SAP Community - SAP Road Map Explorer

International SAP Conference for Utilities: Strategy and Roadmap of SAP for Utilities

2022-05-24T12:54:44+02:00

Keeping the continuity from the previous years we are happy to offer again an SAP for Utilities strategy and roadmap session at the International SAP Conference for Utilities (IUC) 2022.

Within this presentation we will cover SAP's view on the industry's global innovation drivers and the vision for the SAP solution offering for utilities.

In this context you will get information about the Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise for Utilities and its central building blocks such as the innovations in SAP S/4HANA Utilities as well as some examples of customer success stories.

Moreover, we describe the transformation into the Cloud with SAP Utilities Core and in particular SAP S/4HANA Utilities as one of the key elements of this solution offering.

In the SAP roadmap tool, you will understand all these recent, current and planned innovations of the SAP’s investment strategy for the Utilities Industry.

Like how paper maps were reshaped by navigation systems and digital maps, classic PDF road maps are being transformed by the SAP Road Map Explorer. This interactive tool helps customers and partners navigate the complexities of planning a digital future.

Please join us for our SAP Roadmap for the Utilities Industry session on July 7^th, 2022, from 15:45 – 16:15

Latest news on SAP Road Map Explorer: African User Group Webinar

2022-06-13T12:43:05+02:00

Are you looking for an easy way to keep up with the upcoming product enhancements?

What are the strategic priorities SAP is investing in?

How often do the SAP product road maps get updated?

...and many more questions. The answers are in the upcoming webinar hosted by the African User Group! Register now.

SAP Road Map Explorer is the one-shop for all SAP road maps. Not to brag, but it is also the award-winning tool with almost 2 million page-hits! The tool covers the road maps of approximately all of SAP's product portfolio.

Our customers love the tool for various reasons. Some of them are:

The tool lays out the overview of SAP's product portfolio evolution in one place.

You can build your own road map by using an advanced filter functionality.

You can save your road maps so you can come back to them easily.

You can download your road maps and share them with your colleagues.

All available Industry Cloud solutions built by SAP and partners can be reached easily. Moreover, a connection to the SAP store is made available for the delivered solutions.

Attend the webinar to learn how to use the SAP Road Map Explorer on your day-to-day operations. Do not forget to sign up!

Check out this blog-post for a quick introduction of the tool: Road Map Explorer in 5 Steps.

Follow the Topic Page of SAP Road Map Explorer for more information on SAP's unique road map tool.

Keeping up with SAP BTP in 3 Steps

2022-06-28T10:53:05+02:00

Today, you’ll learn about three different sources of information to support your engagement with SAP BTP.

Step 1: Hear from the experts

The new video series SAP BTP Innobytes provides invaluable insights on SAP BTP innovations.

Subject matter experts such as product managers, and/or community leads give an overview of the innovations in a clear manner.

Every month SAP BTP Innobytes sparks interest in solutions by highlighting 3 topics in 3 minutes. In April, we highlighted the following solutions:

SAP Process Automation: no-code solution to automate your manual approvals. You’re invited to test the product with the Free Tier service plan available now.

Out-of the-box tooling in SAP Integration Suite: Our Integration Solution Advisory Methodology combined with SAP Integration Suite.

Multi-Zone high availability for SAP HANA Cloud

Watch the video for the details.

Step 2: Learn about the products

Are you new to the SAP BTP?

Your go-to place to get in-depth information on the products is the following: https://www.sap.com/products/business-technology-platform.html

If you have pressing questions, and/or wish to make use of a community as eager as you are, do not miss out on the fresh content on the SAP Community, visit now.

More info on the Process Automation & Integration Suite & SAP HANA.

Step 3: Explore the road map

You have just heard about the latest hits and top SAP BTP innovations in the SAP BTP Innobytes video. Now is a great time for you to dive into the road map of SAP BTP, its strategic directions and areas SAP is planning to invest in.

SAP Road Map Explorer shows you what is planned to be delivered from a product standpoint in the upcoming quarters. It is your single point of contact for all SAP road maps. Not to brag, but it is also an award-winning tool with almost 2 million page-hits! The tool covers the road maps of nearly all of SAP’s product portfolio.

Our customers love the tool for various reasons:

The tool lays out the overview of SAP’s product portfolio evolution in one place.

You can build your own road map by using advanced filter functionality.

You can save your road maps so you can come back to them easily.

You can download your road maps and share them with your colleagues.

For example, let’s take the integration roadmap:

Before going into technical detail, the SAP Road Map Explorer gives you the chance to first understand the overall strategies and chief road map priorities. (See Fig.1) Such priorities indicate the “big topics”, main themes, and new “solutions”.

In other words: it offers a 30-second explanation of our main investment areas.

It also helps you gain a more holistic view of the Integration road map by offering additional details and timelines.

SAP Road Map Explorer helps you make informed decisions by providing both the strategic vision for different products across SAP’s portfolio and a fine granular view of the road maps. You and your colleagues can use the tool as a guide for your planning discussions.

Are you new to SAP Road Map Explorer and need more details on how to navigate the tool? Check out this blog post to use SAP Road Map Explorer in only five simple steps.

Follow the Topic Page of SAP Road Map Explorer for more information on SAP’s unique road map tool.

Top Innovation Picks from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q2/2022)

2022-08-05T18:12:29+02:00

You´ve asked about updates and the latest innovation highlights on our SAP Business Technology Platform product roadmap? To satisfy your needs my intention in this blog post is to communicate our vision as well as key deliverables and innovations to our users. In this blog, I will provide you some of the highlights of our recent deliveries and from the SAP BTP product roadmaps. Enjoy my personal view of SAP BTP innovation highlights in Q2 2022. Please not that they do not reflect the full set of the upcoming innovations. Happy reading.

Innovation Highlights in Q2 2022:

Browse my personal 7 innovation highlights in Q2 2022:

As of Q2 2022 the new SAP BTP Authentication and Destination support in SAP AppGyver helps to create a secure app to consume data from any SAP systems. The new innovation is now an easy way of just a few clicks. The feature can be used to control the availability of data sources (destinations) for citizen developers. If you want to learn more about SAP BTP Authentication and Destination support in SAP AppGyver, feel free to have a look at the blog post of marchuber03, the related video as well as the SAP Community Page.

With the May release, SAP Integration Suite provides a feature to consume the integration adapter from SAP API Business Hub into the Integration Suite tenant. This new feature provides an easy consumption of OEM adapters directly in the Cloud Integration capability of SAP Integration Suite. The new Dropbox adapter, which was released in Q2 2022 as well, is an example. It provides built-in connectivity for the file-hosting service to transfer data from Dropbox Business and DBX Platform. Also visit the blog post of kamlesh.zanje and the SAP API Business Hub to get more information.

Simplifying integration scenarios between SAP Master Data Integration and third-party applications is now possible with the SAP Master Data Integration adapter for SAP Integration Suite. Going beyond SAP with your master data and high developer workload to consolidate master data across heterogeneous landscapes is a challenge. Therefore, SAP Master Data Integration helps to establish an out-of-the-box integration of master data objects across SAP solutions. If you want to integrate third-party systems into SAP Master Data Integration, you will use the SAP Integration Suite, which provides an adapter that takes care of all the protocol-specific handling that integration developers would usually need to implement themselves. Have a look at the blog post by deepakgovardhanrao.deshpande and learn more on the SAP Innobytes video, the SAP Integration Suite community page and the SAP Discovery Center.

Another recent innovation is the support of a custom identity provider for platform users in the whole SAP BTP environment. If you are on the so called “Feature Set B” of our cloud management tools, you have now the ability to control account and environment access via a custom identity provider as an alternative to the preconfigured SAP ID service with Universal ID.This helps you to increase security by activating your own user-management processes, improve compliance to internal and external company standards and improve your total cost of ownership via the integration into your corporate IAM processes. Examples are the enforcement of multi-factor authentication, full control over password policies and user lifecycle, the usage of technical users for automation. In the second half of 2022, we will also support upgrades of customer accounts with custom platform identity providers from feature set A to B. Feel free to have a look at the blog post created by juergen.adolf and the SAP Community page.

Plenty of information needs to be gathered, verified, and typed into applications for a new business partner to create master data. This includes, for example, the legal company name, registered address and identification numbers. All of this can be used by business applications, where mistakes may lead to problems in business transactions or result in compliance issues. For such identifying information, reference data is available from registers of public authorities, open data sources, or commercial providers. It can be used to automate master data processes, leading to shorter processing times, less manual work, while increasing data quality at the same time. According to this, SAP Master Data Governance has been enhanced with the new Data Provider Integration capability which dramatically speeds up master data processing and increases the data quality. As a first step, SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition 2205 offers the possibility to create business partner records from reference data provided by CDQ. This simplifies the consumption of CDQ services for the look-up of business partner reference data, and reduces the need to manually enter data, which is always an error-prone task. Feel free to have a look at the blog post of andreas.seifried and the SAP Community Page.

SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud are a perfect match. The new bi-directional data integration is the latest and greatest evidence. It comes with the possibility to load fact data and master data from SAP Data Warehouse Cloud to SAP Analytics Cloud. Similarly, you can seamlessly retract fact data, master data, and audit data from SAP Analytics Cloud models and use it in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. Most importantly, this enables you to use actual data from SAP Data Warehouse Cloud in your planning tables in SAP Analytics Cloud. Additionally, you can join plan and actual data from multiple sources in common views in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud that you can then use for live reporting or any other kind of downstream processing of your plan data. It simplifies all steering-relevant data which can be stored in one data warehouse as the single source of truth. The general availability of the public OData API for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is planned for Q3 2022. Check out the blog post of maximilianpaul.gander for more information.

As of Q2 Remote Conversion is offered by SAP to convert an SAP BW or SAP BW/4HANA system into SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. It enables customers to move whole data flows or transfer only selected data flows including data. Customers may now decide whether they want to build a clean system and leave old and unused objects behind. For SAP BW systems on releases from 7.30 to 7.50 (running on SAP HANA or Any-DB), a remote conversion can be performed. SAP BW/4HANA 2021 as a sender system in a Remote Conversion will be possible soon. Have a look on the SAP Community Page for Data Warehouse Cloud, the SAP Help Portal as well as the blog post of deniz.osoy for more information.

Check Out:

Follow up with the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all product news. We will publish the next blog post at the end of Q2/2022 summarizing the highlights of the next quarter.

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series.

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up.

👉🏽If you don’t want to miss new content about SAP Business Technology Platform, follow the tag in the community. Feel free to follow my personal profile to not miss my next personal view of innovation highlights for SAP BTP for Q3 2022.

Keeping up with SAP BTP in 3 steps

2022-08-30T17:09:57+02:00

SAP BTP enthusiasts – here are some tips for you. Are you new to BTP? Or you are familiar with it, but looking for quick ways to stay up to date with BTP innovations? Either way, you are in the right blog post.

Today we present to you three (and one bonus) sources of information that will support your engagement with SAP BTP.

Step 1: Hear from the experts

SAP BTP Innobytes is the new video series where you can hear about the latest innovations from experts such as product managers and community leads.

The monthly series offers a great opportunity to get a quick overview of the 3 highlighted innovations in only 3 minutes.

In the May edition, the following innovations were highlighted. For more details do not miss the video!

SAP AppGyver on BTP – New UI components available in the marketplace

New SAP Master Data Integration Adapter

SAP Cloud Transport Management service integrated into SAP Cloud ALM

Step 2: Learn about the products

Did the highlighted innovations grab your attention?

