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The Beginner’s Guide to SAP Activate – Best Practices, Guided Configuration and SAP Activate Methodology

2020-12-08T19:09:57+01:00

Project Management is something every one of us has done in our lives. Be it researching and completing your school and university assignments by the given deadline to organising your day to meet with friends and family, we always make a mental plan before we act on it.

In a way, each, and every one of us are project managers. We need to plan and schedule our daily tasks and meetings. Sometimes, it is difficult to manage our own day and we feel out of control.

Can you imagine the difficulties faced by Project Managers who are leading projects internally and for customers? Now imagine the difficulties a million-dollar SAP project holds in terms of planning your deliverables, resources, and deadlines!

SAP has come up with SAP Activate, a framework to enable SAP project managers across the globe to deliver projects with ease and clarity. A common misconception among the SAP fraternity is that SAP Activate is a project management methodology. It is much more than that!

The 3 Pillars of SAP Activate framework:

SAP Activate is a framework that consists of 3 important pillars:

SAP Best Practices

Guided Configurations

SAP Activate Methodology.

These 3 pillars together can empower project managers and consultants and even the business end-users to easily understand the SAP solution that is implemented to solve their business pain point.

How does SAP Activate help all stakeholders involved in a project? Let’s find out!

Pillar 1 – SAP Best Practices:

SAP, with their 45+ years of widely accepted industry-specific, best practice knowledge and experience has delivered ready-to-run business processes that are optimized for SAP S/HANA. These business processes are well documented and pre-delivered by SAP and can be viewed in the Best Practice Explorer. It consists of best practices for integration, migration, and extensibility to expand the existing processes with the customer's own processes. The Best Practice Explorer provides consultants and customers with all the best practices across LoBs in the form of business process flows, roles and responsibilities and standard test scripts that also work as a user manual. This forms the first pillar of the SAP Activate framework.

SAP Best Practices

Pillar 2 – Guided Configuration:

The second pillar of the SAP Activate framework comes in the form of guided configurations to make it an easier experience for consultants and customers to configure their SAP system. SAP is working to globalise and standardize best practices across industries. In accordance with the same, SAP provides users with standard configurations that can be used to run a business process. Additionally, for customer-specific requirements, SAP is providing a self-service configuration user experience. The guided configuration also offers capabilities of content lifecycle management that essentially involves looking at the configuration settings and ensuring that the configuration settings that are set in that solution are not impacted by a new version of best practices or a new version of processes that are being shipped in the next release of the SAP solution. This is extremely important in the cloud where the release cycle is much more compressed.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud comes with new capabilities and functionalities every quarter for the Public Cloud/Multi-tenant Edition. The Private Cloud/Single-tenant edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud comes with 1 optional and 1 mandatory upgrade a year. SAP S/4HANA delivered on-premise receives a yearly upgrade. Since the rate of upgrades is more for the cloud variants of SAP S/4HANA in comparison to on-premise, it is very important to use the guided configuration tools provided by SAP to ensure standardisation.

Guided Configuration

Pillar 3 – SAP Activate Methodology:

SAP Activate Methodology is the next generation project implementation methodology used to implement and deliver SAP innovations and solutions. Built on the Agile methodology, SAP Activate methodology takes an iterative approach to continuously improve and deliver to increase the project quality and success.

What is the difference between SAP Activate Methodology and SAP Launch/ASAP Methodology?

Difference between SAP Activate/Launch/ASAP

The SAP Roadmap Viewer has provided 15 different SAP Activate methodologies according to the SAP Solution in question and has segmented them in the following way:

General
- SAP Activate Methodology for New Cloud Implementations (Public Cloud-General)
- SAP Activate Methodology for Business Suite and On-Premises- Agile and Waterfall

Solution Specific
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition
- SAP Activate Methodology for SuccessFactors
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP Service Cloud Roadmap
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud
- SAP Activate Methodology for Intelligent Spend Management Roadmap
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP Analytics Cloud
- SAP Activate Methodology for the Intelligent Enterprise
- SAP Activate Methodology for SAP Sales Cloud Roadmap
- SAP Activate Methodology for Transition to SAP S/4HANA
- SAP Activate Methodology for Transition to SAP BW/4HANA
- SAP S/4HANA Upgrade and Product Integration Roadmap
- SAP Activate methodology for S/4HANA Central Finance

These 15 different SAP Activate methodologies have little to major differences between them depending on whether it is a Greenfield Implementation or a Brownfield Conversion project from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. In this blog, we will see what the SAP Activate Methodology says for a general greenfield implementation.

A customer goes through 6 different phases right from the minute they search for a solution to solve their business pain point to finally implementing and using the solution to streamline processes internally. SAP has beautifully mapped these touchpoints into 6 different phases during a customer and partner’s journey to making the best out of SAP products.

SAP Activate Methodology has 6 Phases to it:

Discover

Prepare

Explore

Realise

Deploy

SAP Activate Methodology

Discover Phase:

The Discover phase is where the customer realises there is a need for a solution to satisfy their business pain point and starts looking out for the right SAP solution to map their requirements. During this phase, customers can apply for a free trial solution if applicable and try it out for themselves to check the features and functionalities of the solution. Customers can even reach out to partners like iQuantM to get the best consulting advise based on years of industry and SAP product experience to find the best solution. By the end of this phase, customers finalize to go ahead with the required SAP solution and move to the next phase in their implementation lifecycle.

Prepare Phase:

As the name suggests, this phase is crucial to both customers and partners as key activities that are crucial to the success of the project are completed with mutual consent. The system is provisioned to the customer post-signing of the contract with SAP and the partner. Simultaneously, key resources are identified from the partner side in terms of the SAP Consultants getting onboarded and enabled. From the customer side, business process owners are identified to provide the right requirements to the consultants implementing the project. A high-level project plan along with roles and responsibilities is finalised along with the project team, project governance procedure and escalation matrix and the project is ready to kick-off!

During this phase, an initial level of requirement is already collected when the business process owners fill in the Business-Driven Configuration Assessment questionnaire. This is a readily available document for the project team that can be downloaded and used to fasten the project delivery. Based on the answers obtained from the assessment, consultants need to plan for the next and probably most important phase of the SAP Activate Methodology – the Explore Phase.

Explore Phase:

The Explore Phase pretty much lays the foundation for the success of the project. In this phase, customers and partners collaborate with each other for 1 outcome – to finalize the business process to be followed in the new SAP system. This is done by a series of “Fit-to-Standard Analysis” sessions, where the SAP Best Practice business process flow is showcased to the Business Process Owner. Consultants first display a flowchart of the business process and later drive a demo of the same using the initial system that was provisioned to them. The project team then have a healthy discussion on how the business can map their business to the best practices. This is the usual process when it comes to SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud, otherwise known as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Multi-tenant Edition. For the SAP S/4HANA business suite and SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud otherwise known as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Single-tenant Edition, there is an additional “Fit-to-Gap Analysis” session where, additional requirements of the business can be noted and later mapped to the SAP system based on feasibility.

Another major point that SAP Activate has made easier for consultants is the standard migration templates that are readily available to download. This comes as a point of relief, especially for consultants who otherwise used to spend a lot of time coming up with a migration template to help the business fill in the information that is required to be migrated to the new system. This helps the project team save an immense amount of time and the business finds it comfortable to fill in the required information as advised by SAP. The business users are enabled on the migration templates and they can now internally start working on data consolidation, cleansing, and formatting to be filled into the standard migration templates. This comes as a huge relief to both the customer and partner project teams as working on data is arguable one of the most difficult portions of a project!

One of the best parts of the explore phase is the “Customer Execution of Standard Processes”. What SAP Activate tries to achieve is to build an early relationship between the end-users and the SAP system for an easier and accelerated adoption of widely accepted business processes. Consultants provide the business users with the documents required and help them run an end-to-end cycle in the SAP system. The previously self-enabled business is now familiar with the system and provides their concurrence that they have executed the business process in the system. They are provided with their own user access to explore and get familiarised with the system. This is great, especially in the initial stages of the project because this helps for an easier UAT in the next phase of the project.

All of the customer’s requirements in terms of additional WRICEF objects – Workflows, Reports, Integrations, Conversions, Enhancements and Forms along with the configuration values are noted in the Backlog document provided by SAP which is then signed off to signed off mutually between the partner and the customer. This backlog document consists of all the customer-specific requirements that need to be available in the SAP system for the business users to perform their daily tasks. Consultants then prioritize according to feasibility, difficulty and importance and plan the sprints for the Realize Phase where the primary aim is to close each of the Backlog items one by one.

A change impact analysis is done to understand how the new system will benefit the business and actions to enable a smooth transition to the new system are decided among the stakeholders of the project. Key users are identified and an end-user learning needs analysis is done and a learning plan is prepared for the key users who will help drive the success of the system during the duration of the project.

Realize Phase:

Once the Explore Phase deliverables are signed off, the project team can start working on the Quality system provisioned by SAP. In this phase, the SAP consultants start configuring the SAP system according to the Backlog document that is signed off. This happens in an iterative approach where the project team works based on multiple sprints that have been planned to execute the project by breaking down the backlog requirements into smaller deliverables that need to be showcased to the business process owner and signed off as completed once it matches the agreed-upon completion criteria. This is the phase where consultants are in regular touch with the business process owner to showcase to them, the SAP system they are building through multiple Solution Walkthrough’s that are scheduled through the Realize Phase.

The technical teamwork on completed the WRICEF objects that were noted in the Backlog document during this phase and work hand in hand with the SAP functional consultants and business users to ensure the custom objects are delivered with quality within the timeline.

User Roles and Authorizations can be a hectic process to finalize on, especially in large projects. For the same, SAP has provided us with standard persona-based roles that help the business users with their tasks through an End-to-End business process. For example, a maintenance technician will be provided with standard roles required for a maintenance technician in the SAP system and a maintenance manager will be provided with the standard role enabling him to perform his tasks as per the best practice in the SAP system.

In this phase, multiple levels of testing such as Unit Testing, String Testing, Integration Testing and User Acceptance Testing is performed to ensure the SAP system is configured according to the customer requirements provided by the business process owners. Data migration testing is also done to ensure the data filled in by the business users are in the correct format and ready to import to the brand-new SAP system.

Once all the deliverables are satisfied, a cutover plan is made to move the configurations, WRICEF objects and master and transactional data to the Production system which will be the system used by the business in real-time. This signifies the end of the Realize Phase.

Deploy Phase:

In the Deploy Phase, once every checkbox is ticked and everything is ready, the business faces a temporary downtime as the new SAP system is Deployed for usage to the business users. This is typically done during a weekend to ensure that customers have little to no effect due to the downtime. The cutover is a process that sometimes gives consultants sleepless nights as this is the culmination of all their hard work being moved into the SAP system for the usage of an entire organisation.

Once the cutover is done successfully and checked by the partner and the customer, the business users are supported by the consultants and the key users who now form the first line of defence in case users have doubts or face an issue. The customers and partners can now relish the success of the project through an intense time filled with dedication and hard work from all stakeholders involved.

Run Phase:

The Run Phase signifies the end of the customer's lifecycle from identifying a solution for their business need to finally implement the solution and running their business process on the same. In the Run Phase, the customer project team are given only 1 task – to be updated with the latest innovation and technologies in SAP, especially in the product they have implemented by having a “Continuous Learning” to keep up with the pace of technology.

SAP Activate has matured to be a great methodology to be used for SAP S/4HANA implementation and conversion projects. Everyone who has been in a project knows how difficult it is to carry the torch from the start to the finish line. SAP Activate has really helped project managers and consultants across the globe complete projects successfully at a much faster rate. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous customers have successfully gone live with SAP solutions using the SAP Activate Methodology. Kudos to jan.musil, Chief Product Owner of SAP Activate Methodology and his team for streamlining phases, tasks and deliverables for a successful project.

