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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.

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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

👉🏽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 Q3 2023.

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

Release Navigator for SAP BTP - What's New in Q2 2024

2024-06-12T13:36:41.584000+02:00

Check out the Release Navigator.

The Release Navigator for SAP BTP continues to evolve and improve to meet the needs of our customers. With the latest update in Q2 2024 in addition to the quarterly maintenance of resources, users can access new product pages and a new consolidated release schedule in a simplified and streamlined interface.
These updates reflect our commitment to continuously improve content coverage and user experience based on your valuable feedback. In this blog post, we will highlight the key enhancements and additions made in Q2 2024.

We collaborated closely with SAP BTP experts to add new pages for the following products and services in the Release Navigator that are available with the Q2 2024 update:

The new product pages include Foundation and Cross Services and more. Check them out now.

Check out the new consolidated release schedule in the release calendar.

Release schedules are now being communicated more transparently thanks to close collaboration with various SAP BTP teams. Compared to 2023, more than 40 new products and services now announce their release dates via SAP Notes in SAP for Me.

These notes are accessible through the Consolidated Release Schedules for SAP BTP, which can be found in the Release Calendar section of the navigator.

Please note: To access SAP Notes you need to log in to SAP for Me using your Universal ID or S-user ID. Read more about the required authorizations here.

The SAP Note Consolidated Release Schedules for SAP BTP

We have published a quarterly maintenance update with the Q2 release cycle. Links and resources have been updated according to the latest feature releases. Moving forward, new and retiring content will be marked with a green or red badge.

Additionally, in Q1 all release navigators received streamlined and consistent UX across solution areas for improved ease of use.

The release navigator after the Q2 update

*Disclaimer: The schedule is subject to change without prior notice including, when necessary, delays or incorporating changes in subsequent update windows and not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality.

Next updates are scheduled on a quarterly basis in alignment with the Harmonized Release Calendar for SAP Cloud Products.

Looking ahead, here's a sneak peek at some of the roadmap items planned for the release navigator:

Q3: Additional UX elements will be added and aligned across solution areas.
Q4: More products and services will be included in the Release Navigator.

The Readiness@Scale team at SAP Enterprise Support is dedicated to ensuring release readiness across the SAP Enterprise Support portfolio. Our mission is to empower SAP customers to be prepared and ready to adopt and utilize innovations.

If you have any feedback or specific requests for content in the release navigator, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

And don't forget to check out our team's blogs tagged with Readiness@Scale.

Happy navigating!

Readiness@Scale, SAP Enterprise Support

SAP S/4HANA for Group Reporting 新機能ロードマップ強化のご案内

2024-07-03T02:49:18.739000+02:00

SAP Financial Consolidation（以降FC）は、長年にわたり広くSAPの連結会計ソリューションとして、多くのお客様にご利用頂いています。一方2017年には、新たな連結会計ソリューションとしてSAP S/4HANAに統合されたSAP S/4HANA for Group Reporting（以降GR）がリリースされており、お客様により高い価値を提供する為の開発が進められています。（GRに関する詳細はこちらをご確認ください）

本記事では、FCで好評を頂いていた機能の反映を含めた、GRに関する今後の重要な新機能ロードマップについてご紹介させて頂きます。

SAPでは、FCをご利用のお客様からのフィードバック等も踏まえてGRの新機能ロードマップを加速するプログラムを進めており、連結会計データ収集のためのGroup Reporting Data Collection(以降GRDC)の領域も含めた大きな投資を行っています。

GRDCは、Webフォーム経由で個社報告データを直接入力したり、アップロードするためのクラウドソリューションであり、GRの1コンポーネントとして提供しています。GRDCを中心としたデータ収集領域では今後、データチェック機能やデータインポート＆マッピング機能といった既存機能を入力フォーム画面から起動可能とする新機能や、複数期間データの入力フォームの作成、入力フォーム間のリンク機能、新しいユーザーインターフェースでのデータ収集プロセスモニタリング、パッケージの提出/統合機能など、多数の機能を提供予定です。

個社/連結調整のためのマニュアル修正仕訳入力画面では、貸借形式での仕訳入力に対応し、より分かり易い操作感を実現します。

自動連結修正仕訳機能については、FCで好評であった強力で柔軟性の高い連結ルール機能に追加機能を取り込み、新たな連結ルールエンジンとして開発を進めています。

レポーティングにおいては、連結財務諸表作成プロセスにおける担当者間での連携と分析をより円滑にするための、レビューブックレットでの連結データへのコメント入力機能やMicrosoft Teamsとの統合が予定されています。

さらに、連結決算プロセスにおけるAIシナリオとして、財務データの分析・レポーティングに生成AIを組み込むことで、子会社及びグループレベルデータに対する分析コメントを作成する取り組みなどを行っています。

各機能の詳細については、以下のロードマップ情報リンクからご確認いただけます。

Launch your controls from the package（パッケージからのデータチェック実行）

Enter data in multiple periods（複数期間データ入力フォームの作成）

Import data directly from the package（パッケージからのデータインポートの実行）

Link documents （入力フォーム間のリンク機能）

Monitor the progress of data collection in a completely modernized UI（新UIによるデータ収集プロセスモニタ）

Ability to enter or load reported data for dimension totals (ディメンション合計に対するデータ入力)

Debit-Credit mode presentation of manual journal entries（マニュアル仕訳入力機能の改善）

New consolidation rule engine （自動連結修正仕訳エンジンの刷新）

Create and manage your financial statements more simply（レビューブックレット機能の強化）

Generative AI （SAPの生成AI関連情報全般のご紹介）

Generative AI in the consolidation process（連結会計プロセスにおける自然言語処理アシスタント機能）

Generative AI in the analysis and reporting of financial data（連結データ分析の自動ガイド機能）

Group Reportingのロードマップ全般に関する情報は以下のリンクからご確認いただけます。
 SAP Roadmap Explorer.