Here are more resources for you to deep dive into the topics:

Start by checking out the product page of the SAP Business Technology Platform.

Then for more, visit the topic pages on SAP Community for further content and engagement with other community members:

SAP Business Technology Platform.

SAP AppGyver

SAP Cloud Transport Management

Step 3: Explore the roadmap

So far you’ve got an overview of the highlighted BTP innovations, but what about innovations planned for the next quarters? Or the strategic vision SAP is investing in?

All these questions are answered in one platform – the SAP Road Map Explorer. SAP’s single source of truth for all SAP roadmaps, the SAP Road Map Explorer shows the planned and delivered product features in the upcoming quarters.

The tool offers the latest roadmap information on SAP’s product portfolio, and most importantly, you can use it to customize your own roadmap according to your company’s strategy.

It is accessible to both S-user and P-users, visit now.

Check out this video to discover how the tool works:

Here are the roadmaps of the SAP Business Technology Platform & Integration and SAP AppGyver.

If you find a particular product feature interesting, you can save it & share it with your colleagues. Are you interested in the whole roadmap? No problem. You can save, share, and even download the complete roadmap so you can deep dive into the details.

Are you new to the SAP Road Map Explorer and need more details on how to navigate the tool? Check out this blog post to learn how to use the SAP Road Map Explorer in only five simple steps.

Follow the Topic Page of SAP Road Map Explorer for more information on SAP’s unique roadmap tool.

Bonus: Free Learning Journeys

To learn more about SAP BTP, see the learning journey on SAP Learning called Discover SAP Business Technology Platform, a great introduction to BTP and the Intelligent Enterprise strategy to see what it’s all about for free.

To see LCNC in action, check out the SAP Low-Code/No-Code Learning Journey - designed to increase low-code/no-code skills and teach citizen developers the basic concepts of software development and learn how to build mobile apps for free.

Check out LCNC, Discover BTP plus much more free learning at the SAP Learning site.

Keeping up with SAP BTP in 3 Steps

2022-09-28T14:56:51+02:00

As we did for the previous two SAP BTP Innobytes videos, in this blog post we will provide you with useful resources to keep up with the SAP Business Technology Platform innovations.

Step 1: Hear from the experts

If you haven’t heard yet, first let us introduce the coolest video series in town: the SAP BTP Innobytes. SAP BTP Innobytes is a monthly video series where product experts provide an overview of the latest BTP innovations in only 3 minutes!

Below are the June innovation highlights, make sure to check out the video to hear from the product experts and community leads.

AI Personalized Recommendation Service

SAP BW Bridge – Remote Conversion

Data Provider Integration for SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition

Step 2: Learn about the products

If you are just discovering SAP BTP, we definitely recommend you to visit the official product page and check out the SAP BTP tutorial playlist where SAP’s Chief Technology Officer, Juergen Mueller speaks to experts in each episode.

To catch up with the latest developments and engage with other community members, visit the topic page of the Machine Learning on the SAP Community. On the SAP Community you can ask questions, help out other community members, and access fresh content as well as many other useful links.

Step 3: Explore the road map

You have got a glimpse of the top three BTP innovations in the June edition of the SAP BTP Innobytes video. What about the rest of the product road map?

If you have not read our previous blog posts, then you might not be familiar with SAP’s unique roadmap tool: the SAP Road Map Explorer. What is in it for you?

The SAP Road Map Explorer is an interactive tool that facilitates your digital transformation journey. The tool is the one-stop shop for all SAP road maps. It showcases the recent and future product features and it does so by offering you a personalized experience. The content on the tool is updated every day, just like you need for your journey to the Intelligent Enterprise.

Customers and partners can customize their road maps easily as the SAP Road Map Explorer allows you to filter by product, process, and industry. Depending on your needs, you can save a particular road map item (i.e. product feature) or the whole roadmap which you have created with the set of filters you choose.

Are you new to SAP Road Map Explorer and need more details on how to navigate the tool? Check out this blog post to use SAP Road Map Explorer in only five simple steps.

For example, let’s take a look at what the Artificial Intelligence road map looks like. In this high-level view, you can find out about the main themes and big topics.

Road Map Priorities indicate the strategic direction, and they aim to inform you of the areas SAP is investing in.

Road Map Details and Timelines shows you the detailed road map view (also known as Kanban board) where you can choose among many filters available and customize your road map.

Related Documents may include a variety of supporting documents such as a blog post, white paper, video, customer stories, etc.

Follow the Topic Page of SAP Road Map Explorer for more information on SAP’s unique road map tool.

Let us know if you have found the blog post useful and feel free to ask questions in the comment section.

Tell us everything: share your feedback and make an impact

2022-10-31T17:02:36+01:00

We would like to ask for your feedback and support today.

In SAP, we are not only proud of providing the best Cloud ERP in the market, but also never leaving our customers alone in their journey to the Intelligent Enterprise.

We support the transformation journeys of our customers with the best-in-class, intuitive tools.

SAP Transformation Navigator and SAP Road Map Explorer are two of our most successful tools - The SAP Road Map Explorer has approximately 2 million page-hits and the SAP Transformation Navigator has been used to create more than 100,000 individualized product maps to chart the way to an SAP S/4HANA centric landscape based on the customer’s industry, business priorities and important business capabilities for their digital future.

And the SAP Road Map Explorer supports this journey by providing all SAP road maps in one place and showing the strategic evolution of SAP’s product portfolio. This creates transparency and allows our customers to better plan their projects.

These tools are for you, and we need your honest opinion to shape their future so they can better help you in your day-to-day operations.

Today you are invited to participate in the SAP Transformation Navigator and Road Map Explorer survey.

Visit our tools now and we are very much looking forward to hearing your opinion.

SAP Transformation Navigator >> https://go.support.sap.com/transformationnavigator/#/welcome

SAP Road Map Explorer >> https://roadmaps.sap.com/welcome#/

Top Innovation Picks from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q3/2022)

2022-11-20T10:13:32+01:00

I can´t believe how time flies. If I look back for the past couple of months, I find it very impressive what got delivered across SAP BTP during summer season. Therefore, let´s have a look at the highlights of our recent deliveries out of the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) product roadmap for Q3 2022. Those highlights reflect my personal view and is just a subset of all the innovations our development teams brought to the platform.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights in Q3 2022:

Enjoy spending some minutes on my personal view of innovation highlights in Q3 2022:

Integration
- In Q3 2022 we released SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh. This service is based on the Solace partnership and provides a fully managed enterprise-grade, event streaming and management platform that enables enterprise-wide and enterprise grade event-driven architecture (EDA). SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh is a perfect complement to the existing Integration Suite capability – SAP Event Mesh. It enables dynamic routing, allows brokers to be deployed in existing public or private cloud environments, delivers enterprise-grade performance, reliability, security, and governance and many more. Feel free to have a look at the blog post of christopher.aron, the blog post SAP’s Event-Driven Ecosystem Revisited and Introducing SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh of karsten.strothmann and the SAP Integration Suite, Advanced Event Mesh SAP Help page to get more useful information.

Application Development
- Happy to share that SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition (formerly called SAP Work Zone and SAP Launchpad, check out the exciting news around SAP Build) got a modern and fresh update in the UI area. A new Horizon Theme is now available which provides a user-friendly light (Morning Horizon) and dark (Evening Horizon) theme. With the additional light and dark high-contrast theme we are also supporting visually impaired users. In the blog post of sibylle.brehm she will explain how SAP BTP will run with the Horizon Themes. Also check out the SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition, product page on SAP Community and the YouTube Channel to stay up to date.
- SAP Build Apps also got new improvements…great to see that one of the most awaited features got released in Q3. Real-time view of edits made by team members and the ability of access rights helps to make collaboration easier and simpler for project sharing between different teams. You also can manage access rights of developers and fine grain the access control. This feature makes knowledge sharing and engagement of the teams much easier and enhances the user satisfaction. mohini.verma explains more details in her blog post.
- In the Enterprise Event Enablement area, we offer an innovation also for ABAP developers. Enterprise Event Enablement helps to develop event-driven applications. With the new release, SAP supports the direct consumption and exposure of business events in SAP BTP, ABAP environment. With the help of the ABAP RESTful ABAP Application Programming Model (RAP), an event can be defined and raised inside a business object or in its behavior extension and then published via Event Bindings. To consume an event, ready to use event consumption models can be generated using the event consumer wizard embedded in ABAP Development Tools for Eclipse. Both, the event provider, and the event consumer, are connected via SAP Event Mesh on SAP Business Technology Platform. Check out the SAP Developers Page as well as our famous Innobytes Video to get more insights.

Automation
- In the area of digitalization, automation is a quite important aspect. Therefore, happy to see that we improved the inbound API integration what makes the integration with SAP applications and other solutions to support end-to-end extension scenarios now possible. In addition, we can now offer access to Google productivity artifacts using native enterprise authentication for attended and unattended automations is secured. With the release of the Google Workspace support even better performance through standardized connectors is possible. Do you want to learn more about those two and even more features we released? Have a look on the blog post of peter.engel and the blog post of eshita.mahajan, the SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Community page and the SAP Process Automation Youtube Channel.

Data and Analytics
- In the area of Data and Analytics we had some highlights which I would like to share with you. First there is the optimized Story Experience which provides desired features like undo/redo and improved performance in SAP Analytics Cloud. With the improvement end users using Optimized View Mode (OVM) as well as story designers working with Optimized Design Experience (ODE) will benefit. The strategic story experience in SAP Analytics Cloud, usability and performance of dashboards improvements are the main three advantages of the Optimized Story Experience. To find out more feel free to have a look at the blog post of anna.burkhardt and the SAP Analytics Cloud community page.
- Mostly retail and Consumer Packaged Goods industry customers do planning based on business calendars, not on Gregorian calendars. With the new feature of SAP Analytics Cloud Predictive Planning they can now start using these calendars to generate predictive forecasts on a weekly basis. thierry.brunet will show in his blog post the benefits of business calendars and how SAP Analytics Cloud Predictive Planning handles them in the generation of the predictive forecasts, in the explanation pages and when predictive forecasts are saved into a story. So have a look!
- In addition, SAP HANA Cloud has been ported to a first ARM64 based chipset. Porting AWS Graviton includes adopting SAP HANA Cloud microservices (supporting infrastructure services and SAP HANA Cloud’s Kubernetes layer) and the SAP HANA database container itself to AWS Graviton processors. ARM-based technologies are renowned for their efficiency and lower power demand leading to a more sustainable data processing footprint. ARM processors have been used for decades in mobile devices where energy efficiency is key to the customer experience, but increasingly have proven capable of supporting resource-intensive enterprise applications. ARM-based AWS Graviton processors are designed by AWS to deliver the best price-performance for cloud workloads running in Amazon EC2, including memory intensive workloads. To help customers reduce their carbon footprint, AWS Graviton3 processors, just like Graviton2, are more energy efficient. In fact, Graviton3-based instances use up to 60% less energy for the same performance than comparable EC2 instances. Check out the blog post of stefan.baeuerle will provide more details on this topic.