For more information on SAP Activate and how it should be used to successfully implement an SAP solution. You can find some important links for Project Managers, Consultants and End Users below:

SAP Roadmap Viewer – https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/

SAP Best Practice Explorer – https://rapid.sap.com/bp/

Intelligent Technologies for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

2020-12-11T05:49:50+01:00

SAP has worked extensively to define the Intelligent Enterprise and to deliver the innovations at the core of the ERP across business processes. The various technologies are integrated with the ERP either directly or by leveraging the SAP Cloud Platform. In this blog, we will take you through the various Intelligent Technologies and contents available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

The proposed intelligent technologies cover various ERP business areas and include dependencies on certain business capabilities. These are the two key prerequisites: a scope item is activated and there are business transactions available.

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process automation for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (SAP Intelligent RPA) accelerates the transformation of business processes by automatically replicating tedious and repetitive actions in the execution of a defined business process. By incorporating APIs, metadata and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as machine learning, situation handling and conversational AI, SAP IRPA helps you to unlock business value trapped in your existing business processes by automating activities and freeing the business users up to make more human knowledge centered and strategic decisions.

There are three components to SAP IRPA:

The Cloud Factory orchestrates and manages processes, defines the automation agents and allows the scheduling and monitoring of processes. Our next version of the product (released for TechEd2020) includes a screen recorder and a Cloud Studio providing automation build capabilities in the cloud.

In addition, the Desktop Studio helps creating automation bots from existing templates available on the SAP IRPA bot store or new automations based on your requirements.

Finally, the Desktop Agent acts as a runtime installed on the user’s desktop. It enables triggering automation bots.

Starting Mid 2019, we have also released several pre-delivered contents to help faster execution and implementation of IRPA projects. More than 100 bots around various Lines of Businesses and Industries. For more information on these contents, please refer to our Best Practices site.

A few examples of topics covered by our pre-content includes the capabilities to create Sales Orders from an MS Excel © file, uploading General Ledger entries automatically (from a template) or providing the Status of Supplier Invoices.

We have also released guidance documents around the Intelligent RPA topic which cover the tips and tricks to execute a sample scenario around the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

For more details, please refer to our Intelligent Technology Guides.

SAP Situation Handling within SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA includes many attractive functionalities which make it stand out from our traditional SAP ERP system, including the Situation Handling (SH) functionality. This technology enables to automatically identify urgent and important issues and bring these to the attention of the right groups of users. It provides users with intelligent support to the right decisions and triggers taking actions based on notifications.

A few examples include the possibility to get notified from invoices skipped during reconciliation of payment advice or errors during an allocation run.

For more information and steps to execute a sample scenario in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition, please refer to our Intelligent Technology Guides.

SAP S/4HANA Analytics- Deploying SAP Analytical Cloud technologies for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

SAP has created a highly differentiated solution “SAP Analytics Cloud” which is the intersection of Business Intelligence, Predictive capabilities and Planning. SAP Analytics Cloud is a next-generation Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that consolidates all analytics functionalities for all users in one product built on SAP Cloud Platform.

SAP is developing business content to provide customers with pre-defined SAP Analytics Cloud content such as queries, data models and visualizations. It includes stories and dashboard items and comprehensive documentation describing how to use the content. These templates offer several reports for Financial Analysis, Procurement and Sales Dashboards. More Information on Analytics content can be found in the SAP Best Practices Explorer site.

These analytics contents are also applicable for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. For more information please refer to our Intelligent Technology Guides.

SAP Embedded Machine Learning for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

The Embedded Machine Learning integrates predictive functionality into business applications. Predictive Analytics allows you to manage the predictive use cases shipped by SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. Embedded ML comprises two SAP Fiori applications - the Predictive Models app and the Predictive Scenarios app. The Predictive Models app leverages the SAP S/4HANA data of your application to train the predictive model version.

We have released several pre-delivered predictive use cases in SAP S/4HANA system around various lines of business. Few examples include Contract consumption, Stock in transit and Quotation conversion probability rate. You can find the entire list of pre-delivered use cases in our SAP Best Practices Explorer.

For more information and steps to execute a sample scenario around SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition, please refer to our Intelligent Technology Guides. In these documents, we have included a list of all embedded predictive scenarios that are available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition – with the scope item names, user roles required, Fiori IDs and any other prerequisite scope items.

More Information about the SAP S/4HANA Cloud and Intelligent RPA

SAP Best Practices Explorer: SAP Best Practices for SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Integration with SAP S/4HANA

SAP Intelligent RPA store: Click here

SAP´s Value Assurance team helps Latin American media big player with their go-live on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

2020-12-16T16:32:52+01:00

The move of our customers to become intelligent enterprises has become more important than ever in the past months. With increasing uncertainty and disruptions to supply chains, companies must overcome the challenge of automating their business processes, making them secure, and improve the user experience for easier and better use. The question is: How do we maximize the effort of moving the core business processes that span several areas of the company quickly while minimizing modifications to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership in the long run? Well, that is where the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition comes into the picture.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition is a Cloud solution, in which the governance to implement and operate are shared by SAP and the customer. It is the customers’ responsibility to implement the system according to their specific business needs with possible changes to the configuration. On the other hand, SAP is responsible for delivering the infrastructure on time and performing the upgrades of the solution (up to twice a year, based upon the customer´s choice) in order to maximize benefit from the latest innovations in the SAP S/4HANA cloud, extended edition releases. This was the perfect solution that fit the requirements of one of our customers based in Mexico City: OCESA.

OCESA is a Mexican entertainment and media company. OCESA is part of the CIE Entertainment Company, which is the strategic business unit through which they contract, produce and organize a wide gamut of home entertainment events. Their business is comprised of event promotion, the administration, and operation of show venues, the sale of tickets to events and entertainment properties, the marketing of advertising sponsorships, and food, drink, and souvenir concessions. OCESA is recognized as one of the most profitable companies in the home entertainment industry in the world. Grupo CIE is one of the main sponsors responsible for bringing the Grand Prix of Formula 1 to Mexico City.

OCESA started its SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition implementation journey in September 2019 and went live with the solution in June of 2020. The project was mainly focused on a Greenfield Implementation with a cloud mindset, taking advantage of all standard functionalities in order to have a single source of truth to manage their business. Beforehand, they were working with a SAP ERP solution that included a large amount of customization and in-house developments, resulting in information scattered in different files rather than one centralized system.

For the project implementation activities, OCESA hired one of SAP’s Partners to perform the analysis and all consulting activities. At the same time they also wanted to make sure to safeguard project activities directly with SAP. Through SAP Premium Engagement services, they signed up for an SAP Value Assurance Package including functional and technical services to help them throughout the move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

The SAP Landscape of OCESA included mainly SAP S/4HANA on SAP HEC connected to non SAP systems through SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SAP CPI) for localization topics. In the future, they expect to implement SAP Success Factors and SAP Fieldglass.

I led and managed the SAP Value Assurance Package activities together with the customer, and I’d like to share here my experience on how having an SAP Value Assurance Package for S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition can help our customers throughout their project implementation:

Fit-to-Standard Analysis and the 5 Golden Rules for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition is a cloud product with an upgrade every two years at a minimum. Thus having a system with the most standardized functionality as possible is a must to avoid disruptions to daily operations. After the Fit-to-Standard Workshops where the consultants review and match the customer’s business processes with SAP scope items, it is often necessary to keep some additional business requirements in mind to make the solution work in a way that is familiar to the final business users. OCESA wanted to make sure to review these business requirements in detail to have an alternative to address them through configuration or the implementation of SAP functionality.

Based on the scope, we planned a Fit-to-Standard Validation Workshop, taking the input from the backlog document of the Fit-to-standard workshops into account. The initial analysis resulted in 58 prioritized business requirements. In the end, 16 of these identified business requirements could be covered by standard functionality either through configuration, Fiori apps, or standard reports/programs. Only 2 of these business requirements resulted in net new functionality which was added to the project scope to support Bank Communication Management for Monitoring of Payments, and Group Reporting for consolidation.

Bring in the Subject Matter Experts as required

Throughout the project, there were questions raised that required the direct support from Subject Matter Experts to assist the Implementation Partner. There were some questions regarding integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition with CPI, Security, Asset Accounting, and Business Partner concepts that could get solved in a timely manner by involving an expert on an as needed basis.

Flexibility to changes in services based upon special requirements during the project

When Value Assurance Packages is signed, it includes a package of certain services that were agreed upon during the discovery/planning phase of the project. However, these services can change based upon project needs and the risks that come up throughout the implementation project. After the Fit-to-Standard Validation Workshop the customer decided to focus the services towards integration testing and a wider support for the Go-Live of the project.

This flexibility also helped us to provide a workshop for the Payment Monitoring feature included in the Bank Communication Management functionality.

Support during the Integration Test and Go Live for stabilization of daily processes

Adding a technical integration check during the integration testing gave us the opportunity to correct all aspects before transporting the final solution into the production system. In this implementation phase, the consultants quickly reported any challenges or issues they came across in the system and at the same time provided the recommendations for a solution. The result from this service was split into some recommendations in the area of treasury and intercompany processes.

Since the project testing phase was carefully planned and executed, no major issued were experienced during the safeguarding service for the Go Live of the project.

The benefits of the Value Assurance Package to safeguard your implementation journey are many and different for each customer. In the words of our Sponsor, OCESA’s Finance Director, “the SAP program provides you with the feeling of SAP’s direct accompaniment throughout the entire project, in order to achieve your implementation objectives and mitigate any upcoming problems fast to avoid any impacts on the project timeline.”

Adding Custom Program to Fiori Launchpad

2021-01-27T04:27:14+01:00

1. Background

As SAP ECC customers decide to move to an S/4HANA Cloud system, they might have a requirement to keep some of their custom programs (Z-programs) for business continuity purposes. Consequently, these custom programs might need to be enabled to be accessible from the Fiori launchpad in order to provide the business end users with a consistent and harmonious user experience. The purpose of this blog is to provide a step-by-step guide on how to add ABAP custom programs to the Fiori Launchpad.

2. Prerequisite

The target system is either an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition or SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and the customer has the requirement to keep some of their existing ABAP programs.

Please check the following link for the latest SAP Fiori Content Manager :

https://blogs.sap.com/2019/07/22/new-sap-fiori-launchpad-content-manager-tool-available-for-s4hana-1709-and-1809-customers/

3. Demo Custom Program

For demo purposes, we have a custom program which allows users to search for flight details based on airline codes:

As an example, enter the airline code: AA (abbreviation for American Airlines)

Click on the ‘Execute’ button to get presented with the search results:

4. Steps

4.1 Maintain custom transaction code

First, we need to maintain a custom transaction code for the custom program.

Enter ‘SE93’ and create the custom transaction code ‘ZCARR’ as a next step:

In the pop-up window, enter the short text and choose ’Program and selection screen (report transaction)’ under the available options for the Start object:

On the next screen, enter the custom program name in the Program field, and choose the checkbox ‘SAP GUI for HTML’ under the GUI Support section and, click the ‘Save’ button.

