SAP Community - SAP Profitability and Performance Management

Smooth Transition for your SAP PaPM Cloud UM containers with SAP Cloud Transport Management service

2025-10-17T13:20:10.072000+02:00

This blogpost walks you through how to use SAP Cloud Transport Management with the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud - Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM) in Manage Containers.

Why SAP Cloud Transport Management?

Pairing SAP Cloud Transport Management with SAP PaPM Cloud UM gives content managers a new dimension of flexibility. Instead of relying solely on the Manage Containers application, SAP Cloud Transport Management provides a more efficient, controlled, and secure approach to managing transports across tenants.

To dive deeper into what SAP Cloud Transport Management is and how it works, you can explore the SAP Cloud Transport Management documentation.

What Admins and Content Managers Need to Know

These are several important points to keep in mind:

SAP Cloud Transport Management will not replace Manage Containers – Think of it as an additional transport option. You can choose the one that best fits your use case.
SAP Cloud Transport Management is not bundled with SAP PaPM Cloud UM – It’s a separate license, so make sure to evaluate the entitlements before planning your transport strategy.
One subscription can serve multiple subaccounts – A single SAP Cloud Transport Management subscription can be configured and linked to multiple SAP PaPM subaccounts.

In this example, I will create a three-node landscape and set up routes similar to what is commonly used in a real-world business scenario. It is common to work with at least three tenants for modeling purposes: Development, where ideas are first modeled, Quality Assurance (QA) to validate, and Production for business use.

In Manage Containers, you will find the Release for Transport button. But before using it, SAP Cloud Transport Management must be properly configured in your SAP BTP subaccount. For step-by-step instructions and setup details, you can refer to our Admin Guide – SAP Cloud Transport Management.

There are four types of URL destinations available, and you can quickly copy them in the Administration Guide - URL.

Option 1: URL for Importing an Environment via Manage Containers

Option 2: URL for Uploading and/or Restoring Archived Demo Data via Manage Archives

Note: The environment should be activated to successfully restore demo data.

As I've mentioned above, I have created a three-node landscape and set up routes in SAP Cloud Transport Management.

The Development node serves solely as a virtual node and placeholder before a content transition to the succeeding node which in this case is the Quality Assurance (QA) node.
The Quality Assurance (QA) node uses an Activate URL (https://<PaPMServiceKey.url>/ace/sap/ace/tms/activate) which allows you to upload a container then import and activate the environment before moving to the Production node.
The Production node uses the Import URL (https://<PaPMServiceKey.url>/ace/sap/ace/tms/import) which allows you to upload a container and import it without activating the environment.

To create a transport object for transport, perform the following steps:

Go to the Administration application group and choose the Manage Containers application.
Select the desired container and choose Release for Transport.
Select the transport node to be released and choose Release to Transport.
The Transport Request number will be displayed on the screen.

In SAP Cloud Transport Management, the Transport Request will reflect allowing you to seamlessly move the container in the created transport nodes and routes.

Go to SAP Cloud Transport Management application and choose Landscape Visualization.
Choose the Development node and select Import Queue.
Select the Transport Request and choose Import Selected.

After you have successfully imported the Transport Request to the Quality Assurance (QA) node, you may now start importing this container to the set destination tenant of this node by following the steps above, but this time in the Quality Assurance (QA) node.

In the SAP PaPM Cloud UM – Quality Assurance (QA) tenant, you can view the uploaded container in the Manage Containers and see it successfully imported and activated in Manage Environments application.

Going back to SAP Cloud Transport Management, the Transport Request has been successfully transitioned to the Production node and is ready to be imported to the set destination.

In the SAP PaPM Cloud UM – Production tenant, you can view the uploaded container in the Manage Containers application and see it successfully imported in Manage Environments application.

Now that you understand how to use SAP Cloud Transport Management service to transition your environment across SAP PaPM Cloud UM tenants, you can confidently streamline your transport process with improved control, traceability, and efficiency. This ensures that your models move seamlessly and securely from Development to Production.

Happy transporting! 🚀

Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements!

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model - Introducing Release Cadence Settings

2025-10-29T10:00:39.955000+01:00

Dear Administrators,

You may have already noticed some exciting additions to the Administration Settings panel over the past few months. Today, we are pleased to introduce a powerful new feature designed to give you more flexibility and control over how updates for SAP Profitability and Performance Management - Standard Model are delivered to you: Fast Track mode.

What is Fast Track Mode?

Have you ever wished you could access the latest SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud - Standard Model (referred to as SAP PaPM Cloud SM hereon) features earlier — before they are rolled out globally across all tenants?

With Fast Track Mode, this is now possible.

By simply activating the Fast Track mode toggle in the Administration Settings, your selected tenant will immediately begin receiving more frequent updates for SAP PaPM Cloud SM. This includes early access to new functionalities and improvements—ideal for your development and quality assurance environments where early testing is beneficial.

What’s the Default Behavior?

By default, Fast Track Mode is deactivated, meaning your tenant will receive updates of SAP PaPM Cloud SM only once per month, specifically on the second Monday of the month. So, the default release cadence for such updates is monthly.

However, the same updates become available a few weeks earlier for tenants where Fast Track mode is activated. This provides a valuable window to test changes in advance and ensure everything is working perfectly with your specific business scenarios.

Note: Given that we are gradually rolling this feature out across all regions, latest by 1 Nov 2025 all the tenants will be moved to the default release cadence - meaning, Fast Track mode will be in deactivated state for everyone. Administrators will have the option to activate Fast Track mode for themselves using the toggle as described earlier.

How to Activate or Deactivate Fast Track Mode?

Activating Fast Track mode is straightforward:

Navigate to Administration Settings.
Activate the Fast Track mode toggle.

The change takes effect immediately.

Need to revert to the default release cadence? No problem. Simply switch off the toggle. Please note that reverting may require waiting until the next monthly release (i.e., next month).

We hope this new option helps you make the most of your multiple SAP PaPM Cloud SM tenants. Stay tuned—more updates and tips are coming your way!

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: What’s New as of 2025-11-03?

2025-11-03T10:24:26.832000+01:00

Welcome to the latest update of our SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud (SAP PaPM Cloud) Standard Model What’s New series! With this update, we’re excited to introduce enhancements that make managing environments and customizing templates more seamless and transparent.

From support for custom fields in SD and PO functions, and even push notifications for private environment changes, these updates are designed to improve collaboration, and flexibility. Let’s dive into what’s new and how these features can help you optimize your processes.

Let’s take a look at the newest update of SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model!

Modeling Settings: Customize RFA Template

In our previous What’s New blog post, we introduced the ability to create custom fields for Finance Accounts Payable, Finance Accounts Payable Items, Finance Accounts Receivable, and Finance Accounts Receivable Items.

Great news! We’ve now added two more RFA types:

Sales and Distribution
Purchase Order

This enhancement gives you even more flexibility to tailor your integration scenarios and align with your unique business requirements.

For more details, visit the Help Portal – Modeling Settings.

Environment Screen | Main

Push Notifications

An enhancement for SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: Extended Environment Access Level Functionality is now available in your tenants. Now when an administrator creates, edits, copies, and deletes a private environment, the users assigned to authorized teams will get an in-app and email notifications about these actions. See sample image below:

That’s a wrap for this quarter’s updates! With these new capabilities, SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model continues to evolve to meet your business needs.

Stay tuned for more innovations in the coming releases, and don’t forget to explore the detailed documentation in the SAP Help Portal for deeper insights.

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: What’s New as of 2025-11-03?

2025-11-03T16:06:22.688000+01:00

Greetings SAP Community! 👋

The SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model continues to evolve — and in this post, I’ll summarise the latest introduced features and improvements that further enhance efficiency, transparency, and agility in business modeling and performance analysis.

Model
Option Field Checks for Low and High Value Entries 

We’re making improvements to how the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM) application handles the validation of mandatory option values — specifically those marked as low or high. The goal is simple: make sure the system checks these values quickly and efficiently, so saving your objects takes as little time as possible. 

With this update, validation will now be applied across all modeling functions. This means that before any object is saved, the system will automatically verify that the option field is properly filled in. If any mandatory option field is empty, the system won’t allow you to save until it’s corrected. This ensures that your data stays accurate and consistent across models. 

Figure 1: Example of a function in which Option field is not filled out

Figure 2: Sample validation message

The enhanced validation process now covers a wide range of areas, including Allocations. Model Allocations, Calculations, Model Calculations, Collections, Model Collections, Conversions (currency and unit), Model Conversions (currency and unit), Derivations, Model Derivations, Views, Model Views, Writers, Layouts, Pages, Readers, Reports, and Transfer Structure rules. In short, anywhere these option selections exist, a validation is being done to make sure everything checks out before saving. 

It’s important to note that this update doesn’t change how the validation logic works — it just makes it more consistent across all functions.

Overall, this update makes the application smarter about how it handles mandatory option checks — keeping your data clean your saves faster, and your workflow smoother. 

Manage Activities
Select Reader Team When Adding a Comment

Overview 
A new feature has been implemented in which an Activity user can create a Comment and assign a Reader Team, this applies to creating a comment in Activity object page, comment panel in Activity Show Data, and Manage Comments. Teams within Runtime Environment and which the creator of the comment is part of, can be assigned to comment as Reader Team.  

This ensures that the comment is visible to relevant users such as the creator, assigned Reader Team of the comment, and user with SYSTEM_ALL role/Power user. However, only the creator and user with SYSTEM_ALL role/Power user can edit and delete the created comment. 

How does it work? 

Reviewer POV 
In this scenario, the Reviewer of data in Activity or Activity user wants to create a comment for a specific Team who can only read it. Upon creating a comment, the Reader Team field is displayed that is already pre-maintained with the default Reader Team that is maintained in the Activity. 

Upon choosing the value help of Reader Team field, available teams are displayed and can be chosen to which the Reviewer is part of and within Runtime Environment.  This behaviour applies as well when creating comments in Manage Comments. 

The Reviewer created the comments separately for Activity users that are part of Comment Reader 01 and Comment Writer 01 Team and Comment Reader 02 and Comment Writer 02 Team. 

Comment Reader 01 and Comment Writer 01 POV 
As an Activity user part of Comment Reader 01 and Comment Writer 01 Team, they can only see the comments assigned to their Team. This behaviour applies as well when checking in Manage Comments. 

Comment Reader 02 and Comment Writer 02 POV 
As an Activity user part of Comment Reader 02 and Comment Writer 02 Team, they can only see the comments assigned to their Team. This behaviour applies as well when checking in Manage Comments. 

Who can Edit or Delete created Comments?  
As an Activity user that is part of the Comment Reader and Writer Teams, they should not be able to edit and delete the comment which they are assigned to as they are the receiver of the comments. This behaviour applies as well when attempting to edit or delete the comment in Manage Comments. 

As the Reviewer/Creator of the comment and user with SYSTEM_ALL role, they can edit and delete the comment. This behaviour applies as well when attempting to edit or delete the comment in Manage Comments. 

For more information, see Application Help for Universal Model – Manage Activities

Reports
Enhanced Filtering Behaviour in Show Screen, Show Elements and Reports

We have improved how filters work in the Show Screen/Show Elements. Now, each field can be used in only one type of filter — either a Story Filter or a Page Filter. To use both filters, pick one field for the Story Filter and a different one for the Page Filter. This helps you narrow down the data you see. 

Also, in Reports, an asterisk (*) now appears on the Apply Filters button when you change any filters but haven’t applied them yet. This visual indicator reminds you that your changes are not saved. To apply them, choose Apply Filters. 

Email Notifications
Simplified User Email Retrieval for Notifications

This update enhances the mechanism for retrieving user email addresses, simplifying configuration and reducing dependency on additional services.  Previously, user email addresses were retrieved using the XSUAA-based mechanism, and the email destination had to be configured in SAP BTP. 

With this enhancement, user email addresses are now retrieved directly from the user data within the system, so additional XSUAA configuration or BTP mail destination setup is no longer required for new configurations.

Notes: 
Impact on Existing Setups 
For existing customers who have already configured notifications, no change or update is required.  All existing setups will continue to work as expected. 

For Customers with Specific Security or Compliance Requirements 
Certain customers may still prefer to maintain user email addresses manually for compliance purposes. 
Such users can continue to follow the standard configuration steps provided in the documentation below.

For more information, see Administration Guide for Universal Model – Email Notification Setup

Thanks for reading!

We hope you enjoy exploring the latest improvements in the SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model. Stay tuned for more “What’s New” updates — and check out the PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew tag for past posts.

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: Pushing and Pulling data to and from SAP Analytics Cloud

2025-11-19T09:50:14.421000+01:00

Welcome to another series mainly focusing on SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model (UM) and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) integration.

Some time back, I shared how to read and write data to SAC using the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model (SAP PaPM Cloud SM). Now, as we prepare a new “how-to” guide focused on the SAP PaPM Cloud UM integration with SAC, it’s time to set the stage with some key prerequisites.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the high-level steps for consuming data both to and from SAP Analytics Cloud using the SAP PaPM Cloud UM.