Release Navigator for SAP BTP - What's New in Q3 2024

2024-09-11T12:33:46.687000+02:00

The Release Navigator for SAP BTP is always evolving to better serve our customers. With the latest update in Q3 2024, in addition to quarterly content maintenance and a new product page we've made significant improvements to the user experience:

New Side Menu for improved page navigation
New UI Elements for additional context
New Search Feature

Read more about the details of these enhancements in this blog post.

This section details the new UX features added to the release navigator for SAP BTP.

New Side Menu for Easier Navigation

We've implemented a new side menu on every page of the release navigator to provide a more intuitive user experience. This menu allows easy navigation to the four new main pages of the release navigator:

Product Specific
General
Get Assistance
User Feedback

Fig 1. The side menu on all new pages

As a result, some content previously found on the Home page has been rearranged. Let’s walk through what you can find on each of the new pages.

Product Specific Page

This page serves as the starting point for the release navigator and corresponds to the former Home page. It contains the core of the release navigator: curated release information for specific products and services of SAP BTP as well as information on release schedules.

Fig 2. The Product Specific page, formerly known as the Home page

At the top of the Product Specific Page you can find a message tile with helpful information and a Release Calendar. The calendar includes release dates for SAP BTP as a whole, links to product-specific release schedules and dates for upcoming release navigator updates.

Below you can find the section Products. The cards in this section are sorted alphabetically and each one takes you to a dedicated page with in-depth information and curated resources on the 27 SAP BTP products and services covered.

Product Page Navigation

Fig 3. Example of a dedicated product page

Once you are done exploring the resources on a product page and want to move on to the next product or service, you can either click on Product Specific on the side-menu or on the back arrow on the left of the page title to get back to the Product Specific page and navigate to other pages.

General Page

On this page you can find General Resources that are helpful across all SAP BTP products and services. If you can't find a certain product or service on the Product Specific page, we recommend you check out the resources on this page (and also feel free to let us know in our survey).

Besides the General resources, there are two more sections on this page:

Additional Resources contains non-release specific but nevertheless important resources one should be aware of.
Release Navigators by SAP Enterprise Support provide direct links to all currently available release navigators for other solution areas.

Fig 4. The General page

Get Assistance Page

This page contains resources to help you use the release navigator and to improve your experience. You can access it from all pages in the release navigator by either clicking on Get Assistance in the side-menu or by clicking on the red bar at the very top of the page.

At the top of the page, you can find the following elements:

Release Navigator Enablement:
- SAP Community Blog Posts: These blog posts go into detail about new features that are being added to the release navigator and provide other news.
- SAP Partner Masterclass: This recorded digital session is only available to SAP partners.
Translation Feature: Allows you to translate the release navigator (not the pages linked to) into 40 languages. The translation process takes a few moments and may impact layout and design of the navigator pages. Click on this card to sign in to the authenticated version with Universal ID or an S-user account to use this feature.
User Feedback: Click here to provide feedback in a quick 3 question survey.

Below you can find the Navigation Tips, detailed instructions on how to use the release navigator, similar to the blog post you are reading now.

Fig 5. The Get Assistance page

User Feedback Page

We've embedded a feedback survey on this page with three short questions to gather feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Your relationship to SAP.
Whether you found the release navigator helpful.
An open text field that allows you to let us know anything you liked, what you would like to see added, or what you think could be improved.

We strive to always improve the release navigator, so we really appreciate any feedback you submit.

Fig 6. The User Feedback page

Helpful UI Elements

We added two new types of UI elements that you will find throughout the pages of the navigator.

Lightbulb icon

Many pages come with additional information to guide you through the cards available on that page and provide more context on when to use which resource.

If you see a lightbulb icon next to a header, you can hover over it with your cursor to open a text bubble with additional information about that page.

The bubble can be moved around by clicking and holding your cursor and can be closed by clicking the on the top right.Fig 7. Demo of the lightbulb icon text bubble

On product pages, the information displayed in this bubble corresponds to the information formerly found on Release Guidance tiles.

About this Card

Some resource cards come with additional tips and contextual information.

If you see three dots on the bottom right of a card, you can open a tip with additional information about that particular card. To open the link of that card, you need to close this tip by clicking the three dots button again.

Fig 8. Demo on the About this Card tips

Due to the high demand for dedicated pages for products and services, the number of pages to navigate has grown significantly since launch of the release navigator one year ago and we aim to increase the number of pages even further in future updates. More pages mean more content but also more cards to browse, which can increase the time it takes to find what you’re looking for.

Our goal is for you to find what you need as quickly as possible. That’s why we implemented a new Search Feature, which allows you to search for keywords and find all pages associated with this topic, product or service name. Click on the Search icon at the shell bar and a pop-up will open. Once you enter key words, you will see which pages are associated to this term and you can jump directly to them. The search feature is optimized for product and service names.

Fig 9. Short demo of the Search function.

We collaborated closely with SAP BTP experts to add a new page for SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery. This page contains links to the release schedule, SAP Roadmap Explorer, What’s New Viewer in the SAP Help Portal and more. Check it out.

Fig 10. The new page for SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery.

Currently, the release navigator for SAP BTP covers content for 27 products and services on dedicated pages. For all products and services not featured with their own page you can find helpful resources on the new General page.

Expect more new pages dedicated to specific products and services in future updates and don't hesitate to let us know via our feedback survey, which products or services you would like to see added next.

Last update, we announced the new SAP Note Consolidated Release Schedules for SAP BTP and the corresponding initiative of communicating the release schedules of SAP BTP products and services.

We are happy to report that the number of products and services who are communicating their release schedules has further increased to more than 50 now thanks to close collaboration with various SAP BTP teams.

Check the schedules here and from the Release Calendar section of the navigator.

Tip: Did you know you can mark notes as a favorite? If you do so, you will be notified via email whenever the note is being updated. This way you can stay on top of new release schedule communication, like new dates or skipped waves. We recommend you mark all those notes as a favorite that you are interested in receiving updates for.

Fig 11. Where to click to mark a note as a favorite and receive notifications once it gets updated.