Across SAP BTP
- One of the most important topics for our customers is security. In Q3 we delivered new end user UIs offering the new Horizon visual theme. This feature is not just about showing a modern. For new applications it offers an opt-in configuration for existing applications, thereby avoiding disruption. Another great new feature is that the User UUID (universally unique identifier (UUID) format) is automatically generated by Identity Authentication at user creation. The User UUID is unique, but editable to allow usage of an already established user identifier in a corporate user store. This improves flexibility and reduces manual administration effort for user management and identity provisioning. Find out more on SAP Help Portal and the SAP BTP Security Community Page.
- Furthermore, we released three new Identity Provisioning connectors in the security area. With the SAP Field Service Management connector (source, target, proxy), Identity Provisioning supports now the SAP Field Service Management connector. It is enabled for all standalone tenants and bundle tenants running on SAP Cloud Identity infrastructure. In addition, the implementation of a connector to SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning happened. It helps to enable reading and writing of entities (users and groups) through Identity Provisioning. Also, you can now configure SAP SuccessFactors Learning as a target and a proxy system in the Identity Provisioning admin console. Previously, the learning solution was available only as a source system. For more information you can check out the Roadmap Explorer item for new Identity Provisioning Connectors and Identity Provisioning connector to SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning.
- For the SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment we developed some new features in Q3: The SAP BTP Cloud Foundry environment supports now the HTTP/2 protocol. This enables HTTP/2 without custom domains, improves performance through better utilization of the underlying transport layer and enables additional features like using the gRPC framework.
- In addition, a new space role for SAP BTP Cloud Foundry runtime, the so-called ‘Space Supporter’ was introduced to troubleshoot and debug apps and service bindings in a space. The benefits of this innovation are a separate responsibility between development and operation, improved security due to restricted access to sensitive data and prevented deployment of code during operations. Check out the SAP BTP Help Portal which will provide more details on both features.

Check Out:

Follow up with the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations.

Check out the latest announcements of SAP TechEd 2022 and SAP Build.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all product news. We will publish the next blog post at the end of Q3/2022 summarizing the highlights of the next quarter.

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series.

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up.

Change Management entlang SAP Activate

2022-11-29T14:39:06+01:00

Am 17. November 2022 fand die dritte SAP Change und Training Kaffee-Ecke statt. Dieses neue Community-Format ist für alle, die sich mit Training und Change Management rund um SAP beschäftigen. Alle Themen dieses neuen Formats werden in der SAP Change und Training LinkedIn Gruppe abgestimmt. Den initialen Input gab dieses Mal Erich Schell, Change Management Berater bei der SAP Deutschland.

SAP Activate – Intro & Nutzung

Als Check-In fragten wir die Gruppe, welche Erfahrungen mit SAP Activate bereits bestehen.

Für 29% ist es komplett neu

43% haben es schon mal gehört

28% nutzen es bereits

Daher gab Erich zuerst ein kurzes Intro: SAP Activate ist ein Vorgehensmodell zur Einführung von SAP S/4HANA und anderen SAP-Lösungen. Es dient als Rahmenwerk und unterstützt das Projektmanagement. Detaillierte Informationen findet man in der SAP Activate Community. Daran merkt man, dass es für fast alles eine Community bei SAP gibt 😊.

Was vielen vielleicht gar nicht bekannt ist, sind die vielen Tools, Informationen & Templates, die zu SAP Activate frei zugänglich sind. Vieles ist über den Roadmap-Viewer zugänglich. Diesen kann man nutzen, um die Arbeitspakete kennen zu lernen und auch weitere Folien und Infos herunter zu laden. Je nachdem, ob ein Cloud, On-Premise, oder ein Upgrade Projekt im Fokus steht, kann man die passende Methodik auswählen. Da SAP Software wie z.B. durch den Charakter der Wertschöpfungsprozesse viel vorgibt, ist auch die Einführung relativ standardisierbar. Das ist ein großer Unterschied zu anderen Change-Projekten wie einem Merger, Kulturwandel oder einer Reorganisation.

Abb.: SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition (2-system landscape)

Nach der Discover Phase und dem initialem Business-Case sind die Fit-To Standard (F2S) Workshops aus Change-Perspektive super wichtig, um mögliche Abweichungen zwischen den aktuellen Geschäftsprozessen und der Standard-Software zu erfassen. Configuration, Deployment und Hypercare stehen anschließend im Mittelpunkt, bevor das Projekt in den laufenden Betrieb übergeht.

Speziell für Change Manager gibt es ein sehr hilfreiches Template, die so genannte Change Impact Analyse (CIA). Die CIA erfasst ganzheitlich alle mit dem Projekt verbundenen Änderungen für die betroffenen Stakeholder, Geschäfts- und IT-Abteilungen. Die Unterscheidung zwischen verschiedenen Auswirkungsdimensionen (Prozess, Technologie, Organisation und Menschen) hilft bei der Ermittlung relevanter Veränderungstreiber. Gleichzeitig werden Maßnahmen zur Bewältigung der Folgen der Änderungen und zur Unterstützung der Stakeholder und Abteilungen abgeleitet.

Es ist wichtig, geeignete Aktivitäten (z. B. Schulung, Kommunikation etc.) abzuleiten, um die Stakeholder im Umgang mit den Veränderungen zu unterstützen und so die Akzeptanz der Nutzer zu fördern.

Weitere Infos speziell zu Change Management sind im Blog „Was sind die zentralen Bereiche im SAP Organizational Change Management“ zu finden.

Benötigt man einen eigenen Change Manager im Projekt?

Eine längere Diskussion gab es rund um diese Frage. Die Empfehlung war klar: Ja – man sollte eine extra Person für die Rolle des Change Managements haben. Dazu gab es folgende Sichtweisen:

„Es geht nicht nur um Kapazitäten des PM, es geht insbesondere darum, dass man als Change Manager den direkten Kontakt zur GF (CxO) braucht und damit auch unabhängig vom PM benötigt.“

„Change Manager ist bei uns in der IT angesiedelt als Schnittstelle - gute Erfahrung damit.“

„Ich bin als Change Manager auch in der IT angesiedelt. In der Abteilung Methoden und Koordination. Wir kümmern uns hauptsächlich ums Projekt Management und somit die übergeordnete konzeptionelle Metaebene. Die Schnittmenge aus IT und Konzeption ist wirklich super.“

„Nichts desto trotz sollte der PL auch Change Kompetenzen mitbringen und eine ganz enge Zusammenarbeit zwischen CM und PL ist wichtig!“

„Als Change Manager hat man einen niedrigschwelligeren Zugang zu den Kolleg*innen, da man eben nicht mit der Autorität eines PL ausgestattet ist.“

Bezüglich Governance brachte es dieser Kommentar gut auf den Punkt: „Der Change Manager braucht 2 Positionen: Eine mit direktem Kontakt zum Sponsor in der GF und eine dotted line in das Projekt”. Und man sollte das Governance Modell auf jeden Fall von Anfang an klären. Es gibt dazu auch einige Infos vom PMI.

Wichtig dabei war auch die Wiederholung von Torben Mauchs Aussage: Veränderung kann man sich nicht einkaufen. Zwar kann der Change Manager auch extern sein – benötigt jedoch immer interne Counterparts, die dann für die Veränderung verantwortlich sind.

Auch die Frage, wie man OCM neben der Projektleitung positioniert und Ressourcen sichert, kam wieder auf. Eine Anmerkung war, dass hier unter anderem mit Szenarien gearbeitet wird. Dabei wird dann z.B. aufgezeigt, was passiert, wenn wenig in OCM investiert wird.

Beteiligungsformate im Change Management

Die Frage nach den Beteiligungsformaten für Enduser ist vielfältig. Folgendes wurde erwähnt:

Befragungen – ob elektronisch, in Workshops oder ausgewählt 1:1

Schulungen

Change Agent Networks. Change Agents sind meist Multiplikatoren nach Lokation oder Fachbereich.

Kummerkasten im Sinne eines schwarzen Brettes

Interne social Media Gruppen mit Foren

Change Impact Analyse & Monitoring

Führt ihr eine Change Impact Analyse unmittelbar parallel zu den F2S-Workshops durch oder findet diese abschließend statt?

Change Impact Analyse (CIA) führt man parallel zu den F2S Workshops durch, aber natürlich macht man dann eine abschließende Betrachtung, weil man nicht alles abdecken kann.

Change Monitoring: Aus meiner Erfahrung geht es auch gar nicht so sehr darum, ein Monitoring des Projektteams zu machen, sondern tatsächlich viele Anwender zu befragen.

Weitere Fragen und Antworten aus der Session

Welche der gelisteten Aktivitäten sind toolgestützt vorhanden? (dabei meine ich nicht Excel). Hatte verstanden das Monitoring wird mit SolMan etc. durchgeführt

Befragungen führen wir mit der Software Qualtrics durch, im Deep Transformation Insights Service nutzen wir u.a. Daten aus dem SAP Solution Manager etc.

Gibt es die Excel-Datei auch für S/4 on-Premise?

Ja – die Methodik gibt es auch für on-Premise - dies kann man im Reiter oben im Roadmap-viewer auswählen (von der Startseite aus „Alle Roadmaps erkunden klicken“)

Was hat die Community mitgenommen?

Anbei eine Sammlung – herzlichen Dank für das vielfältige Feedback

„Change nicht unterschätzen, eher "höher" heben“

„Bin beruhigt zu hören, dass das Thema Change überall nicht optimal zu laufen scheint“

„Typisch SAP - wir haben für alles eine Community - Danke für den Call.“

„Ich würde mir hier mehr Sprachbeiträge wünschen - statt nur Chat“ (Anmerkung: Gerne – wie es allen eben passt).

„Die Ideen, wie man das Budget für das Projekt verteidigen kann ;)“

„Change Management mit Design Thinking“

„Change auch mit Personas und unabhängig vom Projekt - Vielen Dank“

„Vielen Dank, toller Austausch, die konkret besprochenen Maßnahmen sind sehr hilfreich.“

„Es gibt hier so vieles noch zu ergänzen: Agiles Projektvorgehen mit SAP Activate. LSP zum Prozessdesign, etc.“

„War sehr interessant, am Anfang finde ich es wichtig, dass man sich hier auch zu informiert und es gut aufbaut innerhalb der Abteilung.“

Weitere Links

Die nächsten 3 Change und Training Kaffee-Ecken finden immer am 3ten Donnerstag statt. Die nächste ist im Januar.

Die Aufnahme der Session als Video ist hier zu finden.

Zum weiteren Austausch kommt in unsere SAP Training und Change LinkedIn Gruppe oder in die Gruppe zu Change Management & Training hier in der SAP Community

Feedback oder Fragen natürlich auch sehr gern hier in den Kommentaren.

Top Picks: Innovations from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q4/2022)

2023-02-03T17:28:46+01:00

With the beginning of a new year, I´m excited to see which innovations and highlights are coming up for SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) in the next quarters. But isn´t it worthwhile reviewing the Q4 2022 highlights of our recent deliveries out of the SAP Business Technology Platform product roadmap as well? With the subset of innovation highlights that I am listing in this blog post, I want to share my personal view of the highlights of what our development teams brought to the platform.

I hope you enjoy spending some minutes on my personal view of innovation highlights in Q4 2022:

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q4 2022:

Integration

User experience is an important topic for all our SAP products. As SAP Integration Suite offers many different tools to solve integration needs, we expose many interaction points to our users. With the October release of SAP Integration Suite, we now provide a coherent user experience across all of these touchpoints, bringing these tools together into one single web application. Having a combined navigation there is no need any more to switch between the core capabilities like Cloud Integration, Integration Advisor, or API Management. Furthermore, you now can directly develop cloud and hybrid integration scenarios across all the Integration Suite capabilities. Sounds interesting? Then check out the blog post "SAP Integration Suite – Availability of a common & coherent User Interface to work with various capabilities" of shruthiarjun and enjoy the YouTube video to learn more.

