the forefront of product innovations. Moreover, it affords the flexibility to customize SAP solutions to meet specific business requirements. The main strength of the SAP Clean Core strategy lies in its capacity to simplify complexity, enhance adaptability, and fully leverage cutting-edge technologies from SAP and its partners. This approach fosters a robust, agile, and innovation-centric IT ecosystem, crucial for sustained organizational achievement.

Timothy Kaufmann: How can Clean Core speed up new developments?
Holger Seubert: Utilizing standard solutions or engaging with the partner ecosystem can significantly accelerate backlog implementation, allowing resources to be redirected towards fulfilling unique business requirements. Furthermore, adopting the latest releases of SAP standard solutions can streamline maintenance tasks for custom developments within the software development lifecycle. This approach not only optimizes resource allocation but also enhances the efficiency of maintaining solutions, thereby facilitating a more innovative and focused development strategy.

Timothy Kaufmann: Which role does the BTP play here? Holger Seubert: The SAP Business Technology Platform is pivotal to the Clean Core strategy, acting as a flexible, cloud-native environment that supports detached extensions, by also enhancing developer productivity and enabling rapid implementation cycles. Essentially, SAP BTP adds a supplementary layer around the core systems, accommodating for scaling of additional workloads and development at varying speeds without disrupting core processes. This allows customers to differentiate themselves in the market by extending SAP's standard solutions to meet their unique needs. Additionally, for managing integrations—whether leveraging SAP's standard offerings or crafting custom solutions—the SAP BTP Integration Suite is the go-to solution.

Timothy Kaufmann: Where do you see the specific strength of BTP here?
Holger Seubert: Firstly, a major advantage is the seamless integration and the ease of combining SAP BTP with SAP's standard solutions. Particularly for public cloud solutions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud or SAP SuccessFactors, linking BTP with these standard solutions is as straightforward as connecting a Bluetooth device. The connection to private cloud or on-premise solutions also stands out, offering not just simplicity in setup but also ensuring secure connections. Thanks to the BTP Connectivity Service and its destination concept, reusing a secure setup across different platform services is straightforward and also a key concept to support LCNC development approaches, for example. Another highlight is BTP's broad developer community appeal. It unites development teams with expertise in ABAP, Java, or front-end development on a single platform to enhance SAP's standard solutions. Additionally, the availability of business content within various services is noteworthy. Whether for integrating different IT systems, automating processes, or deriving insights from data, BTP provides a wealth of pre-defined content. This content, being provided by SAP and it’s partners, serves as a valuable starting point for custom projects, offering users a significant head start. Lastly, the openness of SAP BTP and it’s strong partner ecosystem is a key asset, allowing for the integration of its services into the existing IT landscapes of customers while also adopting established best practices in areas such as DevOps.

Timothy Kaufmann: What do you like so much about Clean Core?
Holger Seubert: Although all five dimensions are crucial, I particularly highlight the importance of extensibility, as its implementation often brings the greatest benefits and impact for customers. It's vital for organizations to not only adopt the latest SAP product innovations but also to customize these standard solutions with their specific needs. Achieving both objectives is possible through a clean core extensibility approach.

Timothy Kaufmann: What do you tell your customers who are unsure to use Clean Core?
Holger Seubert: Answering that question broadly is challenging. I'd be keen to delve into the specific uncertainties and emphasize that this journey can be uniquely tailored for each customer, allowing them to proceed at their own pace. For Brownfield implementations, it presents an excellent chance to configure the SAP landscape to be future-proof. Meanwhile, for Greenfield projects, adopting a clean core strategy is instrumental in maintaining readiness for future developments. This approach ensures that regardless of the project type, organizations can establish a foundation that's adaptable and prepared for upcoming technological advancements.

Additional Blogs:

Blog 1: The Central Role of Clean Core and AI: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
Blog 2: The Role of BTP as Extension and Innovation Platform: 10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Bu... - SAP Community
Blog 3:How SAP Clean Core Strategy can accelerate your Transformation SAP Clean Core Strategy: The Key to Business Transformation

Customer COE – Accelerate Your Journey to the Cloud with SAP Customer Evolution Program

2024-04-11T11:22:47.262000+02:00

To stay ahead in today’s world, companies need to constantly adapt to changing business needs and market requirements and unlock new ways of running their business. The role of your SAP Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) is now most important then ever. SAP Customer COE bundles SAP know-how and competencies within the company and brings them together across different lines of businesses. That’s why it is a key success factor to involve the existing SAP Customer COE in the early phase of transformation. With this in mind, it is important that Customer COEs are familiar with the free of charge Customer Evolution offering as the first step towards transformation.