Let’s breakdown the topics into four scenarios:

Inbound means any data going in to SAP PaPM UM from SAC
Scenario 1. SAP PaPM UM pulling data from SAC through SAC Model Connections.

Outbound means any data going out of SAP PaPM UM to SAC
Scenario 2. SAP PAPM UM pushhin Data to SAC through SAC Model Connection

Scenario 3. SAC consuming data from SAP PaPM UM through Odata Connection (Z-Artifacts)

~~Scenario 4. SAC consuming data from SAP PaPM UM through HANA Live Connection~~
Note: Auto Generated Calculation Views is not available yet in Universal Model. There could be a way to do this in BYOD Plan with the use of Business Application Studio where you manually create CV's out of UM's Z Artifacts then share it with SAC.

Prerequisites:

You are subscribed to SAP PaPM Cloud where Universal Model is enabled see Subscription section.
SAC Model available for reading and writing purposes.
You are able to perform Modeling in Universal Model.
You are familiar with How SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) pulls data from SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud (SAP PaPM Cloud)

SCENARIO 1: SAP PAPM UM Consuming Data from SAC through SAC Model Connection

Following the help portal documentation on the inbound integration steps with SAC Model. let’s proceed:

a. Create BTP Destination. As guidance, refer to the steps we did from previously released blogpost.

Bear in mind that additional properties such as requestHeaders is not mandatory anymore.
In addition, SAC Oauth Client created in SAC Administration > App Integration should have both Data Import (Writing back to SAC) and Data Export (Reading from SAC) Service Access.

b. Prepare an UM Environment containing an explicit field serving as Default Key Field. It can be String or UUID type.

In addition, SAC Model containing sample data sets for data consumption purposes should be available.

c. Create SAC Model Connection. For more info of what each attribute means, see help portal documentation.

d. Once connection is created, go on Edit Mode and add the field to the Model you want to make use of. In this case, I’d like to only have FactData Model therefore I will unselect the other Models.

e. Choose Sync Model for the FactData to appear in the list of Functions as a Model Entity derived from SAC Model Connection. Create a Reader on top of Model Entity to buffer the data from the source SAC Model. Please note that in the reader function, you need to explicitly add the fields you want to have data of. Else, it will not be populated.

f. Activate the Environment, Run the Reader and verify data in Model Entity.

Success! Data can now be used for further processing in UM.

SCENARIO 2: SAP PAPM UM Writing Data to SAC through SAC Model Connection

Assuming that you have performed already some processing in UM e.g. Calculations, and you want to write data back to SAC Model. It should be possible by following the steps below:

a. If you need another SAC Model to write onto, you need to reperform SCENARIO 1 to create a Model Entity which will now serve as an output table. I named it differently, created from another connection, to distinguish it as Outbound (OB) FactData.

b. Perform additional processing of Initial FactData as needed. In this case, dummy calculations has been performed e.g. multiply dividend based on some factor.

c. Create a writer function and map the fields.
Note: You may use other writer types depending on your use case.

d. Once done, Activate the Environment, Run the Writer and verify data in SAC Model.

Data has now been written back to SAC Model.

SCENARIO 3: SAC consuming data from SAP PaPM UM through Odata Connection (Z-Artifacts)

Universal Model API’s are laid out already in the Business Accelerator Hub which everyone can make use of. In this scenario though, we will make use of Universal Model’s Z Artifacts using Activity API as starting point serving as a viable alternative option as data source for SAC.

The steps doesn’t differ much with how it was written in Odata Connection section of How SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) pulls data from SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud (SAP PaPM Cloud)

Notable adjustments are with:
a. UM relevant Authorities for API Access which is equivalent to the Application Roles. As a hint those with “.ace” are for UM and needs to be added as part of Service Instance Creation. Example JSON is already added which you can make use of. Security-wise, you may decide to include all or only specific roles here signifying what your service key credential user can only do.

b. Universal Model already offers Activity Data URL, see Data URL , which contains Odata Endpoint of the Model Entity function used within an Activity. This endpoint would contain then the path to which the data are stored as odata.

The above representation is important to know where the root of Data Service URL endpoint for Universal Model comes from.
In the end, your to be Data Service URL would be:

https://<url from your service keys>/ace/ext

Once Odata Connection is setup, Dataset from a datasource can now be checked where you will find the UM’s Z-Artifact relevant equivalent data.

That's about it. Hope you gained some more knowledge today on the basic integration setup of SAP PaPM UM with SAP Analytics Cloud. Try it out, tweak it and make it your own. Best of luck!

SAP PAPM - the role of business calculation engine in a business steering

2025-11-20T14:53:13.329000+01:00

Picture 1. End-to-end profitability and performance management

MOTIVATION

In today's fast-paced business world, the ability to effectively steer and lead an organization is fundamental for achieving strategic goals and maintaining a competitive edge. A key success criterion is the capacity to fully harness and derive value from organizational data. Many companies struggle with data problems, such as fragmented information, outdated systems, and the super important task of preparing data for emerging technologies like AI. Recognizing these challenges, we are excited to introduce a blog series dedicated to showcasing the substantial business value of SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) in the context of planning and analytics.

The motivation behind this initiative is to provide a comprehensive exploration of how SAP BDC capabilities as essential instruments, facilitating robust strategic alignment and guiding effective decision-making processes across diverse organizational requirements. We aim to illustrate how SAP BDC, equipped with powerful data management, planning, analytics and innovative AI capabilities, empowers organizations with enhanced business steering agility by providing real-time insights, streamlined data management, and automated decision support – going from insights to action, helps mainly leaders guide their businesses with precision.

Our blog series will provide valuable insights for decision-makers seeking to harness SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) to enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation, and achieve long-term objectives. By featuring detailed planning & analytics topics, the series will illustrate the transformative impact of SAP BDC in addressing the operational complexities of today’s business environment. This first introductory blog post will spotlight the strategic advantages of SAP BDC, particularly in the context of Business Steering, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of its benefits throughout the blog series.

There are several blog posts in the series that will cover advantages of SAP BDC in the context of business steering, so please stay tuned for the upcoming blogs:

The Value of SAP BDC in the context of business steering
Planning & Analytics is an essential part of SAP BDC
Key Planning & Analytics components of SAP BDC
Is AI going to “retire” a dashboard?
Simulations, a game changer in today’s volatile world
Extend existing planning scenarios of SAP BPC/BW-IP in SAP BDC
Real-time steering with LIVE planning
SAP PaPM - The role of business calculation engine in business steering (THIS BLOG POST)
Self – service analytics and real time business steering
Business steering powered by AI agents
Leverage data products in the context of planning & forecasting
Introducing AI/ML capabilities by SAP Databricks

INTRODUCTION

In today’s fast-paced business environment, enterprises must be flexible and adaptable to evolving market conditions and customer expectations. As a result, companies are developing strategies focused on innovation, digital transformation, and sustainable growth. However, when it comes to execution, the benefits of these strategic initiatives often fall short of expectations.

Why the Gap?

Several factors contribute to the disconnect between strategy and execution:

Insufficient analysis and adaptation to business changes, making strategies difficult to execute in real-world conditions.
Weak integration between financial and operational models, leading to misaligned decisions.
Lack of trust in the numbers due to data silos and overly complex reporting models.
Poor visibility into root causes of performance, whether underperformance or overachievement.

This is where the concept of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) becomes critical. EPM serves as the bridge between strategic goals and day-to-day execution. SAP offers a comprehensive, end-to-end EPM framework that spans planning, consolidation, tax, and sustainability management.

Despite advancements, organizations still face hurdles in their EPM processes, that are highly connected to the reasons for the gap between strategy and execution:

New regulations and market dynamics
Data silos and disconnected processes
Limited business context in performance reporting

To address these, companies increasingly need a business semantics calculation engine as an important part of their EPM framework —a solution that connects transactional and planning data to management reporting in real time. Such an engine should enable:

Business-user-driven modeling through a no-code/low-code environment
Integration of business semantics (e.g., cost allocations, profitability logic) into real-time calculations, powered by solutions like SAP Business Data Cloud
Simulation and scenario analysis without IT dependency

Let’s explore how a business semantics calculation engine can bring value across different scenarios not only for actuals, but also for planning data:

Regulatory reporting: Ensure compliance with traceable, rule-based calculations.
Profitability analysis: Evaluate performance by customer segment, region, channel, or product line.
Bill of Materials (BOM) simulation and explosion: Assess the impact of changing prices or quantities on semi-finished and final products.
Operational transfer pricing: Maintain compliance and transparency in cross-border pricing models.
Group cost calculations: Enable unified and transparent cost modeling across entities.

For instance, in a BOM simulation, users can assess how price or quantity changes at the component level affect the cost of the final product. This often involves recursive, high-volume calculations. By using SAP S/4HANA for transactional data, enriching it with SAP Profitability and Performance Management (SAP PaPM), and feeding the results into SAP Analytics Cloud, businesses can maintain full transparency, auditability, and planning granularity.

Another example: planned profitability calculations at the SKU level. While this level of detail may be unnecessary in the core budgeting process, it's critical for management reporting. Rather than overburdening the core planning system, businesses can offload these complex calculations to a dedicated engine and integrate the results seamlessly.

Last but not the least example to illustrate the need in business calculation engine is a group costing calculation. Let's say the company has many intercompany relationships, products and services are going through various steps between companies in this process. SAP PAPM delivers real-time insights into group margin, through segmented profit and loss reports according to key transfer pricing dimensions, providing needed data to manage and analyze tax costs and revenues, markups and markup costs, production and services costs and third-party revenues.

Benefits of Embedding a Calculation Engine into the Planning Process

Automate complex allocations and business logic
Ensure full transparency and auditability
Enable granular planning and analysis—by customer, product, channel, etc.
Increase compliance by following new regulations

From the business user’s perspective, this process should be seamless. As a planner, you simply run the calculation and see results immediately integrated into your planning reports. This is precisely the kind of user-centric experience enabled by the SAP EPM framework—combining SAP S/4HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Profitability and Performance Management (SAP PaPM).

Picture 2. Detailed Profitability analysis powered by SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP PAPM

WHAT IS SAP PAPM?

SAP PaPM Cloud is a no-code calculation engine that empowers business users to model and execute complex logic without IT intervention. It processes large data volumes at high speed and supports a wide range of EPM scenarios.

Key capabilities include:

Extending standardized processes in SAP S/4HANA with custom logic and allocations
Enabling business users to model complex rules without coding
Processing massive data sets in-memory via SAP HANA
Integrating data from SAP and non-SAP sources, hosted on SAP Business Data Cloud
Creating financial documents, postings to general or group ledger, and more in SAP S/4HANA enabling an end-to-end process, and not just running as a disconnected calculation engine
Ensuring full traceability from results to source data

Picture 3. SAP Profitability and Performance Management

SAP PAPM and SAP BUSINESS DATA CLOUD

SAP PAPM can on top of BDC, in this case data persistency and processing happens on the SAP Datasphere level in SAP BDC. With SAP BDC Data products we can ensure context-rich data from SAP and non- SAP sources being available for PAPM calculations, building a foundation for detailed transparent analysis and also providing even more data for AI-powered insights. Another benefit of placing SAP PAPM on top of SAP BDC is that with SAC being also part of the platform, we can really ensure end-to-end EPM processes without data replication, leveraging seamless planning and when needed extending calculations with SAP PAPM engine to achieve even greater transparency and performance. Ream more about BDC components in our previous blog "Key Planning & Analytics components of SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC)"

Picture 4. SAP Business Data Cloud components

Let’s take a look at the data flow for a corporate profitability analysis within an SAP landscape.
The initial data originates in the transactional system or system of record, SAP S/4HANA. While S/4HANA already provides capabilities for cost calculation and allocation, we can further enrich this data with performance results and details—such as customer segment, region, channel, or product line—and incorporate simulations.

To achieve this, we introduce an additional BDC-based layer that leverages BDC data products and SAP Datasphere to connect to S/4HANA, as well as other potential data sources and prepare the data. SAP PaPM then performs the calculations, and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) visualizes the results and provides a planning-process framework for end users.

Picture 5. Corporate profitability analysis with SAP solutions

Conclusion

A business semantics calculation engine is a powerful tool in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of EPM processes. Whether it’s for tax, transfer pricing, profitability modelling, or planning enhancements, SAP Profitability and Performance Management plays an important role in bridging the gap between transactional data and reporting requirements.

By embedding SAP PaPM within your EPM architecture, you can equip business users to act even faster, have greater insights, and align execution more closely with strategic intent. SAP Business Data cloud will provide a proven semantically reach data foundation and AI tools to simplify analysis, we will be giving more detailed examples in our next articles.

Looking to take the next step? Connect with your SAP representative to register for an SAP BDC Discovery Workshop.
To expand your expertise in SAP PaPM, consider exploring the related blog series published within the SAP Community and stay tuned for more.