Please note: To access SAP Notes you need to log in to SAP for Me using your Universal ID or S-user ID. Read more about the required authorizations here.

Next updates are scheduled on a quarterly basis in alignment with the Harmonized Release Calendar for SAP Cloud Products.*Disclaimer: The schedule is subject to change without prior notice including, when necessary, delays or incorporating changes in subsequent update windows and not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality.Looking ahead, 2025 updates will mainly focus on quarterly maintenance of release resources and a steady extension of product coverage. Currently, there are no plans for further mayor UI updates in the near future.

If you have any feedback or specific requests for content in the release navigator, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

And don't forget to check out our team's blogs tagged with Readiness@Scale.

Happy navigating!

Readiness@Scale
SAP Enterprise Support

Celebrating a Major Milestone: 5 Million visits of SAP Road Map Explorer

2024-12-02T11:10:51.768000+01:00

It's with immense gratitude that we announce a significant milestone in our SAP Road Map Explorer journey – reaching 5 million visits! This achievement is more than just a number; it represents the trust, collaboration, and dedication of a remarkable community.

A Heartfelt Thank You to Our Customers

First and foremost, we extend our deepest appreciation to our customers. Your trust in SAP’s road map tool has been the cornerstone of our success. By integrating this tool into your strategic planning, you've not only envisioned but also driven forward the future of your businesses. Your feedback has been invaluable, guiding us in enhancing the tool to meet your evolving needs.

Reflecting on the Journey

When we launched the SAP Road Map Explorer, our goal was to provide a comprehensive tool that simplifies the planning of future technology investments. The journey from inception to reaching 5 million users has been both challenging and rewarding. Each iteration with our customers has been a step towards greater user empowerment, better user experience, and deeper insights.

Looking Ahead

Our journey doesn't stop here. We have exciting updates and new features in the pipeline, all designed to help you stay ahead. Our mission remains to be your trusted partner in navigating the complexities of transformation.

Join Us in the Celebration

We invite you to join us in celebrating this milestone. Share your experiences with the SAP Road Map Explorer, your success stories, and your feedback.

Release Navigator for SAP BTP - What' s New in Q4 2024

2024-12-05T09:42:15.938000+01:00

The Release Navigator for SAP BTP is always evolving to better serve our customers. With the latest update in Q4 2024, in addition to quarterly content maintenance we have added new product pages.

We collaborated closely with SAP BTP experts to add three new product pages that consolidate links to all available release communication channels, like schedules, pre- and post-release communication, blogs, and more.

The new pages are:

SAP BTP, Kyma runtime
SAP Mobile Services
SAP Translation Hub

Read more about the details in this blog post.

1. SAP BTP, Kyma runtime

This page contains links to release schedule information, SAP Roadmap Explorer, What’s New information in the SAP Help Portal, links to the SAP Community, documentation on releases and available modules, the GitHub Kyma repositories, as well as a helpful learning journey and hands-on tutorials.

Check it out.

Fig 1. The new page for SAP BTP, Kyma runtime.

2. SAP Mobile Services

This page contains links to release schedule information, SAP Roadmap Explorer, What’s New information in the SAP Help Portal, links to the SAP Community, and helpful documentation.

Check it out.

Fig 2. The new page for SAP Mobile Services.

3. SAP Translation Hub

This page contains links to release schedule information, SAP Roadmap Explorer, What’s New information in the SAP Help Portal, links to the SAP Community, and helpful documentation.

Check it out.

Fig 3. The new page for SAP Translation Hub.

Currently, the release navigator for SAP BTP covers content for 30 products and services on dedicated pages. For all products and services not featured with their own page you can find helpful resources on the new General page.

Please note that the product page for SAP Data Intelligence Cloud has been retired as of this update. For more information, you can refer to this blog post.

For centralized information on when SAP BTP products and services release new features refer to the Consolidated Release Schedule for SAP BTP.

Regarding Release Navigator updates, you can refer to this update plan:

Looking ahead, 2025 updates will mainly focus on quarterly maintenance of release resources and a steady extension of product coverage. Currently, there are no plans for further mayor UI updates in the near future.

If you have any feedback or specific requests for content in the release navigator, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

And don't forget to check out our team's blogs tagged with Readiness@Scale.

Happy navigating!

Readiness@Scale
SAP Enterprise Support

Celebrating the Achievements of the SAP Road Map Explorer in 2024

2024-12-17T07:34:55.119000+01:00

As we end yet another exciting year of transformation, it’s important to reflect on our tool’s achievements. Let’s dive into the highlights that demonstrate how SAP Road Map Explorer has become an indispensable part of our customers’ SAP journey.

Impressive Growth in User Base

This year, the SAP Road Map Explorer hit a significant milestone by surpassing 5 million visits (more here) and almost 30.000 road map items – close to 26.000 delivered and more than 3.000 planned items! The rise in the usage illustrates the trust of our customer base for planning their digital transformations.

Top Business Views: Insights at Your Fingertips

Throughout 2024, certain business views – where we lay the strategic priorities per product - have emerged as favorites:

Worldwide User Locations

Our users span across all continents, from India, to Europe and US and Canada. In Europe, the majority of users are located in Germany, UK, and France.

Most Sought-After Topics

No doubt, SAP S/4HANA, SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition, followed by SAP Analytics Cloud are the top-3 most searched for products. This year, the top searched included also SAP Signavio, Joule, AI, Datasphere or Ariba.

Happy Holidays & keep in touch!

Be sure to click on thefor a festive surprise!

To stay updated with the latest enhancements and capabilities, join our community page or contact us directly.

#SAP #Transformation #Innovation #ERP #Technology #RoadMapExplorer2024

SAP Utilities Roadmap 2025 Onwards

2024-12-17T15:08:52.543000+01:00

The utilities industry will continue to play a key role in SAP's strategy and development topics. It is therefore important to us to provide customers, partners, and the entire SAP Utilities ecosystem with information about the planned innovations.