With the SAP Customer Evolution Program, we help our installed based customer navigate today’s headwinds, by guiding existing customers on their move from on-premise solutions to the cloud. The program helps you achieve a successful business process transformation, tailored to your unique business needs and requirements – no matter if in the cloud or hybrid.

Start your Transformation Journey with SAP Customer Evolution Kit?

The SAP Customer Evolution kit provides the perfect blend of tools and expert services to meet the unique needs of our customers on their cloud move. The cost-free, quick, and efficient engagement helps to accelerate our customers digital transformation to the cloud. Focusing on specific evolution scenarios, the SAP Customer Evolution kit leverages pre-defined, modular activities to create a transformation plan.

Free of charge participation for customers with a valid support agreement
Guidance & Recommendations during 1:1 Sessions from dedicated SAP experts on your SAP Readiness Check report, SAP Signavio Process Insights Discovery Edition, future potential landscape, and your path forward
Dedicated tools and services that support your transformation across SAP solutions (SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP ERP HCM, Procurement and Customer Experience Solutions)

Learn more about the SAP Customer Evolution program and initiate dialogue about the relevance of the Customer Evolution offering within your company.

Links:
Homepage SAP Customer Evolution Kit
Register for Participation on SAP Customer Evolution Kit
Contact the customer evolution program

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP - Blog 4 Interview

2024-04-18T08:50:29.224000+02:00

Blog 4: Mastering the Data Dance: The Potential of Clean Core and AI

Today my colleague @Wolfgang_Epting published Blog 4 about the role of data in our Blog Series. Therefore I interviewed him to get more background information.

Timothy Kaufmann: Wolfgang, why are you so enthusiastic about Data and Analytics and where do you see the big benefit of SAP Business Technology Platform?

Wolfgang Epting: To put it simply: “There Is No AI Without Data.” The recent technological revolution concerning generative artificial intelligence has exponentially increased the significance of data beyond previous levels. Generative AI has entered the boardrooms, and companies are more than ever challenged to provide data that is of high quality and ethically sound for model training. The SAP Business Technology Platform offers an integrated, coordinated Data & Analytics Stack that effectively addresses these new challenges. Customers are placing their trust in SAP, even for artificial intelligence, which further fuels my long-standing enthusiasm for data.

Timothy Kaufmann: Why does the Clean Core paradigm encompass not just applications and processes, but also data?

Wolfgang Epting: Amid diverse challenges, poly- and permanent crises, and economic uncertainty, companies need to act more agile and become more resilient. The speed of innovation needed for this is constantly increasing and will never be as slow as it is at this moment. In this context, data should not act as an inhibitor. Instead, in line with the SAP Clean Core paradigm, it must be an enabler for stable processes, rapid decision-making, and trustworthy input for generative artificial intelligence. Therefore, companies need to accord due attention to the subject of data and must treat it as an asset from which data products are generated to create added business value.

Timothy Kaufmann: You mention a really important point. Asset management for many companies is really important. Why is data often not handled in the same way and what should companies change that?

Wolfgang Epting: The awareness that data provides business value and therefore, like any other asset, needs to be strategically managed is often not sufficiently present in Line of Business departments. Data and its quality are seen as something that falls under IT's responsibility. Changing this perception and making clear that data ownership needs to be firmly anchored in business is a change that, as we all know, is never easy. To transform into a data-driven enterprise, a significant cultural change needs to occur, and this can be initiated by a business outcome driven data strategy. A considerable amount of enablement, education, and persuasive efforts will be necessary to make employees data-literate.

Timothy Kaufmann: Why should data be managed holistically across systems?