Integration & Exception Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM for SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model

2025-11-28T14:36:02.343000+01:00

Hi Everyone!

I want to give a heads-up that this SAP Community blogpost will be a long read, since we will walk through every step of Integration and Exception Monitoring in SAP PaPM Cloud (Standard Model) and some extra tips on the configuration. Stick with it, and you’ll come away with a complete end-to-end understanding. 😊

This guide focuses on the SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model. Even in this model, you can already leverage Integration and Exception Monitoring capabilities provided by SAP Cloud ALM. These tools allow you to:

Track the health of your database connectivity and integration
Detect and analyze exceptions in real time.
Gain transparency into system behavior without disrupting business operations.

By combining SAP PaPM Cloud with SAP Cloud ALM’s monitoring framework, you can establish a proactive approach to identifying issues early and ensuring smooth data flows.

Follow each step carefully and in sequence to ensure your monitoring setup works exactly as intended and gives you the confidence that your SAP PaPM Cloud environment is being tracked reliably.

Alright, let’s dive in!

Step 1: Subscribe to SAP Cloud ALM

This is the foundational step of the Integration & Exception Monitoring setup. Think of SAP Cloud ALM as your control tower for the monitoring service.

Follow below procedure to subscribe and have access to SAP Cloud ALM:

Provision SAP Cloud ALM following the procedure in Requesting SAP Cloud ALM.
Perform required configuration activities in Required Setup for SAP Cloud ALM.

After completing the activities, including assignment of the appropriate role, you’ll have full access to the SAP Cloud ALM.

Step 2: Create Service in SAP Cloud ALM

In this step, you will now register your SAP PaPM Cloud in the Landscape Management of SAP Cloud ALM.

Prerequisite: Before proceeding with the next step, make sure you have the write access to the Landscape Management application of the SAP Cloud ALM. For the details on the roles and authorization, see Landscape Management | Roles and Authorization

Once the prerequisite is completed, you may now proceed with below procedure:

In your SAP Cloud ALM, go to the Operations tab > Management and Automation. Then, select Landscape Management

The Landscape Management application will open in a new screen. In the Landscape Management, select Services & Systems in the left-hand navigation. Then, select Add > New Service

The next step is to register your SAP PaPM Cloud application in SAP Cloud ALM by providing the information below. Once all information is provided, click the Save button.

FIELD	VALUE
Name	Enter the name for the new service
Description	Optional field
System Number	Enter the system number that’s available in SAP for Me. It's a unique identifier or alias for the tenant and is based on the tenant name
Service Type	Important: Make sure to select SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud
Role	Select the Role of your SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud
Root URL	Enter the domain URL of your SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud
Logon URL	Enter the domain URL of your SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud
Deployment Model	SAP Public Cloud

After clicking Save, your newly registered SAP PaPM Cloud service will appear in the list, showing the status as New. Select the newly registered solution to check the Details and Supported Use Cases for your application.

On the next screen, you will see details of your newly registered service as well as supported use cases for your solution.

Additional Information:

Please take note of the Service ID. You will need this information in the next step when we create a destination to SAP Cloud ALM.
To set the service to Active status, you must enable and configure the use cases which we will cover in the next steps.

Step 3: Create Service Instance and Service Key for SAP Cloud ALM

In this step, you will need to set up a secure account (client ID) and password (Client Secret) so that other SAP applications like SAP PaPM Cloud can securely connect to the SAP Cloud ALM. You will need to perform this step in SAP Cloud ALM.

Create an API service instance and service key for SAP Cloud ALM in the SAP BTP Cockpit as described in Retrieving Service Credentials.
Add required authorization scopes as described in Managing Scopes.

Hint: Download and save the service key file. You’ll need the details in Step 4 – creation of Destination to SAP Cloud ALM

Step 4: Create Destination to SAP Cloud ALM

In this step, you will now connect SAP PaPM Cloud to the SAP Cloud ALM by creating a “Destination”. Follow the procedure below to complete this step:

Remember the Service Key you downloaded in Step 3? Take note of the details below as you will need them when setting up the Destination.

Login to your SAP PaPM Cloud subaccount and from the left-hand navigation, go to Connectivity and select Destination. Click Create to add a new Destination. In the pop-up window, choose From Scratch and then click Create.

In the Main Properties section, maintain the following parameters:

FIELD	VALUE
Name	Enter “PaPM_CloudALM” (default destination name) or assign a unique destination name. Note: This will be used later in the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model Setting (Step 6). If you choose a different name, other than PaPM_CloudALM, you need to check and ensure it is also configured in the Settings application., see Configure SAP Cloud ALM Destination in Settings.
Type	HTTP
Description	Optional – enter any description for the destination
Proxy Type	Internet
URL	<CloudAlmServiceKey.endpoints.Api>
Authentication	OAuth2ClientCredentials
Client ID:	<CloudAlmServiceKey.uaa.clientid>
Use mTLS for token retrieval	Leave this unmarked
Client Secret	<CloudAlmServiceKey.uaa.clientsecret>
Token Service URL	<CloudAlmServiceKey.uaa.url>/oauth/token
Token Service URL Type	Dedicated
Use Basic credentials for token service	Leave this unmarked
Client Trust Store Configuration	Use default, keep this marked

In the Additional Properties section, click Add Property, then add the property below. Then, choose Create to save your changes.

FIELD	VALUE
papm-service-id	Enter the Service ID of the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud service in SAP Cloud ALM.

Note: Information in the papm-service-id must be accurate, as only then will exceptions be properly received by SAP Cloud ALM.

Step 5: Configure Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM

In this step, we will now configure Integration & Exception Monitoring of your SAP PaPM Cloud in SAP Cloud ALM. See Activate Data Collection for a Service or System for more details.

Follow the procedure below to add the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud service.

In the Home Screen of your SAP Cloud ALM, go to the Operations tab then select Integration & Exception Monitoring. The application will then open in a new window.

In the Integration & Exception monitoring screen: (a) select Scope to begin selection of the SAP PaPM Cloud application; (b) Under the Managed Components, select Services from the drop-down list; (c) In Service Status, select all services in the SAP Cloud ALM; (d) choose the solution you want to configure the Integration and Exception Monitoring; and (e) click Apply to enter your selection.

Tip: Click the Refresh button in SAP Cloud ALM and set the interval to 15 seconds. This will keep your screen view updated.

Select the application you want to configure by clicking the Action button, then select Edit Configuration

You will need to enable the Events first, then the Monitoring, to initiate the monitoring configuration. To do this, select the Service Name under the Services/System.

Select the Events tab, then click Add button.

Use the default settings in the Event Settings section. In the Event Actions section, select the action on how you will be notified in case an alert occurs. You can enable Create Alert to receive event alerts in the Alerting page of the Integration and Exception Monitoring.

Additionally, you can enable Send Email To event action to send emails to notify recipient about the event alert. To use the Send Email To event action, you will need to configure SAP Cloud ALM’s Notification Management, see Notification Management: Maintaining Recipients . Click the Save button save your configuration.

In the Events screen, you should now see the Event Name “Erroneous database-connectivity”. Also, ensure that the Active status is set to On. Click the Save button to save changes. You can confirm that the changes were applied by checking that the Last Changed By and Last Changed At fields have been updated. We have now completed the Events configuration.

The next step is to enable the Monitoring, go to the Monitoring tab, switch the database-connectivity category to Active (On), and click Save. To confirm the changes, check that the Last Changed By and Last Changed At fields have been updated.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON COLLECTION ACTIVATION:

Do not attempt to enable Data Collection at this stage unless an exception has already been received for the tenant. The collection process will otherwise fail, as this is not yet officially supported. At present, validation of the Integration and Exception Monitoring setup requires the occurrence of a real exception. This may limit the ability to confirm the configuration immediately after setup.

Looking Ahead: We are investigating possible improvements to simplify post‑configuration validation. One potential approach is to enable sending a test exception to SAP Cloud ALM after changes to destination settings. This approach is still under evaluation and not part of the current feature set.

The last step in this configuration is to enable the Data Collection. Navigate to the Services/Systems, then switch Data Collection to On, and click Save to confirm the changes. Once saved, select Close to finish the configuration.

To confirm the setup is complete, return to the Configuration of your SAP PaPM Cloud service, then you should see database-connectivity configuration category is listed with Data Collection switched On. Additionally, the Last Change By and Last Changed At should show the latest update.

Helpful Notes:

In the SAP Cloud ALM Landscape Management, the service added should now display a status of Active. In the Supported Use Cases, Configuration Status for Exception Monitoring, Alert Management and Notification Management (if configured) is set to Active as well.

For BYOD subscription, you can also configure additional monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM for your SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Datasphere. For more details, refer to SAP Cloud ALM: Supported Solutions

Step 6: Configure SAP Cloud ALM Destination in Settings

The final step is to add the destination name in the Settings application of SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model.

In the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model, open the Settings application. There, add the required destination name and configure the integration options. You may also include the SAP Cloud ALM URL if needed. You may refer to the Settings for more details.

Note: You can skip this step if you use the default destination name (PaPM_CloudALM) in Step #4.

Setup is complete. What comes next?

After completion of the setup, your solution should appear on the Integration & Exception Monitoring page. By selecting Exceptions from the left-hand navigation, you will be able to view the corresponding exception details for your service.

Question:

Why does the database-connectivity category not reflect the alerts observed in the Database Explorer following setup?

Answer:

In the Configuration, the database-connectivity category for monitoring is set to Push as its data collection mode. This means that the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud service is responsible in sending its monitoring data directly to SAP Cloud ALM.

How can I validate that the Integration and Exception Monitoring for SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud service is working in SAP Cloud ALM?

To confirm that Integration and Exception Monitoring is functioning correctly, you can validate the setup by observing a database connectivity error or intentionally simulating an error in the SAP PaPM Cloud. For instance, this can be achieved by stopping the DPAgent or introducing an authorization issue in the database schema. Once the error occurs, the system will forward the monitoring data to SAP Cloud ALM, where you can navigate to Exceptions to review the error details.ALM.

Additional Note: If you enable the Send Email To and the Notification Management is configured properly, you will be able to receive an email if an alert is triggered.

If you’ve made it this far – CONGRATULATIONS! Now is the perfect time to put everything into action and see firsthand how Integration and Exception Monitoring can strengthen your SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud. 😊

SAP PaPM (On Premise) Integration with SAC using Multi Action

2025-11-28T15:01:06.435000+01:00

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, organizations need agile and intelligent solutions that enable them to derive actionable insights from complex financial and operational data. SAP Profitability and Performance Management (PaPM) 3.0 has long served as a powerful modeling and calculation engine, capable of handling vast volumes of data and delivering detailed performance insights.

With the increasing demand for automation and real-time decision-making, integrating SAP PaPM On-Premise with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) Multi Actions opens up new possibilities. This integration empowers users to not only visualize data but also trigger processes directly from SAC stories — enabling a seamless loop from insight to action.

In this blog post, we’ll walk through how you can connect SAP PaPM On-Premise to SAC using PaPM API, and demonstrate how to leverage SAC Multi Actions to initiate PaPM processes — enhancing collaboration between planning, simulation, and execution. As a specific use case, this post aims to showcase that users can create and edit a Process Template in PaPM On-Premise directly through SAC Multi Actions, enabling end-to-end process control from within SAC.

Publish OData Services

To integrate the processing service, you need to publish the service group following the steps below:

1. Execute transaction /IWBEP/V4_ADMIN.
a. On the SAP Backend Service Administration screen, choose Register Group in the header menu.
b. In the Register Service Group window, add /NXI/P1_N to Service Group.
c. Add NXI Service Group for OData V4 to Description.
d. Add /NXI/P1_FW to Package and then, choose OK.

e. Generate a Workbench request.

2. On the SAP Backend Service Administration screen, choose Register Service in the header menu.
a. In the Register Service window, add /NXI/P1_CONN_OVRS to Service ID.
b. Add /NXI/CL_P1_CONN_OVRS_MP to Model Provider Class.
c. Add /NXI/CL_P1_CONN_OVRS_DP to Data Provider Class.
d. Add OData V4 Service for Overrules Connections to Description.
e. Add /NXI/P1_FW to Package and then, choose OK.

f. Generate a Workbench request.

3. On the SAP Backend Service Administration screen, choose Register Service in the header menu.
a. In the Register Service window, add /NXI/P1_SYS_USER_DATA to Service ID.
b. Add /NXI/CL_P1_SYS_USER_DATA_MP to Model Provider Class.
c. Add /NXI/CL_P1_SYS_USER_DATA_DP to Data Provider Class.
d. Add User Data to Description.
e. Add /NXI/P1_FW to Package and then, choose OK.

f. Generate a Workbench request.