A confirmation message will pop up on the screen to inform the user that the custom transaction code was created successfully:

4.2 Create Semantic Object

Enter Transaction ‘SPRO’, choose ‘Define Semantic Objects for Navigation’ which can be found following this navigation path: SAP NetWeaver -> UI Technologies -> SAP Fiori -> Configuring Launchpad Content -> Adding Apps to SAP Fiori Launchpad:

Click on the ‘New Entries’ button to create a new semantic object ‘ZSO_CARR’ as shown in the example below:

4.3 Create Catalog

Choose ‘SAP Fiori Launchpad Designer (Current Client)’ which can be found under ‘Configure Target Mappings and Tiles’ by following the navigation path: SAP NetWeaver -> UI Technologies -> SAP Fiori -> Configuring Launchpad Content -> Adding Apps to SAP Fiori Launchpad

Click the ’Plus’ icon at the left bottom of the screen to create a new catalog:

Enter the catalog title and ID as shown below, and click ‘Save’:

4.4 Create Target Mappings

Click on the ‘Target Mappings’ icon at the top of the screen, and then click on the ’Create Target Mapping’ button at the bottom of the screen:

On the Target Mapping configuration screen, choose the semantic object ‘ZSO_CARR’ that was just created, choose ‘display’” under the available options in the ‘Action’ field, ’Transaction’ under the available options in the ‘Application Type’ field, enter the Title and Transaction Code ‘ZCARR’ and finally click on the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the screen:

4.5 Add Tile

Choose the ’Tiles’ icon, then click on the ‘Plus’ icon to add a tile:

On the next screen, choose the ’App Launcher – Static’ template from the available options of tile templates:

Enter the following details: Title, Subtitle, Keywords, Icon, Information, Semantic Object and Action before saving your newly created tile:

As you will see in the screenshot below, the new Fiori Tile ‘Flight Details’ was created successfully:

4.6 Create Group and assign Tile to Group

Choose ‘Groups’ from the top toolbar, and then click on the ‘Plus’ icon on the left bottom of the screen to create a new group:

In the pop-up window, enter the Group Title and Group ID, and click on the ‘Save’ button:

On the next screen, click on the ’Add Tile’ icon to assign the Tile to the Group:

Click the ‘Plus’ icon in order to add the newly created tile to the group ‘Legacy Reports’:

On the screenshot below we can see the new tile has been added to the Group ’Legacy Reports’ successfully:

4.7 Create Role and Add Authorizations

Under transaction code ‘PFCG’, enter the role ID ‘ZR_REPORTS’, and click on the ’Single Role’ button:

Enter the Description for the role, click on ‘Menu’ button in the menu bar:

Select ‘Yes’ on the pop-up window that appears next:

Under Transaction, choose ’SAP Fiori Tile Catalog’:

In the pop-up window, choose the Catalog ID ‘ZBC_CARR’, and continue by clicking the green check mark symbol at the bottom of the screen:

Under Transaction, then choose ‘SAP Fiori Tile Group’:

In the pop-up window, choose the Group ID ‘ZG_REPORTS’, and continue by clicking the green check mark symbol at the bottom:

As a last step, click on the ’User’ button on the menu bar, enter the user ID, and save your changes:

4.8 Access the Custom Program from Fiori

When logging onto the Fiori launchpad next, we can now see the tile ’Flight Details’ under Group ’Legacy Reports’:

Choose AA as the airline code, and execute:

As you can see, we can now retrieve the report details directly from the Fiori UI:

4.9 Summary Diagram

To summarize the relationships of the objects that were created, please refer to the diagram below. Please note that the section numbers of the guide have been referenced in the diagram.

5. Conclusion

Following these steps, customers can keep their legacy business reports and access both the standard and custom apps directly from the Fiori launchpad.

Extensibility in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

2021-02-04T08:43:02+01:00

In this blog, I will present extension scenarios frequently seen in the Customer’s SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition.

I will be discussing the following scenarios under this blog.

A. Create a report with a custom input in an SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition system.

B. Create a custom validation in a standard Fiori application in an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system.

C. Add a Custom field to an existing UI.

D. Create a Side by Side Extension/ Application.

Scenario A. Create a report with a custom input in an SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition system

This request would typically be originating from the cases where an existing standard report misses out on some functionalities that the customer expects.

Here are the steps to create a custom report with a custom input.

Connect the SAP S/4HANA Cloud extended edition system to SAP Analytics Cloud via Live connection.

- Create custom CDS views by joining multiple CDS views and making sure that all the required fields are available in the final custom CDS view.

1. - Search for the Application Custom CDS views in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended system.

1. - Click on Create Button to add a custom CDS view.

1. - Create the custom CDS view by joining the required tables and Publish the view.

You can also refer the note, 2936504 - How to enable In-app extensibility Fiori apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition on how to create custom CDS views in an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended system.

- The created custom CDS views, can be exposed via the transaction /IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE as OData services. You can refer the blog, How to discover SAP API’s in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition on how to expose the service.

Once the service is exposed, it will be available in the list of services under the transaction /IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE.

This service could be accessed via the generated URL of the OData service as shown below.

- The CDS views can be accessed from the SAP Analytics Cloud via setting up a live connectivity between the backend system and SAC.
- Make sure that CORS is setup in the EX system before you connect SAC with the backend, the document Live Data Connection to SAP BW Using a Direct CORS Connection via Unified Connectivity, provides the detailed steps for how to check this.
- Once this is setup, you can connect the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system to SAP Analytics Cloud. You could refer to the blog, ABAP CDS-Views and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) via Live Connection, which have described the entire process in excellent detail.

If Solution 1 does not work, an ABAP report for this functionality will have to be developed in the S/4HANA Cloud Extended system (Configuration Client). Additionally, you could also refer to the blog Adding Custom Program to Fiori Launchpad

Scenario B: Create a custom validation in a standard Fiori application in an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system

Here are the steps to create a custom validation.

Cloud BAdI implementation via In App Extensibility.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition has a powerful In App extensibility framework, where the customer can implement custom BAdIs.

- Search for the application Custom Fields and Logic.

- Select the tab Custom Logic and click on the Add button to find the right enhancement implementation for your use-case.

- Click the Create Button to add a new BAdI implementation.

This will create a cloud BAdI and you can write your custom implementations and validations here.

You can refer the note 2936504 - How to enable In-app extensibility Fiori apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition, on how to implement a Cloud BAdI in in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended. You can also skip to Scenario C: Add a Custom field to an existing UI, where this process is explained in detail.

But as you can see from the Note, it is quite possible that a Cloud BAdI does not exist for a specific use-case that the customer wants to implement. In such cases the customer can explore the following 2 options. Scenario B.2 and Scenario B.3.

Enhance the application via finding the application ID from the Fiori Apps Library.

Find the standard BAdI in the backend SAP system (Configuration Client) and then implement the custom validation to return the error message to the UI.

This could be explained with the following example, which explains, how to proceed with an enhancement, if a cloud BAdI that exists in SAP S4/HANA Cloud, essentials edition, does not exist in SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition.

Let’s say, you want to add validations while performing “Post Goods Receipt for Purchase order".

A cloud BAdI is already available for this as per, App Extensibility: Post Goods Receipt for Purchasing Document, for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition.

Screenshot from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition.

But this BAdI is not available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

As you can see, this application is missing from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

This means that customer will have to rely on the 2 solutions provided above.

- Enhance the application via finding the application ID from the fiori apps library.

For this, access the Fiori Apps Library.

Search for the Post Goods Receipt for Purchase order app (

-> Go to 'Implementation Information'

-> Select your product -> SAP S/4HANA 1909 FPS01

-> Check the result in 'Extensibility' menu

If we follow that path, we will have the 'BSP containing SAPUI5 application' GR4POS1 displayed.

This BSP application can later be enhanced and the required validations can be written to the application.

- Find the standard BAdI in the backend SAP system (Configuration Client).

Since the use-case is posting of goods receipt, we can use the standard enhancement, MB_GOODSMOVEMENT for goods movement

Select the BAdI definition MB_BAPI_GOODSMVT_CREATE which is triggered while a Goods Movement is posted.

Create a custom implementation for this BAdI to write the custom validation logic while performing the GR posting.

Scenario C: Add a Custom field to an existing UI

To add a new field to an existing UI in SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition, you could go for In-App extensibility.

Here are the steps for this.

Create a new field via the Custom Fields and Logic application and enable the usage of this field in the required application.

- The following example shows, how to add and populate a new field in a Purchase Order header.
  - Search for the application Custom Fields and Logic (Configuration Client).

- - Create a new field by clicking Add, under the tab Custom Fields (Configuration Client).

- - Mention the business context in which the new field is to be added, give a label for the field, and maintain the field type and click on Create and Edit.

- - A new field will be created.

- - Enable the application in which the field needs to be displayed, by clicking on Enable Usage (Manage purchase order in this case).

- - Save and Publish the field.

- - Open the Manage Purchase Order application using a user with customizing authorization (Test Client).
  - Open the screen at which the new field needs to be added.
  - Click on the user icon and select Adapt UI to enable editing.

- - Right click on the UI and select Add Field.

- - Select the newly added field from the popup.

- - This will add the field to the screen.

- - Save and Publish the field.

- - Once the field is added, an enhancement implementation is required for the field to be populated at runtime.
  - For this, create a new enhancement implementation by clicking Add, under the tab Custom Logic of the application Custom Fields and Logic (Configuration Client).

- - Select the business context and BAdI description for the field to be populated. Give a name for the implementation description and click on create.

- - Write the logic for populating the field.

- - Save the draft and click on Publish to publish the logic.

- - The data is filled based on the logic, when a new Purchase Order is created (Test Client).

- (Due to advances on extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud this note is now DEPRECATED) If the required application is not available in the list of Applications available for extension, the customer should proceed with extending the Include/Structure with which the standard GUI application can be enhanced. You can refer to the note 2920697 - Extensibility Guide for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition for referring to allowed enhancements to DDIC structures
- Please refer to following information below for the newest information on extensibility:
  
  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2923223
  
  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3088062
  
  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3126893
  
  Extensibility Explorer -- https://extensibilityexplorer.cfapps.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/ExtensibilityExplorer/#/ReadMore
  
  SAP Community landing page for Embedded Steampunk - https://community.sap.com/topics/s4hana-cloud-abap-environment

Scenario 😧 Side by Side Extensions

As explained in Scenario A: Create a report with a custom input in an SAP S4/HANA Cloud, extended edition system, any OData and CDS views from an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Extended edition system could be exposed via SAP Cloud Connector. This means that you will have a large list of APIs available from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system for consumption.

You can use these APIs to create Side by Side applications based on data pulled from an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system.

You could follow the detailed tutorial Consume Data from an ABAP System Using the Cloud Connector which is available on the developer community which provides an excellent step by step guide for the same and you will be able to access data from the S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition system, from your own custom application.

Join the Financial Products Subledger and Financial Posting Gateway live webcasts

2021-02-23T17:18:32+01:00

Would you like to become more familiar with Financial Posting Gateway for business events?

Do you need more information on IFRS compliance in Financial Products Subledger?

If your answer is yes to either of these questions then let me recommend our latest Meet-the-Expert (MTE) live webcasts:

A one-time registration for SAP Learning Hub (accessible here) is necessary to register for these events. A recording of the event will be available using the same links after the events.

Compliance with IFRS17 with SAP S/4HANA Financial Products Subledger
Wednesday, April 14, 2021 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

In this live webcast we will explore:

How SAP helps insurance companies to comply with IFRS17?

How you get necessary inputs “accounting ready”?

How IFRS17 disclosures and other reports produced?

SAP S/4HANA Financial Posting Gateway
Thursday, April 15, 2021 09:00-10:00 AM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

In this live webcast we will discover how SAP S/4HANA Financial Posting Gateway:

Acts a landing zone for business events.

Performs and tracks account determination towards G/L.

Receives and enriches posting documents.

Differs from SAP S/4HANA Financial Products Subledger.

Here’s a little taster of what you can expect:

SAP S/4HANA Financial Products Subledger

SAP S/4HANA Financial Products Subledger provides a central hub to manage data between operational and finance systems, streamlining accounting flows and supporting increased transparency and control. It takes advantage of SAP’s industry-leading in-memory computing platform, SAP S/4HANA, for flexibility and speed.

IT’s ability to support finance and risk processes has become more difficult to manage as a result of fragmented data models between operational and finance systems, in addition to highly redundant accounting rules and interfaces. Maintaining compliance and consistency is also a challenging task with new regulations such as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 and 17. These impact the valuation of insurers’ assets and liabilities for accounting purposes and change processing and reporting standards.

To help overcome these obstacles, the subledger solution runs on a multi-GAAP accounting engine that provides enhanced calculation and accounting capabilities for payments, business events and estimated cashflows. Centralizing all accounting rules for financial instruments and insurance contracts unburdens the product systems from accounting and controlling tasks, thus allowing for significant cost reduction and easy reconciliation of different sets of books. For insurance companies, an additional component supports the preparation of estimated cashflows provided by actuarial systems.

“This solution supports sophisticated multi-GAAP valuation and accounting concepts,” “SAP Fiori-based embedded analytics makes the solution a dynamic tool for the end user and takes it beyond a pure instrument for documentation to a powerful platform that generates data analysis to facilitate financial steering.

SAP S/4HANA Financial Posting Gateway

Diverse operational systems and spreadsheets may generate various types of business events which need to be accounted for properly.

SAP S/4HANA Financial Posting Gateway acts as a landing zone for business events.