This year we have once again created a matrix of the respective industry topics and the corresponding innovations. This matrix represents an excerpt of the most important innovations and does not claim to be complete. Over time, further innovations may be added, and delivery periods may also change.

After an overview of the highlights, we will list the details for each topic; behind almost all innovations you will find a link to the SAP Roadmap Explorer with further details.

SAP Asset Performance Management

AI-powered Joule digital assistant for navigational and transactional use cases Link
AI-enabled visual inspection for asset condition monitoring (general availability) Link
Advanced asset health monitoring scenarios with embedded IoT Link
Custom AI models and algorithms Link

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition

Utilizing artificial intelligence to streamline creation and planning of maintenance orders Link
Enable external collaboration with subcontractors and service providers Link
Enabling integration of service with advanced execution orders (billable maintenance) Link
Supporting linear fields in Find Maintenance Order and Operation Link (and many more roadmap items supporting linear assets)
Isolation management in a permit to work (lockout tagout) Link

SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration

Mass import export APIs for main technical objects Link
Digital nameplate Link
Enablement of digital twin handover with procurement Link

SAP Field Service Management

AI-assisted browsing of knowledge bases Link
Multiple technicians in auto-scheduling – crews Link
Fully automated planning on the service map Link

SAP Service and Asset Manager

Field service crew support Link
Management of non-stock items Link
OCR for quick data capture Link

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Automatic creation of maintenance notifications for condition-enabled measuring points Link
Enable in-house refurbishment Link
OCR for quick data capture Link

SAP Maintenance Assistant mobile app

AI-enabled maintenance and service execution Link
Support for Esri maps integration Link
Supporting SAP Dynamic Forms Link

Metering

Graphical display of utilities interval data Link
More flexible status handling for energy data management formulas Link
Archiving of technical master data that is specific to the utilities industry Link
Enabling custom fields and logic for point-of-delivery and BPEM case data Link

Analytics

Extraction of Energy data management related master data Link
Using SAP Datasphere in the utilities industry – utilities sales contracts Link
Native sales statistics and unbilled revenue reporting in SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud Link

Convergent Invoicing

End-to-end reconciliation from event to GL in contract accounting and invoicing Link
Increase automation of invoicing processes by leveraging machine learning and predictive models Link
Reduce time and costs associated with simulation of invoice forecasts for subscription or usage alterations Link

Financials (FI-CA)

Display of utilities invoices Link and budget billing plans Link in a business partner financial overview
Budget billing plans in the Business Partner Financial Overview app Link
Display of utilities invoices in a business partner financial overview Link

Customer and Service Management

Generative AI–driven digital agent for customer self-service and customer engagement Link
Service management for utilities – round-off Link
Period control for life cycle events Link
Streamlining contract migration and bulk data processing Link
Extending pricing capabilities Link
Digital payments for service transactions Link
Incorporating the Joule assistant Link

Sales for Commodity & Non-commodity

Alignment with the product model of SAP S/4HANA Link
Product replication using SAP Master Data Integration Link
Intelligent sales execution – target planning Link
Intelligent sales execution – product- and volume-based pipeline management Link
AI product configuration Link
New user interface for the document generation process on the Quote Link
Usage-based pricing with integration with SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management Link

Commerce Telco & Utilities Accelerator

Streamlined material replication for smoother integration Link

Marketing

Personalization and segmentation accelerator for utilities Link
Advanced personalization and segmentation accelerator for utilities Link

CX AI Toolkit

Shopping assistant agent: personalized recommendations Link

Distributed Energy Resources (DER)

Cancellation of measurement concept instances before device installation Link
Analytics for Long-Running Processes Link
Enabling validation checks of instances through an API Link
Export of a network graph for usage in third-party systems Link
Advanced asset health monitoring scenarios with embedded IoT Link
AI-powered Joule digital assistant for navigational and transactional use cases Link
Integrating AI-based electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) asset management Link
E-Mobility integration to complementary ecosystem solutions such as energy management Link

Circular Economy

Generate a generic waste transportation document to enable shipment of waste Link
Integration of waste management and purchasing processes Link
Initial Release of SAP Spend Control Tower to provide an enterprise view of total spend Lin k

Climate Action

Carbon emissions allowance management Link
Environment management for energy consumption data Link
Carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM): content with an operator focus Link

Sustainability Accounting

Collection and allocation of greenhouse gas emissions in a carbon journal Link
Importing emission quantities through file upload Link
Accounting for carbon allowances in a carbon journal Link
Enabling automatic carbon collections and automated allocations Link
Posting and analysis of carbon quantities on external suppliers / affiliated companies Link

E-mobility

Charging cost reimbursement for employee charging Link
Enabling import and processing of charging sessions from external charge point management systems Link
Smart Charging configuration based on user defined parameters Link
CO2-based electric vehicle (EV) charging and pricing tariffs handling Link
Compatibility with ISO 15118 to support plug-and-charge functionality Link
EV Driver authorizations and invoicing in charging groups Link
Unidirectional smart charging (V1G) and bi-directional smart charging (V2G) Link

Social Responsibility

Electronic submission of recordable injury or illness cases to OSHA as per the legal requirements (cloud) Link
Operational risk management: approval of safety instructions for chemicals and equipment (cloud) Link
Support for standard, analytical content for workplace safety and social responsibility (cloud) Link
Operational risk assessment: visualization of risk history Link

Dangerous Goods Management and Recycling Administration

Storing attributes of batteries as basis for the dangerous goods classification Link
Additional regulation-specific details for dangerous goods regulations Link
Defining customer-specific dangerous goods description templates Link
Support for USG-04 in IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations Link

Holistic Steering and Reporting

Narrative disclosures, ESG-metric definition, and data collection Link
Custom metrics with specific dimension breakdown Link

#12 - Discover Post-Live Resources

2025-02-19T09:42:22.044000+01:00

Post-live resources provide ongoing support and help address any issues that arise after the system is live, ensuring a smooth transition to regular operations.