4. On the SAP Backend Service Administration screen, choose Register Service in the header menu.
a. In the Register Service window, add /NXI/P1_VH_TEAMS to Service ID.
b. Add /NXI/CL_P1_VH_TEAMS_MP to Model Provider Class.
c. Add /NXI/CL_P1_VH_TEAMS_DP to Data Provider Class.
d. Add Value Help for Teams to Description.
e. Add /NXI/P1_FW to Package and then, choose OK.

f. Generate a Workbench request.

5. Publish the /NXI/P1_N service group. To do this, perform the following steps:
a. Execute transaction /IWFND/V4_ADMIN.
b. On the SAP Gateway Service Administration screen, choose Publish Service Groups in the header menu.
c. In the SAP Gateway Service Publishing window, set the System Alias field to LOCAL.
d. Choose Get Service Groups in the header menu.

e. The system lists all unpublished service groups. Select the /NXI/P1_N service group.
f. Choose Publish Service Groups in the toolbar and then, choose OK.
g. Generate a Customizing request.
h. Go back to the SAP Gateway Service Administration screen. In the Available Services section, you can now see the /NXI/P1_N service group.

6. Publish the /NXI/P1_SERVICES service group. To do this, perform the following steps:
a. Execute transaction /IWFND/V4_ADMIN.
b. On the SAP Gateway Service Administration screen, choose Publish Service Groups in the header menu.
c. In the SAP Gateway Service Publishing window, set the System Alias field to LOCAL.
d. Choose Get Service Groups in the header menu.

e. The system lists all unpublished service groups. Select the /NXI/P1_SERVICES service group.
f. Choose Publish Service Groups in the toolbar and then, choose OK.
g. Generate a Customizing request.
h. Go back to the SAP Gateway Service Administration screen. In the Available Services section, you can now see the /NXI/P1_SERVICES service group.

7. Check whether the Processing API service is on version two, “0002”. To do this, execute transaction /IWFND/V4_ADMIN, choose /NXI/P1_SERVICES, and then choose version “0002” of /NXI/P1_PROCESSING, which should be available for your selection. If version “0002” is not available and the API service is still on version “0001”, perform the following steps to create version “0002”:

a. Execute transaction SE38 and run the program /IWBEP/R_V4_ADMIN_SERVICES.
b. Select the /NXI/P1_SERVICES service group from the tree on the left-hand side of the screen.
c. Choose Service Implementation.
d. Choose Register Service.
e. Add /NXI/P1_PROCESSING to Service ID.
f. Add “0002” as the service version.
g. Add /NXI/CL_P1_PROCESSING_MP to Model Provider Class.
h. Add /NXI/CL_P1_PROCESSING_DP to Data Provider Class.
i. Add OData V4 Processing Service to Description.
j. Add /NXI/P1_FW to Package.

k. Choose OK
l. Generate a Workbench request.

After creating version “0002” of the Processing API service, you can either choose to delete version “0001” or keep it as it is.

Mapping PaPM On-Premise in SAP Cloud Connector

As a prerequisite, ensure that the SAP Cloud Connector is properly installed and connected to your SAP BTP subaccount. Once the Cloud Connector is installed and connected to your SAP BTP subaccount, the next step is to map you SAP PaPM On Premise so that SAC can securely consume its services. This mapping ensures that SAC requests are correctly routed to the backend system.

1. Log in to Cloud Connector
a. Open the Cloud Connector Admin UI in your browser.
b. Log in with your administrator credentials.
c. Confirm that your BTP subaccount is already configured and shows as Connected.

2. Add the PaPM On-Premise System
a. Navigate to Cloud To On-Premise in the left panel.
b. Click + Add System Mapping.

c. Choose ABAP System as the backend type (PaPM runs on NetWeaver ABAP).
d. Fill in:

Internal Host -> The on-premise PaPM application server host
Internal Port -> Usually 44300 or 443 if HTTPS is enabled
Protocol -> HTTPS (recommended)

3. Configure Virtual Host and Port
a. Define a Virtual Host and Virtual Port.
b. SAC will use this virtual address when making calls.
c. Example:

Virtual Host: papm-onpremise
Virtual Port: 443

4. Maintain Resources
a. After system mapping, click + Add Resources of the System.
b. Add the relevant paths for PaPM services

5. Check Status
a. Once saved, Cloud Connector should show the new system as Reachable.
b. Test the mapping by expanding the entry and confirming the green status icon.

Note: The Cloud Connector mapping ensures SAC never directly accesses your internal network. Instead, SAC communicates with the virtual host, and the Cloud Connector securely forwards requests to your on-premise PaPM system.

Creating a PaPM API Connection in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC)

After mapping your PaPM On-Premise system in the Cloud Connector, the next step is to establish the connection in SAC. Using the PaPM API connection type ensures SAC can directly trigger processes and exchange data with your on-premise environment.

1. Navigate to SAC Connections
a. In SAC, go to the Main Menu -> Connections.
b. Click + Add Connection.

2. Select the Connection type
a. Under SAP PaPM, choose PaPM API.

b. This option is purpose-built for PaPM integrations (use this instead of a generic HTTP API).

3. Provide Connection Details

Connection Name: Enter a meaningful name (e.g., PaPM_OnPremise_API).
Description: Optional but recommended for clarity.
Data Service URL: Enter the Virtual Host defined in the Cloud Connector (e.g., papm-onpremise) and the Virtual Port defined (e.g., 443). Include the link from /NXI/P1_PROCESSING service
(e.g. https://internal-backend:443/sap/opu/odata4/nxi/p1_services/default/nxi/p1_processing/0002/ )

4. Authentication Settings

Authentication Method: Select Basic Authentication.
Username / Password: Enter the technical user created in PaPM backend for SAC integration.

Note: Ensure that the technical user has the required roles and authorizations in SAP PaPM to enable API access. For detailed information on the specific roles and permissions, refer to the official PaPM authorization documentation.

Note: To enable the checkbox “Connect to an On-Premise PaPM service”, you must follow the steps below:

Go to Main Menu -> Administration
Click Data Source Configuration

In On-Premise Data Sources, click + Add a new location
In the new pop up window, leave everything blank and Enable Agent Off.

Click Create

6. Save the Connection
a. Click OK to Save the configuration.
b. The new PaPM API connection is now ready for use in Multi Actions.

Using the PaPM Integration Step in SAC Multi Actions

Once your PaPM connection is established in SAC, you can start integrating PaPM processes into SAC workflows. The primary way to do this is through Multi Actions.

1. Create a Multi Action in SAC
a. Go to Main Menu → Multi Actions.
b. Click + New Multi Action.

c. Give it a clear name (e.g., SAC and PaPM Integration (API)).

You can also view this link for further information.

2. Add a PaPM Integration Step
a. Inside the Multi Action, click + Add Step.
b. Choose PaPM Integration Step.

c. Select the connection you just created (PaPM_OnPremise).
a. From the dropdown, select the PaPM Process Template or Function you want SAC to trigger.
b. Common use cases: allocations, calculations, rule execution.
c. Optionally define input parameters (if your PaPM function expects runtime variables like period, version, etc.).

Tip: When the new process is enabled, it will generate a new process and activity in PaPM according to the configured Parameters and Selections. If the Existing Process was chosen as action, it will only use the existing process during the process execution.

New Process

Existing Process

4. Test & Validate
a. Save the Multi Action

5. Embed Multi Action in Stories
a. Open an SAC story.
b. Add a Multi Action Trigger button (from the toolbar).
c. Link it to your Multi Action (Trigger_PaPM_Allocations).
d. Now business users can execute PaPM processes directly from SAC, without leaving their planning or reporting environment.

Why This Matters

By completing this step, you’ve enabled end-to-end integration:

SAC users can trigger PaPM allocations, simulations, or calculations in real time.
Results can be fed back into SAC for reporting, dashboards, or planning cycles.
No manual jumping between systems — it’s all connected.

Conclusion

With the integration between SAP PaPM On-Premise and SAP Analytics Cloud, you’ve connected powerful profitability and performance management capabilities directly into your planning and reporting workflows.

The Cloud Connector provides secure connectivity.
The PaPM API connection in SAC enables seamless process triggering.
Multi Actions bring automation, letting business users run allocations and calculations on demand.
Finally, by consuming PaPM results inside SAC models and stories, you close the loop between planning, simulation, and analysis.

This setup not only streamlines processes but also empowers users to act on insights in real time, without leaving SAC. By unifying calculation, planning, and reporting, organizations can achieve faster decisions, stronger governance, and greater flexibility.

With the foundation in place, you can now explore advanced topics such as parameterized triggers, scheduling with the SAC Calendar, or extending scenarios with custom APIs and add-ons.

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: What’s New as of 2025-12-01?

2025-12-01T06:00:00.032000+01:00

Greetings, SAP Community!

The SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud (SAP PaPM Cloud) Universal Model continues to advance, and in this blogpost, I will outline the latest features and enhancements designed to further improve efficiency, transparency, and agility in business modeling and performance analysis.

Model

Manage Transfer Structure new type Reverse Transfer Structure

Transfer Structure is a Function that helps reshaping or enriching your data based on the rules you set up. Think of each rule as a simple “if this happens, then do that” instruction. The “if” part tells SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model when a rule should apply—basically which rows to look at. The “then” part tells SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model what to change in those rows, like filling in certain fields or replacing values. If the data doesn’t meet the conditions in your rule, SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model just leaves it alone and passes it through untouched. 

The Transfer Structure function now has two (2) Types.  

With the new Reverse Transfer Structure type, it takes data that is spread across multiple columns and transforms it into rows. This is often called “unpivoting” the data. It’s helpful when you need to turn wide tables into a long, tidy format that’s easier to analyze or use in calculations. 

For more information, please refer to Application Help for Universal Model Transfer Structure > Reverse Transfer Structure 

Data Screen Improvements: Global Renaming and Visibility Control

Previously, a feature in the Data screen was introduced wherein you can rename the field description. When you changed a field name, it changed only in Data screen specific layout where the renaming of field was done. Now with the “Store Globally in Environment” option enabled, any field change which includes renaming, is automatically applied across all layouts within the same environment. 

If a field in the Data Screen is renamed with the “Store Globally in Environment” option checked in the Edit Column dialog (opened by choosing Edit (pencil) icon), the new name is applied globally in all layouts of the environment. Renaming of such fields will also be applied globally, and the following message will be displayed: “Field was renamed globally. Next renaming also will be applied globally.”.

Apart from the field renaming enhancements in Data Screen, another enhancement has been done in Data screen wherein if the Field has the Control Type Hidden in the function configuration (Model Entity), the field will not be displayed in any Data screen layouts (Standard and Customized). It will no longer available in the Columns panel or Reports Show Elements and will also be excluded from exports. It will ensure consistent behavior and alignment with hidden field logic across all layouts.

For more information, please refer to Application Help for Universal Model Data Screen

Process

Transport Support for Manage Data Locks, Manage Data Privilege and Manage Layouts

A new feature has been implemented in which Data Privileges, Data Locks, and Layouts created for AddOn environment are now transportable wherein these will be included upon environment export when marked for transport, even if they refer to a function owned by a protected environment. Once exported, they can be moved to the target tenant through environment import. This also applies to regular/unprotected environments as well.

Important points to note:

During environment export, Data Privileges, Data Locks, and Layouts will be excluded if it refers to a function or activity function (e.g. activity within runtime environment but assigned activity function from another runtime environment) from a different environment. There will be a warning message that will be prompted upon export action and logged in Event Logs.

During environment import, Data Privileges, Data Locks, and Layouts with inconsistent values (e.g. referring to a non-existing function or activity) will prompt an error message that a function or activity is missing in the target tenant.

During AddOn environment import, the existence of the external function will be validated. If the function is not found in the target tenant, it will be removed from the corresponding Data Locks and Data Privileges.

How does it work?

For the following scenario, Tenant 01 will be the source tenant and Tenant 02 will be the target tenant.

Source Tenant 01 - New field “Transport Data Privilege” checkbox is displayed in Data Privilege object page which can be marked as enabled and unmarked as disabled. This applies to Data Locks as well.

Source Tenant 01 - Upon save of Data Privilege, it will show as “Yes” when Transport Data Privilege checkbox is marked while it will show as “-“ when unmarked. This applies to Data Locks as well.

When enabled, transportable Data Privileges and Data Locks will be included in the exported environment container.

Target Tenant 02 - Upon environment import and activation, the transportable Data Privilege and Data Locks has been moved to the target tenant.

For more information, please refer to Application Help for Universal Model Manage Layouts, Manage Data Privileges, and Manage Data Locks

Manage Process and Manage Activities: Updating Activity Run Status after Process reset

A new behavior has been implemented that the Run Status will be reset together with State of a dependent Activity. Run Status will change from its initial value after execution (which can be “OK”, “Warning”, or “Error”) to its default value “No Run” upon Process reset.  

The State of a dependent Activity will still have the same behavior wherein its initial value (which can be “Active”, “Confirmed”, or “Rejected”) will be changed to its default value “Inactive” once Process is reset. This behavior applies as well to Process and Activity elements in Report Screen. 

The purpose of this change is to avoid misleading information when determining an Activity whether the task is completed or not.  