It performs and tracks account determination towards GL.

Receives and enriches posting documents

Ensures auditability / versioning

Ready for high data volumes

Reminder: A recording of the event will be available using the same links after the events.

Profit Center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Projects in Professional Services

2021-03-05T23:17:29+01:00

Would you like to become more familiar with how to perform Profit Center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Projects in Professional Services?

If your answer is yes then let me recommend our latest Meet-the-Expert (MTE) live webcast:

Before you can attend, a one-time registration in the SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP Enterprise Support, is required.

Profit center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
for Projects in Professional Services

Wednesday, April 21, 2021 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EDT (US/New York)
(A recording will be available after the event using the same link)

Here is a little taster of what you can expect:
A management decision generally triggers a change to the profit center structure. The current solution focuses on the scope of the profit center time-dependent reassignment in project-based scenarios for projects in Professional Services. You can define the profit center reassignment for the objects WBS (work breakdown structure) elements for billing. The objects affected by the reorganization are reassigned and their balances are reposted to the new organizational entities.

The solution supports the reassignment of profit centers at a key date (effective date).

The solution offers the simulation of an organizational change. Analytics capabilities are provided for the assessment of the completeness of the object list and the profit center reassignment status, preview or review of the transfer posting and its effect on financial KPIs, and log checking for the steps performed.

Business Benefits

Conduct organizational structure change flexibly in the profit center (financial accounting organization entity)

Reduce finance cost by supporting an organization's ability to perform changes in a timely manner

Automate master data update and account balance postings to reduce manual workload and ensure greater accuracy

React easily and quickly to changed internal and external situations

Adjust the internal controlling structure and the external reporting structure with effectiveness and efficiency

The value of a Solution Standardization Board (SSB) as part of implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

2021-03-16T20:29:17+01:00

Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition with the Solution Standardization Board

Implementing an ERP system can be stressful, and much of this stress is related to the management of new information. An example of this, is finalizing client scope or evaluating options in order to future-proof a solution. Prudent management of new information turns questions into answers and reduces stress levels by providing a level of secure knowledge, from which to lead the project team. This process of turning questions into answers is driven by the Systems Integration (SI) Project Manager (PM) and is contained within the delivery methodology and its related artefacts and accelerators.

In the case of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition, the SAP Activate Methodology makes use of a specific accelerator that was specifically introduced for this cloud solution, namely the Solution Standardization Board (SSB). This artefact helps to reduce project stress, by assisting in the management of information related to the future-proofing of the client solution, which it does, by ensuring transparency of deviations from the standard (the fifth golden rule for implementing SAP S/4HANA with a cloud mindset.)

On an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition project, the focus is on implementing a (largely) standard version of SAP S/4HANA, using a pre-configured or template solution (e.g. enterprise management layer), that relates to the client industry. Within such a project, the SSB oversees compliance with the 5 Golden Rules for implementing SAP S/4HANA with a cloud mindset, by considering and approving developments and modifications that deviate from these rules.

On a recent project in South Africa, a pharmaceutical logistics company chose to implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition alongside Cloud Process Integration (CPI), Service Cloud, Portal and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) /Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC), with key integration to third party logistics partners (3PL) and to a 3^rd party Warehouse Management System (WMS) that uses antiquated integration techniques. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition at the heart of the solution, and frequent upgrades as part of the post go-live landscape, the SSB has the important role of overseeing compliance with the 5 Golden Rules and approving developments and modifications deviating from these rules. By setting up and running the SSB, the project team took a proactive step towards future-proofing the organization, by ensuring that regular upgrades of the client systems can be performed with minimal issues.

As the project manager for implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition in this diverse landscape, I would like to share my experience of setting up and managing an SSB for this South African pharmaceutical distributor.

Establishment of an SSB

Most of the SI and client project teams were in technology and process shock by the time we started investigating the use of an SSB. The SI team had not done a cloud-centric implementation before and the client had not ever implemented a cloud or ERP solution and had been using a legacy system maintained by on-site support for the last decade. The change to an agile and cloud mindset was slowing project progress down and the last thing we needed, was another device that could slow us down further.

After evaluation of SSB benefits with the SAP Cloud Customer Care team, it was agreed with the client PM, that the benefits were important enough for us to proceed with SSB establishment. As the SI PM, I took responsibility for establishing the SSB (with the support of the client PM and under oversight of the project Steering Committee.)

In order to get up to speed quickly we utilized the standard SAP Activate SSB artefacts (that had recently become available) and used the suggested process without major deviation. As a project team we had only become aware of an SSB towards the end of the Explore phase, so we unfortunately did not have the benefit of the SSB to guide decision making during Prepare and most of the Explore phase, which affected our Explore phase outcome in two major ways: (1) the project teams were not used to organized oversight of their implementation of the 5 Golden Rules and (2) the client had chosen to avoid Agile techniques up to that point, which led to delays in finalization of the Explore phase deliverables. The latter item required much management and persuasion and caused a knock-on effect, of placing the project team under time-pressure during the Realize phase.

The SSB’s weekly cadence of compliance review and discussion, facilitated the necessary change in thinking and behavior over a period of around 2 months, after which the project team had become more aligned with both cloud and agile thinking. Being co-chaired by the Client and SI PM’s, with standing and topic-related participants, allowed specific items to be discussed until alignment was achieved, after which both PM’s could drive the behavior out in their respective teams.

SSB Process

Other than alignment on cloud and agile thinking, our key achievement in terms of SSB, was to formalize alignment with the extensibility requirements for a SAP S/4HANA, extended edition project. During the weekly meetings, the extensibility rating of each proposed development, enhancement, workflows, forms and integration item was reviewed and approved, after discussion. In the Extensibility Guide, for each scenario, the possible extension techniques are listed and classified as either green (possible in all SAP S/4HANA solutions), amber (allowed in SAP S/4 HANA Cloud, extended edition) or red (not allowed in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.) Apart from taking the pain out of future upgrades, it also helps the customer replace deviations with standard capabilities if they are offered in the future.

On a weekly basis the SSB evaluated the various requests by project teams, discussing alternatives and risks associated with the various options, based on the approved list of functional deviations from the standard solution. On a monthly basis, the results of the SSB meeting were communicated to the Steering Committee.

At the time of writing this blog, 19 amber deviations had been approved, out of a total of 115 deviations. The project team had managed to avoid any red deviations, other than (1) not having followed an agile process during the Explore phase and (2) one functional deviation which is aligned with a specific SAP Note. The former was somewhat remedied by following an agile approach during the Realize phase, which translated into 7 sprints of two weeks duration each, followed by 2 rounds of Systems Integration Testing. The fact that there is only one red functional deviation, means that the client will only have one specific functional area to monitor during the frequent upgrades related to their chosen cloud solution.

Conclusion and lessons learnt

An SSB cannot be considered an optional artefact, when implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. It increases project confidence and ensures client buy-in to the overall solution, by providing a means for managing information related to compliance with the 5 Golden Rules. It enables enforcement of a cloud mindset and ensures a defendable architectural and technical design position, by involving the correct stakeholders when making decisions relating to deviations from standard.

As an early implementer of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition, our main lesson learnt, is that we would have benefitted from implementing the SSB process earlier in the project life cycle.

Writing to make difference - story of SAP Activate book

2021-04-07T23:16:34+02:00

It’s been almost a year since sven.denecken, srivatsan.santhanam, me and twelve contributors finished working on a manuscript for the book about SAP Activate. It went on sale under the title SAP Activate - Project Management for SAP S/4HANA in May of last year and in this blog post I want to talk about its journey. I also want to thank all our readers and share how your purchase helped make the world a better place.

The project started, just like most creative work in a small meeting over a beverage. In this instance it was a morning cup of coffee. Emily Nichols from SAPPRESS and I met in the morning, before the show floor opening at SAPPHIRE 2019 in Orlando. We started discussing ideas of how the book could look like, who it is for and what could be the structure of it. That was the inception of the project.

It excited me to have an opportunity to be part of a project that makes difference for all people implementing SAP S/4HANA solution in their business or organization. I knew I can’t do this by myself and that it will be a large undertaking. We talked about a full-size book and while I was part of several projects on full size books, I only lead one for e-bite few years earlier. I started to enlist help of my co-authors with Sven and Srini being game right from the start. But I was still at SAPPHIRE and needed to focus on the program of the day and the many customer and partner meetings that are setup each day.

I kept thinking about the book in breaks between meetings and jotted down few ideas in my phone as I moved around the show floor. After the event, on the flight home I took all these small notes and started to create mind map of what the book could look like and thought a lot more of the expert contributors that will be excited to get involved in the project and work on specific areas or topics. It ended up being a dozen names which sounded like a lot. Over the few weeks after SAPPHIRE there were many calls and e-mail exchanges to bring together the team and confirm the structure of the book. I found it stimulating to have so many people offer their help and share ideas what the book could accomplish.

Putting together a book outline is in many ways similar to assembling a work breakdown structure in a project. You need to think about the right sequence of deliverables (in our case chapters) and what should be the outcome of each and how they fit together - what comes first and what comes second. It is like a puzzle with many pieces that may be frustrating at times to put together, but once you get the key pieces together it starts to flow. Once we had that part ready, we split the responsibility for each chapter to a lead or pair of contributors and defined the timeline for delivery of first draft.

What followed was hours of writing the text and thinking about the audience and their interests. I’m sure each contributor has their own story about how they found time and focus to write. In my case I would use my trusted iPad and simple text editor to draft the chapter text - often on the plane or in a corner during my son’s Kung-fu lessons. That draft would then later find way to the template that SAPPRESS uses, and I would add screen shots and figures providing visual support for the reader. Once the chapter text was ready for review, it would go to our editor at SAPPRESS for her review and usually would come back with few annotations, remarks and feedback. This feedback cycle was critical, and I was happy our editor was flexible and willing to review individual chapters even if they came out of order as contributors finished them. This part is the grueling march that makes the book what it is and it is a long process, especially when you are writing 600+ pages of the book.

The final push came over the Christmas break and into January as we finalized the last few chapters and appendixes. It felt like a Food Channel cooking show when the host comes in the last 30 minutes with a twist to incorporate special ingredient to the meal. In our case the special ingredient was to add certification preparation questions that readers can use to test their knowledge of SAP Activate before they take official certification exam with SAP (Colin wrote about the certification here). That was an interesting twist, and in my opinion, it was worth the effort, plus it made the book a lot more useful to many readers.

During the following months, we had few more cycles of review with the authors and contributors to make sure the manuscript and final formatting came together well. The last thing for us as authors was to talk about what we will do with the royalties. We considered few options, but ultimately, we felt that the best way to use the money will be to donate it to charitable cause. We chose St. Jude Children’s Hospital that does outstanding work for children and families that are fighting children cancer. Thanks to our readers we were able to contribute over 13 thousand dollars to St. Jude Children’s Hospital in the last 12 months. That is only thanks to our readers that found the book and bought it and thanks to my coauthors and all contributors. And for that I want to thank you! You helped make the world a better place!!!

You may be asking what is next, well let’s say that we all need some time before we embark on another large book project. In the meantime, you can read blog posts from many of the authors and contributors in this community (list of folks in the community is below). You will find many tagged with SAP Activate community tag. You can use this tag to also to ask questions or post your own experiences with SAP Activate. We are all looking forward to your posts, questions and feedback.

sven.denecken

jan.musil

srivatsan.santhanam

lbettuzzi

itendrab3442

rbyrne

daniel.ciecko

christina.galbreath

amin.hoque

adnette.kamugisha

motun

reshmi.paul

jagmohansingh.chawla

kstledger (Lapczynski)

christian.vogler2

We invite you to share your experience with SAP Activate in comments to this blog post or in the SAP Activate JAM (request access here). You can explore more resources in SAP Community using tag SAP Activate. 

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast

As always, I would like to encourage you to subscribe to our new podcast “Inside SAP S/4HANA”. This podcast leverages the unique knowledge and expertise of SAP S/4HANA product experts, partners and customers to address your needs by sharing product insights and project best practice. There is no customer success without product success and project success; we help you get to the next level and make your SAP S/4HANA projects a success. Subscribe now and benefit from the shared knowledge.

openSAP microlearning’s for SAP S/4HANA

Just a couple of months ago, we launched openSAP microlearning’s for SAP S/4HANA as an exciting new learning opportunity. What began with a small batch of 20 videos, has now become a channel with more than 50 microlearning’s that have generated over 20,000 views since then. Today we cover multiple lines of business, like Finance and Manufacturing & Supply Chain, and key technology topics like Master Data Management, Extensibility, User Experience, and Upgrade Management. We are continuously adding new microlearning’s to the SAP S/4HANA channel, so make sure you check them out.

Your voice matters!

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here

SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here

Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloudand SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist

Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community: register here

SAP Activate Community here

Feature Scope Description here

What’s New here

Help Portal Product Page here

Implementation Portal here

How to use SAP Activate methodology in multi-country deployment projects

2021-04-19T15:23:35+02:00

I originally published this blog post on SAP Activate Jam space about 4 years ago under title “How to use SAP Activate in Global Deployment Projects.” I updated it for this publication to reflect the latest thinking about the use of SAP Activate methodology in multi-country deployments. I encourage SAP Activate practitioners to share their learnings and practices in the comments to this blog post.

Over the past few weeks, I had several conversations with SAP customers and SAP colleagues about how they can use SAP Activate framework in multi-country implementation projects. While SAP Activate does not offer a dedicated multi-country template roadmap in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer application, the concept will scale for both initial build of the multi-country template (coupled with initial deployment in first sites) and on-going rollout of the multi-country template into subsequent rollout locations/business units in additional countries.

The goal of this blog is to provide an outline of how to approach multi-country implementation programs with the SAP Activate methodology and how to leverage available accelerators in your program. I will outline the key principles, accelerators and tools that support SAP customers in their multi-country deployments.

Figure 1 – Overview of multi-country deployment using SAP Activate methodology

Overview

The Figure 1 above shows the overview flow of the multi-country or multi-site deployment and rollout consisting of the Template Project and Rollout Project. The Template Project section on the top of the image shows the build of the multi-country template, including the use of fit-to-standard re-using the pre-delivered business processes and the initial deployment to the first wave of sites. The decision on the first set of sites may be driven by decision to follow either geographical deployment or deployment per business unit/function in the business. The second part of the image is the Rollout Project (in the lower part of the Figure) that shows the key steps for execution of rollout project activities, including the use of fit-to-standard that leverages the template with ready-to-run customer specific processes created during the initial multi-country Template Project.

In this blog post, I will not be discussing the strategic decisions project team and project leaders need to make to determine optimal deployment strategy (geographical, by business unit, or combination of the two). But rather, focus on the tactical activities that support the creation a multi-national template and the steps to roll it out into multiple locations in subsequent Rollout Projects with SAP Activate. I will discuss how the SAP Activate approach is used for global projects and I'll point out any differences or specific activities global template and rollout teams need to consider while building or rolling out the template.

Template Project

Figure 2 below shows the details of the Template Project in which the project team follows the SAP Activate methodology. We will go into more details in this section.

Figure 2 – Overview of template project flow in multi-country deployment using SAP Activate methodology

The template project team is re-using available pre-configured ready-to-run business processed, either the pre-configuration packages from SAP or packages provides by SAP ecosystem partners. SAP offers the following packages that project teams should use to get their projects under way:

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud - used for customers deploying RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – used for customers deploying SAP S/4HANA Cloud

SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA - designed for customers deploying their SAP S/4HANA system in their own data center

These packages provide customers with ready-to-run business processes and are the starting point for conducting the fit-to-standard workshops as part of the solution definition and design activities. The fit-to-standard analysis workshops in your Template Project are run in the same way as in the SAP Activate projects - this accelerator details how to prepare and conduct fit-to-standard analysis workshops. Last year, we have introduced new remote playbooks for customers that are running their project in a remote setup. Here is my earlier blog post on the topic.

Project teams in Template Project should also apply the Solution Standardization Board (SSB) governance model to minimize the number of unnecessary custom code and custom objects in their system. We will not detail this topic in this article, but you can review the details in the previous blog post about project governance and SSB here you can also find the story from Andre Malan about the value SSB provided to his customer’s project here.

The result of the fit-to-standard workshops is a backlog containing all delta requirements in the form of user stories that are complemented with additional solution design documentation (like user experience mock-ups, functional specs, etc.). The backlog summarizes what the project team needs to build during the Realize phase to complete the template for the deployment in the first rollout location(s).

In addition to conducting the standard SAP Activate fit-to-standard analysis workshops during the Explore phase, the project team in the Template Project needs to categorize the business processes in scope to indicate the level of standardization/globalization. This categorization will help the project team later during the Rollout Project to scope and plan the fit-to-standard workshops for the rollout sites. For example, the rollout project team will not be allowed to make any changes to global process, they will have limited ability to make changes to standardized processes and they will be able to influence execution of full scope of local processes in the Rollout Project fit-to-standard analysis.

For your reference, below is the list of categories that project team in Template Project should use during the design of the multi-national template. These categories are assigned to the business scenarios and processes to indicate the span of control for the business process. This categorization helps with management of the scope of work during the rollout — e.g. only processes that can be changed by the rollout sites should be considered for the fit-to-standard workshops. Here are the categories:

Global Process - A process is global when it is integrated throughout the organization: that is, when it is cross-functional or cross-organizational. An element that is flagged as global cannot be changed in a local rollout; in other words, the structure element and all associated business content are predetermined.

Standard Complete Process - A process is standardized if it must be executed in the same way in the entire organization (in all relevant organizational units). A standardized complete element (and its business content) can be seen as a proposition from the global template that should be used as delivered. However, the local team may extend the structure element with additional substructures and with additional business content.

Standard Partial Process - A process is standardized if it must be executed in the same way in the entire organization (in all relevant organizational units). A standardized partial element (and its business content) can be seen as a proposition from the global template that should be used as delivered, but the process consists of subprocesses that are locally regulated by legal requirements, and these need to be defined on a local level. The local team can design their own processes if the parent company agrees to this.

Harmonized Process - These business processes will be standardized in the future. It is recommended that the local rollout team use the harmonized processes. A process is harmonized if it is recommended to execute the process in a specific way. Harmonization is a first step toward standardization but without mandatory elements. One reason can be for organizational readiness, or there may be many legal requirements preventing standardization. For the local team, the same activities are allowed or forbidden as for standard partial processes.

Local Process - A process is local if it is not possible, or it makes no sense, to define it as global, standardized, or harmonized: for example, locally unique taxation processes. Local units must design this process for their needs. These processes are necessary for obtaining executable software for testing. For the local team, the same activities are allowed or forbidden as for standard partial processes.

The rest of the Template Project is managed in a similar fashion as any other project that follows the SAP Activate methodology. The project team in a Template Project should build the template using the iterative, incremental build of capabilities in short sprints. Then, the template is deployed in the first set of sites and customer uses the functionality to run their business in these first sites. You can refer to the SAP Activate methodology in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer for detailed guidance in the specific roadmap that fits the solution your project team is deploying.

Rollout Project

Let's briefly talk about the Rollout Project. The main change that the Rollout Project team applies is that they use the template with customer specific business processes as the foundation for fit-to-standard workshops as you can see in Figure 3 below. The assignment of categories we have explained above dictate which processes need to be included in the scope of the fit-to-standard workshops - e.g. only the processes that the local project team has ability to extend (Standard Complete), change (Standard Partial and Harmonized) or the ones they need to define completely based on local design (e.g. Local processes). In the Rollout Project the goal is to further reduce the deviation from the pre-defined template and governance principles such as Solution Standardization Board should be used to assess deviations from the customer specific standard defined in their template.

Figure 3 – Overview of rollout project flow in multi-country deployment using SAP Activate methodology

The Rollout Project team follows these steps for each of the rollout locations:

Use template into the Development system (in case of dedicated landscape for rollout project, the rollout project team deploys the template to their dedicated Development system).

Perform fit-to-standard analysis focused on Local processes and adjustments of Harmonized/Standardized processes per governance set forth by Template Project

Capture backlog items for all identified delta configuration items, including delta design documents.

Implement the agreed upon delta requirements in the Development system.*

Test the solution in the Test environment.*

Deploy the solution into the Production system for the rollout site.*

* Note that the above description is based on RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and the system names may differ for other solutions.

Additional Remarks

Implementations project teams embarking on multi-national deployment projects will benefit greatly from using Application Lifecycle Management tools that provide support, automation and control for the activities like requirements management, testing. Customers planning their deployment should consider using ALM tools like SAP Cloud ALM or SAP Solution Manager. Teams that are using SAP Solution Manager and adopted agile principles in their project should consider using the Focused Build For SAP Solution Manager that supports them in planning, management and execution of global template build and rollouts. They will find following document useful in setting up their environment and using it in conjunction with SAP Activate methodology – download guide here.

Please share your feedback and questions in comments to this blog post. Share your experiences from multi-country deployment projects and techniques you used successfully to control the complex and large-scale SAP deployments. You can explore more resources in SAP Community using tag #sapactivate.

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast

As always, I would like to encourage you to subscribe to our new podcast “Inside SAP S/4HANA”. This podcast leverages the unique knowledge and expertise of SAP S/4HANA product experts, partners and customers to address your needs by sharing product insights and project best practice. There is no customer success without product success and project success; we help you get to the next level and make your SAP S/4HANA projects a success. Subscribe now and benefit from the shared knowledge.

openSAP microlearning’s for SAP S/4HANA

Just a couple of months ago, we launched openSAP microlearning’s for SAP S/4HANA as an exciting new learning opportunity. What began with a small batch of 20 videos, has now become a channel with more than 50 microlearning’s that have generated over 20,000 views since then. Today we cover multiple lines of business, like Finance and Manufacturing & Supply Chain, and key technology topics like Master Data Management, Extensibility, User Experience, and Upgrade Management. We are continuously adding new microlearning’s to the SAP S/4HANA channel, so make sure you check them out.

Your voice matters!

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info:http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here

SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here

Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloudand SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist

Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community:register here

SAP Activate Community here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Implementation Portal here
- SAP Activate Community Tag here

Cloud Mindset Now!

2021-05-05T17:22:56+02:00

Did you know your ERP as a Service (aaS) implementation can fail spectacularly when your organization does not embrace a cloud mindset? Many projects might not fail outright, however, their results remain way behind your organization's expectations. If you were part of the implementation team, such results may not be your fault. And yet, this type of outcome does not bode well for your reputation. Don’t despair just yet, you can help prevent most such failures from happening and establish behaviors in your cloud ERP projects which are prone to sustain customer success.

Prevent failures - help your organization adopt a cloud mindset from the start

Watch the video in less than 9 minutes or keep on reading...

Cloud ERP implementations might fail...

For traditional ERP implementations organizations might exhibit a state of mind where they would want to blue-print their business processes and customize them into their system. Blueprinting and customization take a good amount of time, which is why those implementation projects tend to be pretty lengthy, taking many months, sometimes years. But then, because the software exhibits the organization's own business practices, after going live it may be adopted rather swiftly and the business might realize a good return on investment through many periods of positive business value. Over time, however, due to high levels of customization future upgrades are notoriously difficult, time consuming and expensive and the curve of value creation typically flattens or might even fall after some time.

Traditional ERP implementation mindset and value generation

On-premise implementation mindset applied to ERP aaS prone to failure

When this state of mind is applied to implementing ERP aaS, the outcome usually gets worse: Project timelines get stretched out as project members get frustrated their own business processes may not be implemented the way they want. Figuring out ways to work around the system cost energy and time which leads to delayed go-live. Employees get frustrated when they do not get involved in the project, get trained too late and then have to deal with sketchy work around ways to get their tasks done. And so they are not likely ever to be as productive as expected. Another factor comes to play: When custom processes are actually implemented with the ways the cloud software allows for, frequent updates may require manual regression testing of these customizations, reducing employee productivity further, and pulling business value further down. If you had used organizational change management patterns suitable for traditional ERP implementations in your cloud project and they didn't work out, you may want to consider adopting a different set of patterns for cloud ERP:

ERP aaS require cloud mindset throughout subscription lifetime

Cloud ERP implementations require a cloud mindset that consists of embracing simplified and standardized business processes. This allows for fast implementation for quick go-live, automated testing in upgrades, and high degrees of process automation down the road. End users can start familiarizing themselves with these standardized processes early on, as learning content is available for self-service. And so they can adapt and be productive on day one after going live. With an agile deployment schedule, key users get involved in continually implementing further processes or regions in the cloud, thus increasing organizational productivity in short iterations. Key users learn how to automate some of the manual processes, free themselves from routine work and can become innovators for their area of expertise, trying out novel ways of doing business with templates and samples for the latest technologies at their command like machine learning, artificial intelligence, analytics or bots processing natural language. Those key or super users are instrumental in carrying the banner of cloud mindset for continuous innovation and sustained business success.

ERP as a Service for fast ROI and continuous business value growth

Super users instrumental for sustained success

The implementation methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Activate, provides you with a work stream and with accelerator assets dedicated to solution adoption, organizational change management and end-user learning.
As any change in behavior takes time it is even more important to establish this cloud mindset as early as possible with the organization and start respective organizational change activities as soon as possible in the project.

The Discover phase should be used to check in with leadership on the organization's digital and cloud readiness, their honest organizational ability and willingness to adopt standardized processes, move quickly and agile, and keep adopting and implementing innovations as part of their subscription.

SAP Activate methodology guides to cloud mindset

As part of the project team you might want to share with your leadership and throughout the organization the OCM whitepaper SAP has provided and engage in respective conversation. You might want to get involved in setting up the OCM team, conceive of the plans to be made for the team, for stakeholder engagement, communication or end-user learning. You may want to discuss early on with stakeholders where they might need help with specific tasks and activities the OCM workstream of SAP Activate calls for. You might want to establish with leadership that most OCM oriented activities have to be conceived of and executed by your own resources and you may want to use the instrument of quality gates to check in on the level of respective accomplishment and the impact for the project and for sustainable organizational success. If your OCM team assesses they might benefit from support by experts experienced with business software as a service please turn to your SAP contact or to your trusted implementation partner.

Organizations need to take responsibility for organizational change - implementers should help

The Explore phase with its Fit-to-Standard workshop and the resulting implementation roadmap defines the intended trajectory of business value creation. Specific organizational change measures corresponding to the respective business processes to be implemented according to that roadmap will have to be devised.

Organizational Change Management tasks in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

The provisions of this roadmap could be imagined like pearls projected onto the curve of value creation, almost like a necklace. The decisions made for expected value creation need to be supported by organizational change management activities that had been conceived and planned for in the previous Activate phases, and perpetuated for the subscription duration. The efficacy of these activities needs to be assessed and measured throughout the succeeding phases throughout the entire duration of the subscription accordingly.

Implementation roadmap conceived in Explore phase projects and plans "pearls" of value creation

Continuous adoption of innovation unlocks value potential of ERP aaS

We have seen how with ERP as a Service your sound and early engagement with your organization on the topic of cloud mindset and organizational change management is a crucial prerequisite for sustained business success.

Learn more about solution adoption and other crucial conditions for successful cloud ERP implementations and sustained customer success with SAP S/4HANA Cloud:

Prompt your leadership early to budget for change management and assess employee adoption propensity and adoption risks (with Qualtrix EmployeeXM for IT)

Apply the SAP Activate methodology

Learn about SAP S/4HANA Cloud specifics

Listen to the podcast - Inside SAP S/4HANA Episode 45: From Cloud Mindset to Cloud Readiness.

News from SAP Activate – SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105

2021-05-05T17:58:51+02:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of the updates to SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and pre-configuration content in SAP Best Practices Explorer (BPX). This release delivers many updates to the ready-to-run business processes, methodology guidance and the SAP Cloud ALM capabilities that our customers can leverage in their SAP S/4HANA Cloud projects. Here are key highlights for this release, you can learn more in the detailed sections below:

New and updated ready-to-run business processes in Best Practices Explorer (BPX)

Now available on Best Practices Explorer: Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA

Updates to SAP Activate methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Updates to SAP Activate methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

New features in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

What’s new in SAP Cloud ALM

SAP S/4HANA Test Automation Tool – New features with 2105 release

SAP Activate Blogs

Content updates for SAP Best Practices Explorer

SAP Best Practices Explorer is the one-stop shop for ready-to-run digitized business processes. View the What’s new by checking out the recently released packages and updates to our portfolio of SAP Best Practices solutions. In addition, you can now find SAP S/4HANA Cloud related content in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community.

For more information, please use the links below.

Updated Content	Type	BPX
SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition 2105	Update	Link
SAP S/4HANA Public Sector Cloud	Update	Link
SAP Best Practices for SAP Marketing Cloud	Update	Link
SAP Best Practices for SAP Integrated Business Planning	Update	Link

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA

The enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA accelerates and simplifies the adoption of SAP S/4HANA for faster time to value due to accelerated implementation. It is ready for immediate consumption as it is deployed as an appliance, no activation of business content is required. It provides a global template for customers operating in multiple countries. The enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA is now obtainable on the SAP Best Practices Explorer and can be deployed on premise or in the context of RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.

The enterprise management layer is also available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition and now available on release 2020 on the SAP Best Practices Explorer.

Updates of SAP Activate Methodology SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition in 2105

The SAP Activate content in the Implementation Roadmap for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition has been enhanced for 2105 with improvements to help guide the customer through the implementation journey.

The key highlights are:

Extensive additions to the Solution Adoption stream including 7 new deliverables and 13 new tasks to provide comprehensive guidance related to learning.

Updates to the tasks related to SAP Central Business Configuration and Manage Your Solution to improve guidance based on the configuration scenario that the customer has. Examples include the tasks under the Quality System Request deliverable and several tasks under Solution Configuration. The Manage Your Solution related tasks will be phased out as customers are converted to configuration using SAP Central Business Configuration.

Added translation support for the Chinese language and updated the Japanese content.

Added a new task Review Hotfix Collection Information in the Run phase to provide detailed information on the Hotfix process and reduced downtime.

For a complete list of improvements, please see the release notes on SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release blog. You can access the SAP Activate methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here.

Updates of SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

The SAP Activate Methodology content for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition has been enhanced for 2105 with improvements to help guide the customer through the implementation journey.

The key highlights are:

The methodology content is available in SAP Cloud ALM and released to SAP customers Now:
- SAP Cloud ALM is available for all customers with SAP Enterprise Support, which includes the RISE with SAP customers.
- It comes with two templates: one for new implementation and another for system conversion

Updates to incorporate enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA. Enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA can be used to accelerate and simplify the adoption of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition. Sample changes include:
- Text and accelerator inclusion to Review Overview Documentation task
- Procedural updates and new accelerators in Receive Initial System for Fit-to-Standard Workshops
- Addition of EML content in the Fit-to-Standard workshops

Updated and new SAP Fiori guidance to help customers through the steps of running SAP Fiori Rapid Activation and transporting through the system landscape.

Added new SAP Learning Hub accelerators for RISE with SAP such as RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition Onboarding Fundamentals (S4C03e_EN) in the Self-Enable on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition task.

Added new task with guidance and accelerator to help customer understand how to request and run the SAP Process Discovery.

The updated content can be found here. See the release notes for a list of all improvements.

New functionality available in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

The following feature improvements are now available in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer.

A new web assistance has been added to the roadmap viewer landing page to provide assistance with accessing and managing SAP Activate methodology roadmaps.

A summary of the new or changed features, tasks, deliverables, accelerators and more can be found using the “What’s New” feature on the roadmap viewer landing page.

Accelerators can now be accessed via the new tab “Accelerators.”

What’s new in SAP Cloud ALM

Learn about what is new in the What’s New in SAP Cloud ALM by viewing the table that provides an overview of new features. You can search through the table and filter content by area and availability date. To see which innovations are currently planned, please have a look at the SAP Roadmap Explorer for SAP Cloud ALM.

Learn more about what SAP Cloud ALM task types and task sources are, highlights about how SAP Cloud ALM can support SAP cloud implementation projects, how SAP Central Business Configuration can integrate with SAP Cloud ALM and what the benefit of this integration is with the following blogs:

Understanding Task Types and Sources in SAP Cloud ALM

SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation – Create Project & Define Scope

What’s new in Project and Task Management in SAP Cloud ALM

Integrating SAP Cloud ALM with SAP Central Business Configuration

SAP S/4HANA Test Automation Tool 2105 Release

As we move towards a more configurable and intelligent SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution, the Test Automation Tool has been further augmented with additional features to support better regression testing such as:

UI Control Repository - A feature aimed towards reducing the maintenance of customer maintained automation script. This also brings further robustness and resilience to the test execution results.

API Testing - API Test Automation framework has been delivered as part of the test tool. This enables users to use Standard API scripts, as well as OData API’s from SAP API Hub

Test Data Container - A new application, which enables centralized test data maintenance with an easy to use and simplified interface.

More details about the features are also available in the release blog.

#Blogs | NEW SAP Activate Blogs

We invite you to follow the #SAP Activate tag on SAP Community, where you can find the following blog post as well as other posts SAP Activate experts shared with the community. Bob’s blog here explains how to follow the tag to stay on top of all the SAP Activate news.

#SAPS4HANAValue Series blogs March, by Bob Byrne

Another Edition of #bobsblognotes, by Bob Byrne

Updates to SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud roadmap, by Bob Byrne

New Web Assistant in Roadmap Viewer, by Bob Byrne

Blogosphere is on fire with SAP Activate, by Bob Byrne

SAP Activate Methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition release notes, by Lisa Kouch

SAP Activate – Customer Feedback, by Kelsey Lapczynski

Implement Intelligent SAP BOTS and RPA in S/4HANA Cloud Projects using the SAP Activate Methodology, by Jitendra Bhandari

Fit-to-standard, How Does it Support the Big Picture, by Lauren Bettuzzi

RISE with SAP: Using SAP Activate as part of your SAP Implementation, by Dan Ciecko

Change is the only constant, by Bob Byrne

SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud available in SAP Cloud ALM, by Lisa Kouch

RISE with SAP: SAP Activate Methodology for with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, by Adnette Kamugisha

SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Translation Coverage Expanded, by Kevin Doran

Run simple – SAP Activate – Accelerate and simplify the adoption of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast

As always, I would like to encourage you to subscribe to our new podcast “Inside SAP S/4HANA”. This podcast leverages the unique knowledge and expertise of SAP S/4HANA product experts, partners and customers to address your needs by sharing product insights and project best practice. There is no customer success without product success and project success; we help you get to the next level and make your SAP S/4HANA projects a success. Subscribe now and benefit from the shared knowledge.

openSAP microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA

Just a couple of months ago, we launched openSAP microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA as an exciting new learning opportunity. What began with a small batch of 20 videos, has now become a channel with more than 50 microlearnings that have generated over 20,000 views since then. Today we cover multiple lines of business, like Finance and Manufacturing & Supply Chain, and key technology topics like Master Data Management, Extensibility, User Experience, and Upgrade Management. We are continuously adding new microlearnings to the SAP S/4HANA channel, so make sure you check them out.

Your voice matters!

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here

SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here

Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist

Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community: register here

SAP Activate Community here

Feature Scope Description here

What’s New here

Help Portal Product Page here

Implementation Portal here

SAP Activate Community Tag here

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition – External Scheduler Integration API

2021-05-07T18:39:38+02:00

Introduction

The following content was prepared with the support of sampath.ramanujam.

The main goal of this blog is to show the most important steps to configure and consume the External Scheduler Integration application programming interface (API) for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. This will enable you to schedule applications jobs, to read the status, abort running jobs and cancel jobs based on an external system.

Please note that no start condition can be specified, it is always 'immediate start'.

Technical name: BC_EXT_APPJOB_MANAGEMENT

Type: Inbound OData API

Version: 2

External Scheduler Integration API

Service Configuration

The External Scheduler Integration API was released for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, so you need to follow the next steps to configure the service in extended edition.

Prerequisite:

Enter to the SAP API Business Hub and select the service required.

Copy or write down the API Technical Name

API Technical Name

Main service configuration:

Access to the backend through SAP GUI.

Enter to the Activate and Maintain Services transaction: /N/IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE.

Click on Add Service button.

Populate the System Alias with 'LOCAL' value. In case of errors, please check the SAP KBA 2527329 - No System Alias found for Service '<service name>' and user '<current user>'

Paste the API Technical name (prerequisite) in the Technical Service Name field.

Click on Get Services button.

After the API appears in the Select Backend Services, select the line item and click on the Add Selected Services button.

A new 'Z' technical service name will be created. Click on the Local Object button to populate the Package assignment and Continue (Enter).

Test API

If you continue in the same screen, please go back (F3) to the search the new service created. In case that you left the screen, you need to access again to the Activate and Maintain Services transaction (/N/IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE).

Use the filter button to search the service:

The new service will appear with active Status. Click on SAP Gateway Client button:

Select the HTTP Method and click on Execute:

You will get the HTTP response:

Host and Port Information

The host and port information in your system is a prerequisite to maintain the RFC Configuration. Please check the following options to see the availability on your system (We recommend to discuss and align this with your internal IT Team):

Enter to transaction SICF and click on execute. In the Define Services screen, you can click on More, and select Information on Port and Host (Ctrl+Shift+F12):Please note that this option is also available through the Activate and Maintain Services transaction:
- Click on ICF Node and select Configure (SICF) from the dropdown:

Another option to find the Host and Port information is in the transaction SMICM. Click on Services button:You will get the host and port data:

RFC Configuration

This configuration* will enable your system to consume the API service. Please execute the following steps:

Enter to the Configuration of RFC Connections (SM59).

Click on create button, populate the RFC Destination, and select connection type “G - HTTP Connection to External Server”.

Maintain the key fields for the configuration:

- In the Technical Settings tab:
  - Populate the Host and Port information:

- In the Logon and Security tab:
  - Select the Basic Authorization option in the Logon Procedure and populate a communication user.
  - In the Security Options, select SSL active and SSL Certificate “ANONYM SSL Client (Anonymous).

- In the Special Options tab:
  - Select the ICM default timeout
  - Maintain the HTTP settings

*NOTE: We recommend to discuss and align this configuration with your internal IT Team. You need to adjust the settings based on the system layout.

Job Selection

In case that you do not know the Job data to schedule it through the inbound service, you can access to the Application Job Repository transaction (SAPJ). This will help you to search the job based on a Job Catalog or Job Template. For example:

Select a job from the catalog or template

Please Copy or write down the Object Name because it will be important to display the job logs:

Schedule Delivery Creation for Sales Orders

Platform Test

You can use an external platform to test the application programming interface e.g. SAP API Business Hub or Postman.

Job Logs

Enter to transaction SM37 to check the job log. Please note that you can use several parameters to find the correct job. In the following scenario we will use the ABAP Program Name that we copied from the Application Job Repository (Object name field):

Job Selection

Job Log

After you complete all the previous steps, you will be able to consume the API and schedule an immediate application job in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. Please note that SAP strongly recommends to follow the 5 Golden Rules during your implementation.

In case of any question regarding the product, please post a question in the community with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition tag. For more detailed information: About Tags.

Important Assets

The following documentation might be helpful to obtain more detailed information:

SAP S/4HANA:

SAP S/4HANA release 1909: Installation guide

SAP S/4HANA release 1909: SAP Gateway Foundation

SAP Gateway Foundation: Activate and Maintain Services

SAP Note 2920697 - Extensibility Guide for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

SAP API Business Hub:

SAP API Business Hub: External Scheduler Integration

SAP Help: External Scheduler Integration (Documentation for SAP S/4HANA Cloud)

Troubleshooting:

SAP KBA 2527329 – No System Alias found for Service ‘<service name>’ and user ‘<current user>’

SAP Note 2503171 - Usage of External Job Scheduling solutions with SAP Integrated Business Planning (This is for SAP IBP but attached you can find a helpful document with a similar approach for this scenario)

SAP Blogs:

How to discover SAP API’s in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

如何在SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition里查找SAP的白名单API

This content was brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Care Team

DON’T LET IT RAIN when moving to the Public Cloud

2021-05-13T04:08:02+02:00

It’s true, SAP S/4HANA Cloud can transform your business. When reviewing SAP's comparable products, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Essentials Edition (Public Cloud) has three major advantages:

To start, the Public Cloud offers the lowest TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). Sharing your company’s infrastructure allows you to throw-out old physical servers and begin to free-up costly real-estate. The total cost of the Public Cloud (which is a complete SaaS solution) is comprehensively less than its substitutes, including the implementation, licensing, and overall support.

Second, the Public Cloud has the fastest time-to-value due to its simplified configuration and reduced complexity. SAP’s automated testing tool expedites the process to roll-out new business to your SAP landscape, and it also reduces time to regression test existing functionality. Speed is not only a timesaver, but it also allows your business to adapt to change and promote scalability.

The third, and most intriguing rationale of moving to the cloud, is its top echelon in innovation. From machine learning to predictive analysis, SAP’s quarterly upgrades will keep your SaaS environment up-to-date with the most innovative technologies. SAP has found a way to keep software receptive to industry changes, while keeping in mind dynamic regulatory requirements.

Despite all of these benefits of a SaaS environment, it won’t always be sunny if you don’t watch out for these five key areas:

The calendar isn’t always yours

When implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Essentials Edition, your project timeline is dependent on SAP. Mandatory Quality Gates are established to ensure progression is made and approved before advancing to subsequent phases.

Agile sprints are the new approach to configuration. Make sure your sprint planning gives a buffer for SAP to activate each of your countries. Historically, SAP has taken an average of 4-6 days to activate each country. If you plan on a global roll-out, think twice before activating all 195 countries at once. Throwing more consultants to get work done fast isn’t a solution anymore since we’re reliant on SAP’s bandwidth.

Once you’re finally ready to configure the system, transports can only be released by one country at a time. Your agile sprint planning is paramount in order to align with SAP’s rigidity of implementation requirements.

It won’t all be there day-one

SAP ECC is a mature product which has been around for 15+ years. SAP’s Public Cloud is not that. The Public Cloud and its SaaS methodology is no doubt the future, but it’s still in the early years of existence, only being introduced within the past five years.

Seemingly, the youthfulness of SAP S/4HANA Cloud gives reason to why it doesn’t have all the bells & whistles yet. Not all the configuration is open, which we’ve become accustomed to with ECC. Within SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Essentials Edition, some configuration is characterized as ‘Expert Config’, meaning SAP’s Service Center is required to perform these configurations. Additionally, some configurations are not at all accessible due to the required conformity which exists in the Public Cloud.

This is the new world we live in: Configuration is simpler and faster to deploy. The drawback is that configuration abilities are limited.

If you can’t find a functionality within your S/4 self-service configuration, you have a few options to bring a component to life.

A) Lobby SAP to add to their implementation roadmap

SAP has a concise 18-month roadmap for when they plan to deliver upcoming functionality, new innovations, and its enhanced user interface. SAP delivers these updates in quarterly automatic installations to their customers. Prompting SAP to add a component to their existing roadmap is difficult; but with the right use-case, you may convince SAP to ‘pencil-in’ your requirements.

B) Raise a feature request in SAP’s voting-based customer experience portal

It’s simple: If more of SAP’s customers want it, the better chance SAP will develop it. SAP’s experience portal gives you a voice to identify a desired functionality. You can also vote on a functionality that has already been risen by your Public Cloud peers (SAP’s other Cloud customers). If a specific feature has enough votes, SAP will add to their 18-month roadmap.

Data migration is a thing of the past

Your system is only as good as the data you put into it. The good thing is you have a new fresh start to your data. SAP advises to bring no (none, nada, zip) historical transactional data when transitioning to the Public Cloud. Even if you disobey command and convert data anyway, there are many limitations.

Typically in (ECC) implementations, creating multiple clients can assist with data conversion efforts. The Public Cloud by default gives you only one Production environment and one Quality environment (with one client each). Loading data multiple times for mock trials is tricky without loading into different years for each iteration.

You’re not SAP’s top priority

If you want something changed from SAP, it better be what your peers need as well. Since the Public Cloud is public (duh), changes made to your environment can affect everyone else on the cloud as well.

The fit-to-standard methodology is an important concept to grasp. SAP encourages ‘fit-to-standard’ workshops to assess which of your company’s business processes can fit into SAP’s standard approach. If you’re used to highly customized solutions, the Public Cloud may not be your best fit.

Being on SAP’s Public Cloud means your SAP infrastructure is shared with many of SAP’s customers. Changing the infrastructure or development of your system, can cause a change for everyone on the Public Cloud. Convincing SAP to make a change for you will be harder knowing there are other (possibly larger) customers using the same Public Cloud.

Change, change, & change

Change is inevitable and change is hard; we all know this. Even one of the primary advantages of the Public Cloud, enhanced analytics, is something some end-users are struggling with. The analytics are much smarter and much more flexible, but SAP end-users are often stuck in their old ways.

The FIORI interface is a sexy web-based platform with simplistic navigation and in-screen training.

But new is new. Even if the process or navigation is better, your company's end-users are accustomed to seeing things a particular way. Be prepared for internal pushback even for the obvious ‘wins’ of moving to the cloud.

In all, you should be excited to move to the cloud. The money and time saved will help productivity. The IT innovation and flexibility will keep your competitive advantage in the marketplace. You just need to remember to stay grounded in your journey when moving to the cloud. Take some the lessons we’ve already learned, to help pave your way to the Cloud.

As they say, sky is the limit.

Please 'Like' and add a comment if you have enjoyed, or have thoughts/questions from this blog!

Focus Topic: Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

2021-05-20T11:55:36+02:00

Please note that this offering is no longer available as of January, 2022

The enterprise management layer is also available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition customers. It is included in the subscription and can be ordered for deployment in the customer system landscape, be it in a sandbox system only or in all systems in the landscape, for example in the Development, Quality Assurance and Production systems.

We recommend to deploy the enterprise management layer in all systems and hence build a solid foundation for the project team to adapt and tailor to your individual needs. Using the standard business processes wherever possible frees up time and resources and allows your project team to concentrate on those business processes that are customer-specific and that differentiate you from your competitors.

For the implementation of the enterprise management layer, we recommend the SAP Activate methodology, for example the roadmap for SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

Are there any differences in the content compared to enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA?

The content of the enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition (as well as for SAP S/4HANA) is based on SAP Best Practices and consists of business processes or scope items.

Find overview presentations and detailed documentation for download in the SAP Best Practices Explorer.

All available scope items are listed Scope Item List, per the 43 available countries.

Scope items are structured in 3 categories:

Standard Scope: scope items that are always included for every customer. Those are the green lines in the list.

Scope Options: scope items which are typically not in scope for all customers and/or require additional software licenses. Those scope items are listed in orange and can be selected for deployment in a questionnaire.

The product content team that builds the enterprise management layer also offers additional services, which include for example the following scope items:

Intercompany Processes:
- Sale from Central Stock
- Sale from Local Stock
- Intercompany Debit and Credit Memos

Project System for Accounting:
- Overhead Projects (including Statistical Projects and Projects with Revenue)
- Investment Projects

These services can also be deployed in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. However, they are subject to a service contract and attract a cost.

How can I use SAP SSO for SAPGUI Access in S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition?

2021-06-15T02:20:04+02:00

SAP Single Sign-On (SSO) supports single sign-on based on below three technologies:

Kerberos/SPNEGO

X.509 certificates

SAML

Kerberos is a network security protocol that authenticates service requests between a client (SAPGUI) and a server (S4HC, EX) across an untrusted network.  SPNEGO extends Kerberos to Web applications through the standard HTTP protocol.

X.509 is a standard defining the format of public/private key certificates within a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).  The implementation of X.509 requires the SAP Secure Login Server.

SAML (Security Assertion Mark-up Language) is an open XML standard for supporting SSO across web-based applications.

In this Q&A, we focus on Kerberos based SAP SSO for SAPGUI.  Kerberos authentication involves the SAPGUI authenticating against a Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC).  Kerberos authentication can be implemented with Microsoft Windows Active Directory as the KDC.

The SSO was removed from S4HC, EX’s Service Use Description (SUD) list in early 2020, as it is included in EX’s service offer without any additional hardware.  We don’t sell an SSO license in this context, nor provide additional hardware for SSO.

Here is what we mean for S4HC, EX’s SSO service:

EX customers can use SSO service when a customer already has an Identity Server (such as Microsoft Active Directory) which issues tokens/tickets based on Kerberos protocol.

SAP SSO libraries are installed along with SAP Kernel when S4HC, EX system is provisioned.

The Kerberos configuration is part of consulting responsibility. A consultant can configure SSO based on Kerberos tokens (AD credentials, setting up SPN, SAP profile parameter settings, etc.). Any work that has to be performed on the OS level, like installing certificates, would be performed by the ECS delivery team.

There is no SSO server needed and provided.

The SSO Service for EX does not include a full SSO capabilities, such as SAP NetWeaver SSO 3.0.

In other words, the SAPGUI SSO offered with S4HC, EX is only used for the simple Kerberos based SSO scenario: SSO with Kerberos tokens issued by an Identity Server that can issue Kerberos tokens/tickets (such as Microsoft Active Directory).

For a full and more complicated SSO, such as issuing tokens from a Secure Login Server, it requires SAP NetWeaver SSO, in particular, a Java Application Server (AS). S4HC, EX deployment does not include a Java AS, only the ABAP AS. It will be the license team’s decision whether we will offer SAP NetWeaver SSO as an additional service with an OSS Server in the future.

For complex SSO scenarios, SAP Cloud Identity on SAP Cloud Platform could be another option. It is a separate service.

Secure Login Client

Secure Login Client is part of the S4HC EX SKU. If customers have subscribed to SKU 8007179, they can directly download it now. For the current SKU 8008287, there was a replication issue with PPMS, but customers with this SKU will be able to download it as well.

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA – Available for 2023 in Cloud Appliance Library

2021-06-30T17:43:47+02:00

The enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA offers a ready-to-run, pre-configured, localized core template based on pre-activated SAP Best Practices on-premise country versions covering up to 49 countries.

The Cloud Appliance Library provides ready-to-use SAP solutions that can run on different IAAS offerings like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform.

With the newly created Cloud Appliance Library solution enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA 2023 you can familiarize yourself with this offering.

Please also see: SAP S/4HANA offerings in SAP Cloud Appliance Library | SAP Blogs

What is included?

Technical Information
The baseline of this solution is an SAP S/4HANA system on release 2023 FPS00*:

Pre-activated and enhanced SAP Best Practices for 43 countries (not based on a full copy of client 000 - 'whitelist' approach)
25 system languages
SAP Fiori user experiences (embedded)

Additionally, you get a SAP NetWeaver Java used for Adobe Document Services and optionally a Windows Remote Desktop where all system connections are preconfigured.

* Updated Jan.2024

Functional Scope

The enterprise management layer has been designed to provide corporate governance while complying with local accounting principles and business practices, such as

Local language, currency, units of measure, print forms
Local statutory and fiscal requirements

To find out more about the content, please have a look at the blog series Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA.

The CAL solution includes

43 countries available with SAP Best Practices
standard scope (the green lines in the scope overview)
all scope options (the orange lines in the scope overview)
not the optional services, such as intercompany processes (the yellow lines), which are provided to customers on request when they purchase the service as such)

For more details, refer to the scope overview list as well as other overview documents for the enterprise management layer available in SAP Signavio Process Navigator.

Note:
The scope options included in the enterprise management layer Cloud Appliance attract additional software licenses if you want to run the solution beyond the 30-day trial.

Getting Started

To start an instance of the enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA 2023 CAL solution you first need to connect your cloud provider account (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform) with your CAL account.

You can then create an instance. When the deployment is finished, you click in the CAL dashboard on Connect and choose the Windows Remote Desktop. Use the Administrator user and your master password which you have chosen when creating the instance. On the desktop itself you will find a Welcome-Page giving you the most important information and a direct link to the Fiori Launchpad. Furthermore, you find a shortcut to the SAP GUI on the desktop where a connection to the S/4HANA system is already maintained.

To start exploring the system, it is recommended to use the SAP S/4HANA Best Practice test scripts together with the documentation of the enterprise management layer available in SAP Signavio Process Navigator. In the Getting Started Guide linked in the CAL solution you will find also additional information.

Note:
Please check the Getting Started Guide linked in the CAL solution for additional detailed information.

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA - What's New (June Update)

2021-06-30T18:39:14+02:00

Welcome to the June Update of the What's New series.

With these posts, I will provide regular updates on the enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA..

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA Now Available in SAP Cloud Appliance Library for Customers and Partners

Find detailed information here: SAP Cloud Appliance Library and here: Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA – Now Available in Cloud Appliance Library

Check Out Our New Enablement Assets

Blog Series: SAP Best Practice Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA – Information Hub

Blog: Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA – the Golden Standard for Best Practices – What’s new?

Enterprise Management Layer in SAP Community

In-Depth with SAP S/4HANA: Enterprise Management Layer | Recording on SAP Learning Hub

SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

Enterprise Management Layer on SAP Best Practices Explorer (updated)

New Business Processes Available

We have added a series of new scope items and enhanced others.

Customers who get their enterprise management layer built as of July will automatically get the new content.

"I already have an enterprise management layer. Can I still get the new processes?"

Customers who already have an enterprise management layer do not need to miss out on the new test scripts that are part of the standard scope or the scope options:

Simply download the test scripts from the SAP Best Practices Explorer. The test scripts include the configuration steps that are required to enable the business process in a previous version of enterprise management.

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA – What’s New (September Update)

2021-10-13T10:48:39+02:00

Welcome to the September Update of the What’s New series.

With these posts, I provide regular updates on the enterprise management layer for SAP S/4HANA..

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA is now available on SAP S/4HANA release 2020 OP FPS02

The functional scope has been extended to a total of 40+ scope items specific to enterprise management layer, not available with SAP Best Practices.

Please note: The new and updated scope items can also be used by customers who already received their enterprise management layer system earlier. Download the documentation from the SAP Best Practices Explorer.

Business Transformation requires Organizational Transformation

2021-11-05T12:58:13+01:00

The lack of alignment between lines of business and IT departments is one of the main reasons why companies fail to realize the full potential for their business software implementations and general IT investments. An ASUG study reveals, that the top challenge SAP Customers reported is the lack of in-house knowledge in their organizations to manage cloud providers. This shows how important a regular and continuous exchange between teams in the company is in order to be able to constructively work out requirements for business processes and technical feasibility.

Consequently, each organization requires a dedicated team that has the necessary expertise to manage knowledge and activities related to the company’s IT solutions and understanding how the business processes were designed based on the company’s strategy. To to help our customers, achieve a business and IT alignment through a joint unit within the organization, SAP offers services that empower customers to build a Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE). The Customer COE is defined as a core team of experts that comprises deep SAP skills and knowledge and that generates tangible business value through sustainable and strong collaboration with the lines of business. It is the driver for continuous success to maximize the return on investment. Hence, the main objective of a Customer COE is to increase business value and efficiency by creating a link between the business, IT department and SAP.

In order to give customers guidance on how to establish a Customer COE, SAP makes use of a proven IT capability framework (Figure 1) that depicts the most relevant aspects of a company’s IT Organization: Customer COE Strategy, SAP Architecture and Innovation, Customer COE Organization and Governance, processes and functions, tools and standards, people and skills.

Figure 1: Customer Center of Expertise Capability Framework

In order to lay the foundation for a Customer Center of Expertise to become an innovative enabler for your business, the framework is now aligned with the SAP Activate Methodology. Concretely Customer COE is now part of the SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud (private edition) which has been recently kicked off.

RISE with SAP offers to customers a holistic transformation to SAP S/4HANA. However, every digital and business transformation naturally requires an organizational transformation as well. That is exactly were the Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) comes into play.

The Customer COE setup implies a detailed and clear deployment journey starting from the Discover and Prepare phases. Being a vital part of the Strategic Planning, the COE’s methodology recommends customers to proactively setup an organization and be prepared to holistically manage and operate their SAP software lifecycle in a cloud, on-premise, or hybrid system landscapes. Moreover, the roadmap and methodology can be adjusted to the customer’s scenario and needs to achieve the best transformation results.

Figure 2.: Customer Center of Expertise in the SAP Activate Roadmap

In cloud times, the influence of customer’s line of businesses (LoBs) on IT has significantly increased. The alignment between IT and Business, or even the integration of IT and lines of business, became one of the most critical success factors to select, configure and run cloud solutions in the future.

Based on a clear strategy and solid governance structure customers can ensure a continuous dialogue across Business & IT. In this context, a vital and transparent Customer COE setup can successfully safeguard the transformation journey towards the intelligent enterprise which in turn accelerates adoption of innovations.

To strengthen the collaboration between Business & IT we recommend two exemplary roles with the Business Process Owner and the Business Process Expert. The ITIL compliant Customer Center of Expertise role model follows a targeted management and interdisciplinary collaboration approach. More details about these roles and the functional model please check this document.

Further Information:

SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

Organizational Readiness for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Customer COE - Strategy, Governance and Organization

Customer COE Functional Model with the Business Process Owner and Business Process Expert

Customer COE and CIO Guides

Customer COE Program

SAP Community - SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

The Beginner’s Guide to SAP Activate – Best Practices, Guided Configuration and SAP Activate Methodology

The 3 Pillars of SAP Activate framework:

Pillar 1 – SAP Best Practices:

Pillar 2 – Guided Configuration:

Pillar 3 – SAP Activate Methodology:

What is the difference between SAP Activate Methodology and SAP Launch/ASAP Methodology?

General

Solution Specific

Discover Phase:

Prepare Phase:

Explore Phase:

Realize Phase:

Deploy Phase:

Run Phase:

Intelligent Technologies for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

SAP´s Value Assurance team helps Latin American media big player with their go-live on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

Adding Custom Program to Fiori Launchpad

1. Background

2. Prerequisite

3. Demo Custom Program

4. Steps

4.1 Maintain custom transaction code

4.2 Create Semantic Object

4.3 Create Catalog

4.4 Create Target Mappings

4.5 Add Tile

4.6 Create Group and assign Tile to Group

4.7 Create Role and Add Authorizations

4.8 Access the Custom Program from Fiori

4.9 Summary Diagram

5. Conclusion

Extensibility in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition

Join the Financial Products Subledger and Financial Posting Gateway live webcasts

A one-time registration for SAP Learning Hub (accessible here) is necessary to register for these events. A recording of the event will be available using the same links after the events.

Reminder: A recording of the event will be available using the same links after the events.

Profit Center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Projects in Professional Services

Before you can attend, a one-time registration in the SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP Enterprise Support, is required.

Profit center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Projects in Professional Services

The value of a Solution Standardization Board (SSB) as part of implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

Writing to make difference - story of SAP Activate book

How to use SAP Activate methodology in multi-country deployment projects

Overview

Template Project

Rollout Project

Additional Remarks

Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast

openSAP microlearning’s for SAP S/4HANA

Your voice matters!

Cloud Mindset Now!

Prevent failures - help your organization adopt a cloud mindset from the start

ERP aaS require cloud mindset throughout subscription lifetime

Super users instrumental for sustained success

SAP Activate methodology guides to cloud mindset

Organizations need to take responsibility for organizational change - implementers should help

Implementation roadmap conceived in Explore phase projects and plans "pearls" of value creation

News from SAP Activate – SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105

Content updates for SAP Best Practices Explorer

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA

Updates of SAP Activate Methodology SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition in 2105

Updates of SAP Activate Methodology for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

New functionality available in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer

What’s new in SAP Cloud ALM

SAP S/4HANA Test Automation Tool 2105 Release

#Blogs | NEW SAP Activate Blogs

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition – External Scheduler Integration API

Introduction

Service Configuration

Test API

Host and Port Information

RFC Configuration

Job Selection

Platform Test

Job Logs

Important Assets

This content was brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Care Team

DON’T LET IT RAIN when moving to the Public Cloud

The calendar isn’t always yours

It won’t all be there day-one

Data migration is a thing of the past

Profit center Reorganization in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
for Projects in Professional Services