Picture 1 - Example for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

What’s New

The What’s New Viewer is an SAP help page for each solution which allows our customers to find the deprecated, changed, and new features between your as-is and to-be SAP Solution release. This is presented in a downloadable list format that can be filtered, it provides a short description to better understand the capabilities delivered and links to technical information of the delivered innovations.

Release Assessment and Scope Dependency Tool (SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition, only)

The release assessment and scope dependency is a simple, self-learning tool for the customers of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. This tool enables the ease of consumption and adoption of impacts, improvements, and innovations which are rolled out with each release and upgrade.

It presents to the customers, a tailor-made list of deleted, deprecated, new and changed objects like apps, APIs CDS views, Scope Items etc. for each SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition release and continuous delivery. This list is filtered based on the customer’ s used and activated scope which means that the customers only see the changes relevant to them and not the entire list. An in-depth video can be found here for further enablement.

Cloud ALM for operations

SAP Cloud ALM for Operations empowers customers to understand the health of their SAP business solutions by providing full stack monitoring and alerting covering business processes, integration, users, applications, and health of cloud services and systems. It also allows them to conduct root cause analysis on different levels and act as a collaboration platform between LOB and IT. SAP Cloud ALM enables operations automation by integrating existing automation solutions. It also introduces intelligent event processing to enable event correlation and intelligent alerting to provide transparency regarding availability of business services including event calendar and service level management.

Continuous Quality Check for Process Adoption (for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition only)

Continuous Quality Check (CQC) are service reports with an executive summary, findings and a detailed action plan to mitigate risks or improve system usage. As a post live resource there are CQC which according to the solution focus on improving system usage and adopting the latest innovations, business process improvement, optimization of security and performance, monitor and reduce and data volume amongst others. Find more

Benchmark value assessment (for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition only)

This is a continuation from the benchmark performed at the discovery phase which output is a personalized scorecard in real-time showcasing a Key Performance Indicator analysis and process maturity gap on best practices in comparison to industry peers for all process areas contained in the solution. Find more here.

Go-Live Solution Adoption & Optimization (for SAP Fieldglass only)

To get guidance on feature and functionality information, post-release feature adoption guidance, application best practice recommendations and product optimization/adoption, the Product Success Advisory from Fieldglass will offer guidance in a personalized way. Find more here.

SAP Roadmap Explorer

SAP Road Map Explorer empowers customers to easily build valuable road maps according to their unique needs update on a regular throughout the year. This is an interactive tool for effective decision making as it informs our customers on existing and upcoming innovations with detailed updates on product innovations allowing for customized filtering per product. Find more here.

Influence Portal

The SAP Continuous Influence program provides our customers and partners with the opportunity to suggest improvements on SAP products directly to the development teams. This program is specifically aimed towards customers with productive licenses for SAP products and who would like to be able to suggest improvements in a continuously open channel. In addition, our customers can also find initiatives where SAP is looking for early adopters of certain functionalities for testing which grants early access and enhanced support for early testers.

See more and understand how to influence and get influenced from SAP https://pages.community.sap.com/topics/influence-adopt

Having questions, comments or feedbacks? Don't hesitate to comment down below or contact

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Check out other blogs from the series: Customer Onboarding at SAP.
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About the author:

Daniel De Souza is Experience Owner for GROW with SAP at customer onboarding at SAP, bringing a decade of experience in customer management roles in a diverse set of industries and customer sizes. He possesses deep expertise in processes underlying the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition since the start of its commercialization. His strategic approach ensures customers effectively speed up time to value for their GROW with SAP subscriptions.

Having questions, comments or feedbacks? Don't hesitate to comment down below or contact @DanielSouza .

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SAP Solution Roadmap for Oil, Gas, and Energy 2025 Updates

2025-03-19T09:13:27.669000+01:00

Greetings,

This blog post highlights SAP's Oil, Gas, and Energy solution portfolio roadmap, focusing specifically on innovations and development enabling customers to be their best in the Upstream, Downstream, and Commodity Management space of their business.

SAP's continued collaboration with the industry to build a solution and bring innovations built with the customer and for the customer in the Upstream area of Field Logistics is facilitating the delivery of capabilities and functionality that bring tremendous value to customers managing and executing on the end-to-end process of getting equipment and material to places where work needs to be done and back to where it needs to be once work has been completed. Through the active engagement of the Field Logistics worskstream, the FPS02 release of Field Logistics is rich and comprehensive in capabilities, functionality, and innovations, making it the minimum release for customers to begin their journey with Field Logistics. The recent release of FPS03 brings even more capabilities with the addition of use cases related to Goods Receipt, management of Single Plant scenarios, and added features and functions associated with Kitting at remote sites. Moreover, AI use cases and mobility scenarios are being introduced and released, adding more simplicity and efficiency to the end-to-end process of managing and executing field logistic activities. The following depicts the roadmap for Field Logistics:

Additionally, within the Hydrocarbon Accounting and Management area of Upstream substantial focus has been placed on enabling Clean Core through the release of API's/CDS Views, facilitating accurate and simplified Compliance Reporting, and making automation a more common part of the Production and Revenue accounting monthly and prior-period processing. A recap of what has been done and preview of what is planned to be done for Upstream Hydrocarbon Accounting and Management exists on the following image:

Within Downstream, several innovations and development items are inflight or planned, as depicted in the diagrams that follow this paragraph. Most of these are driven by the objective to bridge gaps with other SAP products that are currently available or have been deprecated in the past years. Providing more comprehensive coverage of requirements and enabling an optimized solution landscape is the goal of roadmap activity in the Downstream space. Presently, Secondary Distribution is most dynamically bringing innovations and building out a comprehensive and capability enriched roadmap. The following depicts the roadmap for Downstream:

Lastly, as it relates to Commodity Management, a board sponsored and budget approved 4-year investment roadmap is being realized, enabling SAP to provide an end-to-end commodity management solution that delivers value-add to our customers and facilitates their move to RISE (incl. AI adoption). The diagram that follows depicts that roadmap. Included in that roadmap is an AI use case expected to be released by those of 2025. AI Assisted Commodity WorkCenter (ACW), which will streamline key front office processes, includes enhanced deal capture capabilities supported by Joule and GenAI. This roadmap represents significant investment in strong cross industry capabilities, affecting both SAP CM and SAP ACM) which mean increased adoption potential for every $/€ spent, whilst also assisting our customers with their transition to cleaner and more sustainable supply chain portfolios.