Activity after Run is performed 

Process resetting 

Activity after Process reset is performed 

For more information, please refer to Application Help for Universal Model Manage Processes - Reset 

Thank you for taking the time to read this update.

We invite you to explore the newest enhancements in the SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model, and we encourage you to follow our ongoing “What’s New” series. For previous updates, feel free to browse the PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew tag.

Contribution Margin Forecast with SAP Business Data Cloud

2025-12-10T12:07:09.187000+01:00

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

This blog demonstrates how SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) can be used to implement a contribution margin forecast, which serves companies as a substantial controlling tool to steer financial results in the short- and medium-term. Combining SAC Planning with Datasphere (“Seamless Planning”) allows for (near) real-time usage of actual data from SAP BW to extrapolate the variable cost component of the contribution margin, while SAC Planning is used to forecast the revenue component and report on the resulting KPIs. The combination of the actual and planning data happens without the need for redundant data replication. Furthermore, this blog will briefly touch on how BDC can be leveraged to enhance this use case through a comprehensive path for BW modernization, the re-use of SAP-managed data products, and the application of advanced machine learning methods for forecasting.

RECAP

Before continue reading it is recommended to familiarize with the following preceding blog posts to properly understand the fundamentals:

The Value of SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) in The Context of Business Steering puts this blog post into perspective of a comprehensive blog series that aims to demonstrate the business value add of SAP BDC.
Real-time steering with LIVE planning uncovers the "Seamless Planning" paradigm (which is the key enabler for below-described use case) and illustrates a practical end-to-end use case that leverages External Live Versions, our latest innovation in context of Seamless Planning.

MOTIVATION AND USE CASE

The motivation of this blog is to demonstrate a tangible implementation example for how BDC can be leveraged to enable effective and efficient business steering. The demonstrated use case is a contribution margin forecast which estimates future revenues and variable costs, calculating expected contribution margins over time. The contribution margin is particularly relevant for financial steering because fixed costs are, by definition, largely unchangeable in the short- and medium-term. Therefore, if a company aspires to impact financial results, management’s primary focus and opportunity for action resides in maximizing the contribution margin. In essence, the contribution margin is calculated by subtracting variable costs from revenues, with the remainder – that is, the contribution margin – available to cover fixed costs. The levers that management can actively influence on a regular basis are:

Picture 1: Calculation schema for Contribution Margin

Such a contribution margin forecast can be implemented in an innovative fashion leveraging the Seamless Planning capability within BDC as explained in the following paragraph.

IMPLEMENTATION

Considering the above-described contribution margin levers, we are using the following BDC components for the corresponding implementation.

A SAC Story on top of a SAC Planning model is used to enter sales volume forecast and pricing assumptions (1). Upon publishing (2) the forecasted values (volumes, prices) are directly persisted within Datasphere (“Seamless Planning”).

Picture 2: SAC frontend for revenue forecastDatasphere is used to acquire and model total actual variable costs and sales volumes based on SAP BW in our example (3) (or any other compatible and relevant source system). Note that actual sales volumes are acquired to allow the calculation of volume-weighted actual variable costs per unit in a later step. A union view (4) within Datasphere combines the forecasted sales volumes and prices (as provided via the SAC Planning frontend) with the actual sales volumes and variable costs (as acquired from SAP BW).

Picture 3: Data lineage within Datasphere

In an Analytic Model (5) on top of the union view the relevant KPIs consisting of both forecast and actual data are calculated:

Forecasted revenues: Restricted measures filter on forecasted volumes and prices originating from the SAC planning model. A calculated measure multiplies these two measures to derive the forecasted revenue [forecasted revenues = forecasted sales volumes * price assumption].

Extrapolated variable costs: Restricted measures filter on actual volumes and total manufacturing costs originating from SAP BW. These measures are cumulated over the actual time horizon as selected per prompt (6). A calculated measure divides cumulated costs by cumulated volumes to derive the volume-weighted average costs per unit [weighted-average costs per unit = cumulated actual costs/cumulated actual sales volumes]. Note that this measure is kept constant over the time dimension to allow applicability to any forecast months (see below).

Expected contribution margin: A calculated measure extrapolates the actual variable costs by multiplying the volume-weighted actuals costs per unit (see above) with the forecasted sales volumes [extrapolated variable costs = weighted-average actuals costs per unit * forecasted sales volumes]. A calculated measure subtracts extrapolated variable costs from forecasted revenues to finally derive the contribution margin [contribution margin forecast = forecasted revenues - extrapolated variable costs].

Picture 4: Analytic Model within Datasphere A SAC Story on top the Analytic Model is used to steer the prompt for the weighted-average actual variable costs (6) and display the results -- that is, the weighted-average variable costs (left chart) and the derived contribution margin (right table) (7).

Picture 5: SAC frontend for analysis The following diagram summarizes the architecture and data flow at a glance.

Picture 6: Seamless Planning architecture

It is now worthwhile looking at the unique highlights of the above-described setup. First, Seamless Planning within BDC combines "best of both worlds": SAC planning and reporting capabilities with Datasphere ETL and modeling capabilities. Second, SAC planning model entries are directly exposed within Datasphere upon publishing without the need for redundant data replication. Third, it would be generally feasible to access the actual variable costs virtually (as opposed to replicated), thus combining planning with actual data in real-time. However, note that regular snapshots (near real-time) of the actual data can be required for high-performant dashboards. Forth, the prompt to dynamically steer the time range for the weighted-average actual variable costs allows end users to sort of “smoothen” the data over time (when choosing a longer range) versus emphasizing more recent months to reflect latest changes in cost structures etc. Lastly, given the completely automated retrieval of the variable costs part of the calculation, end users only need to manually update the expected sales volumes and price assumptions. This allows for a fast forecast process with a high frequency (e.g., monthly rolling forecast) which is highly relevant in today’s dynamic market environment.

POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS

In the above-described implementation setup actual data is being acquired from an SAP BW system via standard data acquisition means in Datasphere (remote tables, real-time replication, etc.). However, for SAP BW systems (both BW/4 and on HANA) BDC opens up the path for comprehensive BW modernization through means of the Data Product Generator (please see this blog for further details).

Furthermore, the use case could be enriched with SAP-managed data products derived from an S/4 PCE system as part of a BDC formation. For instance, if the contribution margin forecast should be integrated into a broader plan/actual reporting solution, the relevant actuals could be built upon SAP-managed data products serving as significant accelerators given that the complete data orchestration is handled by SAP. You could directly start modeling within Datasphere and combine the forecast data with the actual data based on the SAP-managed data products. A detailed blog discussing how you can leverage data products in the context of planning will follow.

Finally, for more advanced forecasting techniques you could leverage SAP Databricks as part of the BDC formation. Imagine that instead of the manually provided sales volume forecast as in the above example you would generate such a forecast by means of statistical methods such as time series forecasting.

Picture 7: Enhancement options with BDC

SUMMARY AND CALL TO ACTION

A contribution margin forecast allows companies to proactively steer financial results and can therefore be considered a crucial controlling instrument. SAP BDC enables an innovative implementation approach with clear benefits such as rapid, high-frequency forecasts through automated calculation of variable costs and replication-free, (near) real time combination of actual and planning data. Besides that, SAP BDC opens up the path for comprehensive BW modernization, thus allowing you to follow parallel streams: Implementation of innovative use cases while modernizing your SAP BW. Sounds like a plan to you? Please reach out to your SAP representative and register for your SAP BDC Discovery Workshop!

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: What’s New as of 2025-12-11?

2025-12-12T05:26:28.540000+01:00

Hello SAP Community!

Welcome to our year-end edition of the What’s New series! We’re excited to share the latest enhancements in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model (SAP PaPM Cloud - SM).

Let’s dive in! 😊

Modeling Screen

New Modeling Design and Features

Remember the modeling function update introduced in SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: Modeling Update (Join)?

We’ve taken it further!

Now, most of the functions benefit from this enhancement, reducing steps when modeling a function. Instead of expanding a node, simply click the function’s properties.

Important:

This feature isn’t activated by default. You’ll see a banner in the modeling screen about its availability.
If activated, all building blocks (except Rules) can be accessed and configured directly in the function’s properties panel. For more details, check Function Building Blocks in SAP Help Portal.
Ask your SAP PaPM Cloud - SM administrator to activate it via: Menu > Administration > Settings > Optional Feature Settings. For more details, check Optional Features Settings in SAP Help Portal.

Part of the enhancements are:

Selective Copying & Pasting of Fields

Copy only the fields you need from the Signature section. Select/unselect fields before hitting Copy Nodes button.

Tip: If you don’t select any fields, all fields will be copied.

Field Sequencing

Rearrange fields easily! Drag and drop between Granularity, Action, and Selection fields for better structure.

Content Management

Better Environment Import and Upload Handling

When importing content with overwrite or running Data Management screen upload previews, you can now run only one task at a time:

If an environment import (overwrite) is in progress, upload in Data Management screen is blocked.

If Data Management screen upload preview lock is active (15-minute idle timeout), environment import won’t start.

For more details, check Content Management in SAP Help Portal.

Process Management

Enhanced Notifications for Teams

Stay informed with in-app and email notifications for admins and end-users in Performer or Reviewer teams.

Process State Change

Get notified when a process changes from “Open” to “Deployed”.

Comment Change

Get notified when comments are added, edited, or deleted in your assigned activities.

Joule

Enhanced Joule Experience

Managing Joule conversations just got smarter!

Users can now rename or delete any Joule conversation through a new context menu available in both the history sidebar and the active chat header.

Here’s what you can do with the new Joule enhancements:

Rename Conversations
Renaming is simple: select Rename and the conversation title becomes an inline editable field with a 100-character limit. Press Enter or click outside the field to save changes or press Escape to cancel. If something goes wrong, you’ll see a toast notification.

Delete Conversations
Deleting a conversation is just as easy, but with safeguards. When you choose Delete, a confirmation dialog appears to help prevent accidental removal.

Instant Availability
Joule is now available as soon as you open a report. The system automatically saves it in the background, so you can start using Joule without any extra steps.

Application Monitor

New Run Type

Transparency matters!

Previously, all data uploads were logged under the same DATA_IMPRT run type, making it difficult to distinguish whether new data was appended or existing data was overwritten.

To improve clarity, we’ve introduced a new run type: DATA_OVRWRT. 🎉

Whenever you overwrite all or filtered records in the Data Management screen, the system automatically creates a DATA_OVRWRT run in Application Monitor, complete with detailed message logs and overwrite action information.

This enhancement improves traceability and supports precise auditing of data changes.

For more details about the different run types, check Event Status and Run Types in SAP Help Portal.

System Applications

Quick Refresh for Faster Updates

The Refresh action is now available across System applications:

Application Monitor
Process Monitor
Comment Monitor
History Monitor
Process Scheduler

This feature allows users to refresh data without reloading the entire application, preserving layout adjustments, and improving efficiency.

That’s a Wrap! 🎁

Ready to try these enhancements? Explore the new features and check our SAP Help Portal for detailed documentation.

Here’s to a festive season and an innovative year ahead! 🥳

Income tax/Direct tax and Tax ledger

2025-12-22T12:59:43.424000+01:00

Introduction

This blog post takes a sides step from Controlling related topics, and focuses on direct tax, however, we still circle around highlighting new functionalities and comparing functionalities between SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition and SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (at the time of writing the latest SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition release is 2025, while the earlier mentioned is 2508).

Typically, in S/4HANA projects you focus on Transactional taxes, like, VAT, e-invoicing mandates, and other tax related topics, which are more “urgent” from operative reporting and compliance point of view. However, direct tax should not be overlooked as there are fundamental building blocks, which can help in automating the process, some which are more costly to implement at a later stage (e.g. adding a tax ledger with Asset Accounting integration in Private Cloud Edition), while others doesn’t matter that when they are implemented (e.g. taking SAP Profitability and performance management into use).

Figure 1: Overview of SAP Tax solutions.

You might still wonder, why bother with this, we have managed well earlier also, there are not that big difference between local GAAP and income tax?

Well, you have items which are handled differently, e.g. pensions, can be deductible in tax, but not in local GAAP, you can have different depreciation rules for tax, you might have certain fixed and temporary difference between local gap and tax. Furthermore, bad debt and lease related postings can have different handling between local GAAP and direct tax. All that leads to the fact that income tax calculation requires different set of information and different rules to calculate your financials.
There are also companies that face a need to automate this process, or want further transparency and auditability, which are also drivers for improving direct tax process.

1. Direct Tax in SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition

To support direct tax calculation in SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition you can decide whether you want to have a full ledger (Ledger 3) (ie. a standard, non-leading ledger), have an extension ledger for tax or only to have tax depreciation areas for reporting purposes (without a real tax ledger).