Wolfgang Epting: Maintaining high data quality in one system and neglecting it in another is not advisable. Data represents objects of the real world and are merely stored in systems, often in silos, which contradict each other or contain multiple entries for the same entity. The frequently postulated single source of truth is indispensable for establishing trustworthiness, without which analytical and AI application scenarios are worthless. Data requires a holistic treatment, as their quality in transactional systems is crucial for the smooth running of business processes, and equally vital for all downstream applications. Cleaning suboptimal data before it enters the analytical world is always reactive and will never achieve a state where data quality can no longer erode. A proactive 'First Time Right' approach should be pursued to prevent the generation of erroneous data in the first place. One cannot aim to innovate in the field of generative artificial intelligence while simultaneously managing the foundation, namely the data, without modern tools with high automation.

Timothy Kaufmann: What does generative AI mean for data strategies and data management?

Wolfgang Epting: Data quality and data fairness are the limiting factors for the adoption of generative artificial intelligence. This presents entirely new challenges that go far beyond existing tasks. In the future, it is expected that topics such as ethics will be fully mastered, not only in algorithms but also in data. Illustrative examples include the elimination of systematic bias or distortion and ensuring adequate representation of the target population within the dataset.

Timothy Kaufmann: What are the advantages of an integrated approach with the SAP Business Technology Platform?

Wolfgang Epting: We are experiencing the rise of best-of-breed approaches, such as the Modern Data Stack, coming with the hope of building a data management platform quickly and easily to meet requirements and implement modern approaches like Data Mesh. We have demonstrated that with our Business Data Fabric approach, we operate much more cost-effectively. A Data fabric architecture streamlines operations and facilitates digital transformation by connecting various data sources for seamless information flow, boosting accessibility and integration. It breaks down data silos, enabling real-time analytics and decision-making while supporting data governance. SAP Datasphere’s unified approach simplifies data management across diverse environments and preserves critical business semantics with an industry-leading semantic layer and knowledge graph.

Timothy Kaufmann: In your opinion, what does the future of data management look like?

Wolfgang Epting: The advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) will significantly influence future data management, emphasizing the importance of data quality, fairness, and ethical considerations, including privacy, transparency, and consent. GenAI demands real-time data handling, enhanced data security measures, and robust data integration strategies. It also requires sophisticated metadata management strategies to effectively navigate and manage the vast amount of data that GenAI can generate, necessitating a re-evaluation of traditional data management strategies.

SAP Community - SAP Landscape Transformation

What is a Selective Data Transition to S/4HANA?

Define project scope for data protection and compliance projects (DPP) with SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)

Business challenges with Data Protection Regulations

Data Privacy Analysis for SAP ILM in SAP Store

Overview

Delivery

Details on the Data Privacy Analysis for SAP ILM

1. Explain the key purposes of the analysis service and support the Customer in the following points:

2. Conduct system scan for the below aspects:

3. Generate below analysis result and recommendations:

4. Conduct two 3 hours workshops (remote) with the following content:

Conclusion

SAP Central Finance - CLOUD or On-Premise?

Should you boil the ocean with SAP S/4HANA transformation?

SAP Central Finance & AVL data replication from Non-SAP Systems

SAP Central Finance & G/L Master Data Harmonization

SAP Central Finance - All blogs in one page

SAP Central Finance – What’s new in 2023 Release

Lift and Shift Migrations exceed their definition

Accelerate Your Transformation with LeanIX

Beyond Central Finance - A Journey from SAP Central Finance (CFIN) to SAP S/4HANA

SLT - Calculation job in sender system could not be started

SLT - Replication with Additional Fields and Changing Operation Type

The Need

The Solution

SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server - Book Review

In this blog post you will find the Book Review of SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT)

About the BookHere is the book which is published by SAP Press about SAP SLT.

The authors of the book are

What's the latest and greatest book about SAP SLT?

Where can you get the book?

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Business Technology Platform – Blog 1

Clean Core:

AI:

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP Business Technology Platform – Blog Series

Blog 1: The Central Role of Clean Core and AI

Clean Core:

AI:

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP: Blog 2 Interview

Blog 2: The role of Business Technology Platform as an extension and innovation platform - Background Interview

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP - Blog 3 Interview

Blog 3: How Clean Core can accelerate your business transformation - Background Interview

Customer COE – Accelerate Your Journey to the Cloud with SAP Customer Evolution Program

Start your Transformation Journey with SAP Customer Evolution Kit?

10+ ways to reshape your SAP landscape with SAP BTP - Blog 4 Interview

Blog 4: Mastering the Data Dance: The Potential of Clean Core and AI

About the Book
Here is the book which is published by SAP Press about SAP SLT.