A big THANK YOU to Richard Philcox (richard.philcox@sap.com), Jean-Marc DELBOS, (jean-marc.delbos@sap.com), Diana Temirbulatova (diana.temirbulatova@sap.com), and Jythois Sasidhara Varier (Jyothis.sasidhara.varier@sap.com) for their support and input on the Commodity Management, Downstream, and Upstream roadmap content, respectively.

A big THANK YOU to you as well for taking the time to get updated on the roadmap for SAP Oil, Gas, and Energy.

SAP Continuous Influence in Finance and Risk

2025-06-20T11:32:01.252000+02:00

Are you familiar with SAP Continuous Influence? Do you know which sessions are available for solutions in Finance and Risk? Learn more about how you can influence the product roadmap and collaborate with our SAP Product Management teams.

Here is a summary of the sessions that may be of interest to you, our SAP customers and partners, in the area of Finance and Risk:

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Finance
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/1169

Access this session to view and submit influence requests on:

Category	Description
Accounting and Financial Close	General Ledger Accounting, Asset Accounting, Entity Close, Accruals/Deferrals, Intercompany Reconciliation, Tax
Advanced Financial Close	Please submit your CIP requests for Advanced Financial Closing in our NEW session: SAP Advanced Financial Closing
Financial Planning and Analysis	Overhead Accounting, Inventory Accounting, Production Accounting, Sales Accounting, Predictive Accounting, Financial Planning, Profit Center Accounting, Universal Allocation, Margin Analysis, Revenue Recognition
Financial Operations	Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Receivables Management, Credit Management, Collections and Dispute Management, Dunning, Digital Payment Processing, Invoice Management
Treasury Management	Treasury Workstation, Cash and Liquidity Management, Debt and Investment Management, Treasury and Risk Management, Lockbox, Payments and Bank Communications, Working Capital Management
Advanced Payment Management	Payment Processing, Account Management, In-House Banking, Multi-Bank Connectivity
Contract and Lease Management	Rental Objects, Contact Management, Invoices for Rent
International Trade	Classification, Compliance Management, Sanctioned Screening and INTRASTAT
Enterprise Risk and Compliance	Governance, Risk and Compliance

Session voting threshold: 12 company votes

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and Private Edition, Group Reporting
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/2283

This session follows a public cloud first approach while typically providing the requested functionality in the upcoming releases for SAP S/4HANA (on-premise) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

You are invited to submit and vote on improvement requests related to:

Description	Category
Core data collection functions	Ideas on data release task, flexible file import data writing APIs, data copy, manual journal entries, mass-reversal.
Core consolidation functions	Ideas on further increasing the efficiency / level of automation in core automatic posting tasks such as annual net income calculation, currency translation, reclassification, posting rules, equity pick-up, restatement, profit elimination in inventory, consolidation of investments.
Master data	Ideas on master data improvements such as, global hierarchies, financial statement items, consolidation units, consolidation group, consolidation group structure, addition consolidation field master data, customer extended field master data, master data APIs.
Analytics	Ideas on group reporting specific analytics exposed into generic analytics tools such as design studio client, web dynpro grid client, SAP Analytics Cloud and Analysis for Microsoft Office. Ideas on tool improvements not specific to group reporting should be posted to other areas. Ideas on group reporting specific analytics enhancements should be posted here
Planning	Ideas on group level planning such the integration of Group Reporting based consolidation and analytics with SAP Analytics Cloud based plan data. Plan scenario specific requirements such as multi-period processing, version management
Manual data collection (GRDC)	Ideas on manual data collection in Group Reporting Data Collection, e.g. on scenarios to manually collect additional finance data and non-finance data, and texts beyond the integration of trial balances.
Data Mapping (GRDC)	Ideas on data mapping in Group Reporting Data Collection which allows to import external data, convert the data and store it to Group Reporting core repository for scenarios such as file import, pull data from remote, push data to a GRDC mapping API.
Process control (monitors, AFC, task logs)	Ideas on process control, such as adoption of Advanced Finance Close (AFC) in Group Reporting, workflow, release, sign-off tasks, task logs etc.
Pre-delivered content	Ideas on improving the pre-delivered content configuration to allow the initial adoption of the solution even faster or where additional content shipped in an upgrade would be beneficial. Examples: additional scenarios that can be built by pure configuration based on existing functionality or where existing configuration could be improved, e.g. to achieve higher level of automation in reclassification rules.
Data quality and validation	Ideas on the totals validation and line-item validation and substitution such as additional features in defining validation rules.
Inter Company Matching and Reconciliation	Ideas on Inter-Company matching and reconciliation including ICMR driven adjustment and elimination postings, and process integration of ICMR.

Session voting threshold: 9 company votes

SAP Risk and Assurance Management
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/3917

Access the session and submit requests on:

Issue Management and Remediation

Business Content Hub, E2E, and Integration

Automated Procedures

Data Consolidation and Task Service

Controls and Work Packages

Manual Procedures

Risks and Master Data

Session voting threshold: 10 company votes

Learn more about the new SAP Risk and Assurance Management Continuous Influence Session here.

NEW Session (December 2025): SAP Advanced Financial Closing
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/4088

Submit your requests on the following SAP AFC topics to this session:

Task List Creation	Management of task list templates, task lists, and task models
Task Processing	Automatic scheduling and manual processing of closing tasks, including approval
Reporting	Embedded and external analytics
Configuration and Administration	Management of communication systems, users, authorization, etc.
Cross Topics	Topics affecting multiple of the above categories
Other	Topics outside the above categories

Session voting threshold: 8 company votes

Find out more in the following Blog Post.