A) Standard ledger. The standard ledger approach (ledger 3, in figure 2 below) enables you to have direct tax related asset postings (depreciations and specific adjustments) integrated into a separate ledger. Meaning direct integration from Asset accounting into this ledger. A standard ledger allows also integration from other sub-ledgers, like Revenue Accounting and Lease Accounting or Treasury. This ledger will also include all postings that are done with ledger group SPACE, meaning all standard postings (invoices, material movements, normal closing postings, etc.). Additionally, this ledger would include all the other postings that are only valid for direct tax, which enables you to report the direct tax relevant items from one place (as well as for direct tax audits you have also all postings in one place). Database size should also be considered with this approach, as it will increase.
- This approach requires also efforts, as you need to do closing activities for this ledger, so more efforts are required to maintain it. Adding a full ledger and asset accounting after go-live is possible, however, there are limitations and requires usually more work (further details: Subsequent Implementation of a Further Accounting Principle SAP HELP & 2403248 - FI-AA (new): Availability of RAFABNEW & 430618 - Procedure for setting up new depreciation area), in this scenario you should also review all the subledgers required for the new accounting principle and not only Asset Accounting. Subsequent addition of an accounting principle is not yet possible if Universal Parallel Accounting (UPA) is activated.
B) Extension ledger. Having an extension ledger (e.g. on top of your local ledger (Ledger 2 in below example) enables you to make manual postings into the ledger, to have all direct tax adjustments in one ledger (reported together with the underlying ledger). An extension ledger supports only manual postings to balance sheet and P&L accounts. No postings to reconciliation accounts or other automated postings are supported. This means that no manual postings to subledgers, vendor, customer, asset or material can be done there. An extension ledger can be added after go-live. This approach is not recommended approach, as reporting is very limited, e.g. asset accounting (or any other sub-ledger) cannot read from this ledger.
C) No additional ledger. Some customers opt for not having any ledger at all for direct tax and only having a statistical tax depreciation area (to follow and report tax depreciation). This means you need to track pure direct tax related postings and reporting outside your SAP system.

Figure 2: Ledger options with SAP S/4 HANA Private Cloud Edition.

Corporate Income Tax Framework is also available, however, the country scope is limited and is not planned to be extended, so usually not very commonly discussed.

2. Direct Tax in SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition

In SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition you can have statistical depreciation areas for tax and an extension ledger, but it is currently not possible to have full ledger for tax. This means options B and C from previous chapter are valid approaches.

B) Extension ledger. Having an extension ledger (on top of your local ledger (Ledger 2, in below example) enables you to make manual postings into the ledger, to have all direct tax adjustments in one ledger (reported together with the underlying ledger). An extension ledger supports only manual postings to balance sheet and P&L accounts. No postings to reconciliation accounts or other automated postings are supported. This means that no manual postings to subledgers, vendor, customer, asset or material can be done there.
- An extension ledger can be added after go-live. This approach is not recommended approach, as reporting is very limited, e.g. asset accounting (or any other sub-ledger) cannot read from this ledger.

C) No additional ledger. Some customers opt for not having any ledger at all for direct tax and only having a statistical tax depreciation area (to follow and report tax depreciation). This means you need to track pure direct tax related postings and reporting outside your SAP system. SAP pre-delivers per country depreciation areas, which typically includes also a tax depreciation area, but there are country specific differences.
- Note! Currently only one customer specific (statistical) depreciation area(area 16) can be added (for local GAAP), during initial implementation, not after go-live (scope item 5HG). So, if you need an additional depreciation area, it can only be added before go-live (no asset postings can exist when you add it). In some cases, you might also have requirements for an additional depreciation area for insurance follow-up (not direct tax). This means it is extra important to check you depreciation areas in the implementation phase.

Figure 3: Ledger options in SAP S/4 HANA Public Cloud Edition.

The Corporate Income Tax Framework , is also available, but also with limited country scope and is not planned to be extended, so usually not very commonly discussed.

3. Profitability and Performance Management, taking automation to the next level

So far, we have discussed ledgers and asset accounting, but what about all the other posting differences, how to automate them? This is where SAP Profitability & Performance management (PaPM) comes into picture.

PaPM is a strong calculation engine, which was designed to be maintained by business users and not require too much IT support. It has multiple use cases, one of which is corporate income tax. It brings automation, transparency, auditability and process overview to the direct income tax process. PaPM enables also AI-assisted tax analysis and insights through integration with the Joule copilot.

Using the underlying data discussed in previous chapters, you can complete the remaining calculations and adjustments in PaPM. This enables to have a systematic and rule-based approach for temporary and permanent adjustment, as well as other adjustments. Optionally, PaPM can also make postings back to the tax ledger (or extension ledger (within its limitations)) (both for SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition and SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition), for a single source of truth of direct tax postings. Technically PaPM can integrate to any source (also non-SAP), so you can also write back data to SAP ECC.

Figure 4: PaPM example with integration to Full tax ledger, together with PaPm and S/4 HANA Private Cloud edition.

To speed up a PaPM implementation you can use the SAP created sample content (SAP PaPM Sample Content All), for further information on the SAP PaPM Tax Sample content, click here. In addition to SAP sample content, there are multiple tax partners who create and maintain even more detailed sample content.

Figure 5: Overview of Corporate income tax with SAP.

It is worth noticing that PaPm comes with multiples other use cases also, BEPS pillar 2, Transfer pricing, Sustainability, Agile planning & Simulations, Activity based costing, etc.

Figure 6: Overview of PaPm use cases.

4. Summary

This blog covered different options on how to handle direct tax, whether you only have partial support for direct tax in S/4HANA e.g. from statistical tax depreciation areas in asset accounting or having a full tax ledger, with PaPM you can gain further automation, auditability and process transparency. There are different options, depending on what type of setup suites your organization.

Figure 7: Comparison Table: Direct Tax Management in SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud, Public Cloud, and PaPM.

How automated is your direct tax processes, are you fully automated and auditable or are you using excel?

Best Regards,

Dick Westman

Execute SAP PaPM UM API via SAC through Multi Actions’ API step

2025-12-26T13:13:35.648000+01:00

Introduction

User can trigger SAP PaPM Universal Model API via SAC Multi Actions’ API Step, here is the step by step blog to set up such a workflow.

Create Multi Action with API Step to trigger SAP PaPM UM API

Create HTTP API Connection
1. Choose Connections on SAC menu
2. Choose Add Connections
3. Search “HTTP API”
4. Fill in the required connection information, then choose Create.

Create Multi Action and add API step connecting to the public API of SAP PaPM UM

Execute Multi Action
1. This multi action can be executed in story, analytics application, and scheduled via Calendar. Here is the example of running in Story.
2. Add Multi Action Starter.
3. Choose this Multi Action on the builder panel.
4. Execute this Multi Action.

Check calculation result on SAP PaPM UM
1. The PaPM UM process is generated.
2. Choose “Show Data” to check the calculation result on TOTAL column.
3. The result of TOTAL is correct.
  - The value of “QUANTITY” we set in Multi Actions’ API Step is “2”, according to the calculation rule “TOTAL = AMOUNT*QUANTITY”, the formula is “AMOUNT*2”, so the result on TOTAL is correct.

Summary

With Multi Actions API step, user can execute SAP PaPM UM API via SAC. What's more, Multi Actions can be parameterized which largely reduces maintenance effort for admin users. Business users execute multi action with defined context and scope by assigning parameter values flexibly.

You can find more details in the blog of Multi Actions API Step. Integrate remote application via API step of Multi Actions

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model What’s New as of 2026-01-19

2026-01-20T08:36:57.973000+01:00

Hello SAP Community.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026! We’re excited to kick things off by highlighting the features released in late Q4 2025. Join me as I walk you through the newest features and improvements in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud – Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM).

To stay up to date with previous blog posts from my colleagues, you can always go through and read them all using this tag PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew .

With that, let’s begin.

Model

Model Transfer Structure

A new function type has been introduced to the Model Transfer Structure which offers the types:

Transfer Structure
Reverse Transfer Structure

It has the same functional capabilities as Transfer Structure, but the only difference is there is no need to Run the function since it is on-the-fly wherein Environment activation is enough.

In Create dialog on Manage Functions application, the new function type Model Transfer Structure is displayed in Type field dropdown.

In Model Transfer Structure configuration page, two types are displayed which are Transfer Structure and Reverse Transfer Structure in Type dropdown field under General Information section.

In Universal Model Homepage, the new tile Manage Model Transfer Structures for the new function type is displayed under Model tab.

For more information, please refer to Application Help for Universal Model Model Transfer Structure

Currency and Unit Conversions

We’ve introduced a new enhancement across the Manage Currency Conversions, Manage Model Currency Conversions, Manage Unit Conversions, and Manage Model Unit Conversions applications to make configuration simpler and more user-friendly. With this update, the Target Value and Target Unit field/parameter value help now displays only the units mapped to the selected Conversion Input Function, instead of showing all units created in the environment.

This reduces confusion and makes it easier for users to quickly identify and maintain the correct fields needed for their conversion function setup.

Fields maintained in the Input Functions for both Currency Conversion and Model Currency Conversion.

As shown below, the fields in the Target Value and Target Unit field/parameter display only the units mapped to the selected Currency Conversion Input Function.

This behavior is the same for Unit Conversion and Model Unit Conversion. Only the field mapped to the selected Conversion Input Function are displayed in the Target Value and Target Unit field/parameter.

Report

Manage Reports

Integrate Perplexity Web Search into Report Copilot

This feature allows you to use the Web Search tool to get up-to-date information directly from the web, making your reports more accurate, reliable, and informative.

SAP Joule serves as an AI copilot embedded in SAP applications, including report generation in tools like SAP PaPM Cloud UM, to deliver real-time insights grounded in business data. Integrating Perplexity's Sonar and Sonar Pro models as optional web search providers elevates this capability by enabling dynamic external data retrieval, superior citations, and contextual enrichment for workflows such as basic/advanced report generation, rewrites, section additions, highlighted updates, and general queries.

The enhancement adds Perplexity options in "Manage Connections" and "Manage Tenant Connections," including toggles for "Enable Web Search" (making model selection mandatory when active) and dropdowns for Sonar or Sonar Pro.

How It Works:

The fields below become mandatory when you mark the Enable Web Search feature. You can select one of the following web search models for your report:

“Sonar”: Select this option to perform real-time web searches and access a wide range of online information.

“Sonar Pro”: Select this option for an advanced search and detailed analysis. This enhanced version of “Sonar” is designed for in-depth search and detailed insights.

Highlight Changes in Report Versions:

This is an additional feature for the Copilot that allows you to choose a specific section of text in the report and send a prompt to update it. It reviews the surrounding context to ensure that the changes fit naturally with the rest of the report. After the update, you can review the changes made: the system highlights what has been added or removed, and you can choose to accept or reject each change individually or apply all changes at once.

"Report Copilot's New Tracked Changes: Green for Adds, Red for Removes – Your Workflow Just Got Better"

Key Features:

Visual Highlights: Added content shows with green underlines; deletions appear as red strikethroughs for instant recognition.
Granular Controls: Accept or reject individual changes, or use bulk Accept All/Reject All buttons.

Undo Integration: Undo reverts to prior states with accept/reject options intact, syncing seamlessly across features.

Full Compatibility: Works with all Report Copilot actions, ensuring the final report reflects only accepted changes.

How It Works:

Make edits via write, rewrite, etc., and changes track automatically.

Click per-change buttons or bulk options to accept/reject.

View highlights inline in the editor.

Hit undo to restore previous tracked state.

Include screenshots of green/red highlights and buttons for visual appeal.

Show Screen

Show Screen: Column Label Sorting in Pivot Mode

We’re making pivot mode more powerful and user-friendly! You can now sort data by fields assigned to Column Labels—just like you already do with Row Groups.

Users working in Pivot Mode within the Show Screen can now apply sorting directly to Column Label fields using dedicated sort icons:

Ascending
Descending

This works for any field placed under the Column Labels section.

How It Works

Click on a column name under Column Labels to apply sorting.

Sorting behavior mimics Row Group sorting - data is reordered according to the selected “Sort by” field.

This enhancement gives users greater flexibility when analyzing pivoted data and improves consistency between Row Groups and Column Labels.

That’s all for now!

We hope these new features and enhancements make your experience with Cloud UM even better. Stay tuned for more “What’s New” updates—published every month.

Share this blogpost with your colleagues and friends. Thank you!

Using FileAdapter in SAP HANA SDI for SAP PaPM Cloud

2026-01-20T14:15:30.825000+01:00

Hello SAP Community! Welcome to this blogpost on how to use FileAdapter in SAP HANA Smart Data Integration (SDI) for SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud integration.

In our earlier blog on SAP PaPM Cloud Integration with Microsoft Excel, we explored how ExcelAdapter can help business users to bring their Excel file data directly into the SAP PaPM Cloud.

But what happens when your data is not in an Excel file? What if your data is coming in the form of .csv, .txt or a tab-delimited file? How can we consume the data in our SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud?

This is where HANA SDI’s FileAdapter comes in.