Talking of user experience, we also took the chance to do a re-design in a specific area: Our API business hub enterprise, a component of API Management, has got a new UI as well as new features. The API business hub enterprise is the customer-owned central API catalog or developer portal for SAP as well as non-SAP API gateways. With an intuitive search, discovery, and consumption of APIs it helps to find exactly what you are looking for. Featuring of content, creating new navigation categories, as well as lot of further flexible customizations provides you now also more flexibility in interactions. Curious about the specifics of the update? Check out the blog post "New Design for API Business Hub Enterprise/ Developer Portal" of kasturi.kabiraj and the video.

In Q4 2022 SAP Integration Suite also received important innovations in the area of B2B integration. Our Integration Advisor capability provides you new content such as message definitions and codelist collections for frequently used B2B standards like ASC X12 and UN/EDIFACT. Based on those you can start building your own message implementation and mapping guidelines. The GS1 organization provides international standardized codelists of values allowed in a particular location. With the October release SAP Integration Advisor now offers GS1 global code lists relevant for the EDI domain and used in GS1 EDI messages. Find out more information in the blog post "Integration Advisor – Now GS1 Global Codelists Library available" of joerg.ackermann.Also, we provided a new powerful feature which helps you with advanced mapping scenarios. By adding a pre-transformation to the mapping guideline, you need to re-order the nodes of a source MIG first before the actual mapping takes place through the Integration Advisor. This is necessary if the mapped structures on source and target side are different in a way that line-based mapping between hierarchy levels are not sufficient. Feel free to have a look at the blog post "New Feature in Integration Advisor: Reordering of Source Structure" of dirk.ostertag to get more useful information.

But those are still not all highlights in the Integration area. We released two additional adapters as built-in connectivity options for SAP Integration Suite: Slack and Splunk. With the cloud service Slack our SAP Integration Suite provides a new built-in connectivity for chat and messaging. The new slack adapter provides the possibility to exchange data between the Slack storage and the Cloud Integration capability of SAP Integration Suite. You can either create channels or files at the connected Slack storage or retrieve data. The Slack adapter is connected to a user's Slack account and performs different operations as supported by the Slack APIs. The second additional built-in connectivity option is the Splunk adapter. Splunk offers the operations to search, monitor, and analyze machine-generated data in a Splunk repository. The adapters are available on SAP API Business Hub and can be consumed directly in the integration flow designer of Cloud Integration. Feel free to take a look at the SAP API Business Hub to get more information.

Application Development & Automation

As you joined TechEd in October 2022 you´ve already heard the exciting news: SAP Build is out! Our new unified low-code solution provides a unified developer experience to all skill levels. You can start to create and augment enterprise apps, automate processes, or design business sites with drag-and-drop. The unified offering of SAP Build makes it possible. For example, SAP Build Apps, our former SAP AppGyver, provides the opportunity to build enterprise-ready custom software with the help of templates and pre-built business logic without coding. With SAP Build Process Automation, you can leverage robotic process automation (RPA) bots, workflows, forms, embedded artificial intelligence (AI), business rules, and decisions. With this set you are ready for business transformation and automation within your company. Even SAP Build Work Zone is one part of the SAP Build offering. With the evolution of SAP Launchpad, the new called SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition and SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition, formerly known as SAP Work Zone, we bring together two solutions into one. You are already one step ahead? Then become a SAP Builder and get your SAP Certification. srutinayak will explain in her blog post "SAP Build Low-code/No-code Applications and Automations – SAP Certification" how it works. Interested to learn more on the new offering? Then check out the blog post "Learn about SAP TechEd Highlights around SAP Build Work Zone" of vera.gutbrod and the blog post "SAP Build Apps goes live with full-stack capabilities – TechEd 2022 Recap" of esmee_xavier to get more insights. Also join our SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Work Zone Community pages for the latest news.

With the Q4 release SAP Business Application Studio is now using Code-OSS. The Microsoft open source for Visual Studio Code is used as its new platform IDE. With this we are able to offer a richer and better user experience as it is now similar to Visual Studio Code. The Visual Studio extension can be downloaded from the VSX Open registry and should work out of the box. Try it out and check if you find the coding as easy as our developers do. The blog post "SAP Business Application Studio – now powered by Code-OSS" of liat.borenshtein and the blog post "SAP BTP Innovations for an Enhanced Professional Developer Experience – TechEd 2022" of anna-maria.moell will show more details on the move to Code-OSS.

Data and Analytics

With Q4 release we brought a lot of experience to our end users of SAP Analytics Cloud. They are, for example, now empowered to copy and move their content on their own with the right privileges and, hence, enjoy significantly more flexibility in their report building process. In addition, a new workflow was established to proactively request content access through the Analytics Catalog. To get more information feel free to have a look at the blog post "SAP Analytics Cloud – Analytic Workspaces QRC4 2022 Enhancements" of 537671 and the SAP Analytics Cloud community page.

Q4 was also the time to renovate our SAP HANA Cloud Central in the area of Data and Analytics. With this overhaul of SAP HANA Cloud Central at the end of the year we finally able to provide a single interface where admins can perform all your database administration and monitoring tasks. This also comes with a more intuitive user experience and a big performance boost. Check out the blog post "SAP HANA Cloud Central Gets Renovated!" of jose_at_sap will provide more details on this topic.

Speeding up processing time while ensuring master data quality is key for master data specialists. Accordingly, we enhanced data provider integration for more automation with SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition in Q4. Now, you not only benefit from external reference data when creating a business partner record, but also when enriching existing records. Want to learn more? Check out the interesting blog post "More Automation with SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition 2211" of markus.ganser.

Across BTP

In the security area SAP Cloud Identity - Identity Provisioning released a fresh new test job in Q4 2022. Without modifying the target system this innovation enables administrators to visualize results of Identity Provisioning transformation. To test how entities would map between source system and target system the validate job helps and makes your life easier. If you want to learn how to run it feel free to read the blog post "After simulation, try out validation. Identity Provisioning closes the loop with a fresh new test job." of ivelina.kiryakova.

SAP TechEd 2022 Recap

Wintertime is perfect to stay at home and do some knowledge training on YouTube. And what could be a better training than having a look at all the virtual sessions of TechEd in 2022? Check out our playlist of lectures, breakouts, and virtual workshops to become an expert on different topics:

SAP Business Technology Platform (General)

Application Development and Automation

Integration

Data & Analytics

Artificial Intelligence

Digital Transformation with SAP S/4HANA

Applications and Business Processes

Virtual Workshops

Check Out:

Follow up with the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations

Missed TechEd 2022? Watch our Replays on our SAP TechEd Youtube Channel

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news

Check out the next blog post beginning of Q2/2023 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

👉🏽Read other SAP Business Technology Platform blog posts and check the SAP Business Technology Platform Topic Page where you can also ask questions. Feel free to follow my profile stephanie.stang that you do not miss my next personal view of innovation highlights for SAP BTP for Q1 2023.

Top Picks: Innovations from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q1/2023)

2023-04-17T15:32:13+02:00

In 2023 the Top Innovation Picks Blog is back with the highlights of our recent deliveries out of the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) product roadmap. The first quarter of the year already started with some amazing announcements and of course many newly released features. So, I´m really excited to present you a subset of innovation highlights in this blog post to share my personal highlights of the SAP Business Technology Platform roadmap.

Spend some minutes to check out my blog post to enjoy the Q1 2023 top innovation highlights.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q1 2023:

Application Development & Automation:

The Q1 2023 release of SAP Build Process Automation provided some great new features. With updates in Process Forms and UI you have the possibility to include intermediate timer, add table to forms and work on tasks in SAP Task Center. Adding API Triggers to Automation is just one of the new features for Process Orchestration & Automation which eliminates the need for manual setup post-deployment to make your life easier. Also, in the last quarter the new SAP Build Content Catalog was announced. With the new catalog you can find exciting offerings on pre-built processes, automations, and application templates for SAP Build Process Automation, SAP Build WorkZone and SAP Build Apps. It is worthwhile spending some minutes to check out the offerings in the new catalogue. The blog post of jesse09 and the blog post of ajmaradiaga will show more details on the latest product features.

With the 2302 Release of SAP BTP ABAP Environment, we took the chance to provide a lot of new useful features. In the area of ABAP development tools, we support the configuration of tree hierarchy and data preview, enhanced the element information pop-up and support hiding test classes as a few benefits. The support of SAP BTP workflow services for process automation with the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model and the default layout mode in the administration are two more examples of released features. Check out the blog post of merveyalcin to get an update on all important features.

You want to learn about SAP Build Apps starting from basics? You can easily explore and try out SAP Build Apps for 30 days with the SAP Build Apps Sandbox. The first steps are quite simple and there is no need to create and configure an SAP BTP subaccount. Free and simple sound good to you? So why don’t you explore and try it out? c-b.singh will provide you with more information on how it works in his blog post.

Data & Analytics:

With the launch of SAP Datasphere, we introduced a comprehensive data service built on SAP Business Technology Platform that enables every data professional to deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data. You wonder how this might be possible? Our unified service for data integration, cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, and virtualizing workloads across SAP and non-SAP data helps to easily distribute mission-critical business data. Check out the blog post of juergen.mueller and the blog post of jgc001 to get more information.

The SAP Datasphere launch also came with several new innovations like the Analytical Model, one of the cornerstones of SAP Datasphere. The Analytical Model allows multi-dimensional and semantically rich analytical modelling to answer business questions easier, faster, and more efficiently. Rich measure modelling, collection of user input via prompts in SAP Analytics Cloud, Dependency Management and Transport are just a few of the benefits which are provided. Take a look at the blog post of jan.fetzer to gain more insights and see how to start.

Integration:

In my last top innovation picks blog I mentioned the release of the Slack and Splunk adapters as built-in connectivity options for SAP Integration Suite. Only one quarter later we released two additional non-SAP connectivity adapters: The Microsoft Azure Storage and the RabbitMQ. Both as built-in connectivity options with the Cloud Integration capability of SAP Integration Suite. The Microsoft Azure Storage sender and receiver adapter facilitate the integration of four different Azure storages: Blob, File, Queue and Table. The RabbitMQ sender and receiver adapter lets you access the features supported by the RabbitMQ broker. You can leverage the adapter to consume and publish messages between the RabbitMQ server and SAP Integration Suite. It supports event-driven and fire-and-forget integration patterns. The adapters are available on SAP API Business Hub and can be consumed directly in the integration flow designer of Cloud Integration. Feel free to look at the SAP API Business Hub to get more information.

Integration is key for topics like transformation to connect systems and provide a seamless information flow. With the shipment of the two new features - the migration assessment and the migration tool – as part of SAP Integration Suite we support the transition from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite. The former tool allows you to assess your SAP Process Orchestration system to be able to scope the migration to SAP Integration Suite. As a result, you get a rough understanding of feasibility, migration complexity and effort. The actual migration is done using the migration tool which is embedded in the Cloud Integration designer. It guides you through the automatic or at least semi-automatic migration of an integration scenario from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite. SAP Process Orchestration assets such as mappings can be re-used and an integration flow is generated based on a template approach. Find out more information in the blog post of arti.gopalan.