How the sessions work

Vote for Improvement Requests

Search for your topic of interest and vote for Improvement Request(s) you wish to support and plan to take advantage of in your organization.

--- or ---

Submit Improvement Request

If you cannot find an Improvement Request that matches your need, use the “Submit Improvement” button to create a new Improvement Request.

Wait for Review

Once your Improvement Request has been submitted, other companies can see and vote for it.

Improvement requests that reach the voting threshold are guaranteed to be reviewed during the next review cycle.

The frequency of review cycles is mentioned on the session's homepage.

Review Cycle Communication

After the review cycle has ended, a blog is posted to the session’s homepage with information on the accepted and delivered improvement requests.

If the coach was not able to make a final decision on the Improvement Request during the review cycle, the Improvement Request will be included in the next review cycle.

Would you like to submit a request for API development? If so, you can submit them in the dedicated sessions for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA for Integration and the SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA for Key User and Developer Extensibility When submitting the request, ensure to complete the questions in the template and provide us with the business requirement and usage scenario that the API addresses.

In the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Finance session we only consider requests for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Finance. Please see the following Blog to learn about how you can influence the SAP S/4HANA On Premise Roadmap. A direct link to the new SAP S/4HANA, private edition session can be found here.

SAP also has a dedicated session for localization topics. Learn more about Customer Influence and Globalization Services here.

Check out the SAP Roadmap Explorer to learn more about what is planned throughout 2025 and our product vision for 2026.

Additional Information

Would you like to learn more about Customer Influence and Adoption? Read the following Blog.

Get Started and Navigate the Customer Influence Site NOW!

We look forward to receiving your influence requests and collaborating with you!

Introducing Notifications in SAP Road Map Explorer: Stay Updated Effortlessly

2025-11-10T08:31:43.293000+01:00

Introducing Notifications in SAP Road Map Explorer: Stay Updated Effortlessly

We are excited to announce a new feature in the SAP Road Map Explorer that will improve how you stay informed about updates and changes: the notifications functionality.

The notifications functionality allows you to receive alerts directly within the SAP Road Map Explorer. This means you can react promptly and adjust your strategies without delay.

You can subscribe to notifications for the following elements:

Roadmap items
Saved roadmaps
Favorites
Collections
Business views

You will be notified when the following changes have occurred:

New data
Changed data
Deleted data

To check your current subscriptions:

Click the "User" button in the top right corner.
Navigate to "Notification Settings".

Here, you can see which categories you are currently subscribed to and manage your notification preferences.

To check which notifications you have received:

Click the "Bell" button in the top right corner.
On the left, you will see all notifications triggered based on the items you have subscribed to.

We believe this new feature will significantly enhance your experience with the SAP Road Map Explorer, making it easier than ever to stay informed and agile in your planning. Your feedback is invaluable to us, so please share your thoughts and experiences as you explore this new functionality.

Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements as we continue to improve the SAP Road Map Explorer to better serve your needs.

Your SAP Road Map Explorer Team

Explore SAP Business AI Innovations on SAP Roadmap Explorer Today

2025-12-04T16:07:04.245000+01:00

At SAP, we are committed to embedding AI capabilities directly into our core applications and processes with SAP Business AI, designed to deliver tangible, real-world business outcomes across the enterprise.

Navigating this dynamic landscape is key: understanding what’s coming next, when features or agents are available, and how they could improve end-to-end business processes.

That’s why we are thrilled to announce a new and dedicated roadmap experience for SAP Business AI on the SAP Roadmap Explorer website available today.

This new experience encompasses:

A new banner on the SAP Roadmap Explorer home page

A new ‘Strategic Topics’ menu where SAP Business AI is featured

A new business view page for SAP Business AI that offers the transparency you need into SAP’s AI product strategy, development priorities, and upcoming innovations.

Let's focus on the new business view page, which is a perfect asset to move from high-level announcements to access granular details about specific AI features and agents and their anticipated release timelines.

This allows you to deep dive into the different road map priorities per Line of Business (LoB), such as Spend Management or Human Capital Management, giving you deeper insights to make informed, timely decisions that drive tangible business outcomes.
You can rapidly evaluate SAP’s AI offerings against your unique business requirements, thereby accelerating your innovation cycles.

The roadmap acts as a living document, reducing the risk of making uninformed decisions based on outdated or incomplete information.

You can also leverage the latest ‘notification’ feature available on SAP Roadmap Explorer by clicking on the ‘subscribe’ button on the right-hand side of the page to get notified as soon as it’s updated by SAP.

By providing transparency and ability to deep dive into LoB-specific innovations across time, it empowers everyone to confidently embark on their AI journey, maximize investments, and harness the transformative power of SAP Business AI.

We encourage all SAP Community members, customers, and partners to regularly visit roadmap.sap.com and explore the future of SAP Business AI.

The 8D Architectural Framework for SAP ERP Modernization: A Practitioner’s View

2025-12-16T00:21:20.191000+01:00

Introduction

After 20 years across SAP roles (ABAP through Pre-Sales Architecture), I've observed one constant: transformation projects fail not because of technical complexity, but because architects evaluate decisions along too few dimensions. This 8D ERP Transformation Framework provides the lens for holistic evaluation. This framework emerges from observing S/4HANA 2025 release capabilities and the architectural options they enable.

Architects succeed when they evaluate ERP transformation through multiple dimensions, not just scope or timelines.

This 8D ERP Transformation Framework is a practical lens for architects, technical leads, and industry experts to evaluate modernization decisions holistically — aligning with SAP best practices while ensuring long-term architectural integrity.

1D — Regulatory Envelope

Architect’s perspective:
Before discussing deployment models or system design, architects should begin with a clear understanding of industry-specific regulatory constraints. Not as limitation—as the architectural guardrails that enable good design. Pharma needs GxP-validated processes. Banking needs SOX audit trails. Healthcare needs HIPAA data residency. These requirements, when understood first, shape architectures that are both compliant AND competitive.

Why it matters

Determines data residency, encryption, auditability
Influences deployment model suitability (public, private, hybrid)
Shapes integration patterns (secure interfaces, segregation of duties)
Impacts AI governance and validation requirements

Architect’s takeaway

Start here. Regulation isn’t a blocker — it provides the boundaries within which good architecture is designed.

Community discussion angle:
“How are architects incorporating GxP, SOX, or enterprise data sovereignty into their S/4HANA designs?”

2D — AI Ambition vs. Process Intelligence Reality

Architect’s perspective:
AI potential is immense, but technical feasibility depends on process maturity and system standardization.

Why it matters

AI needs predictable, event-driven processes
Variants or undocumented steps make automation unreliable
Process mining (Signavio, Celonis) gives architects clarity on actual execution paths
Architectural patterns must align with future AI scenarios

Architect’s takeaway

Map → standardize → instrument → automate.
AI-readiness should be treated as a technical design requirement, not a future add-on.

Community discussion angle:
“How are teams using process intelligence during Explore/Design phases to define AI-ready to-be processes?”

3D — Data Governance as Technical Foundation

Architect’s perspective:
ERP modernization gives architects a rare opportunity to redesign master data models, lineage, governance, and integration semantics.

Why it matters

Data lineage is essential for audit and AI explainability
Data quality (>95% accuracy) supports automation reliability
Master Data governance enables clean integration landscapes
Event-driven designs require consistent data domains

Architect’s takeaway

Treat data governance as a core architecture pillar — not a post-go-live enhancement.
Modern ERP + AI depends on structured, governed data models.

Community discussion angle:
“What architecture patterns (Datasphere, MDM, governance councils) are teams adopting to ensure cross-system consistency?”

4D — Clean Core Extensibility (SAP BTP-Centric Architecture)

Architect’s perspective:
Clean core is an architectural strategy that balances stability with innovation. It aligns tightly with SAP’s guidance while enabling teams to innovate using BTP.

Why it matters

Core remains upgrade-friendly, consistent, and supportable
Extensions move to BTP (RAP, CAP, ABAP Cloud)
Reduces complexity, accelerates lifecycle management
API-first design supports AI, mobility, and cloud-native integrations

Architect’s takeaway

Design for extensibility beyond the core.
Architects should evaluate each customization:

Is this differentiating?
Can it live on BTP?
Can it follow RAP/CAP patterns?

Example: Procurement customization. Is it differentiating? If yes, build on BTP using RAP patterns. Is it standard? Keep in core. Can it use ABAP Cloud with stable APIs? Yes. This decision-tree approach prevents accumulation of technical debt.

Community discussion angle:
“How are architects managing custom code remediation and defining clean-core guardrails during design?”

5D — Deployment Model as an Architectural Outcome

Architect’s perspective:
Public Cloud, Private Cloud, On-Premise, and Hybrid models each have strengths. The right choice emerges after evaluating regulatory, data, integration, and extensibility needs.

Why it matters

Public Cloud offers rapid innovation and standardization
Private Cloud offers control, extensibility, and harmonization flexibility
Hybrid architectures support OT/IoT-heavy industries
Deployment must align with technical and business constraints

Architect’s takeaway

Deployment selection is a conclusion — not the starting point.
Architects should let the earlier dimensions drive the model.

Community discussion angle:
“How are teams balancing innovation velocity with integration depth when selecting deployment models?”

6D — Change Management for Technical Adoption

Architect’s perspective:
Change management isn’t just business-focused. Architects must plan for technical change adoption: new workflows, new UX, new AI features, new integration patterns.

Why it matters

AI-enabled ERP shifts user behavior
Role design must consider AI agents and automated tasks
Continuous enablement ensures stable operations
Architecture must support explainability and feedback loops

Architect’s takeaway

Technical design must include a human adoption model.
UX, security, audit, and automation patterns must be communicated early.

Community discussion angle:
“How are architects designing role/permission models for AI-augmented processes?”

7D — Competitive Timeline (Architecture Maturity Curve)

Architect’s perspective:
Timelines are not only logistical — they determine how fast architecture matures to support modern capabilities.

Why it matters

Event-driven integrations, BTP services, and AI agents require iterative maturation
Early modernization accelerates capability-building
Late modernization compresses architecture redesign into a shorter window

Architect’s takeaway

Treat modernization as capability-building, not only project execution.
Teams that start earlier build deeper technical skillsets and more stable architectures.

Real data point: Organizations that began S/4HANA transformation in 2023-2024 now deploy new capabilities 3x faster than those starting in 2025-2026, not just because of resource availability but because their technical teams have matured architectural thinking. Early movers built composable architectures; late movers are compressed into shortcuts.

Community discussion angle:
“How are organizations sequencing modernization waves to align with capability growth?”

8D — 15-Year Architectural Vision (Composable, AI-Ready ERP)

Architect’s perspective:
S/4HANA support extends to 2040, meaning today’s architecture must support a decade of evolving AI, integration, and business models.

Why it matters

Composability allows modular replacements without major disruption
API-first architecture enables multi-platform ecosystems
Datasphere, event mesh, knowledge graphs, and vector stores reshape data layers
Hybrid/multi-cloud is increasingly standard

Architect’s takeaway

Architect beyond go-live.
Design for interoperability, scale, observability, and long-term flexibility.

Community discussion angle:
“What architectural patterns ensure ERP landscapes remain adaptable through 2035–2040?”

Conclusion

These eight dimensions guide architects to design ERP landscapes that are:

technically robust,
clean-core aligned,
governable,
scalable,
AI-ready,
and compliant with SAP best practices.

They are not sequential — they are an interconnected model. Skip any dimension, and the others collapse under unexamined assumptions. Architects who evaluate all eight simultaneously design landscapes that survive 2030 and thrive through 2040. Those who optimize one or two while ignoring the rest? They're designing for today's constraints while tomorrow's competitors design for tomorrow's capabilities.

Call for Discussion

Which dimensions are shaping your S/4HANA architecture most strongly today? Please share in comments—I'll synthesize responses into a follow-up article on 'The 80/20: Which Two Dimensions Determine 80% of Success.