Before walking through the steps on how to set up FileAdapter for SAP PaPM Cloud Inbound Integration. Here's a quick comparison between FileAdapter and ExcelAdapter:

Comparison	FileAdapter	ExcelAdapter
File Type	.csv, .txt, logs	.xls, .xlsx
Structure	Delimited (commas, tabs, pipes)	Tabular, sheet-based
Best For	Raw exports, transactional data	Spreadsheet, planning models
Special Features	Pattern-based reading, real-time replication	Sheet/range selection, metadata handling
Complexity	Requires config file (.cfg) for parsing	More intuitive if you're used to Excel

Prerequisites:

SAP HANA Data Provisioning Agent is installed and connected to SAP PaPM Cloud. See Data Provisioning Agent Installation and Update Guide and Configuration Guide for SAP HANA Cloud.
Register Data Provisioning Adapter for FileAdapter. See Register Data Provisioning Adapters
Prepare your source file in a *.csv or *.txt file. Make sure it has headers (column names) and consistent delimiters (commas, tabs or pipes)

Step 1: Create Configuration File in the Data Provisioning Agent

Open a command prompt as Administrator and navigate to <DPAgent_DIR>/agentutils directory. Execute the command to create a configuration file (*.cfg) to tell FileAdapter how to interpret your source file. See Generate the Configuration File with a Command-Line Utility.

createfileformat.bat -file "<CSV folder path>\filename.csv" -firstRowAsColumnName true -cfgdir "<CSV folder path>"

Step 2: Prepare Configuration File

The first line in your Configuration File should always include a comment or a description. For further guidance, see File Format Configuration Files

Step 3: Configure FileAdapter Preference

Next step is to authenticate the file using AccessToken. To retrieve the AccessToken, open a Command Prompt and enter command: whoami /user. Make sure to record the Security Identifier (SID) as this will be required later in the FileAdapter Preference configuration.

Once we have the SID information, open a Command Prompt as Administrator and go to <DPAgent_Dir>/bin and enter command: agentcli.bat --configAdapters. When prompted, select Option 2 (Set Adapter Preference) then proceed to choose Option 7 (Set FileAdapter Preference). Provide the following information:

Fields	Value
Root Directory	No remote source can reach beyond this directory for data files. This means that you must use this folder/subfolder for remote source configuration
File Format For Root Directory	No remote source can reach beyond this directory for data files. This means that you must use this folder/subfolder for remote source configuration
PGP Files (Secret Key and Thirdparty Public Key) Root Directory	Enter the folder where PGP files (secret key and thirdparty public key) is located. If these files are not available, you may simply use the Root Directory as the location.
Access Token	An access token protects the files from access from different agents. Use this password when creating a remote source.

Step 4: Set up Remote Source Connection in the SAP HANA Cloud

Go to the HANA Database Explorer of the PaPM Cloud application and set up a Remote Source Connection. Enter the specified values in the corresponding fields.

FIELDS	VALUE
Source Name	Provide source name for the remote connection
Adapter Name	FileAdapter
Source Location	Select the name of the registered DPAgent
Source Option	Local File System
Target Option	Local File System
Root Directory	<CSV Folder Location>
Directory of the file format definitial	<CSV Folder Location>
Use Decryption for Reading	None
Credentials Mode	Technical User
Password	Enter the Security Identifier (SID)

Step 5: Map the File to Virtual Table

Create Virtual Table for the file by selecting the remote source connection and locating the corresponding table for the CSV file, and then click Create Virtual Object(s) to generate the Virtual Table.

Create a name for the virtual table and choose the Schema where it will be store, and then, click Create.

Open the content of the Virtual Table to see the contents. Note that in the contents additional columns (PATH, NAME, ROWNUMBER, ERROR and PARTITION) are automatically generated.

Step 6: Consume in SAP PaPM Cloud

In the SAP PaPM Cloud, you can now proceed to use the virtual table as an input function and your SAP PaPM Cloud can now pull in data directly from the file source.

Standard Model

Refer to Accessing Artifacts from External SAP HANA Cloud Schema to make your schema accessible as an authoring schema in HANA views or table connections in SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model.

Universal Model

Refer to Accessing Artifacts from External SAP HANA Cloud Schema to make your schema accessible as an authoring schema in HANA views or table connections in SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model.

Also, for Universal Model, when creating a connection of type “HANA Schema”, you may encounter the following error:

This error happens because the ROWNUMBER field (automatically generated when using FileAdapter) cannot be used as a valid key field in SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model. SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model requires key fields to be either UUID or String type. Since the ROWNUMBER field is of type Integer64, SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model fails to sync.

To successfully activate the Environment when using FileAdapter in SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model, you need to complete the following steps:

1. In the Environment, add a UUIDME field as a characteristic with type UUID

2. Under Connection, replace the Model Field ROWNUMBER to UUIDME. Then, click Apply to save your changes.

3. Perform Model Sync and Connection Sync. Then, proceed to activate your environment.

4. Once the environment is activated successfully, you may proceed to check the HANA schema and show the data without any issues.

And that's how you can use FileAdapter in SAP HANA SDI for your SAP PaPM Cloud integration! Thank you for sticking with me on this walkthrough! Try it out in your own environments and let us know how it goes. Share your experiences, tips, or questions in the comments section. Let's keep learning and growing together!

Can ExcelAdapter Handle Custom Path in SAP PaPM Cloud integration?

2026-01-21T12:48:36.575000+01:00

Hello SAP Community!😊

In the earlier SAP Community blogpost SAP PaPM Cloud Integration with Microsoft Excel, we looked at how SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud leverages HANA Smart Data Integration (SDI) with the ExcelAdapter to consume Excel files.

By default, ExcelAdapter only looks for files in the <DPAGENT_DIR>/excel folder. This setup is OK most of the time but what happens when the business wants to make some changes in the location of their Excel files… may it be because of the main drive running out of storage space or reorganizing the folder structure or a cleaner setup. Suddenly, the setup feels more like a limitation than a convenience.

And here’s the catch: if you try to point the Remote Source Configuration to a custom folder, you’ll hit an error just like in the screenshot below.

Does that mean you're stuck on using the default directory? Not quite because we have a workaround. The trick is to use a symbolic link (symlink). In this workaround, the ExcelAdapter will think that it will pull the Excel files from <DPAGENT_DIR>/excel, but in reality, your files are located in other directory.

Let's break it down on how we can achieve this:

Prerequisites:

You have an Administrator access in the OS
Ensure that the DP Agent Service User have access to the directory to avoid any issue as per SAP Note 3303503

For Windows:

1. Open command prompt as Administrator using the DP Agent Service User and go to <DPAGENT_DIR> directory

2. Enter command: mklink /D excel <Target Directory where your Excel Files are Stored>

For Linux/Unix:

Use the ln-s command:

ln -s <Target Directory where Excel Files are Stored> <DPAGENT_DIR>/excel

This workaround gives you the flexibility to scale storage, keep things tidy, and adapt to changing business needs—all while staying within ExcelAdapter’s rules.

Have you tried this workaround yourself? Share your story in the comments. 😊

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: What’s New as of 2026-02-02?

2026-02-02T08:06:30.788000+01:00

Hello SAP Community and Happy New Year! 🎉

Welcome to the first 2026 edition of the “What’s New” series for SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model (SAP PaPM Cloud SM). As we kick off the year, we’re excited to share a few updates focused on strengthening operational visibility, improving the user experience, and supporting smoother collaboration across teams.

Let’s dive into what’s new! 😊

User Settings | User Profile

Great news! We’re introducing a new User Profile entry point in the application header to make user-related actions easier to find and faster to access. This enhancement is designed for signed-in users and provides a centralized place to review account details, adjust display preferences, manage notifications, and quickly access application information

With this update, users can open the User Profile (top-right) and access three options:

User Preferences
About
Sign Out

Previously, these options were accessible from the hamburger menu (left-side navigation). They are now moved to the User Profile (top-right) to keep navigation focused on application areas, while user actions remain consistently available in the header.

Choosing User Preferences opens a dedicated dialog titled “User Preferences”, with three sections on the left for quick navigation:

Account

Language and Format

Notifications

This keeps frequently used personalization settings in one place and reduces the need to navigate across different areas of the UI.

The About option opens a dialog titled “About This Application”

Choosing Sign Out logs the user out of the application.

To learn more about User Profile, please refer to the User Profile | SAP Help Portal

Settings Screen | Destination Settings: SAP Cloud ALM

A new enhancement has been introduced in the Destinations Settings section under the SAP Cloud ALM option. When changes are made to the SAP Cloud ALM destination configuration and saved, an exception log is automatically sent to SAP Cloud ALM within the Integration and Exception Monitoring. This ensures full traceability of the changes, faster troubleshooting, and improved audit trail compliance for destination changes.

Modeling | Runtime Attributes (Stored Procedure Viewer)

When a modeler activates a function, SAP PaPM generates runtime artifacts (such as tables and stored procedures) that support execution.

In some cases, activation can fail, and the stored procedure may not be available in the database making it harder to understand what went wrong.

With this enhancement, modelers can now view the generated stored procedure source code directly in the Modeling UI under Runtime Attributes, helping them troubleshoot and identify modeling issues more easily even when activation is not successful.

What’s improved

More self-service troubleshooting: Quickly check the generated procedure text to understand activation problems and adjust the model accordingly.
On-demand loading: The procedure source is fetched only when the modeler opens/views it, keeping the Modeling screen responsive.
Secure approach: Designed to support debugging without exposing procedure source code through general logging for broader audiences.

Where it’s available

This viewer is available under Runtime Attributes for these function types:

Allocation
Calculation
Conversion
Derivation
Transfer Structure
Join
View

How to use it

Go to Modeling and select a supported function
Activate the supported function if not yet activated
In the Properties Panel, choose the drop-down arrow of Runtime Attributes.
Expand Stored Procedure to load and display the stored procedure text

Successful activation:

Failed activation:

Teams | In-App Notification

An enhancement for notifications in the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Standard Model is now available. If the user has notifications enabled, they will receive the new team-related notifications by email, in-app, or both.

Users will be alerted in the following scenarios:

When they are assigned to or unassigned from a team
When their team is added or removed as a child team
When their team’s name or description is updated
When their team becomes obsolete, or is restored from an obsolete status
When their team is deleted

See sample image below:

To learn more about notification settings, please refer to the Notifications | SAP Help Portal

What’s New on SAP Help Portal

We’re excited to share that SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud now has a dedicated What’s New section on the SAP Help Portal. This new page complements the existing What’s New blog posts in the SAP Community and provides a central, structured view of all product updates.

The What’s New page offers a clear overview of the latest features, enhancements, and content updates across the Standard Model, Universal Model, and Sample Content. Updated in alignment with the product delivery schedule, it gives customers a simple, reliable way to stay informed about ongoing improvements in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud.

How to View Standard Model–Specific Updates

To display only Standard Model–related information in the What’s New table, follow these steps:

Open the What's New to SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud page on the SAP Help Portal.
Under Release Type, select one of the following options:
1. Standard Model – shows updates for the default release cadence mode
2. Standard Model Fast Track – shows updates for the Fast Track cadence mode
(Optional) Under Scope, refine your view:
1. Application – updates relevant for all users
2. Sample Content – updates related to Sample Content
3. Administration – updates relevant for administrators
(Optional) Under Type, filter by New, Changed, Deleted or Deprecated.
(Optional) Under Available as Of, choose a specific date range to explore updates for a particular time period.

That’s a wrap! 🎁

Thank you for reading, and we hope these updates help make your day-to-day work in SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model even smoother.

Stay tuned for the next edition of our “What’s New” series as we continue to roll out more enhancements throughout 2026.

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model What’s New as of 2026-02-03

2026-02-03T08:59:49.131000+01:00

Hello SAP Community,

As we move into February, it’s time to explore the latest updates and enhancements delivered during January 2026. In this edition of What's New, I’ll walk you through the latest features and improvements delivered in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud – Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM).

To stay up to date with previous blog posts from my colleagues, you can always go through and read them all using PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew tag.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in February.

Report

Drag-and-Drop Reordering of Inserted Tabs in Reports

You can now reorder inserted tabs within the Report page editor.

This enhancement allows you to reorder inserted tabs using drag-and-drop directly within the Report screen. It improves flexibility and usability by enabling tab order adjustments without removing and reinserting tabs. This works directly within the Report screen once the tabs have been added.

To reorder tabs, switch the Report Page to Edit mode. After inserting tabs, simply drag and drop them within the page editor to arrange them in the desired order.

Home Screen Applications References in Reports

You can now link Home Screen apps to Report Elements.

A new button is available under Set Reference functionality in Reports, providing a drop-down list of Universal Model home page applications. This allows you to select and link an app in the same way as already existing references.

This enhancement provides more flexibility to customize reports and navigation by directly connecting report elements with the relevant application from the home page application

To create a link, switch the Report Page to Edit mode, hover over the grid, and select the Set Reference icon.