Talking of Integration Suite let me come to the next innovation highlight right away: The SAP Integration Suite – Advanced Scheduler Configuration. The Cloud Integration capability of SAP Integration Suite comes with an enhancement for the Timer flow step with version 1.2, where you can configure more complex and granular schedules. It has been labelled as Advanced, as it provides advanced capabilities in configuring your schedules. With the Advanced scheduler option, you can configure schedules using a combination of various units of time measurement like the last day of the month, the last weekday of the week, specific days in a month or year, every few minutes, between certain hours, and so on. Check out the blog post of deepakgovardhanrao.deshpande for more information.

Artificial Intelligence:

With the smart capabilities of Document Information Extraction (part of the SAP AI Business Services Portfolio), information can be easily extracted from business documents like invoices and purchase orders. With the help of pre-trained AI models, you can enhance information extraction results from documents by allowing them to extract different types of barcodes. Want to know how it works? Check out the blog post of rizviab.

In Q1 many more features have been released for SAP AI Core, SAP AI Launchpad and SAP AI Business Services. For example in SAP AI Core you can schedule executions, synchronize on-demand content in Git repository and store generic secrets. Additionally, SAP AI Business Services also released new features like the enhancement of the content-based model, the embedded support in user interface or the updated language support for template processing. Check out the blog post of tobias_98 and the blog post of paul-pinard to see what´s new in SAP AI Core, SAP AI Launchpad and SAP AI Business Services for Q1 2023.

Across SAP BTP:

Many innovations have been released in the field of security. One example is the SAP Cloud Identity - Identity Provisioning Graphical Editor, which is a game changer for transformation configurations. Non-experts can easily configure transformations without knowing JSON syntax rules, while professionals can enjoy both the JSON and graphical representation. This tool significantly contributes to the growth of Identity Provisioning. Take a look at the blog post of ivelina.kiryakova to get more information.

Additionally, there is great news for SAP Cloud Identity Services administrators: The SAP Cloud Identity - Identity Provisioning has been integrated into the SAP Cloud Identity Services Administration Console! This means that you can now configure and work with Identity Provisioning in the same place, with a harmonized admin web interface. If you're interested in simplifying the user experience and reducing manual effort. Enjoy the blog post of sonia.petrescu to get more details.

Finally, I´m excited to announce that the SAP Cloud Identity API is now able to manage application configuration in Identity Authentication via API. We released the SAP Cloud Identity API, which offers endpoints for CRUD operations (GET, PUT, POST, PATCH, DELETE) over applications. This can serve as the basis for retrieving security API from the SAP Cloud Identity service. Take a look at the API Business Hub to get more information.

SAP Sapphire coming up!

Already registered for SAP Sapphire 2023? No? Then take the opportunity to be part of SAP Sapphire in Orlando, Barcelona, Sao Paulo or Virtual to learn how to future-proof your business and stay ahead of the next change coming up. Join us and register now.

Check Out:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news

Check out the next blog post beginning of Q3/2023 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

🎨 🔭 Power to the Marketer Festival 2023

2023-06-02T18:41:10+02:00

Happy Friday All!

With the sun shining and the weekend fast approaching, it's got me in the mood for a celebration!

Luckily next week Emarsys are returning once again for our biggest event of the year, the Power to the Marketer Festival on June 7-8th.

This year's theme is centered all around celebrating marketers who have successfully maneuvered the intersection of art and science to deliver omnichannel campaigns their customers love and drive the outcomes their businesses need.

Expect practitioner-focussed sessions and panels with retail brands like:

Brandsdal

Ochsner Sport

BrandAlley

Estée Lauder

Hobbii and

Retail Touchpoints

Not to mention the session we’re kicking the festival off with…

SAP Emarsys - Product Strategy, Roadmap, and Innovations

In this session we’ll share news about our latest product launch and take a deep dive into how the SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement Platform:

Unlocks time to value by onboarding your data easily and executing campaigns fast

Demonstrates the revenue impact of marketing efforts

Is undergoing continuous improvement to meet the demanding needs of marketers in 2023 and beyond

To get access to this session and a whole host of content over the two days, register for the Omnichannel Masterclass now!

Celebrating 3 Million Visits of the SAP Road Map Explorer

2023-06-30T23:39:59+02:00

Since its launch in May 2020, the SAP Road Map Explorer has revolutionized the way SAP's product and solution road maps are viewed. The application is delivering precisely to the need of customers and users through its user-friendly UI and detailed information on roadmap items - and it recently passed 3 million page visits by more than 300,000 users.

A big THANK YOU to all our customers, partners and colleagues for whom the tool has become a reliable source for road map information.

SAP Road Map Explorer and Upcoming Events

Connect with us at SAPHILA - the conference of the African SAP User Group - between July 9 and 11, 2023 to learn more about the tool and other road map information.

For details see the event agenda and specifically the presentation on Monday, July 10, 14:00-14:40 by our colleague philippmeyer

Information on the application as well as SAP's product and solution road maps will also be presented later in the year at the DSAG annual event, September 19 to 21, 2023.

Visit the Expert Session on SAP Road Map Explorer on Thursday, September 21, 13:20-14:00 (at the SAP booths area) and stay tuned for the announcement of the detailed solution road map topics in the event information.

Access all Product, Solution and Industry Road Maps

However, there is no need to wait for those evenst! Access the application at roadmaps.sap.com and start browsing, saving and sharing your road maps.

Top Picks: Innovations Highlights from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q2/2023)

2023-09-01T15:22:09+02:00

While most of you are enjoying the well deserved summer vacation our development is delivering a lot of new innovations, enhacements and features. So, I´m really excited to present you a subset of innovation highlights including an outlook on what´s planned for 2023. So let me share my personal highlights of the SAP Business Technology Platform roadmap for Q2 2023.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q2 2023:

Application Development & Automation:

With the 2305 SAP BTP ABAP Environment release, the development team delivered 40 new features, most notably in the areas of Partner Enablement, ABAP Development Tools, and Performance Monitoring. Check them out.

Many new triggers for processes and automations have been released for SAP Build Process Automation. SAP Build Process Automation is now able to propagate the security context of the business user while using actions for cloud and on-premise integration scenarios. Additionally the same feature can be used between a process and a subprocess to help ensure full context propagation and auditability. The next feature highlight ‘Reusable Rule’ function within decisions. This new capability allows for an easily reusable rule integration into other rules, offering specific functionality required across multiple business rules. You want to get more features check out the April and May post of jesse09

Integration:

In my last top innovation picks blogs I mentioned the releases of the Slack and Splunk adapters as well as Microsoft Azure Storage and the RabbitMQ. With the provisioning of Microsoft 365 adapter in Q2 we provide a built-in connectivity for the Microsoft 365 collaborative platform. It supports for example MS 365 applications like Excel or OneNote, files and content app with OneDrive, e-mail and calendar applications such as Outlook and Calendar. Feel free to look at the SAP API Business Hub to get more information.

Talking of Integration I´m happy to share that with the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology got released. With that, SAP offers a methodology that supports the design of a hybrid integration platform. It provides a guided approach to asses an integration strategy. For the design of the integration strategy you have the option to leverage the Integration Assessment capability or use dedicated templates which can be downloaded from the documemtation. Want to know more? Take a look at the blog post of konstantin.heine

In addition the existing guiding content got enhanced and now covers as well the SAP Customer Experience solution portfolio for receiving suitable integration technology recommendations through the Integration Assessment capability within SAP Integration Suite.
We have also started to provide standard APIs to integrate other systems with the Integration Assessment capability. This will allow new scenarios when designing an integration architecture tool chain in future. Check out the video.

Data and Analytics:

SAP Analytics Cloud brings together analytics and planning with the integration of SAP application.To optimize your story experience we merged the self-service story builder with the pro-code analytics designer front end in one simplified shell for SAP Analytics Cloud. Next to that we released many new features that can be explored in the blog post of jie.deng and the video.

With Q2 we released the feature of re-using SAP S/4HANA semantics efficiently in SAP Datasphere. The import entities wizard helps you to load data from your SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA on-premise connections via semantically-rich objects. In addition it supports to fully leverage your S/4HANA and S/4HANA Cloud semantic CDS views in SAP Datasphere. This function is also available for SAP S/4HANA on premise data sources. Check out the article to learn how it works.

Artificial Intelligence:

Nowadays technologies are reshaping the way businesses operate. Also within SAP BTP we use AI to make applications and processes more intelligent. With the new content package for large language models for SAP AI Core, you can now save a lot of time setting up the Docker images and templates necessary to integrate natural language capabilities into your software. The content package integrates SAP AI Core with the large language models provided by Azure OpenAI, providing you with a powerful tool for building language-based applications quickly. Check out the blog post of carl to find out more.

Talking of AI one of the services offered by SAP Business Service portfolio is Document Information Extraction. With the help of the service it is possible to process standard documents like invoices, purchase orders and others, directly out of the box. In addition to documents, you can now extract text from images using the OCR engine for scene text recognition. Simply take a photo and send it via the API to Document Information Extraction. Want to know how it works? Check out the blog post of maria.bezrukova

Cross SAP BTP

With Q2, SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery service allows you to come up with running build, test and deploy pipeline for SAP-specific development use cases on SAP BTP in minutes - without expertise and own infrastructure. You can use simple extension points that allow you to add your own logic to these pipeline templates in the form of scripts. Check out the blog post of holger.partsch and the blog post of sarah_n to find out more.

In addition, the B2B Library of GS1 XML Messages got added to the predefined Type System content in Integration Advisor of SAP Integration Suite. Associated with this content the support for namespace handling in XML messages got extended. Feel free to take a look at the blog post of joerg.ackermann to find out more.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights outlook:

Please find here my personal innovation highlights outlook coming up:

Application Development & Automation: SAP Build Apps: Integration with SAP SuccessFactors solutions

Integration: Edge Integration Cell for on-premise and hybrid integration scenarios including API-led integrations

Artificial Intelligence: Document classification capability as part of Document Information Extraction

Data and Analytics: Next-generation natural language query (NLQ) powered by AI for SAP Analytics Cloud

Cross SAP BTP: SAP Cloud Transport Management: Option to transport content for SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Mobile Service; Provisioning of global accounts and directory members through the Identity Provisioning service

Check out all upcoming innovations in our SAP Road Map Explorer to learn more.

Join us for SAP TechEd - Where ideas get real!

At SAP TechEd, we bring the best together to share ideas and solutions on how to turn ideas into reality. Learn the latest technologies and best practices to ensure having the skills to stay relevant and knowledge to be one step ahead. Registration is already open.

Check Out:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news

Check out the next blog post beginning of Q4/2023 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

Transition to SAP S/4HANA with SAP Services and Support

2023-10-16T01:40:17+02:00

“I want to transition to SAP S/4HANA but I do not know where to start” this is a common comment I have heard from several customers who are planning to kick start their SAP S/4HANA journey. For each customer the motivation for the transition could be different, they could either be driven by planning their SAP roadmap beyond SAP ECC 6.0 or to move towards the intelligent enterprise or to maximize the value of their S/4HANA system. The customers seek support from SAP services for guidance and support for any of the above mentioned scenarios.

SAP Services and Support offers a range of services to assist customers on their transition journey. The SAP Activate Methodology for Transition to SAP S/4HANA consists of a portfolio of business as well as technically oriented services to help customers embark on their transformation journey but also support them along the way.

Figure 1: SAP Activate Methodology

In this blog, we will look at some of the services which help you plan your journey to SAP S/4HANA and the different scenarios associated with the transformation. From an Activate viewpoint the services sit mainly within the Discover and Prepare phases. These services are delivered by experts within the SAP Business Transformation Services and SAP Transformation Hub teams. Let’s take a look at each of these services and what each one of them offer.

Figure 2: Planning the Digital Transformation

Within these phases the services are grouped under Strategic Planning, Application Scoping and Transition Planning. Beyond the prepare phase SAP services offers additional services with respect to the design, build, deployment and running of the solution. The details of the services for the purpose of this blog are described below:

1. Strategic Planning

This is the foundation to any transformation. It is critical to understand the overall business strategy and then translate it into a technical roadmap. More details around why this phase is critical can be found in my previous blog Key Aspects of Business Transformation The service offering under this phase is called Innovation Strategy and Roadmap (ISR)

a. Innovation Strategy and Roadmap (ISR)

This service component helps develop a multi-year strategic road map that addresses your digital transformation needs. Starting from strategy and objectives of business and IT, it delivers a long-term target architecture that is based on current and future needs and comprises relevant functionality of SAP S/4HANA, SaaS applications, and SAP Business Technology Platform features. Proposed enablers and initiatives are prioritized by business value. Strategic topics like sustainability and industry cloud are fully supported.

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

plan a transformation program based upon the Intelligent Enterprise.

design a future-proof enterprise architecture for applications, data, and platform supporting the strategic objectives of business and IT.

define a comprehensive innovation strategy and a road map to implement the target architecture

Below are some of the key steps associated with this service:

Value and Benefits:

Final report with business capability map, recommendations for business and IT, target architecture, and implementation road map.

Provides best-in-class SAP architecture and expertise. Service is delivered through an efficient and proven methodology.

Close collaboration of all relevant customer stakeholders and SAP experts; target architecture and road map will be realistic and aligned.

2. Application Scoping

Once the general innovation strategy and high-level road map has been defined, you will need to become familiar with SAP S/4HANA and as such, the value it brings for your business. Furthermore, the impact on existing business processes needs to be analysed in more details. The set of services under this phase help drive those outcomes.

a. Value & Implementation Strategy (VIS)

This service component supports your decision for the best-fitting transition path to SAP S/4HANA for your company. Following your business priorities we help you define the target landscape and identify key innovations to benefit most from the move to SAP S/4HANA. We evaluate the conversion readiness of your SAP ECC system and create a program plan and a high-level road map for the transition to SAP S/4HANA. Can also be leveraged for preparing an upgrade of SAP S/4HANA.

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

understand the business value of SAP S/4HANA and identify key innovations applicable to his specific business

understand the transformation options to SAP S/4HANA and associated opportunities and risks

get support to create a value case for selected SAP S/4HANA lines of business and industry capabilities

Figure 4: Value and Implementation Strategy Overview

Value and Benefits:

Final report with business scenarios in scope and related value to your business, recommendations for the implementation strategy for SAP S/4HANA, conversion readiness, recommendations for a target system landscape, and a high-level transition road map based on the identified capabilities

Proposal of next steps, services and activities. Outcome serves as input for service components of the planning the digital transformation service

b. Kick Start for Cloud Solution Implementation

This service component helps customers understand the key topics to consider for a successful implementation journey involving cloud solutions from SAP. It focuses on key knowledge areas and critical skills customers need to consider for their cloud project and is delivered before the project starts.

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

understand cloud concepts and project approach and how to successfully deploy cloud solutions from SAP

gain insights on system and integration capabilities that support the customer’s business process

develop a high-level deployment plan for the specific cloud solution from SAP

Figure 5: Kick Start For Cloud Implementation Sample Outcome

Value and Benefits:

Final Report with the initial fit-to-standard assessment results, high-level deployment plan, and initial integration architecture

Understanding of cloud principles and definition of a customer-specific project approach

Awareness of specific planning elements to be considered for achieving a successful cloud project

Should be followed by the assurance for cloud onboarding service (service components cloud planning workshop for onboarding, phase reviews for onboarding) to mitigate project risks and validate quality in key areas

3. Transition Planning

The planning of the transition project helps to properly define the scope and execution plan for the upcoming SAP S/4HANA transition project. The result is a first version of an action plan, which can serve as the basis for a project plan. The project plan will be constantly refined throughout the project (during the Prepare and the Explore phase) as part of the project management work stream. The services under this section bring together a mix of technical experts to deliver the best outcome for the customers.

a. Migration & Upgrade Planning Workshop

This service component supports you planning the conversion to SAP S/4HANA or SAP BW/4HANA or SAP Datasphere BW Bridge as well as the upgrade of an existing SAP S/4HANA or SAP BW/4HANA system and clarifying the functional and technical scope and project management setup of the conversion/upgrade project. The target system can be on premise or on an infrastructure provider of choice (for Datasphere the target system will be in the cloud).

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

Start a system conversion or upgrade project (SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW/4HANA or SAP Datasphere BW Bridge) and perform a proper planning and preparation.

Use SAP’s expertise in functional and technical scoping of the project and take advantage of the SAP Activate methodology.

Plan a move towards SAP’s modern data warehouse that is SAP BW/4HANA or SAP Datasphere, from various starting points such as legacy data warehouses, SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) running on legacy databases, old SAP BW on SAP HANA environments or (in case of a move towards Datasphere even) SAP BW/4HANA.

Plan an upgrade of SAP BW from one release to another or upgrade and migrate the database to SAP HANA in a single step.

Identify the best fitting conversion or upgrade approach to stay within the allowed business downtime window.

Clarify the roles and responsibilities within the project to be able to align resources.

Figure 6: Migration and Upgrade Planning Workshop Scope Overview

Value and Benefits:

Clarity of the requirements and project scope necessary for a successful conversion or upgrade project.

Final report with a system-level transition road map and a customer-tailored high-level milestone plan, also including custom code management and mandatory application and landscape changes. Outcome serves as input for the entire conversion or upgrade project.

SAP engagement plan

b. Transition Planning for New Implementation

This service component supports you planning a new implementation of SAP S/4HANA or SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and clarifying the functional and technical scope and project management setup of the SAP S/4HANA implementation project.

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

start a new implementation of SAP S/4HANA or SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and perform a proper planning and preparation.

use SAP expertise in functional and technical scoping of the project and take advantage of the SAP Activate implementation methodology.

Figure 7: Transition Planning for New Implementation Sample Deliverables

Value and Benefits:

Final report with high-level business process map, best-practices scope, system architecture with interfaces, quick sizing, data volumes, data migration approach, and UX strategy.

Initial scope statement, initial project schedule and resource planning, project governance, and operational standards, response plan, and (updated) service plan.

Outcome serves as input for the technical and functional design services of the explore phase.

c. Selective Data Transition Planning Workshop

This service component supports you planning a migration to SAP S/4HANA following a selective data transition scenario. It provides a high-level assessment of technical and functional prerequisites as well as migration requirements to move to the SAP S/4HANA target architecture and identifies the data migration requirements and best fitting data migration tools.

This service is suitable for customers who want to:

transition to SAP S/4HANA in a way that goes beyond the standard options of new implementation and system conversion, for example perform a shell conversion and migrate historical data into the new system, or consolidate multiple systems into one SAP S/4HANA system.

Identification of recommended solution approach to migrate data to SAP S/4HANA while matching the flexibility requested by the customer for process re-use vs. process re-design, migration scope (selection criteria, transformation needs, data cleansing), rollout, and downtime requirements.

use SAP’s expertise in functional and technical scoping of the project and perform a proper planning and preparation.

plan an upcoming transition of SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) or SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) on SAP Business Suite to SAP TM or SAP EWM on SAP S/4HANA.

Figure 8: Selective Data Transition Sample Service Scope

Value and Benefits

Final report containing a proposed solution approach, findings and recommendations for the major workstreams, and a high-level project plan.

SAP service plan recommendation.

Make use of team of experts from SAP to recommend the best fitting solution approach considering your custom-specific requirements.

Minimize and anticipate in advance potential topics and risks impacting your transition project.

d. Prototype

SAP Prototyping Service should be used to evaluate capabilities of an innovative solution in a controlled prototype. Prototyping Service allows customer to evaluate capabilities of an innovative solution within a relatively short timeframe in a non-productive environment. The Prototyping Service supports and guides customers by experts to build, operate and execute a prototype. The delivery team utilizes its customer insight and global expertise to help you minimize the risk while maximizing the value of innovation for your businesses. Prototyping supports on premise as well as cloud prototypes.

Figure 9: Prototype Services Overview

Value and Benefits:

Guidance on functional and technical aspects for a solution which is being evaluated for the business

Business process map, scope statement, finding

In addition to the above services there are a range of technical services that SAP offers from a transitioning viewpoint, more details can be found in this blog How to Kick Start your SAP S/4HANA journey with SAP Services SAP also offers services on a wide range of topics from project management to application design to extensibility and safeguarding. More details regarding these services can be found on SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer. Reach out to your SAP Technical Quality Manager or SAP Account Executive for additional details on these services and how to engage SAP services to help you on your transition journey.

Note: All the images associated with the services are property of SAP.

Top Picks: Innovations Highlights from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q3/2023)

2023-11-09T10:00:41+01:00

What an amazing TechEd 2023! We had many announcements for SAP BTP like #SAPBTP like #SAPBuildCode, #EdgeIntegrationCell, #Vectorcapabilities for SAP HANA Cloud, #JustAsk for SAP Analytics Cloud. Also in Q3 we delievered a lot of innovations on SAP BTP. In this blog post I want to focus on a subset of innovation highlights including an outlook on what is coming up next.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q3 2023

Application Development and Automation:

Starting in the Application Development and Automation pillar of SAP BTP, with Q3 we have some higlights in the SAP Build Work Zone area. Happy to share that SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition (formerly known as SAP Launchpad service) introduced a new site experience. Having the latest functionality based on the Horizion visual theme for Fiori in place, it also offers new design time capabilities targeted to the content administrator to be able to create spaces and pages manually. Additionally, UI integration cards and tiles can be added. The end user experience improved as well. They have now the capability to consume the pages and the content of the pages in runtime. Get more information on all capabilities in the blog post of vera.gutbrod

Welcome SAP Start! With Q3, SAP Start is part of the SAP Build Work Zone family and your central entry point into SAP cloud solutions. Having SAP Start in place, you will find all your relevant business information in a single landing page based on end-user stories. It delivers immediate value with insight cards. The initial release is available for SAP customers with RISE with SAP or GROW with SAP contracts or SAP Build Work Zone (standard edition) licenses. Want to explore more about SAP Start? Then read the blog post of yumnah.abbasi

Governance can be an unpopular topic...but it doesn´t have to be. Many of our customers have not just started their low-code journey, they also extend SAP S/4HANA with low-code applications and automations. Governance is a must-have if it comes to security, performance or compliance that could affect the ERP. Helping our customers to find the right governance, we released our one-stop resource hub, the Governance Resource Center for SAP Build. It provides you with all the information, assets and practical templates designed for IT administrators, a toolkit for building a citizen developer center of excellence business site, and the new Use Case Evaluator for SAP Build projects. Check it out here.

Integration:

Graph is now generally available as part of API management in SAP Integration Suite. This new capability extends traditional API management by exposing business data in the form of a semantically connected data graph, accessed via a single unified and powerful API. Graph gives integration and application developers selective, seamless access to enterprise data via a single, easy-to-use API. It is also available in SAP Build, SAP’s low-code solution. Check out the blog post of piyush.gakhar

Migration from SAP Process Orchestration to SAP Integration Suite is an important topic. With Q3 you can now migrate Integrated Configuration Objects (ICO) from SAP Process Orchestration 7.31 and 7.40 versions to SAP Integration Suite. The update is available for template-based migration tooling in Cloud Integration and will be available for the Migration Assessment tooling soon. For supported service pack see What Is Migration Tooling?

Data and Analytics:

With the Q3 release of 2023, several great Calculation View feature have been released that can be used in Business Application Studio. MDS cubes provide an option to speed up analytical queries, column-level lineage gives you an indication where a column is used in a current Calculation View and measure-based restrictions in columns gives you more filtering flexibility while eliminating outliers before aggregation. But this is just a subset! Make sure you check out the blog post of jan.zwickel for the full-blown experience.

In addition to that Custom Widget can support Linked Analysis starting with Q3. The Linked Analysis feature in custom widgets gives UI developers now the chance to dynamically link custom widgets to others in the Story and perform insightful filtering operations on demand. If you want to learn more read the blog post of marouferchichi.

Artificial Intelligence:

Late Q3 we announced Joule, a natural-language, generative AI copilot. Our digital assistant that provides intelligent insights and fast business outcomes offerd with seamless user experience across the entire portfolio.By quickly sorting through and contextualizing data from multiple systems to surface smarter insights, Joule helps people get work done faster and drive better business outcomes in a secure, compliant way. Joule will be available with SAP SuccessFactors solutions and the SAP Start site later this year, and with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition early next year. SAP Customer Experience and SAP Ariba solutions along with SAP Business Technology Platform will follow. Learn more about Joule here.

With Q3 the SAP AI Core toolkit is available - our Visual Studio Code extension for AI-driven development with SAP solutions. It makes a connection to your SAP AI Core instance directly from Visual Studio Code, allows you to develop solutions for your use case, and leverage AI capabilities through SAP AI Core, in one developer tool.Check out the blog post of yoganandamuthaiah

Cross SAP BTP:

Development Operations is quite importan for our customers. With Q3 you can now transport content for SAP Analytics Cloud scenarios with SAP Cloud Transport Management service. This allows you to handle the propagation of corresponding changes through a standardized, enterprise-ready process and to align those changes with other transports, from other services or environments.Read the blog post of ashokkumar.kn and watch the replay of the What´s New with SAP BTP quarterly series to get more insights. For more on how to apply agile DevOps principles in an enterprise environment and what is possible with SAP BTP, you can also check out the new learning journey: https://learning.sap.com/learning-journey/discovering-devops-with-sap-btp

Want to know more on the announcements for SAP BTP at SAP TechEd2023? Then stay tuned for a special innovation highlights blog coming soon.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights - outlook:

Please find here my personal innovation highlights outlook coming up:

Application Development and Automation: SAP Build Code

Integration: Edge Integration Cell for on-premise and hybrid integration scenarios including API-led integrations

Artificial Intelligence: Document classification capability as part of Document Information Extraction

Data and Analytics: Next-generation natural language query (NLQ) powered by AI for SAP Analytics Cloud

Cross SAP BTP: SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery service: Pipeline to build and deploy SAP Cloud Application Programming Model applications in the SAP BTP, Kyma runtime; Provisioning of global accounts and directory members through the Identity Provisioning service

Check out all upcoming innovations in our SAP Road Map Explorer to learn more.

Check Out:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news

Check out the next blog post beginning of Q4/2023 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter

If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series

Want to get a recap on what´s new in SAP BTP then check out the What´s New in SAP BTP quarterly series

Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

SAP Utilities Roadmap 2024 and 2025

2023-12-20T08:17:16+01:00

Providing our customers, partners, and stakeholders with timely information on upcoming topics in the utilities industry is extremely important.
To facilitate this, we have created a matrix that outlines the relevant topics for the next two years, helping to illustrate these highlights.

You can access the detailed information and, if available, the links to the SAP Roadmaps Explorer in this area; The highlights in the graphic above are marked with an H.

Asset Management:

- 2024:
  - H: SAP Asset Performance Management: Use of custom AI algorithms Details
  - H: SAP Asset Performance Management: AI-enabled visual inspection for asset condition monitoring Details
  - SAP Asset Performance Management: Detection of anomalies based on indicator values Details
  - SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration: Integration of models and spare parts to materials Details
  - SAP Field Service Management: Skill categorization and grouping in auto-scheduling Details
  - SAP S/4HANA: Ability to execute checklists in the Perform Maintenance Jobs app Details
  - SAP Service and Asset Manager: Support for Dynamic Forms Details
- 2025:
  - H: SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration: Enablement of digital twin handover with procurement Details
  - H: SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Projects: Digital twin based visualization of time and financial information of projects Details
  - SAP Field Service Management: Ability to manage tools in crew management Details
  - SAP S/4HANA: Enable the refurbishment of spare parts with subcontractors with Fiori apps Details
  - SAP Service and Asset Manager: OCR for quick data capture Details

Metering:

- 2024:
  - H: Anomaly Detection: Extended Version Smart Meter Event and Alert Management (e.g. new rules) Details
  - H: Event and Alert Management: Forward Events and Alerts to Rules Framework Details
  - H: Validation, Estimation and Editing (VEE) of Metering Data: Estimation process: replacement values for larger periods Details
  - Direct navigation to data environments from SAP Fiori apps in utilities meter reading and billing Details
  - Archiving of technical master data that is specific to the utilities industry Details
  - APIs to enable SAP Datasphere for utilities entities Details
  - Simplified reversal of full device replacement Details
  - Change of load profile values in already billed periods; value replacement for profiles without value replacement groups Details
- 2025:
  - H: Complex Validation Rules
  - H: Formula Profiles / Calculated Time Series data
  - Real Time Pricing for Residential Customers
  - Continuous Influence

Bill-to-Cash:

- 2024:
  - H: Custom Field Enablement: Enable custom fields and logic for installation master data Details
  - H: Enhanced Analytics: Leveraging of SAP Datasphere for the utilities industry Details
  - Processing of exact move-in time and move-out time of utilities contracts Details
  - Enable custom fields and logic for premise and contract master data Details
  - Ability to disable obsolete service providers Details
  - Credits and debits: support for gross and net amounts Details
  - SAP Fiori app enhancements for convergent invoicing (private cloud edition) Details
  - Integration of payment by link for utilities invoices Details
  - Display of utilities invoices and budget billing plans in a business partner financial overview Details
- 2025:
  - H: Increase automation of invoicing processes by leveraging machine learning and predictive models Details
  - H: Service management for utilities – round-off Details
  - End-to-end reconciliation from event to GL in contract accounting and invoicing Details
  - Reduce time and costs associated with simulation of invoice forecasts for subscription or usage alterations Details
  - Integrated reversal process for SAP Convergent Invoicing and SAP for Utilities Details

Customer Experience:

- 2024:
  - H: Personalization and segmentation accelerator for utilities Details
  - H: Next Generation Agent Experience
  - Content Management Improvement for Self Service
  - Use of SAP Customer Data Cloud Integration for Self Service
  - Utility Accelerator for SAP Customer Data Cloud
- 2025:
  - H: Additional intelligent Sales and Service scenarios
  - H: Industry Cloud Partner Solutions for Energy and Water Service and Sales

Energy Transition and Sustainability:

- 2024:
  - H: New utilities basic device category called “control box” Details
  - H: Configuration of formula definitions for measurement concept models Details
  - Export of a network graph for usage in third-party systems Details
  - Clustering and filtering of formulas in calculation rule view Details
  - Support for creating measurement concept instances using a UI Details
  - Analytics for Long-Running Processes Details
  - Definition of resources specific attributes for DER assets
- 2025:
  - H: Basic DER lifecycle mgmt. functionalities
  - H: Support for virtual power plants to aggregate decentralized energy generation units
  - Integrate Asset Registry w/ SAP Cloud for Energy & E-Mobility
  - Integrate CX sales capabilities and enhance S/4HANA billing to support new energy related products for flexumers
  - Simple analytics for long-running processes
  - Complex Validation of data

Regulatory Requirements:

- 2024:
  - H: Roadmap for German Retailers: completion of metering processes, master data changes, and settlement
  - H: Legal changes for all market roles in the German Market
  - Concept for internationalization of Market Communication
- 2025:
  - H: Legal changes for all market roles in the German Market
  - H: Enabling International Market Communication
  - Continuous innovation (make the found valuable AI cases available)

Please consider that this information and SAP‘s strategy and possible future developments are subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. This document is provided without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

If you have any questions, comments etc. please do not hesitate to contact us.

New Feature in the SAP Road Map Explorer: Product Vision Column

2024-01-31T08:37:44.287000+01:00

What is changing?

Kanban board

Every RM item > 4 quarters into the future will be combined in one product vision column, instead of showing several separate vision columns

No change in the set-up of “current quarter” plus the 4 next of planned innovations
Time horizon button, in which we have now 2 options:

(1) choice of a variable range – use the circle to drag and define the range (chose earliest, current, latest, as until now)

(2) choice of a specific range – use to define a specific quarter(s) range, as today.

Solution capability view at innovation level

The same logic as above is applied here as well.

Have a look at https://roadmaps.sap.com/welcome.

Top Picks: Innovations Highlights from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q4/2023)

2024-02-20T21:19:27.745000+01:00

The innovation highlights blog for SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) is back in 2024. I´m excited to see which innovations are coming up in 2024 for SAP BTP. But isn´t it worthwhile reviewing the top Q4 2023 highlights of our recent deliveries out of the SAP BTP product roadmap as well?

Join me to take a closer look at a subset of my personal innovation highlights of SAP BTP in Q4 2023 and an outlook of what´s coming up next.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q4 2023

Application Development and Automation:

With Q4 2023, SAP Build Apps is now available with the SAP BTP Trial Account. Trial Accounts allow to experience and evaluate the key functions of SAP Build Apps, the low-code application development tool. If you ready to experience SAP Build Apps then activate your Trial Account right now following a few simple steps. Learn how to get started with the blog post of @EsmeeX.
SAP Build Work Zone got some new features and enhancements as well. A new site experience for SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition, import and export of site menu for the advanced edition are just two new features for a smooth admin experience. Business users can be happy as well as they also got a new improvement for the guided experience with wizard layout. Check out also the integration of Joule, our digital assistant, in SAP Start. Read the blog post of @Vera_Gutbrod to get all updates.
In Q4 2023 SAP Build Process Automation released a new set of 19 content packages - 12 business content and 7 learning content crafted for IT, Sales, Services, Sourcing, Finance, and Procurement. A detailed list on the new content can be found here. Check out also the blog post of @JesseSukhbayar to get more insights on what´s new with SAP Build Process Automation. If you have found interesting content and need to know how to deploy the pre-built content in SAP Build Process Automation I can highly recommend to watch the video demonstrating it. Learn how easy it is and configure step by step to fine-tune the content before deploying it in your project.

Integration:

Concentrating on our flagship integration product, SAP Integration Suite, we released a flexible hybrid integration runtime: Edge Integration Cell. The new extension of SAP Integration Suite as Kubernetes based solution provides the option of a local, customer-managed environment of the SAP Integration Suite. With this we provide customers with hybrid or private environment the flexibility to choose the runtime for the execution of ground-to-ground or hybrid integration scenarios depending on their use cases. Edge Integration Cell supports for example the execution of integrations between local on premise systems without any data leaving the local datacenter and without loosing the comfort of having a central design and management solution for all integration scenarios. It helps a lot of customers in certain industries to meet region specific laws and regulations. Check out the announcement blog post of @piyush_gakhar and the FAQ blog post of @finny_babu to get more insights. For 2024 there are already several innovations on our Road Map Explorer for Edge Integration Cell.
To provide enhanced B2B integration, Trading Partner Management capability enables now support for validating and converting the Tradacoms message format by introducing a new flow step. It provides the full end-to-end support for Tradacoms messages in Trading Partner Management and you are able to use the type system for modelling guidelines in Integration Advisor. Check out the blogpost of @joerg_ackermann for more information.

Data and Analytics:

The data lake realational engine in SAP HANA Cloud has with Q4 2023 the ability to read and write data from nearly any files instance of SAP HANA Cloud data lake. This significantly improves the integration between instances of SAP HANA Cloud and broaden access to data sources from the relational engine of the data lake for SAP HANA Cloud. You will benefit from expanded access to diverse data sources, fostering improved data utilization and reinforcing the synergy between various SAP HANA Cloud instances. If you want to learn more check out the blog post of @thomashammer to get more highlights on what´s new for SAP HANA Cloud in December.
Additionally with Q4 2023 you have new options of data center availability and hyperscaler options for SAP Analytics Cloud through the deployment of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the Asia and Europe region.

Artificial Intelligence:

At TechEd 2023 in November we did not only announce the generative AI hub - it also got released just a few weeks later. The generative AI hub provides instant access to a broad range of large language models (LLMs) from different providers and partners like GPT-4 by Azure OpenAI or OpenSource Falcon-40b. With this access, developers can orchestrate multiple models, whether programmatically via SAP AI Core or via the playground within SAP AI Launchpad. Check out the blog post of @HadiHares.
With the Q4 2023 release the new Document Information Extraction, premium edition supercharged by AI capabilities, makes the process of different types of documents without increased costs or more manual work possible. It automates all business document use cases in most languages end to end, provides built-in support for 40+ languages with extensions for virtually any kind of document and makes extensions of exisiting extraction routines possible. To get more information read the blog post of @tomasz_janasz.
If you are interested in a deep-dive of SAP´s Generative AI strategy make sure you read the blog post of @philipp_herzig. The blog post is the first of a series that dives deeper into various aspects of SAP’s approach to generative AI and its technical underpinnings.

Cross SAP BTP:

Guidance on the best way to develop extensions and applications on SAP BTP is a topic everyone is lacking for. Our in Q4 2023 released SAP BTP Guidance Framework is the compass for architecting, implementing, and operating solutions on SAP BTP. It includes elements like decision guides, reference architectures, methodologies, recommendations and DevOps. One resource within the SAP BTP Guidance Framework which was also released in the last quarter of 2023 is the SAP BTP Developer´s Guide. The guide helps on how to implement business applications on SAP BTP and explains the building blocks for developing, delivering, and integrating business applications.
Our famous SAP Discovery Center also got some updates. In addition to missions and services the SAP Discovery Center cosmos now includes reference architectures. As of now you can find integration, data and analytics and hyperscaler references architectures in our catalog. Each reference architecture provides you guiding information which helps to understand its scope, mechanics, how it relates to SAP business applications and guidance when to choose a particular reference architecture. The SAP BTP reference architectures are also part of the just mentioned SAP BTP Guidance Framework.
With Q4 2023 we also announced the availability of the SAP Application Extension Methodology version 2.2. The SAP Application Extension Methodology supports and guides you by providing a structured, technology agnostic approach to define an organization specific extension strategy. Version 2.2 offers now a full documentation on the SAP Help Portal, improved technology agnostic extension tasks and a refined extension technology mapping. Check out the blog post of @MarcoMatha to learn more.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights - outlook:

Please find here my personal innovation highlights outlook coming up:

Application Development and Automation: SAP Build Code
Application Development and Automation: Generating a business service of ABAP RESTful application programming model
Integration: AdvancedEventMesh adapter for event mediation
Integration: Support for custom SOA messages in Integration Advisor
Data and Analytics: Next-generation natural language query (NLQ) powered by AI for SAP Analytics Cloud
Data and Analytics: Support for storage and retrieval of vector embeddings in SAP HANA Cloud
SAP Identity and Access Management: Identity Authentication service integration with SAP Cloud ALM

Check out all upcoming innovations in our SAP Road Map Explorer to learn more.

Check out more on innovation highlights:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations 🔊
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all SAP BTP product news 📫
Check out the next blog post beginning of Q2/2024 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter 🗒
If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series 📹
Want to get a recap on what´s new in SAP BTP then check out the What´s New in SAP BTP quarterly series
Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up 📅

👉 Read other SAP Business Technology Platform blog posts and check the SAP Business Technology Platform Topic Page where you can also ask questions. Feel free to follow my profile stephanie.stang that you do not miss my next personal view of innovation highlights for SAP BTP for Q1 2024.

Top Picks: Innovations Highlights from SAP Business Technology Platform (Q1/2024)

2024-04-17T20:29:36.355000+02:00

As spring season arrived, we find ourselves already immersed in Q2 2024. So let´s pause for a moment to explore the SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) innovations we had released in the first quarter of 2024.

Take a break and enjoy reading the blog for a closer look on the Q1 2024 highlights of our recent deliveries and an outlook of what´s up next on the SAP BTP product roadmap.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights Q1 2024

Application Development and Automation:

At TechEd 2023 in November we announced SAP Build Code. Excited to share that SAP Build Code is generally available to all developers. With the help of our copilot Joule, SAP Build Code provides AI-based code generation, optimized for Java and JavaScript application development. It is providing a turn-key environment for coding, testing, integrations, and application lifecycle management. Tailored for SAP development, SAP Build Code utilizes the favorite SAP programming models and frameworks and enables to seamlessly connect to S/4HANA and other applications with pre-built integrations. The guided development experience helps as well using best practices. In addition SAP Build Code encourages fusion development to use a mix of traditional coding and low-code development. Excited to try out the SAP Build Code offering? Check out the blog post of @bhagat_nainani to get more information on features, test drive tutorial, developer quotes and many more.
SAP Build Process Automation got a new governance capability within the Control Tower: Environments. An Environment, is a virtual space within your SAP Build Process Automation subscription where you can run and deploy projects. It includes triggers and workflow definitions, as well as resources such as Agents producing automation jobs and workflow instances. In the default environment, users can access artifacts based on their security level. Creating shared environments to increase the security of deployed projects and the corresponding artifacts and resources is also possible. Check out more on Environments in the blog post of @Alex-Fortin.
And one more highlight on the datacenter side for SAP Build Process Automation: Switzerland (Zurich) Azure EU Access is available since mid of Q1 as a new region running on Azure for use with enterprise accounts.

Integration:

With Q1 the Advanced Event Mesh adapter with Cloud Integration capability within SAP Integration Suite got available. It enables developers to exchange events and messages with SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh brokers. Receive messages from queues or topic subscriptions in brokers of SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh through the AdvancedEventMesh receiver adapter or send messages to queues or topics in brokers of SAP Integration Suite, advanced event mesh through the AdvancedEventMesh sender adapter is now possible. Check out the new sender and receiver adapter.
With Q1 the creation of custom service-oriented architecture (SOA) messages using WSDL got released. It is an extension of mapping functionalities within the Integration Advisor capability of SAP Integration Suite and offers supports the WSDL format as input for custom message definitions and is an option for use in customer-proprietary SOA messages and customer-extended SOA messages.

Data and Analytics:

Combining the power of large language models (LLMs) with company-specific, real-time data and business process know-how, all integrated in the multi-model database? This is now possible with the SAP HANA Cloud vector engine. The vector engine includes key capabilities like similarity search, complex query support, readiness for real-time analysis, vector storage scalability. Adding the vector engine you can recognize that SAP HANA Cloud acts as the default database in SAP’s generative AI solution strategy. Learn more on capabilities, practical use cases, etc. on the announcement post, the blog post of @shabana and don´t miss to watch the video.
And the next availability of some announcements from TechEd 2023: Just Ask - our next-generation natural language query (NLQ) powered by AI. The user simply types the question in natural language into the search field and receives the required insights. The system generates charts that show the data you asked for, so you can easily understand the data. Just Ask supports SAP Analytics Cloud acquired data models and SAP Datasphere models in its first release. Want to see how simple it is? Watch the video and don´t miss the blog post of @francois_imberton.

Artificial Intelligence:

Also Artificial Intelligence (AI), one of the hottest topics at the moment provides innovation highlights in Q1. Starting with new features for Document Information Extraction. Users can now combine header fields with different setup types in the same schema, get an improved version of the conversion of country specific unit of measure values into ISO format for invoice documents, extract purchase order numbers that are available on-line item field level from invoice documents and get better models for the extraction of standard document types.

Cross SAP BTP:

Maybe you have already seen the recent enhancements on contract-to-billing traceability to the SAP BTP Cockpit? The SAP BTP Cockpit comes up with a new "Usage Analytics" page introducing an entirely new user interface and a brand-new look and feel. In addition the "Entitlements" page got enhanced. Incorporating new commercial information and additional capabilities for increased transparency to improve the understanding of entitlments and allowing to take cost-cutting measures, where needed, are just two of them. Check out the blog post of @keren_rotenberg to get more information on the new usage analytics and entitlements pages.
Customer have already been waiting for it in the area of Identity and Access Management and in Q1 it got released: The Custom Certificate Authority support for SAP Secure Login Service on AWS. Integration of own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) by connecting to a cloud-based private Custom Certificate Authority hosted on AWS to the SAP Secure Login Service is now possible. After successful authentication of the end user, your private CA issues an X.509 certificate. And the SAP Secure Login Service then returns this X.509 certificate to the Secure Login Client on the end user desktop. Read more in the blog post of @Martina_K.
Last but not least: Enabling the configuration and security analysis (CSA) functionality of SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management for operations to collect a comprehensive set of technical configuration data from Identity Authentication has been relased in Q1. It reduces manual administration efforts for user management and identity provider settings and increase transparency for Identity Authentication security configuration in a central landscape management tool. Read more.

SAP BTP Innovation Highlights - outlook:

Please find here my personal innovation highlights outlook coming up:

Application Development and Automation: Generating a business service of ABAP RESTful application programming model
Application Development and Automation: Enhanced integration of HTML5 application from other SAP BTP subaccounts
Integration: Release of pending adapters for use in Edge Integration Cell
Integration: Event Mesh as new capability for SAP Integration Suite
Data and Analytics: Repointing a model in a story for SAP Analytics Cloud
Data and Analytics: Support for large instances of SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA database
Artificial Intelligence: Generative AI command generation
Artificial Intelligence: Automatic refinement of prompts using generative AI
Cross SAP BTP: SAP Cloud Transport Management service: transport of changes from SAP Build Apps
Cross SAP BTP: Identity and Access Management: Support for application specific groups in Identity Directory and Identity Provisioning

Check out all upcoming innovations in our SAP Road Map Explorer to learn more.

Check out more on innovation highlights:

Follow the Roadmap Explorer, which is updated on a regular basis to always stay on top of the latest innovations
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Check out the next blog post beginning of Q3/2024 summarizing the highlights of the previous quarter
If you want to be up to date on the latest SAP BTP news and innovations check out the new monthly SAP Innobytes video series. Also want to get a recap on what´s new in SAP BTP then check out the What´s New in SAP BTP quarterly series
Mark your calendar for the latest SAP events coming up

Read other SAP Business Technology Platform blog posts and check the SAP Business Technology Platform Topic Page where you can also ask questions. Feel free to follow my profile stephanie.stang to not miss my next personal view of innovation highlights for SAP BTP for Q2 2024.