In the Set Reference configuration window, open the Other tab. Choose Apps, and then select the required Home Screen app from the drop-down list.

Data Screen

Export numeric values to Excel without currency symbols

You can now export report data to Excel with numeric values only, without currency symbols.

In addition to the existing right-click export, a new export option Export to Excel – Numeric Values Only is available. When selected, amounts containing currency information in the report are exported as pure numeric values, allowing Excel to recognize them as numbers for easy validation, calculation and further processing without manual cleanup.

The existing export functionality remains unchanged and continues to export values together with currency information.

This is also applicable to export from Show Elements in Reports.

Consistent column formatting in drill-down views

As you already know, you can explore the detailed records behind aggregated key figures directly in the Data screen - in Pivot mode key figures are displayed as clickable links. When you select a key figure, a second list view (drill-down detailed view) appears at the bottom of the screen, showing the detailed data records that contribute to the selected value.

From now on, column formatting defined in pivot tables is applied to drill-down detailed views in the Data screen.

When you drill down to detailed records, the system inherits the column formatting settings from the originating pivot view. This includes display options such as “Text only”, “Value only”, “Text Last” and “Text First”.

As a result, detailed records are displayed consistently with the aggregated pivot view, improving readability, and ensuring a uniform data presentation across different levels of analysis.

To change the formatting for Grouped Row Data, hover over the Group field to see the menu where you can choose the required Text Arrangement option.

To change the formatting for the Column labels, proceed as follows:

Choose the Column pane in the sidebar element and choose Edit (pencil icon) next to the field name.
In the popup window that appears select required Text Arrangement from drop-down list with options.
Choose Save or Cancel to discard changes.
Choose Refresh to apply the changes.

After changing the formatting, the drill-down view must be re-applied by selecting the number for which you want to display details.

This is also applicable to drill-down views in Show Elements in Reports.

Dynamic hide and read-only conditions at cell level across Data Screen views

You can now configure dynamic conditions in Adapt UI to control the visibility and editability of fields at cell level, with consistent behavior across both the Object Page and the Data screen view.

Conditions defined in Adapt UI allow you to hide or show specific field values and to switch between editable and read-only states. The same logic is applied consistently to:

fields on the Object Page, and
corresponding cells in the Data screen.

When the defined conditions are not met, fields remain visible and editable in both views. All hide and read-only rules are saved as part of the Adapt UI configuration and persist after reload or re-login.

You can base hide and read-only conditions on values of other fields within the same row, and the behavior updates after refresh when those driver values change.

You can also remove or disable the configured conditions to restore the default state, where fields are fully visible and editable.

Once defined for one record, the rules/conditions are applied across the entire dataset.

Hidden Conditions

Read-Only Conditions

What’s New on SAP Help Portal

We’re excited to announce that SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud now features a dedicated What’s New section on the SAP Help Portal. This new page complements the existing What’s New blog posts in the SAP Community and provides a centralized, structured overview of all product updates.
The What’s New page offers a clear and comprehensive view of the latest features, enhancements, and content updates across the Standard Model, Universal Model, and Sample Content. Updated in line with the product delivery schedule, it gives customers a simple and reliable way to stay informed about ongoing improvements in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud.

Proceed as follows:

Open the What’s New to SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud page on the SAP Help Portal.
Under Release Type, select Universal Model to display only updates related to the Universal Model application.
(Optional) Use the Scope filter to further refine the results: Application – updates relevant for all users; Sample Content – updates related to sample content; Administration – updates relevant for administrators.
(Optional) Under Type, filter the updates by New, Changed, Deleted, or Deprecated.
(Optional) Use the Available as Of filter to select a specific date range and explore updates from a specific time period.

Using these filters helps you quickly identify the Universal Model changes that are most relevant to your work and stay informed efficiently.

That’s it for this update!

We hope these new features and improvements help you get even more value from SAP PaPM Cloud UM. Don’t miss our upcoming What’s New editions—we share fresh updates every month.

Feel free to share this blog post with your colleagues and peers. Thank you for reading!

CPE-UM Environment Activation Remains ‘Is Finished = No’ – How to Identify and Resolve the Issue

2026-02-05T06:41:24.273000+01:00

In the PaPM Cloud Universal Model, users frequently face an issue where the CPE–UM environment activation remains in the ‘Is Finished’ state as ‘No’ indefinitely, and no error logs are recorded for the Activate event.

In such cases, the environment activation does not end in either ‘Error’ or ‘Yes’ status. Instead, it remains ‘No’ forever after activation is triggered. In some scenarios, the environment activation ends with an error, but the error message itself is not meaningful. It does not clearly indicate the root cause or specify which function is causing the issue, making it difficult to identify configuration bugs.

In PaPM On-Premise, the system clearly highlights the function with errors using an error icon on the individual function. However, in the Universal Model, no such indication is available. Only the Runtime Status of a function is displayed as Current, Not Current, or Inactive, which is not sufficient to identify configuration issues or bugs.

Due to this limitation, users often end up raising an OSS ticket to resolve the issue.

However, this issue can often be resolved internally by using the Validate option available in the Manage Environment tile. The Validate option checks the entire environment configuration for inconsistencies and clearly reports (if any errors):

Detailed error messages
The affected Function ID(s)
Relevant information in the event logs

For environments with a large number of functions and complex calculations, it is strongly recommended to validate the environment before activation. This helps identify configuration issues early and saves significant time and effort that would otherwise be spent troubleshooting activation failures.

Using the Validate option before activating the environment helps ensure configuration consistency and avoids unnecessary confusion during activation.

Conclusion
When a CPE–UM environment activation remains in Is Finished = No, it becomes difficult to identify the root cause due to limited error details. Using the Validate option in the Manage Environment tile helps detect configuration issues and provides clear error information before activation. Validating the environment in advance can save time and avoid unnecessary troubleshooting.

Thank you for reading this blog post.
If there are any questions or doubts, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to help. Have a great day!

Filters Not Applied as Expected When Using Model Functions in PaPM Cloud Universal Model

2026-02-17T08:33:23.717000+01:00

Hello Everyone,

In PaPM on-prem, the modeler knows that the package selections used in process templates are applied as filters during function runtime execution. Filter values maintained in the package selection fields are dynamically applied as filters in the modeling setup.

For instance, if a processing function is executed using a process selection field with Quarter = ‘Q3’, and the field Quarter is present in the modeling setup, the value provided is automatically applied as a filter across the overall modeling setup during execution without requiring any additional complex selection filter configuration. This reduces the processing of irrelevant records during function execution and calculation. As a result, modeling performance improves significantly, leading to faster execution times.

Coming to PaPM Cloud Universal Model, UM supports modeling setups using both normal functions (that is, non-model functions such as Calculation, Join, View, etc.) and Model Functions.

In PaPM Cloud Universal Model, I observed unexpected behavior when using Model Functions as part of the modeling setup. When Model Functions are used as the core of the modeling setup, the package selection filters used in the process do not work as expected.

The expected behavior is that filters should be applied prior to the calculation during function execution. However, the actual behavior is that the filters are applied only after the calculation, not before.

Let me explain this behavior using a simple business example for better understanding.

Modeling Setup 1 – Expected Behavior
Modeling Setup 2 – Actual Behavior

The business example is to calculate the Total Discount Amount for High-Value Orders. Two tables are used: CustomersModelEntity and OrdersModelEntity.

The goal is to calculate the total discount amount for a selected customerGroup and a defined orderAmount range. In this example, a static 10% discount is used in the formula to calculate the discountedOrderAmount.

Modeling Setup 1 – Expected Behavior (without using Model Functions)

To calculate the discountedOrderAmount for the selected customerGroup and defined orderAmount range during processing, a calculation function is used.

This calculation function calculates the totalDiscount amount for the selected customerGroup and defined orderAmount range during processing.

The function is executed using activities created for the writer function along with package selections where:

customerGroup = ‘Retail’
orderAmount between 10,000 and 50,000

Below is the expected result screenshot after successful execution using the package selection fields.

Modeling Setup 2 – Actual Behavior (when using Model Functions)

The below screenshot shows the Model Calculation function, which is used to calculate the discountedOrderAmount using the same formula as in the expected behavior modeling setup for the selected customerGroup and defined orderAmount range.

The Model Calculation function is then used to calculate the totalDiscount amount using the same formula as in the expected behavior modeling setup.

The function is executed using activities created for the writer function along with package selections where:

customerGroup = ‘Retail’
orderAmount between 10,000 and 50,000

Below is the actual result screenshot after successful execution using the package selection fields.

Here, the expected result is 4,000, which is the correct aggregation of the discounted amount for the selected customerGroup and defined orderAmount range. However, in Modeling Setup 2, what actually happens is that the calculation defined in the Model Functions is executed first, and only in the final result are the filter values from the activity selection applied.

As a result, the value 6,800 is shown, which represents the aggregation of all discounted amounts irrespective of customer group and other filters.

I am wondering whether this is the intended behavior of Model Functions, or if something needs to be enhanced or fixed in the Universal Model component. If any SAP UM experts read this blog, please share your thoughts.

Conclusion

When using Model Functions in the modeling setup, filters are not properly applied during function execution. The filters are applied only after the calculation, which leads to incorrect results. To avoid such issues, the recommended approach is to use normal functions instead of Model Functions for processing.

If anyone has faced a similar challenge, please share the workaround you have used. Also, feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.

SAP Community - SAP Profitability and Performance Management

Smooth Transition for your SAP PaPM Cloud UM containers with SAP Cloud Transport Management service

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model - Introducing Release Cadence Settings

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: What’s New as of 2025-11-03?

Modeling Settings: Customize RFA Template

Environment Screen | Main

Push Notifications

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: What’s New as of 2025-11-03?

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: Pushing and Pulling data to and from SAP Analytics Cloud

Prerequisites:

SCENARIO 1: SAP PAPM UM Consuming Data from SAC through SAC Model Connection

SCENARIO 2: SAP PAPM UM Writing Data to SAC through SAC Model Connection

SCENARIO 3: SAC consuming data from SAP PaPM UM through Odata Connection (Z-Artifacts)

SAP PAPM - the role of business calculation engine in a business steering

Integration & Exception Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM for SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model

Alright, let’s dive in!

Step 1: Subscribe to SAP Cloud ALM

Step 2: Create Service in SAP Cloud ALM

Step 3: Create Service Instance and Service Key for SAP Cloud ALM

Step 4: Create Destination to SAP Cloud ALM

Step 5: Configure Monitoring in SAP Cloud ALM

IMPORTANT NOTE ON COLLECTION ACTIVATION:

Step 6: Configure SAP Cloud ALM Destination in Settings

Setup is complete. What comes next?

Question:

Why does the database-connectivity category not reflect the alerts observed in the Database Explorer following setup?

Answer:

How can I validate that the Integration and Exception Monitoring for SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud service is working in SAP Cloud ALM?

SAP PaPM (On Premise) Integration with SAC using Multi Action

Introduction

Publish OData Services

Mapping PaPM On-Premise in SAP Cloud Connector

Creating a PaPM API Connection in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC)

Using the PaPM Integration Step in SAC Multi Actions

Why This Matters

Conclusion

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: What’s New as of 2025-12-01?

Model

Manage Transfer Structure new type Reverse Transfer Structure

Data Screen Improvements: Global Renaming and Visibility Control

Process

Transport Support for Manage Data Locks, Manage Data Privilege and Manage Layouts

Manage Process and Manage Activities: Updating Activity Run Status after Process reset

Contribution Margin Forecast with SAP Business Data Cloud

SAP PaPM Cloud Standard Model: What’s New as of 2025-12-11?

Modeling Screen

Content Management

Process Management

Joule

Application Monitor

System Applications

That’s a Wrap! 🎁

Income tax/Direct tax and Tax ledger

Introduction

1. Direct Tax in SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition

2. Direct Tax in SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition

3. Profitability and Performance Management, taking automation to the next level

4. Summary

Execute SAP PaPM UM API via SAC through Multi Actions’ API step

Introduction

Create Multi Action with API Step to trigger SAP PaPM UM API

Summary

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model What’s New as of 2026-01-19

Model

Model Transfer Structure

Currency and Unit Conversions

Report

Manage Reports

Show Screen

Using FileAdapter in SAP HANA SDI for SAP PaPM Cloud

But what happens when your data is not in an Excel file? What if your data is coming in the form of *.csv, *.txt or a tab-delimited file? How can we consume the data in our SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud?

This is where HANA SDI’s FileAdapter comes in.

Prerequisites:

Step 1: Create Configuration File in the Data Provisioning Agent

Step 2: Prepare Configuration File

Step 3: Configure FileAdapter Preference

Step 4: Set up Remote Source Connection in the SAP HANA Cloud

Step 5: Map the File to Virtual Table

Step 6: Consume in SAP PaPM Cloud

Standard Model

But what happens when your data is not in an Excel file? What if your data is coming in the form of .csv, .txt or a tab-delimited file? How can we consume the data in our SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud?