SAP Community - SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud

Customize Your Emails for Situation Handling in the Extended Framework

2026-07-15T09:00:00.020000+02:00

Situation Handling

Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud alerts users about issues requiring their attention. You can use SAP-delivered templates or create your own use cases to detect critical business issues.

With the extended framework for Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608, you can customize the emails for object-based situations. This blog post explains the default notification settings and the customizing option.

Alert the right users about situations

Situation Handling uses multiple channels to inform the users about critical business situations that require their attention. This includes:

Situation descriptions embedded in business apps
Notification channels in SAP Fiori launchpad and emails

Situation Handling is designed to keep users well informed and support them in their daily work.

Situation Handling emails

One way of informing users about critical business situations is by email. Emails are triggered together with notifications and sent automatically when situations occur, provided the notification option is activated.

Activate emails together with notifications

Let’s look at the standard notification settings of a situation type and their impact on emails:

Notify all after creation / Processor only after update: An email is sent to all recipients when a situation has occurred and to the processor when a situation was updated
No notification after closing: No email is sent to anybody
Notify all after reopening: An email is sent to all recipients

You can also define custom notification settings and their related impact. Whenever a notification is sent, an email is sent as well.

Email templates are predefined

Situation emails use predefined templates that are automatically assigned to the situation type. This means no additional configuration is required.

The predefined email template consists of the email subject and the email body. Most parts of the email body are fixed and cannot be changed. This contains the greeting, the links to SAP Fiori launchpad and to detailed situation information as well as the source and the sign-off. The customizable email text is the one that describes the situation.

Adapt email subject and email text

You have two options to adapt the email template.

Reuse the notification title as email subject and the notification text in the email body.
Add a specific plain text to the email body and go with an SAP-defined email subject.

The situation type automatically inherits the setting of the situation template. You can change the settings in the situation type at any time. Afterwards, the new emails are generated according to the updated configuration.

If you change a situation template later, it has no effect on existing situation types.

Reuse notification title and text in email subject and body

You can reuse the notification title as the email subject, including variables such as plant, supplier, or contract ID. The reuse option also inserts the notification text into the email body, where variables can be used as well. The email preview shows how the email will look like.

Additionally, you can select if notifications are aggregated or not.

No Aggregation: Send a notification and email for every situation instance.
Aggregate by Field: Group notifications as well as emails by a selected field, for instance, supplier.
Aggregate All: Group all notifications as well as all emails.

Let’s check how the different settings affect the emails.

Non-aggregated notifications and emails

If you choose non-aggregated notifications, a separate notification and an email are sent for each situation. Initially, notification title and text are already copied from the situation title and text. Title and text can be also reused as the email subject and in the email body. This provides an efficient configuration experience.

The email template contains links to both, the SAP Fiori launchpad and the specific situation.

Reuse option: non-aggregated email

Aggregated notifications and emails

Reuse works the same way for aggregated notifications. Whether you aggregate all notifications or aggregate them by field, the title and text are copied to the email template’s subject and body.

For a meaningful representation, you can use only character-based variables such as strings. In addition, the count variable indicates how many situations are aggregated. If you select Aggregate by Field, you can use the aggregated by variable to show the field used for aggregation.

Because of the aggregation, the email template no longer includes a link to a specific situation; instead, it shows the generic link to SAP Fiori launchpad.

Reuse option: aggregated email by field

Aggregation by field allows more specific end user texts by including this field as variable.

If you aggregate all notifications and emails, the texts will be more generic.

Reuse option: aggregated email for all situations

Note: Be aware of the variables you are using in the email. They may contain personal data. Review the variables to prevent unintended exposure in emails. Also make sure that the data is managed in accordance with the legal requirements and business needs.

Specific email text with SAP-defined email subject

Alternatively, you can add plain texts without variables in the email body and use a default subject defined by SAP. This option makes sure that the email does not include business-sensitive data or personal data which may conflict with legal requirements or business needs.

You also get a preview of the email with this option. Let’s take a look at how this works in detail.

Non-aggregated notifications and emails

For non-aggregated notifications, an email is sent for each situation using the default subject and the embedded custom email text.

The email template includes links to both the SAP Fiori launchpad and the specific situation.

Custom option: non-aggregated email

Aggregated notifications and emails

Aggregated emails also have a default subject and a custom email text without variables.

Because the emails are aggregated, you no longer see the link to a specific situation in the email template but the generic link to SAP Fiori launchpad.

Custom option: aggregated email by field

Since the custom email texts do not contain variables, they remain generic for both aggregation options.

Custom option: aggregated email for all situations

Now you are all set and know how you can configure emails matching your business needs.

Further Information

You find more blog posts in the Best Practices section of Intelligent Situation Handling in the SAP Community. And you can visit SAP Help Portal for further guidance on Situation Handling.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608: Final What's New & Product Assistance available

2026-07-15T09:47:17.761000+02:00

With immediate effect, the final What's New information for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 is now available.

To access the final What’s New information, please use the What’s New Viewer. In addition, the final Product Assistance (aka Application Help) for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 is available. Please use the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Help Portal page to access it.

For you as a customer, we recommend to also use the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool. The Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool provides you with a personalized and tailored view on What’s New information based on the activated and used scope within your system. The information for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 will be available in RASD within the next few days. A valid Customer S-user ID is required for login. We recommend to use RASD to prepare for upgrades and updates of your system and to focus on the new and changed features that are relevant for you as a customer.

You can use the commenting feature for What’s New. With this feature, authors can evaluate your feedback and incorporate it into the documentation, if needed. We hope that by opening this channel of communication, we can learn how to further improve our What’s New content for you. To use this feature, you need to be logged into the Help Portal. The feature will only be available in the English version of the documents. To learn more about how the feedback process works in SAP Help Portal, see Giving Documentation Feedback.

If you want to get an exclusive preview of upcoming innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 and surrounding solutions, check out the SAP Cloud ERP Early Release Series.

This series will showcase live sessions led by product experts across the SAP Cloud ERP portfolio on a broad range of innovations, including AI-driven features and advancements with Joule, tailored to selected lines of business and industries. Enjoy expert demos, insider previews, and real-time Q&A. Read this blog post to learn more.

All sessions will be accessible via the SAP Learning Hub (access for SAP Customers and Partners. A valid Customer S-user ID is required for login.). You can register for upcoming sessions via the registration page. All recordings of past events will be available here.

What's new in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 release

2026-07-15T10:21:57.439000+02:00

When you trace the evolution of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, a pattern emerges: every release compounds our momentum; continuous innovation on a solid core.

We’ve broadened business scope, deepened our ecosystem, simplified upgrades, and scaled across industries and regions. With the release of 2608, we’re taking the next confident step.

Introducing the Autonomous Enterprise at SAP Sapphire, Business AI moves from concept to companion (you are welcome to follow the link Autonomous Enterprise | SAP) — not a driver, but an intelligent co‑worker embedded in the ERP experience. It helps the business users work faster and smarter while they stay firmly in control. The best decisions still come from people; AI simply helps them get there sooner.

Marking our 35th major release in SaaS ERP, we’re pairing Business AI with continued substantive progress across the core of the business: Finance and Manufacturing, Engineering and Workplace Safety, and Professional Services. All that keeps our customers’ business moving.

As always, I wish I had more time to show you everything we've delivered in this release. So, take this video as an appetizer for our upcoming deep-dive blogs, where my colleagues and I will walk you through many more innovations across various lines of business.

SAP-managed scenarios

Before we start with Business AI, let me share some of the latest capabilities around SAP-managed scenarios. I believe this is something that delivers significant value to every customer who adopts more than just core finance processes, which is the case for most of our customers. We started introducing SAP-managed scenarios with 2602 and continue to expand the portfolio with additional scenarios, where SAP takes care of the setup and interoperability across the suite of solutions. Our Suite Product Management team has done a fantastic job in this area, delivering the first scenarios with big success.

Since the 2602 release, Early Adopter customers and partners have successfully adopted the first SAP-managed business scenarios:

SAP-managed Workforce Management enables seamless Hire to Retire processes based on consistent workforce and financial data across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP SuccessFactors.
SAP-managed Operational Procurement provides a connected Procure to Pay experience through SAP-managed integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, SAP Ariba Buying, and SAP Ariba Invoicing.

More SAP-managed innovation with 2608:

Enhancement of SAP-managed Hire to Retire

Expansion of SAP-managed Hire to Retire with SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding and SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking, extending end-to-end process coverage across the employee lifecycle.
Consolidated Time Recording for Professional Services, improving the user experience for time and activity recording.
Contingent Workers Management across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP SuccessFactors throughout the worker lifecycle.

Early Adopter Care for SAP-managed Lead to Cash

Early Adopter Care for SAP-managed integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP Sales Cloud Version 2, enabling a connected Sales Force Automation process with consistent data, improved sales visibility, and a seamless experience across front-office and back-office operations.

Strengthening SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition as the core

SAP-managed integration with SAP Subscription Billing and SAP Market Rates Management. Embedded into the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition user experience, these capabilities enable seamless cross-solution processes from a single launchpad.
SAP-managed integration with SAP Taulia extends working capital management processes, helping customers reduce integration complexity and connect finance and treasury operations more seamlessly across solutions.

But now, let's move on to Business AI. Across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, we're introducing specialized AI assistants and agents that automate routine tasks, provide intelligent recommendations, and support users in their everyday work. Here are a few highlights that stood out to me.

Business AI innovations

Before we dig deeper into the topic of individual Business AI innovations, let me make a clarifying statement.

Business AI and Business users are designed to be a duet, not a duel.

AI agents are becoming an increasingly important part of our product evolution. We are seeing an increasing number of specialized AI agents supporting business tasks, while users remain firmly in control of business decisions and approvals. Agents help automate repetitive activities, provide intelligent recommendations, and work together behind the scenes to make everyday business processes more efficient. This lifts the execution level while the business user is still in control. This very approach, combining intelligent automation with human expertise, you will see reflected throughout the 2608 release.

Here are a few agents that I am excited about in the 2608 release:

SAP User Experience

AI-assisted easy fill of SAP Fiori elements-based applications

We want everyone to feel at home in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, so we’re making the user experience easier to learn and quicker to master. That’s why we created Fast with SAP Fiori: short, one‑minute videos that show you exactly how to get things done, from working with tables to setting default values. You can find the first 10 tips right in the Help menu of the SAP Fiori launchpad, with more on the way. They’re easy to watch, easy to share from the SAP Digital Library, and available in different languages. Don’t see the tip you need? Just send us an improvement request in the SAP CIP session “SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, User Experience and Cross‑Topics.”

We’re also expanding our AI-assisted UX. I am happy to announce the general availability of the initial version of AI-assisted easy fill. Business users often spend unnecessary time transferring information from emails, meeting notes, or phone calls into ERP transactions—an effort that is both repetitive and prone to manual errors. Users can now simply describe the business update in natural language. SAP automatically populates the relevant fields, making data entry faster, more intuitive, and less prone to errors. It's a great example of how Business AI is simplifying everyday work and making SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition easier to use.

This feature is one of 17 base AI-assisted features available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608. If not yet done, make sure to sign the "Acceptance of SAP AI terms for Base AI-assisted features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition" to use the generally available base features at no additional cost.

If you want to be part of the beta testing of the latest AI innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, kindly sign-up here.

Finance & Risk

Receivables & Payables Clearing Agent (planned for 2608.2)

Let’s continue with Finance. Anyone who worked in this function knows how much time disappears into matching and clearing open receivables and payables. With our new Receivables and Payables Clearing Agent, that work changes fundamentally. It analyses open items, proposes balanced clearing entries, explains every recommendation, and, once approved, supports automated posting. The outcome: a faster, more accurate clearing process that lifts finance productivity and helps shorten the financial close.

International Trade Classification Agent (planned for 2608.2)

Classifying products for international trade is a complex and highly regulated process that requires significant expertise and careful interpretation of customs regulations. The International Trade Classification Agent leverages Business AI to analyze product information, interpret trade regulations, and recommend appropriate customs classification codes together with the legal reasoning behind each recommendation. This helps trade specialists classify products more efficiently, create auditable decisions, reduce compliance risks, and strengthen supply chain resilience while significantly reducing the effort required for classification.

Statutory Report Analysis Agent (planned for 2608.2)

Preparing statutory reports often requires finance teams to manually compare reporting periods, investigate unexpected variances, and trace the root causes of unusual values across tax codes, business partners, and financial documents. The new Statutory Report Analysis Agent helps finance organizations review statutory reports faster, identify anomalies earlier, and improve compliance before submission. The AI agent automates this analysis by detecting outliers, identifying trends and irregularities, generating concise summaries of key findings, and recommending next steps for further investigation or validation. By reducing manual review effort and providing explainable, data-driven insights, the Statutory Report Analysis Agent helps organizations improve reporting accuracy, accelerate the declaration process, identify potential compliance risks earlier, and make more informed decisions before submitting statutory reports.

E-Invoicing Submission Error Resolution Agent (planned for 2608.2)

As e-invoicing mandates continue to expand worldwide, finance teams increasingly need to process and troubleshoot submission errors returned by tax authorities and e-invoicing networks under tight regulatory deadlines. The E-Invoicing Submission Error Resolution Agent helps organizations quickly identify, understand, and resolve errors during electronic invoice submission. The AI agent automatically classifies technical and business-related errors, distinguishes between infrastructure, connectivity, data quality, and financial posting issues, and provides guided root cause analysis together with contextual resolution recommendations. By standardizing error handling, reducing manual investigation, and delivering explainable recommendations with humans in the loop, the agent helps organizations accelerate issue resolution, improve compliance with government e-invoicing requirements, and reduce the risk of submission delays and regulatory penalties.

Manufacturing

Production Planning & Operations Agent

Manufacturing is another space where AI moves the needle. Our new Production Planning and Operations Agent equips supervisors to manage orders with greater confidence: it automatically checks component availability, flags scheduling conflicts, and even supports order release via natural language. By cutting routine manual work and surfacing the right insights at the right time, it lifts productivity, reduces downtime, and keeps operations running smoothly.

Further innovations across various LoBs

SAP Integrated Product Development

Handover from Formulation Recipe to S/4HANA Master Recipe

Bringing new products from development into manufacturing often requires manual handovers and multiple data transfers, increasing the risk of inconsistencies and delays. Handover to Master Recipe in SAP Integrated Product Development for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition streamlines this transition by enabling production engineers to derive production-ready master recipes directly from product development data. The innovation automates the creation of master recipes, bills of materials (BOMs), and production versions while preserving the relationship between engineering and manufacturing data. By reducing manual effort and ensuring greater consistency across product development and production planning, organizations can accelerate manufacturing readiness, improve process reliability, and support a more seamless transition from product design to execution. For more information, consult our SAP Help Portal.

Sales

Supply block in a sales order to control subsequent activities

A single sales order can trigger a cascade of downstream activities, from available-to-promise (ATP) checks and material requirements planning (MRP) to logistics execution. Supply block in a sales order to control subsequent activities helps organizations ensure these processes only begin when order data is complete, validated, and ready for execution. This innovation introduces an automated, item-level supply block that can be configured based on business rules, approval workflows, credit checks, or custom validation logic. By temporarily pausing subsequent activities until all required validations have been completed, organizations can reduce operational risk, minimize manual intervention, improve visibility into order status, and help ensure more accurate, reliable, and efficient order fulfillment.

Environment, Health, and Safety

Maintain and view hazardous substance inventory

Another innovation focuses on workplace safety and regulatory compliance. The new Maintain and View Hazardous Substance Inventory applications provide a centralized view of hazardous substances, associated products, and safety information across the enterprise. Users can create and maintain comprehensive hazardous substance inventories, organize data by business area or location, manage inventory revisions, and quickly access key details such as hazardous ingredients and Globally Harmonized System (GHS) classifications. This helps organizations strengthen compliance, improve workplace safety, and manage safety-critical information more efficiently.

Professional Services

New and improved Time Recording app for Professional Services projects

Let’s close with Professional Services. The redesigned Time Recording app brings a modern, consistent experience across desktop and mobile (beta), with flexible entry, bulk edits, and personalized views that make logging project time fast and effortless. The payoff is clear: more accurate timesheets, less administrative work, and stronger billing and resource planning.

Service

Customer and product hierarchy pricing

Every customer expects repair pricing to be transparent, accurate, and aligned with the agreements they have negotiated. Customer Hierarchy and Product Hierarchy Related Pricing in In-House Repair Transactions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 enables organizations to apply pricing and discounts consistently across in-house repair processes based on customer and product hierarchies. By automatically determining the appropriate pricing conditions for different customer groups and product structures, the innovation eliminates manual pricing adjustments and helps ensure that negotiated agreements are applied correctly throughout the repair process. The result is more accurate invoicing, greater pricing consistency, an improved customer experience, and a smoother connection between service execution and billing.

Cross Topics – Data and Analytics

Central governance of product data and business partners including customer and supplier segments

High-quality master data is the foundation of every successful ERP system. The central governance of product data and business partners helps organizations establish trusted product, customer, supplier, and business partner data through workflow-driven governance, configurable validation rules, automated field value derivation, and flexible approval processes powered by SAP Build Process Automation. By improving data quality from the point of entry and reducing manual maintenance, organizations can streamline governance, strengthen compliance, and enable more reliable business processes and better decision-making across the enterprise.

Smart business runtime environment

The Smart business runtime environment introduces AI-generated summaries that help business users understand KPIs and reports faster. Business users often spend significant time analyzing dashboards, drilling down into reports, and interpreting large volumes of business data before they can identify trends or make informed decisions. With the Smart Business Runtime Environment, users can automatically generate concise, contextual summaries for SAP Smart Business KPIs and reports directly within SAP Fiori, highlighting key insights, anomalies, and important business trends. By transforming complex analytics into clear, shareable narratives, the innovation accelerates insight consumption, simplifies data interpretation, and enables faster, more informed decision-making across the organization.

Closing thoughts

Every release is an opportunity to make SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition smarter, simpler, and more valuable for our customers.

On one hand, we’re expanding the possibilities of Business AI with intelligent assistants and specialized agents. On the other, we’re doubling down on the core capabilities that help organizations run better every day.

Those above are my key innovations in the 2608 Release Highlights. I’m keen to hear what matters most to you.

I hope this introduction gave you some appetizers of what’s new — and spotlighted a few innovations you’ll want to explore further. For deeper insights, check out the “What's New in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition” SAP Help page and join the conversation on SAP Community to share which innovations you’re most excited about.

In the coming weeks, we'll take a closer look at additional business- and industry-specific innovations in a series of follow-up posts here on SAP Community. To stay up to date with future content, be sure to follow the PSCC_Enablement tag and keep an eye on upcoming posts.

Feel free to follow me at BeSchulze in the community and on LinkedIn to not miss any updates.

Until next time,

Bert

🎦Register for our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 Early Release Series!

Between July 13-17, we are hosting a series of 24 expert-led live sessions to highlight the exciting innovations shipped with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 release. On our landing page you can register for the entire series or pick the sessions most relevant to you.

🔎Find all our assets

The release 2608 showcases more than 130 innovation highlights across the portfolio. Check out our release document for all the details!

We at Cloud ERP and SCM Product Success offer a service as versatile as our product itself. Click on the enablement wheel below and check out the numerous offerings our team has created for you:

How SAP MDG lets you download and fix problem records directly from your process

2026-07-15T11:30:52.780000+02:00

Introduction

If you have ever run a mass change or consolidation process in SAP Master Data Governance, you know how valuable the validation step is. However, when the validation step stops due to errors, the erroneous records are stuck inside the system. Error messages are visible, but there was no way to extract, fix, and re-upload them.

And when a file upload fails due to invalid source IDs, all you get was a generic message like "Load contains invalid source IDs: 2". No details, no way to tell which records are actually affected. Either way, users end up rebuilding files manually.

This pain point was also one of the most strongly requested topics in SAP Customer Influence, with many customers highlighting the need for a smoother way to handle failed records. This was addressed, both following the same principle: giving a possibility to download a file of the problematic records, in exactly the format needed to fix and re-upload.

Feature 1: Export Process Data with Messages in the Validation Step

The Problem

In a consolidation or mass change process, the validation step checks the record correctness. When errors are found, the process stops and shows aggregated KPIs (e.g., "47 records with errors"). You can drill into the Details UI to see which records failed and why, but there was no way to export that subset for offline correction and re-upload.

What Was Delivered

The details UI of the validation step directly includes a new export action. When pressing the button it navigates to the export app and the filter for selected records is automatically set.

What it does:

Exports all records currently displayed in the validation step's overview tab
Includes the related messages (errors, warnings) as an additional sheet/section in the exported file
Uses the standard MDG export file format, the exported file can be edited offline and re-uploaded directly into a new import or mass processing run

After downloading the file errors and warnings are shown in the ! Messages ! tab of your excel sheet:

Availability

MDG on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2022
SAP S/4HANA cloud public edition

Feature 2: Download Invalid Records During Upload

The Problem

When uploading a file for a mass process, the system performs a technical validation, e.g. it checks whether the IDs in the file exist in the system. If they do not, it raises a generic error:

"Load contains invalid source IDs: 3"

That is all the users got, just generic information, no more details. Which three records? Which IDs? Users had to manually inspect the file, compare it with the system, and figure it out themselves.

What Was Delivered

Whenever invalid records in a file are detected, it is possible now to export those records from the original file by an “Export”-button in File Import Log area.

The file is in the same format as the upload, so users can correct the records (fix or remove the invalid IDs) and re-upload without rebuilding the file from scratch.

Availability

MDG on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2023 in classic mode
MDG on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2025 in cloud-ready mode
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Why These Two Features Matter Together

Both features address the same need: when something goes wrong in an MDG process, users need a way to act quickly. With both features, you can download the problematic records as a file, fix them offline, and use that file as the starting point for a follow-up process.

Feature 1 helps when errors are found during the validation step. Feature 2 helps even earlier, when the file upload itself fails due to invalid IDs. In both cases, the result is the same: a downloadable file with exactly the records that need to be fixed. This means users no longer must rebuild files from scratch or investigate manually which records caused the error. This saves time, reduces the load on technical teams, and makes the whole process more reliable, especially when working with large data volumes where even a small error rate can mean hundreds of records to fix.

Have you ever used one of these features?

_________________

Further Links and Resources

SAP Master Data Governance community https://pages.community.sap.com/topics/master-data-governance
SAP Help Portal https://help.sap.com/docs/MASTER_DATA_GOVERNANCE - Various help documents for e.g. MDG on S/4HANA Cloud Private and Cloud Public Edition
SAP Influence Portal https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3497 - SAP Master Data Governance on SAP S/4HANA: Submit new ideas or vote on existing requests to shape the MDG roadmap
SAP Learning https://learning.sap.com/courses/sap-master-data-governance-on-sap-s-4hana - Learning content covering MDG strategy, domains and processes related to MDG central governance, consolidation and mass processing end-to-end

Work Smarter with AI-Assisted Tasks in the SAP Activate Project Management Workstream

2026-07-15T14:38:06.190000+02:00

This blog post is part of a series highlighting AI capabilities in SAP Activate. For additional information, visit the main blog here.

Project Managers are expected to balance strategic planning with day-to-day execution while keeping projects on schedule, within budget, and aligned with business objectives. To help streamline these activities, the SAP Activate road map viewer now includes AI-assisted procedures for tasks within the Project Management workstream.

These AI-Assisted procedures are designed to help project managers quickly create high-quality project deliverables by combining SAP Activate best practices with generative AI. Rather than starting from a blank page, project teams can leverage guided AI prompts to accelerate planning, improve consistency, and reduce manual effort.

What Are AI-Assisted Procedures?

AI-Assisted procedures provide step-by-step guidance for using generative AI to complete common project management activities. Each procedure includes a structured prompt that incorporates SAP Activate methodology and best practices, helping generate a tailored starting point that can be reviewed and refined for your specific project.

The generated content is intended to support project teams by providing a solid first draft while allowing project managers to apply their expertise and project-specific knowledge before finalizing the deliverable.

The following Project Management tasks now include AI-Assisted procedures with the SAP Activate road map viewer:

Develop a Project Charter

A well-defined project charter establishes the project’s purpose, objectives, scope, governance, and success criteria. The AI-Assisted procedure helps generate a comprehensive project charter by incorporating information such as project goals, stakeholders, timelines, assumptions, constraints, risks, and governance structure.

This provides project managers with a structured draft that can be customized to meet the organization's specific requirements.

Estimate Backlog Items

Accurate backlog estimation is essential for planning releases and managing project delivery. The AI-Assisted procedure assists teams in developing consistent effort estimates by analyzing backlog item descriptions and applying estimation guidance based on SAP Activate best practices.

The resulting estimates can be reviewed and refined by the project team during backlog and sprint planning activities.

Develop a Hypercare Support Plan

Preparing for a post-go-live support is critical to ensuring a successful transition into operations. The AI-Assisted procedure helps generate a structured Hypercare Support plan that outlines support objectives, roles and responsibilities, issue management processes, communication plans, monitoring activities, escalation paths, and exit criteria.

This provides implementation teams with a comprehensive starting point for planning the Hypercare period.

Handover Operations Responsibility

A smooth transition from the implementation project to the operational support organization is key to long-term success. The AI-Assisted procedure assists project teams in developing an operational handover plan that defines transition activities, knowledge transfer, documentation requirements, support responsibilities, and operational readiness.

The generated plan helps ensure that operational teams receive the information they need to effectively support the solution after go-live.

Communicate Project Status and Progress

Keeping stakeholders informed with timely, accurate, and consistent project updates is essential for effective project governance. The AI-Assisted procedure helps project managers create a comprehensive project status report by generating a structured summary of overall project health, milestone progress, schedule and budget status, key accomplishments, risks and issues, upcoming activities, and decisions requiring stakeholder attention.

This provides project managers with a professional, SAP Activate-aligned starting point that can be reviewed, tailored with project specific information, and shared with stakeholders to support informed decision making and transparent project communication.

Why Use AI-Assisted Procedures?

By incorporating AI-Assisted procedures into the SAP Activate methodology project teams can:

Accelerate the creation of common project management deliverables.
Start with structured, SAP Activate-aligned content instead of a blank document.
Improve consistency across projects by leveraging standardized guidance.
Reduce the time spent drafting project documentation.
Allow project managers to focus more on project leadership, stakeholder engagement, and decision-making.

These procedures are designed to enhance, not replace, the expertise of experienced project managers. Human review remains an essential part of the process to validate accuracy, tailor the content to the project, and ensure alignment with organizational standards.

The AI-Assisted Procedure tag helps you quickly identify tasks that include guidance for using generative AI. These tasks contain an AI-Assisted procedure and a link to the SAP Activate Prompt Library, making it easy to generate first drafts of project deliverables while following SAP Activate best practices.

Transform Your Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation with AI-Assisted Procedures

2026-07-15T21:26:48.852000+02:00

This blog post is part of a series highlighting AI capabilities in SAP Activate. For an overview of the complete series, visit the main blog post here: SAP Business AI in SAP Activate: Three Dimensions ... - SAP Community

What if AI could help your project team prepare Fit-to-Standard workshops faster, more consistently, and with greater confidence?

Now it can.

Why Fit-to-Standard preparation matters

Preparing for Fit-to-Standard workshops is one of the most important activities in an SAP implementation.

Before the workshops begin, the project team must:

Understand and validate the implementation scope.
Map the business processes and solutions to be demonstrated.
Identify the appropriate stakeholders.
Define clear roles and responsibilities.
Prepare a detailed workshop agenda.
Determine the required inputs and expected outcomes.

This preparation is essential—but it can also require significant time and coordination.

What if an AI-assisted procedure could help the project team perform these activities?

We have exciting news.

AI assistance is now embedded in SAP Activate

SAP Activate now includes AI-Assisted Procedures for selected tasks within the Application: Design and Configuration workstream of the SAP Cloud ERP Private – New Implementation roadmap.

These procedures combine SAP Activate best practices with generative AI to help project teams create comprehensive Fit-to-Standard workshop preparation and planning materials more efficiently.

Each AI-Assisted Procedure is:

Embedded directly in the task description in SAP Roadmap Viewer.
Connected to a task-specific prompt.
Supported by the SAP Activate Prompt Library.
Designed to fit naturally into the implementation workflow.

This means project teams can access AI guidance precisely where they need it—without leaving SAP Roadmap Viewer.

Let’s explore “Prepare for Fit-to-Standard Workshops”

Open the Prepare for Fit-to-Standard Workshops task in SAP Roadmap Viewer.

Inside the task, you will find an AI-Assisted Procedure that guides you through the workshop preparation process. Open the procedure and follow steps 1 through 9.

The procedure helps you organize the necessary project information and use the corresponding prompt to generate a structured Fit-to-Standard workshop preparation plan.

Two new accelerators to support the process

We have also created two accelerators to help project teams use the procedure and its prompt more effectively:

Fit-to-Standard Workshop Notes — a structured template for capturing the information required to prepare and run the prompt.
SAP Activate Prompt Library — a collection of prompts supporting multiple activities across the SAP Activate roadmaps, including the Prepare for Fit-to-Standard Workshops prompt.

The SAP Activate Prompt Library is available directly from the SAP Roadmap Viewer. Simply click the prompt referenced in the task to access it.

Each prompt entry provides consultants with the information they need to:

Understand the purpose of the prompt.
Identify the required inputs.
Execute the prompt correctly.
Review the expected output before getting started.

A structured prompt based on the COP Framework

The prompts follow the COP Prompt Framework, which is organized around:

Context — the project background and information the AI needs.
Objectives — the results the prompt should produce.
Preferences — the expected structure, level of detail, and output format.

This framework makes the prompts easier to understand, execute, and adapt to the specific needs of each project.

What does the prompt generate?

The Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation Plan prompt can generate:

Scope Validation Checklist — a pre-workshop sign-off checklist for the System Integrator Lead and Customer Project Manager.
Business Process Scoping Matrix — maps in-scope functional areas to SAP Best Practices scope item IDs, workshop dates, and business owners.
Business Stakeholder Pre-Work — an actionable checklist of items due at least five business days before each workshop.
System Readiness Checklist — covers sandbox provisioning, SAP Best Practices activation, master data, user access, and SAP Cloud ALM setup.
Workshop Agenda Templates — includes a general full-day Fit-to-Standard agenda and tailored versions for functional areas such as Finance, Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Manufacturing, Warehouse Management, and Asset Management.
Fit-to-Standard Tracking Template — provides a detailed gap log, including one row for each delta requirement identified in the workshop notes.
Roles and RACI Matrix — defines accountability across key customer, system integrator, architecture, consulting, and project management roles.
Gap Capture Guidance for SAP Cloud ALM — provides a step-by-step process for recording gaps, completing mandatory attributes, assigning resolution categories, and maintaining traceability.
Risks and Mitigation Strategies — creates a risk register covering workshop execution, scope, stakeholders, and technical readiness.
Classification Decision Tree — supports consistent classification of requirements as Fit, Partial Fit, Gap, Out of Scope, or Deferred.

A representative example is also available in the Sample Output section of the prompt library.

What are the benefits?

AI-Assisted Procedures can help project teams:

Accelerate Fit-to-Standard workshop preparation.
Generate agendas based on the project scope.
Improve visibility into required resources, stakeholders, and inputs.
Reduce the time needed to validate workshop topics and schedules.
Establish a structured timetable for the topics to be discussed.
Apply SAP Activate guidance more consistently.
Start from a comprehensive, structured plan that the project team can review and refine.

AI supports the preparation—but the project team remains responsible for reviewing, validating, and adapting the output to the project context.

This is just the beginning

AI-Assisted Procedures bring SAP Activate guidance and generative AI together directly within the implementation workflow.

And this is only the beginning—more AI-assisted content is on the way.

Are you ready to use the Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation prompt in your next project?

Try it and share your experience in the comments. We would love to learn how you used the prompt, what value it brought to your project, and which SAP Activate task you would like to see supported next.

News from SAP Activate - SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608

2026-07-15T23:26:00.418000+02:00

We are pleased to announce the updates to SAP Activate, including the availability of AI-Assisted tasks. We’re also excited to share the newly refreshed SAP Activate page on sap.com, which offers a clearer, more intuitive overview of the SAP Activate methodology.

This release delivers a range of enhancements across SAP Activate assets, strengthening implementation guidance and improving usability. As always, our focus remains on simplifying and optimizing the implementation journey to provide a more seamless experience for our users.

Below are the key highlights for this release:

SAP Business AI in SAP Activate: AI-Assisted Tasks Now Available
What’s new in Activate Content Library (ACL)
SAP Activate Community page
Updates to SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
Updates to SAP Activate for SAP Cloud ERP Private
Updates to SAP Activate for Conversion of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2-system to 3-system landscape
Updates to SAP Activate for SAP SuccessFactors
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Test Automation Tool 2608 Release

SAP Business AI in SAP Activate: AI-Assisted Tasks Now Available

SAP Activate now incorporates SAP Business AI across three dimensions: (1) guiding customers to adopt SAP Joule and Business AI capabilities during implementation, (2) supporting extensions built on the SAP Business AI Platform in line with clean core, and (3) leveraging AI to accelerate implementation activities across the project lifecycle.

As part of this evolution, the first wave of AI-assisted implementation tasks was released earlier in June and enhanced during July, delivering 18 AI-assisted tasks, 21 new tested prompts, and updated accelerators. The initial focus is on the use of SAP Cloud ALM AI capabilities, SAP Joule for Consultants, and Test Automation Tool in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

They cover a range of project activities — from self-enablement and project artifact preparation to fit-to-standard workshop support, requirements generation, extension design, data migration planning, and testing. You can identify these tasks using the "AI-Assisted Procedure" tag in the SAP Activate road map viewer on SAP for Me, where SAP Joule is also available as a conversational assistant to help you navigate implementation guidance.

Read the full blog post here for a detailed walkthrough of all three dimensions and how to get started.

SAP Activate Community | SAP Activate Blogs

Join the SAP Activate Community to explore valuable content and resources while connecting with SAP partners, clients, and internal colleagues by participating in discussions and sharing knowledge. Make sure to follow the SAP Activate tag to access blog posts like those highlighted here, along with additional insights shared by SAP Activate experts within the community.

Recap of some blog posts from the community:

SAP Business AI in SAP Activate: Three Dimensions of AI for Your Implementation by Jan Musil
Introducing the SAP Activate Prompt Library: Curated AI Prompts for your Implementation Project by Chandan Gurav
AI-Assisted Extensibility Planning & Design in SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud by Kiran Bose
SAP Activate, AI and Data Management by Daniel Ciecko
Work Smarter with AI-Assisted Tasks in the SAP Activate Project Management Workstream by Christina Galbreath
Transform Your Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation with AI-Assisted Procedures by Jair Azevedo
New SAP Activate Roadmap for SAP Sales Cloud V2 by Chandan Gurav
SAP Activate for SAP SuccessFactors by user alejandroazca
Update on SAP Activate Road Map Viewer Accelerators for Central Finance by Carla Nascimento
Exploring the New Guided Walk-Thru for SAP Activate for SAP IBP by user MabelleRM
Quality Gates: Leveraging the continuous quality check (CQC) Service Report for Project Readiness by Christina Galbreath
Foundational News: Implementing SAP Business Data Cloud – New Roadmap Release in SAP Roadmap Viewer by Ariane Hoffman
Do you want to boost your SAP project skills with Agile & SAP Activate by Margit Wagner

Updates of SAP Activate for SAP S/HANA Cloud Public Edition in 2608

The SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud implementation roadmap has been enhanced based on product management input, system functionality changes, and customer feedback. Below are highlights for this release.

Expanded AI support: AI-assisted procedures have been added across multiple implementation tasks to help customers and consultants accelerate delivery using Business AI and Joule for Consultants. A new AI-Assisted Procedure tag and Prompt Library make AI-enabled guidance and prompts easier to find.
Business AI integration: AI-powered scenarios are now embedded throughout the implementation methodology, providing guidance at the point where it is most relevant.
Enhanced Fit-to-Standard guidance: New Fit-to-Standard overview video and RACI matrix help project teams better understand workshop activities and stakeholder responsibilities. See task Prepare for Fit-to-Standard Workshops.
Integrated Quality Gates: Quality Gates are now incorporated into the Continuous Quality Check (CQC) process, enabling customers to complete phase-end questionnaires directly in SAP Cloud ALM and submit them to SAP.

Improved upgrade methodology: The upgrade roadmap for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (3-system landscape) has been expanded with more detailed guidance and stronger project management support for major upgrade milestones. SAP Activate for the Upgrade of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (3-system landscape).

Updates of SAP Activate for Cloud ERP Private

SAP Activate, the standardized framework for the RISE with SAP Methodology, has been enhanced with numerous updates, as detailed in the release notes.

This release significantly expands AI capabilities by introducing AI-assisted procedures, prompt-based accelerators, and enhanced SAP Cloud ALM guidance that help consultants streamline project execution, improve documentation quality, and increase consistency using SAP Joule for Consultants. In addition, the release strengthens Clean Core integration guidance with the latest SAP recommendations and introduces new AI-powered learning and change management capabilities to accelerate end-user enablement and content development.

Key highlights include:

Expanded SAP Business AI integration across the SAP Activate for SAP Cloud ERP Private methodology, embedding AI-assisted procedures and new prompt-based accelerators into key project lifecycle tasks — including backlog estimation, cutover planning, hypercare support, and operations handover — enabling consultants to accelerate execution and improve output quality with SAP Joule for Consultants.
Enhanced SAP Cloud ALM guidance with AI capabilities, adding new procedure steps and accelerators for document summarization and AI-assisted requirement generation across project setup, workshop execution, and requirements documentation tasks, helping project teams work faster and more consistently.
Strengthened Clean Core integration guidance by incorporating SAP Note 3690029 — Integration Technologies and Frameworks in Context of Clean Core Integration — across all PCE scenarios, ensuring consultants have up-to-date direction on compliant integration approaches aligned with clean core principles.

Improved learning and change management enablement by introducing AI-assisted accelerators for user learning and change management, including a new micro-app hub integration via SAP Discovery Center, supporting more targeted and efficient learning needs analysis and content development planning.

See the release notes for a complete list of all improvements.

Updates of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2-system landscape to 3-system landscape

We are happy to share the highlights of the latest improvements to the SAP Activate guidance for our customers converting their SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition environments from a 2-system landscape to a 2-system landscape.

These are the key updates:

Updated assignment of tasks to the “Day 1 Post-Conversion Checklist” tag to include the tasks added to the Realize phase to address specific post-conversion steps.
Multiple updates for test data refresh and test data conversion - revised procedure details in the tasks Prepare for Test Data Conversion Service and Prepare for Test Data Refresh Service. Additionally, refreshed the accelerator Test Data Conversion Checklist.
Added new task Copy Workforce Users and Request Test Data Refresh after the Conversion in the Realize phase, with additional details for the customer to copy workforce users and submit a request for TDR, including the addition of new accelerators.
Updated task Prepare for Test Data Refresh Service in the Prepare phase with information about how to request the service.
Updated task Prepare for Test Data Conversion Service in the Prepare phase with information about how to request the service.

Updates of SAP Activate for SAP SuccessFactors

The SAP Activate for SAP SuccessFactors roadmap has been enhanced based on product management input, system functionality changes, and customer feedback. Below are the highlights:

Integrated Quality Gates: Phase-end Quality Gates are now part of the Continuous Quality Check (CQC) process, allowing questionnaires to be completed and submitted directly through SAP Cloud ALM.
Business AI integration: AI-powered scenarios are now embedded throughout the implementation methodology to provide contextual guidance when teams need it.
Joule integration: New guidance has been added for configuring and enabling Joule as part of the implementation process. Joule integration.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Test Automation Tool 2608 Release

The CE2608 release introduces additional enhancements to simplify test scoping, improve test data management, and enable easier comparison test statuses across different Post Upgrade Tests (PUT) executions.

Key highlights include:

AI-Powered Test Scoping in Intelligent Test Scoper (i-TS)

Enhanced by combining AI with SAP Standard code-change analysis to automatically recommend the most relevant Post Upgrade Test (PUT) scope.
Smarter test scope recommendations: The AI model considers customer usage, process complexity, change-to-touch ratio, historical regression behavior, and SAP standard code changes to identify the optimal regression scope.
Reduced testing effort and costs: Customers can execute fewer, more relevant regression tests, reducing validation effort, shortening execution time, and lowering overall testing costs without compromising quality.
No additional customer action required: AI-based test scoping is enabled by default for Post Upgrade Tests, while still allowing customers to modify the proposed scope in the Manage Upgrade Test app if needed.

Simplifying Test Data Management with the Creation of Multiple Data Variants and Assigning them to TDC Variants

New Dataset entity for simplified test data management: A new Dataset feature groups multiple Test Data Container (TDC) variants into a reusable entity, making test data easier to organize and manage.
Create multiple data variants in one step: User can create and assign multiple data variants simultaneously, significantly reducing repetitive manual effort and speeding up test plan preparation.
Automatic assignment of test data: For test plans with multiple TDCs, selecting a dataset automatically maps the appropriate TDC variants, improving consistency and minimizing errors.
Greater efficiency and productivity: The enhancements streamline test data management, reduce manual work, improve organization, and allow testing teams to focus more on validating business processes.

Post Upgrade Tests (PUT) Comparator enhancements

Compare test executions across releases: The enhanced Post Upgrade Test (PUT) Comparator allows users to compare two completed executions of the same execution variant to quickly identify differences, analyze failures, and validate upgrade readiness.
Improved visibility and scalability: Enhanced comparison results and pagination make it easier to review and navigate large test execution datasets with hundreds of matching scope items.
Advanced filtering for faster analysis: New filtering capabilities enable users to quickly focus on failed, successful, or impacted scope items, reducing manual review effort.
Better usability and navigation: User interface improvements streamline comparison workflows, making Post Upgrade Test analysis faster and more intuitive.

Overall, these enhancements significantly improve testing efficiency, increase data accuracy, reduce manual effort, and boost productivity across post-upgrade test automation workflows. For more details, refer to the blog.

Please share your feedback and questions in the comments to this blog post or directly via the feedback function in the SAP Activate road map viewer on SAP for Me.

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

Clearing G/L Line Items Using Processing Rules in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

2026-07-16T08:44:50.631000+02:00

In today's fast-paced business environment, efficiency and accuracy in financial management are paramount. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition offers powerful automated processing rules that simplify and expedite the bank statement reconciliation process, ensuring financial data is accurate and up to date. This blog walks you through how to automatically clear G/L line items in payment documents against bank items using Processing Rules - a capability that significantly reduces manual effort and minimizes the risk of human error.

Note: All images and data referenced in this blog are from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Finance teams often face the challenge of manually matching and clearing G/L line items in payment documents against corresponding bank items. Without automation, this process is time-consuming and error-prone, especially in high-volume transaction environments. The key question is: How can G/L line items in a payment document be automatically cleared against the bank item using Processing Rules in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition?

When bank statements are imported, the system initially attempts to match open items using configured posting rules and interpretation algorithms. However, if the system fails to match an incoming payment with an open item using predefined posting rules, the remaining bank statement information is checked against custom processing rules.

Solution: Step-by-Step Configuration Guide
Understanding the Two Core Concepts Before You Begin

Before diving into the steps, it is important to understand the distinction between Posting Rules and Processing Rules in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition:

Posting Rules are predefined and preconfigured by SAP and cannot be altered by customers. They are standardized to ensure consistency and compliance.
Processing Rules are fully customizable by customers to meet their specific business needs. This distinction allows for a balance between maintaining system integrity and providing customization options.

Step 1: Open the Manage Processing Rules App

Log into your SAP Fiori Launchpad and search for the Manage Processing Rules – For Bank Statements app (also referred to as Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules).
This app is where you define the conditions and actions that processing rules will perform on bank statement items.

Step 2: Create a New Processing Rule

Click the Create button to open the rule editor.
On the Processing Rule tab, fill in the following header information:
- Description: Enter a clear, descriptive name for the rule (e.g., "Auto-Clear G/L Items – Incoming Payments").
- Journal Entry Type: Select the appropriate document type (e.g., DZ – Customer Payment).
- Rule for: Select Incoming Payments or Outgoing Payments as applicable.
- Action Type: Choose the relevant action type. For clearing G/L line items, select Clear in Sequence – Activates interpretation and allocation algorithms to clear open items.

Step 3: Define Conditions

Navigate to the Conditions tab. This is where the rule "matches" the correct bank statement items. [4]
Add one or more conditions using the following attributes:
- Attributes: Categories of data to filter on - examples include Amount, Company Code, Currency, External Transaction, House Bank, Memo Line, Partner IBAN, Partner Name, etc.
- Operators: Define the type of comparison - examples include Equals, Contains, Between, Greater Than, etc.
- From/To: Define the value to search for.
Ensure conditions are specific enough so the rule only triggers for the right transactions. It is also recommended to include House Bank and Account ID conditions to restrict the rule to a specific bank account.

Step 4: Configure the Action (Based on Action Type)

Depending on the Action Type selected in Step 2, configure the corresponding action details:

For Clear in Sequence: Choose the Processing Instruction MTCH that dictate how the system locates the open items.
- Configure the Processing Instruction to define how the system searches memo line data against open items.
- Select the Source Field from the dropdown list. The Source Field field refers to a field in the payment advice item or bank statement item (and also in the bank statement item's subitem), for example, the Journal Entry (Advice) or the Assignment Reference (Bank Statement) field. By determining the source field, you tell the system to use the value in that specific field of the payment advice item or bank statement item, and to look for a matching value in the field of an open item.
- Select the Use Source Field As from the dropdown list. The Use Source Field as field refers to a field of an open item, for example, the Journal Entry (BELNR), the Reference (XBLNR), or Reference Key (XREF) field of open items. By determining this field, you tell the system to look for matching values in this field.

Note: If you select the Match Date checkbox, the system also compares the dates of the payment advice item and of the open items. If you deselect the Match Date checkbox, the system does not compare any dates, and simply uses the values defined in the Source Field and Use Source Field as fields in order to match items.

Restriction
If you select bank-statement-related fields as the source field in the sequence, you cannot select the Match Date checkbox. You can only select the Match Date checkbox with payment-advice-related fields.

If you select the Intercompany Open Items checkbox, the system also includes intercompany open items in the search for matching open items with the defined values for the Source Field and Use Source Field as fields. If you deselect the Intercompany Open Items checkbox, the system does not include any intercompany open items, and only searches for open items belonging to the company code of the bank statement item.

The sequence that you define here is submitted to the allocation algorithm that is determined in the selected processing instruction. The allocation algorithm then uses this sequence to compare the values in specific fields in payment advice items or bank statement items and open items, and thus, to identify matching items which can then be cleared.

Example

In the Clear in Sequence section, you have selected a processing instruction that contains an allocation algorithm with the correct configurations for payment advice processing, such as the MTCH processing instruction. In the Match Items in Sequence section, you define the following values:

Row Number	Source Field	Use Source Field as
1	Memo Line (Bank Statement Item)	Journal Entry
2	Customer Reference Number (Bank Statement Item)	Reference

The system reads this sequence as follows: First, take the value in the Memo Line field of the bank statement item, and compare it with the value in the Journal Entry field of the open items. If the values match, the bank statement item and open item are matched. If not, proceed with the second row: Take the value in the Customer Reference Number (Bank Statement Item) field of the bank statement item, and compare it with the value in the Reference field of the open items. If the values match, the bank statement item and open item are matched. If not, continue with the next processing instruction, or display the item in the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app for manual processing.

Under Open Item type section, select G/L Items. The default value of this field is AP/AR Items. If you want to, you can determine that you want the processing instruction to look for G/L items. If you do select G/L Items, you need to specify a range of G/L accounts that the processing instruction should search to find matching open G/L items to be cleared.
Define residual item handling, reason codes, or on-account fallback options as needed.
Click on Apply.

Step 5: Save the Rule

Click Create to save the rule.
The rule is now saved and available for manual use in the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app.

Step 6: Automate the Rule

To have the rule apply automatically during bank statement import - without manual intervention - you must activate automation:

Select the saved rule in the list view.
Click the Automate Rule button (available in the top-right or via the action menu).
In the pop-up dialog, select the Procedure Type:
- 001 – One-Step Posting: Only Posting Area 1 (PA1 – Bank Accounting) will be posted. The Bank Accounting journal entry is posted to the G/L account mentioned in the processing rule and the main bank G/L account.
- 002 – Two-Step Posting: Both PA1 (Bank Accounting) and PA2 (Subledger Accounting) will be posted. The Bank Accounting journal entry posts to the main bank G/L account and the bank subaccount; the Subledger Accounting journal entry posts to the bank subaccount and the AP/AR account.
Confirm by clicking Automate Rule.

The rule is now active and will be applied automatically for the next incoming bank statement imports.

Step 7: Verify Processing via the Reprocess Bank Statement Items App

After the next bank statement is imported, verify that the rule was applied correctly:

Open the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app.
Locate the relevant bank statement item and check the processing log.
The log will confirm whether the rule was applied and the journal entries were posted successfully.
If no open item is found for a bank statement item, the item will need to be handled manually in this app.

Important Note: Handling Multiple Matching Rules

If multiple processing rules match the same bank statement item, the system stops the application of the processing rule and raises the following error:

"Bnk stmnt X itm Y matches conditions of several rules. No rule applied."

In this case, the normal posting rule assigned to the external transaction code in the SSCUI will be applied instead. To avoid this, ensure your rule conditions are specific and non-overlapping.

Conclusion

Automating the clearing of G/L line items using Processing Rules in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is a highly effective way to improve efficiency and accuracy in financial close and bank reconciliation processes. By configuring the Manage Processing Rules – For Bank Statements app with the right conditions, action types, and procedure types, finance teams can significantly reduce manual workload and ensure consistent, accurate postings. [1]

Key takeaways:

Posting Rules are SAP-delivered and fixed; Processing Rules are customer-configurable.
Use Action Type: Clear in Sequence with the processing instruction MTCH to automatically clear G/L open items.
Always activate automation on the rule to ensure it runs during bank statement import.
Monitor results via the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app and handle exceptions manually where needed.

For further reading, refer to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud documentation on Automatic Bank Statement Processing and KBA 3780076 on SAP for Me.

What's New in SAP Business AI for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608

2026-07-16T13:40:32.756000+02:00

The SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 release marks another important step in SAP's journey toward the Autonomous Enterprise. As SAP Business AI continues to evolve, it's no longer just about automating individual tasks. Instead, AI is becoming a trusted collaborator, handling repetitive work, surfacing the right insights, and coordinating increasingly complex business processes.

Think of a modern production line. Every station has its own responsibility, but the real efficiency comes from how smoothly everything works together. SAP Business AI plays a similar role across the enterprise, helping coordinate tasks, surface the right information at the right time, and keep business processes moving without interrupting the people who drive them.

The 2608 release brings this vision to life through innovations across multiple dimensions of enterprise AI. In this blog, we'll explore a selection of highlights spanning Agentic AI, the latest Joule innovations, and embedded AI capabilities across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. From intelligent finance agents and AI-powered workspaces to natural language experiences and embedded business process intelligence, these innovations are designed to make everyday work more intuitive, efficient, and context-aware.

Rather than introducing AI as a standalone capability, these innovations embed intelligence directly into the flow of work, helping finance teams accelerate period-end closing, simplifying compliance management, improving project visibility, and making interactions with SAP software feel more natural than ever before.

Take a look at the short video below to see how these AI-driven innovations are helping organizations work smarter today while bringing SAP's vision of the Autonomous Enterprise to life:

Agentic AI highlights

Finance

Receivables & Payables Clearing Agent (planned for 2608.2)

Matching open receivables and payables is often a repetitive and time-consuming task. Finance teams need to manually review invoices, identify matching items, and validate clearing proposals, making the process prone to delays and human error.

The new Receivables and Payables Clearing Agent uses SAP Business AI to analyze open items and generate balanced clearing proposals. The agent provides clear explanations for its matching recommendations, allowing accountants to quickly review, validate, and approve proposals before they are automatically posted as clearing documents.

By automating invoice matching and providing transparent AI recommendations, the Clearing Agent helps finance teams accelerate period-end closing, reduce manual effort, and improve operational efficiency—allowing accountants to spend less time on repetitive reconciliation tasks and more time on value-added financial analysis.

Journal entry agent (planned for 2608.3)

Creating journal entries is an essential part of every finance team's work, but preparing them from spreadsheet data often involves repetitive manual steps. Mapping fields, validating information, and creating journal entries can take valuable time, especially during busy period-end closing activities.

The new Journal Entry Agent makes this process faster and easier. Simply upload your spreadsheet through Joule, and let the agent analyze the data, map it to the required journal entry fields, and generate journal entry proposals automatically. From there, finance teams can review, adjust, and approve the proposals in the Manage Journal Entry Proposals app before posting them.

By reducing manual effort while keeping users in full control, the Journal Entry Agent helps improve accuracy, accelerate period-end closing, and free finance professionals to spend less time on routine data preparation and more time on delivering valuable financial insights.

Joule innovation highlights

Joule for Business: Moving to SAP-managed

Getting started with AI should be simple. Today, customers need to activate and configure Joule themselves by setting up the required services, identities, roles, and integrations. While this provides flexibility, it also adds complexity before users can start benefiting from SAP Business AI.

Now, Joule is transitioning from a customer-managed to a SAP-managed experience. Instead of handling the technical setup themselves, customers will simply access Joule through SAP for Me, while SAP takes care of the underlying configuration and lifecycle management. This approach also enables SAP to deliver new Joule innovations and enhancements more quickly, ensuring customers can benefit from the latest AI capabilities as they become available.

By removing setup complexity, SAP-managed Joule allows customers to focus on using AI rather than configuring it. For existing customers, a lightweight migration path is planned, with additional details and timelines to be shared in the future. Customers currently implementing Joule can continue with the existing customer-managed setup and seamlessly migrate when SAP-managed Joule becomes available.

Joule for Consultants

Expert Workspace

As organizations increasingly rely on AI for different business scenarios, keeping AI assistants organized and easy to manage becomes just as important as creating them. Without a structured workspace, it can be difficult to find the right AI expert or maintain specialized knowledge across projects and teams.

Expert Workspace in Joule introduces a more streamlined way to organize and manage AI Experts. Each Expert can be tailored with its own instructions and reference files, enabling more focused, context-aware conversations for specific business scenarios. New search, tagging, and filtering capabilities make it easy to quickly find the right Expert, while improved visibility into attachment storage helps users manage their growing AI workspaces more effectively.

By making AI Experts easier to organize, discover, and reuse, Expert Workspace helps users build specialized AI assistants for different workflows, improving productivity while creating a more scalable and efficient AI experience across the enterprise.

Joule Work

As AI becomes part of everyday business, users need more than a chatbot, they need an intelligent workspace that brings together insights, automates routine work, and helps them take action. Switching between applications and manually coordinating tasks slows decision-making and reduces productivity.

With the release 2608, Joule Work introduces a dynamic AI workspace that goes beyond chat. Powered by user intent and business context, Joule Work surfaces the right insights, coordinates AI agents and assistants, and helps users complete business tasks from a single place. Whether asking questions in natural language, working in AI-generated Spaces, or accessing AI-powered workflows across desktop and mobile, users can move seamlessly from insight to action.

By bringing conversations, AI-powered workspaces, and intelligent automation together in one experience, Joule Work helps users make faster decisions, reduce context switching, and focus on the work that drives business value: another important step toward SAP's vision of the Autonomous Enterprise.

Embedded AI highlights

User Experience

AI-assisted easy fill of SAP Fiori elements-based applications

One of the highlights of this release is the general availability of AI-assisted easy fill.

Business users often receive information through emails, meeting notes, chat messages, or phone conversations. Traditionally, they then have to transfer this information manually into ERP transactions—finding the correct fields, switching between screens, and ensuring every value is entered correctly. AI-assisted easy fill removes much of this manual effort.

By simply describing a business update in natural language, SAP Business AI automatically interprets the information and populates the appropriate fields within the business object. Users can then review the suggested values before confirming them, ensuring both speed and accuracy.

This not only reduces repetitive data entry, but also helps improve data quality, lowers the learning curve for new users, and allows experienced users to complete everyday business processes significantly faster.

AI-assisted easy filter

We're also expanding natural language capabilities with AI-assisted easy filter. Filtering business data has traditionally required users to know exactly which filter fields exist and how they should be combined. Now, instead of manually building complex filter criteria, users can simply describe what they're looking for in plain language.

SAP Business AI understands the request and automatically translates it into the appropriate filters, including complex combinations such as amounts, currencies, dates, sorting, and grouping. Recent queries and favorite searches are also available, making frequently used searches even faster.

The result is a more intuitive search experience that helps both occasional and experienced users find business information with less effort and greater confidence.

Environment, Health, and Safety

AI-assisted compliance management

Managing compliance obligations often means reviewing lengthy regulations, permits, or corporate policies and manually translating them into operational tasks. It's a time-consuming process that can increase the risk of errors or overlooked obligations.

With the 2608 release, AI-assisted compliance management helps automate this work. Users can upload compliance documents as PDFs, and SAP Business AI automatically identifies relevant requirements, proposes structured compliance obligations, and recommends the corresponding operational tasks—such as periodic inspections, maintenance notifications, or reporting activities. A side-by-side view of the original document and the AI-generated suggestions allows users to quickly validate every recommendation while remaining in full control.

By reducing manual data entry and accelerating the setup of compliance obligations, AI-assisted compliance management helps organizations improve accuracy, reduce compliance risks, and stay audit-ready. Instead of spending time extracting information from lengthy documents, compliance professionals can focus on managing risks and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Professional Services

AI-assisted aging work in progress analytics and management

For project-based businesses, keeping track of aging work in progress (WIP) is essential for maintaining healthy cash flow. But identifying overdue WIP, understanding its root causes, and deciding what action to take often requires time-consuming analysis across multiple reports.

AI-assisted aging work in progress analytics and management helps project financial controllers gain these insights faster. Using Joule, users can analyze and visualize WIP aging across defined time buckets, while AI automatically generates executive summaries that highlight critical items and recommend the next steps. Intelligent drill-down navigation and automated billing notifications make it easier to investigate issues and accelerate resolution.

By transforming complex project data into actionable insights, this innovation helps finance and project teams reduce manual analysis, speed up billing cycles, lower cash flow risks, and spend more time making informed decisions instead of creating reports.

Summary

🎦Register for our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 Early Release Series!

🔎Find all our assets

The release 2608 showcases more than 130 innovation highlights across the portfolio. Check out our release document for all the details!

We at Cloud ERP and SCM Product Success offer a service as versatile as our product itself. Check out the numerous offerings our team has created for you below:

Implementing IFRS S1 and S2 Sustainability Disclosure Standards with End‑to‑End Reporting Flows

2026-07-16T21:54:38.236000+02:00

This article reflects the collective efforts of several contributors: Bilge Akdur, Elsa Sandoval Ruiz, Julia Sabrowski

Introduction

The IFRS® Sustainability Disclosure Standards, IFRS S1 (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-Related Financial Information) and IFRS S2 (Climate-Related Disclosures), issued in June 2023 and effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024, are a common baseline for sustainability-related financial disclosure. As a growing number of jurisdictions around the world are adopting these standards, organizations are increasingly expected to report on climate-related risks and opportunities comparable to those applied in financial reporting. Sustainability reporting is dynamic by design as it considers material impacts, risks, and opportunities. Investors, for example, can now look to sustainability KPIs as signals to move from mostly stewardship non-financial reporting to financial-grade sustainability analysis for sustainability strategic business decisions.

For organizations reporting under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) or implementing IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, reporting requirements are increasingly interconnected across frameworks. Consequently, interoperability is considered a critical enabler for organizations to align sustainability data across multiple regulatory and voluntary standards. SAP Sustainability solutions adopt interoperability as a characteristic for companies reporting under multiple frameworks, which can increasingly consolidate their sustainability data management rather than duplicating effort across disconnected processes.

End-to-end sustainability reporting requires an auditable chain from operational cause through identification, collection, calculation, analysis, and disclosure. Point tools own a slice of that chain, while SAP owns the whole of it. SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Sustainability Footprint Management together enable an end‑to‑end IFRS S1 and S2 sustainability reporting flow, including carbon footprint calculation, and climate- and sustainability-related data acquisition through to governed disclosures. SAP Sustainability Control Tower now provides SAP‑delivered IFRS S1 and S2 data points as master content, so organizations can manage IFRS S1 and S2 disclosures within the same governance framework they already use for ESRS reporting, while SAP Sustainability Footprint Management supplies the underlying emissions and activity data needed for IFRS S2 climate‑related metrics. This post walks through the integrated flow from initial setup and data integration through to AI‑assisted report creation.

Initial Setup and Master Data

The starting point for IFRS S1 and S2 reporting in SAP Sustainability Control Tower is the Manage Master Data application. Here, organizations configure the foundational structures that underpin their sustainability disclosures, including reporting structures such as legal entities, business locations, and organizational units, as well as the associated hierarchies that define the reporting boundary.

Now, the reporting requirements under IFRS S1 and S2, version 2023, are provided by SAP in the “Reporting Standard”, “Reporting Standard Version,” and “Data Points” dimensions in the Manage Master Data App as of July 1st, 2026.

For IFRS reporting specifically, the same organizational reporting structure used to support ESRS disclosures is reused. This means organizations already configured for CSRD reporting do not need to rebuild their hierarchy levels, fiscal year variants, and organizational mappings, providing a unified data foundation across both ESRS and IFRS disclosure requirements.

Metrics Coverage

In the Manage Metrics application, organizations can now access SAP-provided metrics mapped to IFRS S1 and S2 data points.

As of July 2026, SAP Sustainability Control Tower includes:

24 quantitative metrics for IFRS S2 Climate-Related Disclosures, covering greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and carbon credits..
57 qualitative metrics across IFRS S1 and S2, including:

IFRS S1 General Disclosures: 13 metrics
IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 shared General Disclosures: 15 metrics
IFRS S2 Climate-Related Disclosures: 29 metrics

To support interoperability, qualitative metrics that appear in both IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 are represented as a single metric where applicable. This avoids duplicating data entry for disclosures that serve both standards.

Data points that include explanatory content, implementation guidance, or reporting clarifications are out of scope and are not included in the delivered master data. Organizations can refer to the corresponding IFRS standards documentation for this information.

Within metric disclosure references, customers can see, when applicable, interoperability between disclosure requirements across standards such as ESRS and IFRS, helping organizations address multiple reporting frameworks through a single reporting effort.

Reporting Scope

Once metrics are available, organizations define their reporting scope: which material metrics apply to which parts of their reporting structure, and for which periods. The reporting scope configuration in SAP Sustainability Control Tower allows organizations to select IFRS-relevant metrics alongside their existing ESRS scope.

This is particularly relevant for organizations reporting under both ESRS and IFRS, where many climate-related disclosures overlap. Because SAP Sustainability Control Tower supports interoperability with standards in its metric definitions, organizations can configure their reporting scope once and satisfy data requirements for multiple frameworks without managing parallel reporting processes.

Data Acquisition

With the reporting scope defined, data acquisition follows established SAP Sustainability Control Tower patterns. Quantitative data for IFRS S2 climate metrics can be sourced through the same channels used for ESRS climate data:

SAP Sustainability Footprint Management integration for greenhouse gas emissions data across scope 1, 2 and 3, with configurable period granularity (monthly, quarterly, yearly) based on the active fiscal year variant.
SAP Sustainability Footprint Management energy and fuel mix metrics for IFRS‑relevant climate information, adding energy consumption, energy mix, fuel mix, energy content and sourcing type, calculated together with the emissions in a single run.

SAP Datasphere content packages for loading actuals from connected source systems.
File upload for data not available through system integration.
Inbound ODATA API for programmatic data ingestion from any source.

For qualitative metrics, the data collection process supports form-based collection with workflow governance. Organizations can group IFRS qualitative metrics within a single data collection form, assign processors and approvers, and manage the entire collection cycle through governed workflows. It also supports collection of the corporate summary while showing previously recorded data for comparison.

Emissions and Energy Data

For IFRS S2 greenhouse gas disclosures, SAP Sustainability Footprint Management calculates corporate emissions directly based on ERP master and transactional data, rather than from manual uploads or separate data silos. This creates one governed data foundation for Scope 1, 2 and 3 results that aligns climate metrics with the same operational events and structures used to run the business.

In the same calculation flow, the solution can also deliver energy‑related metrics such as energy consumption, energy mix, fuel mix, energy content and sourcing type, where these are relevant for IFRS S2 reporting. One run of the model, therefore, produces multiple climate‑related outputs: mandatory emissions data plus optional energy metrics to support transition analysis and target tracking.

Because activity data, emission factors and calculation logic are all traceable back to their source, the resulting IFRS S2 figures are easier to substantiate. When transferred into SAP Sustainability Control Tower via direct integration, this governance and lineage are preserved, connecting operational cause, calculation and disclosure in a single, auditable chain - eliminating the need for external transformation or aggregation steps.

Note: SAP Sustainability Control Tower's emissions-related Data Provider Interfaces (including SAP_SCT_DPI_Emission and SAP_SCT_DPI_Energy) provide the structure for ingesting this data from SAP and non-SAP sources.

Analytics

Analyze ESG Data application enables organizations to explore their IFRS-aligned sustainability performance. With the target-versus-actual visualization capabilities delivered in Q2 2026, organizations can compare their climate-related performance against defined targets directly within the application.

For IFRS S2, this is particularly relevant for transition plan monitoring: organizations can track progress toward their greenhouse gas reduction targets, visualize emissions trends across reporting periods, and drill down by reporting structure to identify areas requiring attention.

The flexible chart-specific configuration model allows independent control over metric selection, filters, drilldowns, and chart types. Users can display up to six charts in parallel and combine chart and table views for side-by-side analysis of different IFRS disclosure dimensions, such as comparing Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions performance across legal entities or time periods.

AI-Assisted Report Generation

Generate Sustainability Reports with AI is available free of charge to all SAP Sustainability Control Tower customers as a base AI feature. Today, customers can already use the Generic ESG Reporting Template to automatically draft ESG reports in multiple languages, preview and edit the content, and download the result in PDF or DOCX format, with dynamic AI‑driven revisions helping refine the final narrative.

Building on these capabilities, the Generate ESG Reports with AI application will include an IFRS‑specific report template as a roadmap item for H2 2026. This template will allow organizations to generate a structured IFRS sustainability disclosure report from the quantitative and qualitative data managed in SAP Sustainability Control Tower, drawing on the governed ESG data foundation to produce a draft aligned with IFRS S1 and S2 requirements. Using the IFRS template, AI‑assisted report generation will cover the core IFRS content pillars—Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets—providing a standards‑aligned starting point that customers can further tailor to their specific context.

Interoperability: ESRS and IFRS Side by Side

A key design principle behind the IFRS content in SAP Sustainability Control Tower is interoperability. Organizations reporting under both ESRS (for CSRD compliance) and IFRS (for jurisdictions adopting ISSB standards) can manage both from a single data foundation.

Where disclosure requirements overlap, particularly in general disclosures and climate-related reporting, SAP Sustainability Control Tower's metric definitions are designed so that data entered once can satisfy requirements across both frameworks. Within the metric general information, organizations can see the mapping between ESRS and IFRS disclosure requirements, reducing the effort required to maintain parallel reporting tracks.

Additional Information

Documentation on IFRS S1 and S2 metrics is available in SAP Help Portal for SAP Sustainability Control Tower.

Scenario Guidance for Corporate Carbon Calculation is available in SAP Help Portal for SAP Sustainability Footprint Management.

This article contains copyright material of the IFRS Foundation and SAP All rights reserved. Published by SAP under license from the IFRS Foundation. Reproduction and use rights are strictly limited. For more information about the IFRS Foundation and rights to use its material please visit www.ifrs.org. © 2026 IFRS Foundation

Q2 2026 Innovations: SAP Enterprise Service Management

2026-07-17T02:28:15.358000+02:00

Q2 went by fast! I hope that you all were able to participate in SAPPHIRE 2026 either in person or virtually. The SAP Autonomous Enterprise was announced and a shout out of huge thanks to our service customers Pfizer and Doehler for sharing your incredible stories & insights about your transformation, AI adoption and value outcomes with SAP Service Cloud and SAP ESM! Our next value-add event is queued up - SAP Connect 2026 is coming to Las Vegas, October 5-7 and we welcome our customers and partners to secure an early bird rate by August 10th to discover how to maximize value of your solutions, explore best practices in AI and business transformation approaches and much, much more!

Before I jump into our Q2 innovations for SAP ESM there are a couple of exciting opportunities I’d like to share.

It’s not too late to join our SAP ESM webcast on Tuesday, July 21st, focused on HR Service Delivery: AI, Data, and Experience: From Transactions to Intelligent HR Services also featuring a widely recognized expert Anita Lettink. If you’re reading post-event, click the link above and watch the replay!
Also, there is a new SAP Learning module for SAP ESM: Integrating SAP Enterprise Service Management. This course is available at no cost and is designed specifically for administrators, consultants, and business users to deepen their knowledge of SAP Enterprise Service Management. This course focuses on integration configuration to enable execution of end-to-end scenarios delivering true value and operational efficiency across the organization.

Now back to the focus of this blog – our Q2 innovations for SAP ESM! There are so many innovations and improvements please register for our Q2 Innovation webcast July 29th hosted by our product team.

Self-Service Catalog

The Self-Service Catalog provides employees with a guided, intuitive way to find and request the services they need, without requiring an understanding of the underlying processes or systems. Requests submitted through the appropriate topic catalog or tile are automatically resolved or routed based on the inquiry context, which reduces manual triage effort, frustration in solutioning and shortens resolution times. For service agents, this means fewer incomplete or misrouted cases and more time spent on higher-value work. For employees, it means a simpler, more predictable experience when engaging with their enterprise or shared service teams.

Service Catalog configuration

Service Catalog Self Service

Content Package Framework

The Content Package Framework enables organizations to deploy SAP ESM more quickly by leveraging prebuilt, reusable configurations for case types, workflows, and catalogs. Rather than building service processes from the ground up, customers and SI partners can start from proven templates and adapt them to specific business needs. This reduces implementation effort, simplifies rollout across lines of business, and helps organizations standardize service delivery at scale. Content packages for HR service delivery are planned for a future release.

New Email Editor

The new email editor provides service agents with a modern, streamlined interface for composing, editing, and managing customer communications. Designed with an AI-first architecture in mind, the editor supports faster email creation while maintaining the quality and consistency expected in service interactions. Coupled with the AI email drafter capability, agents truly spend less time formatting and more time focused on resolving customer issues, which improves response times and communication quality.

Email editor

Creation of Sales Objects from the Customer Hub

While this capability is more closely aligned with SAP Service Cloud, sales support and B2B supplier support are common use cases we see deployed for SAP ESM as well. With that said, service agents can now create and manage leads, opportunities, appointments, and sales orders directly from the service agent desktop when the interaction calls for it, reducing clicks and upskilling time. The capability supports closer alignment between service and sales teams and delivers that seamless experience you expect between SAP solutions.

Self-Service Enhancements

Two enhancements provide administrators with greater control over the self-service experience:

Edit Form in Self-Service During Case Lifecycle feature allows administrators to define conditions under which a form remains editable, giving employees the ability to update information at appropriate points in the case lifecycle without agent involvement.
Adapt Case Details Screen per Case Type feature allows administrators to configure the Case Details screen in Self-Service on a per-case-type basis, ensuring that users only see fields and actions that are relevant to their specific scenario.

Together, these enhancements help drive higher self-service adoption and reduce unnecessary agent handoffs.

Embedded Component for Custom Services

Administrators can now define list views or object forms within a custom service and embed them into custom user interfaces, as well as selected standard UIs. By mapping parameters from the host page, related custom records can be viewed and worked on directly within the relevant UI view. This capability makes it easier to extend SAP ESM to fit unique business processes and ensures that agents and users have access to contextual information exactly where they need it, without navigating away from their current task.

New Self-Service Experience (Restricted Release)

A new Self-Service experience for SAP ESM is being introduced as a restricted release. Aligned with the latest self-service catalog capabilities, the new experience is designed to support cross-functional deployment across the enterprise, providing instant solutions to common inquiries and enabling contextual case creation and management. As this is a restricted release, customers interested in exploring the capability are encouraged to request access via the solution. Early feedback from customers will play an important role in shaping the general availability release, and participation is strongly encouraged.

Sign In as Another User

Administrators can now sign in as another business user seeing the same functionality and authorizations as that user. This allows administrators to reproduce and troubleshoot issues from the user’s perspective without screen sharing or password exchange. This results in faster issue resolution, stronger security practices, and a more efficient support process for both administrators and end users.

Analytics Improvements

This release delivers two important improvements to analytics capabilities:

Embedded SAC Widgets allow SAP Analytics Cloud visualizations to be embedded directly into the SAP ESM interface, displaying focused analytics with individual tiles within the daily flow of various business objects such as cases, customers and opportunities. These widgets can also be incorporated into mashups for more comprehensive analytics overall.
Custom Service Entities in Analytics allow custom service entities to be used as data sources in SAP Analytics Cloud. Once a custom entity is marked as Analytics Relevant, the system automatically generates a corresponding data source that appears under Custom Data Sources in the Query Designer, where it can be combined with standard data sources to produce tailored analytics content.

These enhancements bring insights closer to where work happens and reduce the need to switch between systems for data-driven decision-making.

Approval Process Simplification

Two enhancements to approval processes help organizations improve consistency and reduce delays.

Configure Approval and Rejection Reasons: Administrators can now configure predefined approval and rejection reasons, create custom reason lists, assign them to specific approval processes, and control whether reason selection is mandatory or optional. This supports more consistent decision-making and improves auditability across approval workflows.
Automatic Approval Settings: Configuration allowing approval steps to be automatically approved or rejected if no action is taken within a defined duration can be defined from one hour to ten days. This helps ensure that workflows continue to progress even when approvers are unavailable, reducing bottlenecks and shortening overall case cycle times.

Accelerating Case Resolution with UX Simplicity and Automation

Several enhancements in this release focus on simplifying the case experience and giving administrators more configuration control. A few examples include:

Case Data Retention Rules by Case Type: This feature allows administrators to configure retention rules for automated transaction depersonalization on a per-case-type basis, helping the organization meet legal, regional, and business-specific data retention requirements.
Multiple Catalogs Mapped to One Case Type: The ability to map multiple catalogs to one case type allows administrators to assign additional category catalogs to a case type, minimizing configuration effort where similar case types can be used across various business functions.
Hide Category Levels in Case: This feature allows administrators to selectively hide specific category levels within cases, providing agents with a cleaner and more focused interface by removing unnecessary hierarchical information.

Case adaptation

These enhancements help streamline the agent experience while giving administrators the flexibility to align case management with compliance, business, and operational requirements.

Useful Information

For additional Q2 innovations relevant for SAP Enterprise Service Management please reference Kirsi Tarvainen’s blog on SAP Service Cloud and register for the upcoming Q2 Release Webinar. To stay up-to-date as we release capabilities each month and to get a full view of what’s new for Q2, reference the What’s New page in our help portal. Also, reference these valuable links for more on SAP ESM and SAP CX solutions:

SAP CX Q2 2020 Innovation News

SAP Learning ESM Course

SAP Service Cloud V2 Certification Course

SAP Release Navigator

SAP ESM’s free trial Get hands-on experience today with an HR service delivery scenario (Finance shared services coming soon).

Use the SAP Enterprise Service Management managed tag when posting on SAP ESM topics in the community!

And finally, thank you. The continued growth of this community, and the willingness of its members to share, question, and collaborate, is what moves SAP ESM forward. Every SAP employee, partner, and customer benefits from the collective knowledge exchanged here and it’s genuinely appreciated.

What’s new in Artificial Intelligence in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2608

2026-07-17T09:50:40.791000+02:00

AI is rapidly evolving from a productivity enhancer into a true business collaborator. With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 release, SAP takes another significant step toward its vision of the Autonomous Enterprise, where AI is no longer a separate tool but an integral part of everyday business processes. New innovations across agentic AI, Joule, and embedded AI capabilities help organizations automate routine work, uncover insights faster, and streamline decision-making—while keeping people firmly in control.

In this blog, we'll explore the most important AI innovations delivered with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 release. These enhancements are relevant for a wide range of roles, empowering teams in finance, supply chain, professional services, and beyond to make faster, more informed decisions and focus on strategic business outcomes.

Joule Work

In this release, we are thrilled to introduce Joule Work, a dynamic workspace that fundamentally reimagines how work gets done across your enterprise. Going far beyond a simple chat, Joule Work acts as your central engagement layer, intelligently interpreting your intent to surface the right insights, automate routine work, and coordinate powerful AI agents across all your systems. By unifying conversations and AI-generated spaces for complex problem-solving, it transforms siloed tasks into a single, seamless experience. This allows your teams to move away from transactional processes and focus on what truly matters: making the critical decisions that move the business forward.

Conversations

Conversations in Joule Work are designed to facilitate natural language interactions, enabling users to quickly ask questions and receive insights directly within the workspace. This functionality makes accessing data and obtaining immediate answers effortless, breaking down communication barriers and accelerating decision-making processes. Conversations integrate seamlessly with your existing systems, allowing for real-time interactions, making sure users have the information they need at their fingertips without jumping between multiple applications.

Spaces

Spaces are dynamic, AI-generated environments within Joule Work that adapt to facilitate complex problem-solving and collaborative tasks. Unlike static dashboards or document sharing platforms, Spaces intelligently structure resources and tools according to the needs of the task at hand. Spaces provide an interactive canvas where information, analytics, and dialogue converge. This flexibility supports diverse business processes, encouraging innovation, efficiency, and teamwork across departments.

Develop

The Develop capability, facilitated through Joule Studio, empowers organizations to create and deploy custom agents and automations tailored to their specific business processes. This feature puts the power of AI in your hands, allowing both developers and business users to design specialized workflows that seamlessly integrate with existing systems. Develop enables businesses to extend the functionality of Joule Work beyond out-of-the-box solutions, accommodating unique requirements and enhancing scalability. With intuitive tools and support for advanced scripting, users can craft intelligent automations that optimize operations and drive productivity.

SAP-managed Joule

The SAP-managed approach for Joule is our new, recommended method for activating and operating your generative AI copilot. It's designed to dramatically simplify your experience and accelerate time-to-value by replacing the complex, manual setup with a streamlined, self-service activation process directly within the SAP for Me portal. With SAP handling the technical management and integration, your team is freed from significant IT overhead. This new model also ensures you are best positioned to receive the latest Joule innovations, including new agents and capabilities like Joule Work, as soon as they become available, often with minimal to no additional configuration required on your part.

Autonomous Finance

Financial Close Assistant (release 2608.03)

Financial close demands tight coordination across clearing, reconciliation, journal entries, and analysis—all of this under deadline pressure. The Financial Closing Assistant empowers the Financial Close Accountant to orchestrate an intelligent agent-based team that handles these tasks autonomously within set boundaries. From receivables clearing to intercompany reconciliation and key performance indicator analysis, agents execute critical close activities with transparency and audit-ready precision, enabling a faster, more reliable close.

Receivables and Payables Clearing Agent (release 2608.02)

Finance teams can now streamline accounts receivable and payable clearing with the new Receivables and Payables Clearing Agent, an AI-powered capability that analyzes open items and generates balanced clearing proposals for accountant review. Integrated with dedicated SAP Fiori apps, the agent intelligently matches invoices and open items using commonly used reference fields and provides clear explanations for its recommendations.

By accelerating clearing activities, reducing manual matching effort, and minimizing human error, the solution helps improve operational efficiency while giving accountants greater confidence in the review process. Approved proposals can be automatically posted as clearing documents, enabling a faster and more streamlined financial close process.

Journal Entry Agent (release 2608.03)

Creating journal entries from spreadsheet data is now faster and more efficient with the Journal Entry Agent. This AI-powered capability analyzes uploaded spreadsheet files submitted through Joule and automatically generates accurate, compliant journal entry proposals. Users can review, adjust, and post these proposals directly in the Manage Journal Entry Proposals app, significantly reducing manual effort in journal entry processing.

By automatically mapping spreadsheet columns to the required journal entry fields, the agent helps improve accuracy, increase transparency through access to source files, and streamline financial workflows. Users are notified when proposals are ready for review and can manage the complete lifecycle—from review and adjustment to posting—within a single application. The result is a more efficient journal entry process that supports faster period-end closing while maintaining transparency and control.

International Trade Classification Agent

Classifying products for international trade can be a complex and time-consuming process, requiring deep knowledge of customs regulations and commodity code structures. The International Trade Classification Agent helps simplify this task by using AI to analyze product characteristics and automatically recommend appropriate commodity codes and customs tariff numbers for international shipping.

Designed to support trade classification specialists, the agent provides transparent, explainable recommendations based on product information and applicable trade regulations. Each proposed classification is accompanied by a clear rationale, making it easier for users to review, validate, and approve results. By automating classification activities and reducing reliance on manual research, the solution helps organizations save time, improve compliance, and minimize the risk of errors through a robust and auditable decision-making process.

E-Invoicing Submission Error Resolution Agent (release 2608.02)

As electronic invoicing mandates continue to expand globally, organizations face increasing pressure to resolve invoice submission errors quickly to avoid disruptions in order-to-cash processes. The E-Invoicing Submission Error Resolution Agent helps simplify and accelerate error handling by providing contextual insights, recommended resolution actions, and guided root cause analysis directly within the workflow.

The agent analyzes and classifies technical error messages returned by tax authorities and submission networks, distinguishing between technical issues—such as connectivity, infrastructure, or data-format problems—and business-impacting issues that require changes to document content, master data, or financial postings. By delivering standardized guidance, clear explanations, and documented reasoning for each proposed resolution, the solution promotes consistent error handling, improves auditability, and helps organizations meet mandatory submission deadlines while reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.

Statutory Report Analysis Agent (release 2608.02)

Reviewing statutory and VAT reports can be a time-consuming process, particularly for organizations managing large volumes of tax declarations across multiple reporting periods. The Statutory Report Analysis Agent helps tax and finance teams reduce this effort by automatically analyzing reporting trends, identifying anomalies, and performing root cause analysis to uncover potential compliance risks before reports are submitted.

By comparing current reporting results with historical periods, the agent detects fluctuations, unusual transactions, and outliers that may require attention. It analyzes contributing factors across dimensions such as tax codes, document types, and business partners, and provides consolidated summaries of key figures, identified issues, and root cause findings. In addition, the agent delivers actionable recommendations to help users validate variances, investigate irregularities, and make informed decisions with confidence. The result is a more efficient and data-driven review process that improves compliance readiness without increasing manual effort.

Autonomous Supply Chain

Production Master Data Readiness Agent (release 2608.02)

The Product Master Data Readiness Agent assists Master Data Specialists in efficiently creating and updating manufacturing master data, ensuring faster and more accurate preparation for production. The agent enables quick production initiation with minimal manual effort when setting up new materials, prevents production interruptions, and supports consistent planning through the application of proven patterns.

It proactively addresses master data quality issues to avoid unexpected problems during production. For existing product masters with incomplete or potentially incorrect data, the agent suggests values for MRP-related fields using SAP-RPT-1 and similar materials' context.

Additionally, it examines available routings and suggests reusable or copyable options using a machine learning algorithm to identify similar BOMs and their routing through production version tracing

Production Planning and Operation agent

The Production Planning and Operations Agent enables users to release production orders through natural language in Joule. It allows for a response to automated checks concerning material, capacity, and scheduling availability by selecting suggested alternative components and adjusting schedules. Users can approve these changes to authorize Joule to release the orders.

Inventory Supervisor agent (release 2608.02)

Keeping inventory under control requires continuous visibility into stock performance and the ability to quickly respond to emerging issues. The Inventory Supervisor Agent helps inventory managers turn inventory KPIs into corrective action by providing end-to-end transparency into stock situations, proactively identifying inventory risks, and recommending optimization measures.

The agent continuously monitors inventory performance and performs real-time and ad-hoc stock analysis to detect situations that require attention, such as slow-moving or obsolete inventory. It goes beyond issue detection by analyzing root causes, assessing business impact in terms of quantity and value, and providing actionable recommendations to improve inventory health. By automating analysis and delivering guided insights, the solution reduces manual effort, enables faster decision-making, and helps organizations proactively address inventory challenges before they impact operations.

Professional Services

Smart Suggestions for Time Entry (release 2608)

With release 2608, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition introduces Smart Suggestions for Time Entry, an AI-powered capability that automatically proposes timesheet entries based on an employee’s recent booking history and recurring work patterns. Instead of manually searching for projects, tasks, and cost objects, employees can review and confirm pre-populated suggestions with a single click, significantly reducing administrative effort and improving user experience. By streamlining time recording, the feature helps increase on-time submissions, reduce booking errors, and provide more accurate project cost data for project managers and finance teams. As the system learns from individual booking behavior, suggestions become increasingly relevant, enabling faster, more reliable, and effortless time tracking.

Environment, Health, and Safety

AI-assisted compliance management (release 2608)

With the 2608 release, SAP S/4HANA Cloud introduces AI-assisted compliance management for Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS), helping organizations accelerate the setup of compliance obligations from regulatory and permit documents. AI automatically extracts and structures relevant information from PDF source documents, identifies compliance requirements, and proposes corresponding tasks such as maintenance activities, notifications, and reporting actions. A side-by-side document viewer provides full traceability between source content and generated obligations, improving audit readiness while reducing manual effort, data-entry errors, and the risk of overlooking compliance-relevant requirements. This innovation enables faster, more accurate, and scalable compliance management across complex regulatory landscapes.

Joule for Consultants

Custom Knowledge Grounding

Organizations can now enhance SAP Joule for Consultants with Custom Knowledge Grounding, enabling administrators to connect company-specific documents and knowledge sources through SAP AI Core. By combining organizational content with SAP-curated expertise, Joule delivers more relevant, context-aware, and tailored responses. This helps consultants spend less time searching across multiple sources and make faster, better-informed decisions that align with their organization's standards and best practices.

Expert Workspace

The new Expert Workspace provides a powerful way to organize and manage AI Experts—specialized AI assistants configured with custom instructions and optional reference materials for more focused, context-rich interactions. Users can now create up to 25 Experts, supporting a wider range of projects, workflows, and areas of expertise.

To improve transparency and management, Expert Workspace now displays the user's total attachment storage allocation of 1 GB across all Experts, while maintaining a 10 MB per file upload limit. Enhanced search, tagging, and filtering capabilities make it easier to locate and organize Experts, ensuring quick access even as expert libraries grow.

Centralized Expert Library for Organizations

Administrators can now establish a Centralized Expert Library, allowing organizations to curate, manage, and publish reusable Experts for all users. Through a streamlined workflow, organizations can capture expert knowledge from experienced team members and make it available across the business, promoting consistency, knowledge sharing, and faster onboarding. The library remains private to the customer organization, while administrators retain full control over publishing, updating, and retiring shared Experts.

UI and Performance Enhancements

SAP Joule for Consultants continues to evolve with several usability and productivity improvements designed to create a more seamless user experience.

A refreshed welcome screen provides a modernized entry point and easier access to key capabilities. Users can now maintain up to 50 active conversations, a significant increase from the previous limit of 10, enabling more effective management of parallel projects and workstreams.

The introduction of a Retry capability allows users to regenerate responses without restarting the conversation. Whether the goal is to create a longer explanation, a more concise summary, or incorporate additional instructions, answers can be refined with just a few clicks. In addition, users can now edit their original prompts, making it easier to add context, clarify requirements, and improve response quality without beginning a new conversation. Together, these enhancements make interactions with Joule more flexible, efficient, and collaborative.

The Future is Intelligent
The 2608 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition demonstrates our commitment to building an ERP that is not just a system of record, but a true partner in your success. By embedding AI across the suite, we are helping you unlock new levels of productivity, enhance decision-making, and create a more intuitive and enjoyable user experience for everyone.

This is just the beginning, and I can't wait to see how you leverage these new capabilities to drive your business forward.

🎦Register for our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 Early Release Series!

🔎Find all our assets

The release 2608 showcases more than 130 innovation highlights across the portfolio. Check out our release document for all the details!

We at Cloud ERP and SCM Product Success offer a service as versatile as our product itself. Click on the enablement wheel below and check out the numerous offerings our team has created for you:

One Configuration Switch Unlocks Invoice Receipt Date Tracking for Every Country

2026-07-17T11:08:52.472000+02:00

For years, the Invoice Receipt Date on the accounting document header was a assigned to a handful of country localizations like the Czech VAT Ledger. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608, that changes: one configuration switch now activates the field for every company code in every country/region.

Scope

Scope Note: This blog post covers SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 and later. The feature is delivered through Configuration Activity 107263 — Activate Invoice Receipt Date, application component FI-LOC-FI, and applies to scope item J60 (Accounts Payable). The activation is a customer-managed setting: no SAP Note or manual coding is required.

Why the Invoice Receipt Date Matters

The Invoice Receipt Date — stored in the classic field BKPF-REINDAT — captures the day your organization actually received a supplier invoice. It is deliberately distinct from the three dates you already know:

Document Date (BLDAT) — the date printed on the supplier's invoice.
Posting Date (BUDAT) — the date that drives the accounting period.
Entry Date (CPUDT) — the system timestamp when the document was entered.

Legislation and internal governance increasingly measure payment performance from the moment the invoice arrives at your door — not from the invoice date and not from the posting date. Examples include the EU Late Payment Directive, the UK Payment Practices Reporting obligation for large companies, and dozens of country-specific VAT and audit rules. Without a dedicated field, teams end up storing the receipt date in a custom Z-field, misusing the baseline date, or reconstructing it from workflow logs — none of which reports cleanly.

Activating the standard field solves all three problems at once: it becomes visible in every relevant Fiori app, it flows into journal entries automatically, and it is available as a first-class field for CDS views, custom reports, and statutory extractors.

Activation in Three Screens

The activation is a linear flow: open the configuration activity, pick the company codes that need it, and post an invoice to confirm the field is live.

Step 1 — Open Configuration Activity 107263

In your configuration environment, search for Activate Invoice Receipt Date (Configuration Activity 107263). The SSCUI is the single entry point for this setting.

Step 2 — Select the Company Codes

Add each company code that should expose the Invoice Receipt Date field. The activation is per company code, so you can pilot the feature in one entity before rolling it out group-wide.

Step 3 — Post a Supplier Invoice to Verify

Open Create Supplier Invoice (F0859) — or any of the FI/AP posting apps — and the new Invoice Receipt Date field appears alongside the Document Date and Posting Date. Once filled, the value is persisted in BKPF-REINDAT and is immediately available for reporting.

Practical Takeaway

To roll this out cleanly:

Identify the company codes that need the Invoice Receipt Date (start with entities subject to statutory payment-practice reporting).
Open Configuration Activity 107263 in the configuration environment.
Activate the setting for the selected company codes.
Test with one supplier invoice in F0859 — confirm the field appears and posts to BKPF-REINDAT.
Align your AP workflow so the mailroom / OCR / IDP tool populates the field automatically for every incoming invoice.

Summary

The Invoice Receipt Date has finally graduated from a niche public-sector field to a standard journal-entry attribute available to every SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition customer. One SSCUI, one flag per company code, and your organization has a compliance-ready foundation for payment-practice reporting and receipt-based payment KPIs — without a custom field in sight.

Key Takeaways

Global availability: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 makes the Invoice Receipt Date (BKPF-REINDAT) available in all countries/regions, not just Public Sector or a few localizations.
Customer-controlled activation: Configuration Activity 107263 — Activate Invoice Receipt Date turns the field on per company code — no SAP Note, no code change.
Standard field, standard reporting: Because the value lives in BKPF-REINDAT, it flows into CDS views, extractors, and statutory reports as a first-class attribute — retiring the custom Z-fields many customers have relied on for years.

More Information

SAP Help Portal — Activate Invoice Receipt Date for All Countries/Regions (What's New 2608)
SAP Help Portal — Activating the Invoice Receipt Date (Country/Region-Specific Functions)
Scope item J60 — Accounts Payable
Application component FI-LOC-FI

Published by SAP Globalization Services · Feedback and questions welcome in the comments below.

What's New in Review Booklets and MDA in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608

2026-07-17T13:46:25.713000+02:00

Data-driven decision-making depends on having the right insights at the right time, presented in a way that's easy to analyze and share. With the latest enhancements for Review Booklets and Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, users and designers gain powerful new capabilities to explore data, customize visualizations, streamline filtering, and create more flexible reporting experiences.

From new calculation options and number filters to advanced chart settings, enhanced app state handling, and major improvements in the Review Booklet Designer, these innovations help business users work more efficiently while enabling authors to build richer and more dynamic analytical content. Let's take a closer look at what's new.

What's New in Review Booklets and MDA

Calculations

In review booklet and MDA apps, you can apply calculation logic directly on measures using a new Calculations context menu and decide how the result or value of a measure is displayed. The context menu offers various options in two submenus that are called Display Values As and Display Totals As.

For more information, see Calculations and Using Calculations.

Number Filters

Review booklet and MDA apps now include a Number Filters panel and a context menu. You can use number filters to filter and rank numeric values based on your own rules.

To define number filters, open the Number Filters dialog using either the Number Filter option in the context menu or the Number Filters panel in the side panel. Select the context and measure, then set the condition: either numeric or ranking (for example, top or bottom N values). For more information, see Number Filters and Working with Number Filters.

Figure 1: Number Filters dialog

Chart Settings Side Panel

You can use a new Chart Settings panel in review booklet apps to configure charts the same way as in multidimensional analysis apps. The panel enables on-the-fly switching between table and chart views and provides advanced chart configuration options. The panel is available on pages with a single pivot table layout as well as a layout with two data providers (chart only).

You can freely toggle between table and chart view and use the following features:

Select the chart type
Show or hide the legend and change its position
Enable or disable axis labels
Adjust the value axis baseline, including manually setting minimum and maximum values

For more information, see Chart Settings Side Panel and Chart Settings.

Figure 2: Chart Settings side panel

Enhanced Export Features

The Export function in review booklet and MDA apps now includes Google Workspace integration, Google Sheets format support, and a streamlined Export to PDF option. The following features are available:

Google Workspace Integration

You can use Google Workspace as a destination. When you activate cloud enablement, the system sets Cloud destination as the default option. Otherwise, Local is the only available destination. For more information, see Google Workspace Integration.

Google Sheets Format Support

When you integrate Google Workspace with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, you can export data in Google Sheets format. For more information, see Google Workspace Integration.

Figure 3: Google Sheets format support

Streamlined Export to PDF Function

The styling of PDF reports has been refined to improve readability and visual consistency.

Export to Spreadsheet

The exported spreadsheet file contains two sheets: The data sheet contains all tabular data with comments if you select them in the configuration dialog. And the Information on Query sheet lists all query-relevant information, for example, Tenant URL and Query ID.

Export to PDF

The exported PDF report supports both single data provider and two data providers. You can use the PDF configuration dialog to choose which sections to export.

For more information, see Enhanced Export Features and Export Data to Spredsheet and PDF.

Migrate Variants and Bookmarks App

Using this app, you can migrate multidimensional data grid (Web Dynpro Grid) app variants and bookmarks to the corresponding Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) apps.

If you've been using Web Dynpro Grid reporting applications and your organization is moving to Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) applications, you can keep your saved variants and bookmarks by the Migrate Variants and Bookmarks app.

Your existing variants (saved filter settings) and bookmarks (saved report views with specific data selections) from Web Dynpro Grid reports can be transferred to MDA apps. You can continue working with your personalized report settings without recreating them manually.

Figure 4: The Migrate Variants and Bookmarks app

For more information, see Migrate Variants and Bookmarks (What's New) and Migrate Variants and Bookmarks (app description).

Usability Improvements

Typeahead in the Filter Bar

While you're entering a filter criterion in one of the filter fields in review booklet and MDA apps, the system proposes available entries to you. Click one of the proposals to select it.

This helps you find the right filter values faster, reduces typing effort, and avoids errors by ensuring you select valid entries. For more information about booklet filters, see Typeahead in Filter Bar and Working with Booklet Filters.

Enhanced App State Handling

Review booklet apps offer enhanced app state handling: Whenever you modify the layout, adjust variables, apply filters, or switch pages, review booklets now generate a new app state that is visible in the URL.

If the application times out, you can simply refresh the browser to restore your session. This ensures that ongoing work is not lost and provides a seamless recovery experience. As a result, review booklets now behave consistently with standard Fiori applications when it comes to session handling and state restoration. Multidimensional Analysis applications already supported automatic state creation during user interactions.

Previously, review booklets did not automatically generate a new app state when you made changes. An updated state was only created when one of the three sharing options (Send E-Mail, Microsoft Teams, Save as Tile) was used.

For more information, see Enhanced App State Handling and Working with Views.

What's New in the Review Booklet Designer

Flexible Content Types for Review Booklets with Multiple Data Providers

When configuring the business pages of a custom review booklet with two data providers, you can choose different content types for each data provider. By selecting Choose Content Type, a dialog opens where separate display options can be defined for the two data providers. For example, users can now configure:

A table for one data provider and a chart for the other data provider
Two different tables for the two data providers
Two different chart types for the two data providers

For more information, see Flexible Content Types for Review Booklets with Multiple Data Providers and Business Pages.

WYSIWYG Editor Support for Pages with Two Data Providers

When you configure a custom review booklet with two data providers, you can use the WYSIWYG mode.

Previously, the WYSIWYG editor allowed users to create pages that contained one data provider only. This restricted users in their ability to design more complex or comparative layouts directly within the editor.

With the latest enhancement, the WYSIWYG editor now fully supports pages that include two data providers. When you create or edit such a page, a dialog is available where you can individually configure the left and right side of the layout. This includes selecting different layouts or visualization options for each side, offering much greater flexibility in designing review booklet content.

For more information on your layout options, see WYSIWYG Editor Support for Pages with Two Data Providers and Save Layout in WYSIWYG Mode.

Figure 5: Pages with two data providers in the WSYIWIG editor

The latest enhancements to Review Booklets, MDA applications, and the Review Booklet Designer further strengthen SAP's self-service analytics capabilities in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Whether you're analyzing key business metrics, creating executive-ready review booklets, or designing sophisticated multi-provider layouts, these new features offer greater flexibility, improved usability, and a more seamless user experience.

Explore the new capabilities in your system and visit the SAP Help Portal documentation to learn more about how these innovations can help you transform data into actionable insights:

Review Booklets

Multidimensional Analysis

Creating Review Booklets in the Review Booklet Designer

SAP RAP : Dynamically manipulating fields based on Parent field value.

2026-07-17T15:17:31.931000+02:00

Step 1: Define Control Fields in CDS View

Create boolean control fields like isAppleBrand, isMaleGender in your CDS view.

define view ZMobileDevice as select from MobileDevice {
  key ID,
  Brand,
  ModelVariant,
  Gender,
  case Brand when 'Apple' then abap_true else abap_false end as isAppleBrand,
  case Gender when 'Male' then abap_true else abap_false end as isMaleGender
}

Step 2: Use Annotations for Conditional Visibility

Use @ui.Hidden annotation with control fields.

@ui.hidden: 'isAppleBrand'
ModelVariant

@UI.hidden: 'isMaleGender'
PregnancyStatus

@UI.hidden: 'isMaleGender'
MaternityLeave

Step 3: Enable Side Effects

Ensure side effects are triggered when the parent field changes. Handle this in Behaviour Definition.

determination setVisibility on modify { field Brand, Model;  }
  side effects { field Brand affects field isAppleBrand; }

Step 4: Behaviour Implementation

METHOD setVisiblity.
    DATA: lt_update TYPE TABLE FOR UPDATE <root view>.

    READ ENTITIES OF <root view> IN LOCAL MODE
        ENTITY <entity>
        FIELDS ( Brand Model )
        WITH CORRESPONDING #( keys )
        RESULT DATA(lt_mob_data).


    DATA lt_update_fields TYPE TABLE FOR UPDATE <root view>.
    DATA ls_update_fields LIKE LINE OF lt_update_fields.

*
data(ls_entity) = lt_mob_data[ 1 ]-entity.


    lt_update = VALUE #( FOR ls_mob IN lt_mob_data (
          %tky = ls_mob-%tky

          " Set the boolean field based on ProjectType
          IsAppleBrand = xsdbool( ls_pir-Brande <> '01' OR ls_pir-Brand IS INITIAL )
         
          " Use the control structure to signal which fields should be updated
          %control = VALUE #(
                              IsAppleBrand = if_abap_behv=>mk-on
                               )
    ) ) ).

    MODIFY ENTITIES OF <rootview> IN LOCAL MODE
         ENTITY <entity>
         UPDATE FROM lt_update
         REPORTED DATA(lt_reported).

    reported = CORRESPONDING #( DEEP lt_reported ).


  ENDMETHOD.

Dynamic field control in SAP RAP enhances user experience by tailoring the UI to the context. Whether you're building a mobile configuration app or a gender-sensitive form, these techniques help you deliver clean, relevant interfaces.

BKP - Flexible Plant Determination Through BadI for Customer Returns

2026-07-17T18:00:00.021000+02:00

Returns processing is one of the more complex areas of order management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. A question that comes up frequently when setting up returns is: how does the system decide which plant should receive the returned goods?In many real-world scenarios, such as large enterprises with complex organizational structures spanning multiple company codes and, as a result, many plants, the answer depends on a combination of business rules — rules that are too specific to handle through standard master data or configuration alone.

This blog explains how to use the Flexible Plant Determination feature to implement custom logic for plant determination in returns order items.

Flexible Plant Determination

Flexible plant determination lets you implement custom logic to determine the receiving plant for returns order items (document type CBAR), instead of relying solely on plant determination from master data, configuration, or reference documents.

The custom logic is implemented by using the Business Add-In (BAdI):

SD_SLS_DETERMINE_RETURNS_PLANT — Determination of Plants in Returns Order Items

This BAdI is called when a returns order is created or changed. It gives you access to a rich set of document attributes, such as sales area, sold-to party, return reason, business partner data, and even custom fields — which you can evaluate to determine the appropriate plant. This makes it possible to satisfy complex business requirements that cannot be expressed through standard configuration.

Plant Determination Priority

Before diving into the implementation, it is important to understand the overall plant determination sequence and when custom logic comes to play.

As a general rule, when creating or changing a returns order, the system determines the plant in the following order:

1	Manual Entry	If you enter a plant directly in the item, this value takes precedence over all other determination logic.
2	Custom Logic (by BAdI)	If no manual entry is provided, the system calls the BAdI implementation (if one exists). If the BAdI returns a plant, this value is used.
3	Reference Document	If no custom logic applies and a reference document exists, the system copies the plant from the reference document.
4	Standard Determination	If none of the above applies, the system determines the plant using master data and configuration.

However, depending on different channels (different apps or APIs) you use to process customer returns, there are exceptions to the priority order. For details, see the following graphic:

Prerequisites for Using BAdI Logic

Before you can use the BAdI, you must activate the flexible plant determination feature in the configuration activity:

Configure Returns Order Type for Standard Return (ID: 106396)

If this feature is not activated, the system will not call your BAdI implementation at all — custom logic will simply be ignored.

Note: Activating this feature also causes the system to redetermine the plant when ship-to party data or return reason changes on the document. This happens regardless of whether you have a BAdI implementation in place. But if you use the classic UI for returns order processing, such as the “Create Customer Returns Without Reference” app, the plant redetermination is automatically supported without activation.

Fields Available for Custom Logic

The BAdI provides access to header, item, and partner data of the returns order. The custom fields created for the document header and items are also available in BAdI implementation.

You can use these fields as input for your logic:

Returns Order Header Data	Returns Order Item Data	Header Partner Data	Item Partner Data
Returns order number Sales organization Distribution channel Division Sold-to party Order reason Reference document Reference document category Customer reference <Any custom fields> Note: Header data change does not trigger plant redetermination. See Important Notes at the end of the blog for details.	Returns order number Returns order item number Product Return reason Reference document Reference document item Reference document category <Any custom fields>	Partner function Customer Supplier Personnel Contact person Country Region Postal code Address ID	Returns order item number Partner function Customer Supplier Personnel Contact person Country Region Postal code Address ID

For more information on custom fields, see help documents for respective apps or APIs extensibility.

Implementing Custom Plant Determination Logic

Approach 1: Direct Logic in the BAdI

For straightforward cases, you can implement the determination rules directly inside the BAdI method. To do so, use the Custom Logic app as an extensibility specialist (business role template: SAP_BR_EXTENSIBILITY_SPEC). In the Custom Logic app, search for SD_SLS_DETERMINE_RETURNS_PLANT and create an implementation with your custom code.

Example:

IF     customerreturn-SDDocumentReason  = '009'
   AND customerreturn-SalesOrganization = '1010'.
    LOOP AT customerreturnitem_partners INTO item_partner
      WHERE SalesDocumentItem = customerreturnitem-SalesDocumentItem
        AND PartnerFunction   = 'WE'.
    ENDLOOP.
    IF item_partner-country = 'DE'
   AND item_partner-region  = 'BE'.
        plant = '1020'.
    RETURN.
    ENDIF.
ENDIF.

IF customerreturnitem-returnreason = '001'.
    plant = '1030'.
ENDIF.

In this example, the system determines the plant using this rule: If the order reason is 009 and the sales organization is 1010, the logic checks the ship-to party (partner function WE) on the item. If that partner is located in Germany (DE) and the Berlin region (BE), the system assigns plant 1020.

If the system can't find a plant using the first rule, then it continues to find using the second rule: If the return reason on the item is 001, the system assigns plant 1030.

This approach is easy to set up and works well when the number of rules is small and changes are infrequent. When the rule set grows — for example, when multiple sales organizations, regions, and return reasons each map to different plants — consider moving to a decision table as described in Approach 2.

Approach 2: Using a Decision Table

For more complex scenarios — where the determination depends on multiple conditions and combinations of field values — maintaining logic directly in code can quickly become difficult to read and maintain. Every new rule requires a code change, a transport, and a test cycle.

When to consider a decision table:

You have more than a handful of determination rules.
The rules change frequently and should be maintainable without developer involvement.
Multiple field combinations map to different plants and the combinations are expected to grow over time.
You want to document determination logic in a structured, auditable format.

In such cases, you can externalize the mapping using a decision table:

Create a custom business object (for example, a Z-table) to store combinations of field values (such as sales organization, return reason, sold-to party region) alongside their corresponding plant values.
At runtime, read this object from within the BAdI implementation and match the incoming document data against the stored rules to determine the plant.

This approach decouples the determination rules from the BAdI code. Business users or configurators can update the table without touching ABAP, which significantly reduces the cost of ongoing maintenance.

For more information, see Creating Custom Business Objects.

Step-by-Step Example: Using a Decision Table

Step 1: Open the Custom Business Objects app as extensibility specialist.

Step 2: Create a new business object with the required information and settings.

Check data is correct on the Nodes tab and change it if necessary:

Step 3: On the Fields tab, add the fields for your decision table and publish the business object.

Step 4: Once publishing completes successfully, use the UI link to access the decision table interface.

Step 5: In the decision table, maintain all the value mappings you need to determine plants.

Step 6: Implement custom code in the BAdI to read the business object data and determine the plant with matching data.

LOOP AT customerreturnitem_partners INTO item_partner
  WHERE SalesDocumentItem = customerreturnitem-SalesDocumentItem
    AND PartnerFunction   = 'WE'.
ENDLOOP.
SELECT Plant
  FROM YY1_PLANTDECISIONTABLE WITH PRIVILEGED ACCESS
  WHERE SalesOrganization = @customerreturn-salesorganization
    AND SDDocumentReason  = @customerreturn-SDDocumentReason
    AND Division          = @customerreturn-organizationdivision
    AND Country           = @item_partner-country
    AND PostalCode        = @item_partner-postalcode
  INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_plant)
  UP TO 1 ROWS.
IF lt_plant IS NOT INITIAL.
  plant = lt_plant[ 1 ]-plant.
ENDIF.

Important Notes

· Header Data Changes Do Not Trigger Redetermination:

Once a plant has been determined by custom logic, subsequent changes to header data do not re-trigger plant determination for that item — even if the updated data would match a different rule. If you need the plant to be redetermined when header data changes, implement the additional BAdI:

SD_SLS_REPROCESS_ITEMS_HEAD — Reprocessing of Sales Document Items Based on Header Data Changes

· Order Reason Behavior When Creating Reference via API:

When creating a returns order with reference using APIs, be aware of the following: if your custom logic uses the order reason as a condition, the system will not apply that logic to determine the plant. This is because the system first reads the order reason from the reference document, then overwrites it with the value from the payload. Since the change is purely a header data update, redetermination is not triggered and your custom logic is never called.

Workaround: Specify a return reason at the item level in your API payload and your BAdI logic will be applied.

Summary

Flexible plant determination gives you a clean, supported extension point for implementing business-specific returns routing logic in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The BAdI SD_SLS_DETERMINE_RETURNS_PLANT provides the flexibility to meet your business requirements. Here is a quick recap of the key points:

Activation: Must be enabled in Configure Order Type for Standard Return
Priority: Custom logic runs after manual entry but before reference document and standard determination
Simple rules: Implement directly in the BAdI method
Complex rules: Externalize mappings to a decision table (custom business object) for easier maintenance

For more information, see the SAP Help documentation: Flexible Plant Determination for Returns Order Items.

Release Navigator for SAP Cloud ERP 2608

2026-07-17T18:30:12.240000+02:00

Welcome to the second half of the year!

I’m thrilled to introduce SAP Cloud ERP 2608, the latest release designed to enhance productivity and innovation. This update offers new features that streamline operations, provide real-time analytics, and improve user experiences. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 equips businesses of all sizes with the tools needed to thrive in today's fast-paced environment. Discover how these enhancements can unlock new potential for growth and success.

I invite you to explore the latest updates by visiting the Release Navigator, your go-to resource for staying ahead with SAP Cloud ERP. As of today, content inside the Release Navigator will begin to be updated to 2608 through August!

Guided Tours in the Release Navigator

Visit the "Get Assistance" section, where you can access guided tours to enhance your understanding and usage of the platform!

Explore the 'What's New' tour, which highlights the latest features and enhancements of the Release Navigator. This focused tour is designed to keep you up-to-date with the newest tools and functionalities available.

If you're visiting the Release Navigator for the first time, I highly recommend starting with the guided tour, "Using the Release Navigator for SAP Cloud ERP." The guided tour offers step-by-step instructions, useful tips, and insightful explanations to help you understand how to maximize the benefits of the Release Navigator. To start the guided tour, simply click on the green banner at the top of the page. Discover the full potential of the Release Navigator—it’s an excellent introduction to your exploration journey!

Integrated View

Jump straight to the topic that interests you most.

LOB's	Industries	Cross topics
Asset management	Education & Research	Extensibility & APIs
Finance	Media	SAP Activate
Human Resources	Mill Products	SAP Ariba Buying, base edition
Manufacturing	Mining	SAP Ariba Central Invoice Management
R&D/ Engineering	Oil & Gas	SAP Central Business Configuration
Sales	Professional Services	SAP Cloud ALM
Service	Public Sector	SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises
Sourcing & Procurement	Retail	SAP Cloud Identity Services
Supply Chain		SAP for Me
		SAP Joule
		SAP Master Data Governance
		SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit
		SAP User Experience
		Test Automation tool

2026 Update Plan

Just a reminder, no tasks are required for the updates to the release navigator, as everything is automated. For more detailed information on product release dates, please refer to the Release Schedule overview. Here you can find the UX innovation & content update plans for 2026.

Connect with Readiness@Scale

We value your input and encourage you to share any feedback or specific content requests for future updates to the release navigator. Please feel free contribute your suggestions in the Comments section below this post.

To explore more about how the Readiness@Scale team is dedicated to overseeing release readiness within the SAP Enterprise Support portfolio, visit our Release Ready page.

Make sure you're updated by subscribing to our 'EAS ES Readiness at Scale - Cloud ERP' distribution list to receive our newsletters.

Additionally, you can find all our team's blog posts by searching the tag Readiness@Scale. Thank you for your continued involvement and support.

Best Run,

Readiness@Scale
Aurea Balderas

Hotfix Collection Application Changes after the 2608 Upgrade of the SAP ERP Cloud Public Edition

2026-07-20T04:06:37.901000+02:00

Introduction

In my recent blog Getting Ready for the 2608 Upgrade of the SAP Cloud ERP Public Edition, I discussed the major changes in upgrade procedure, and the Hotfix Collection (HFC) application pattern change. However, when I discussed the topic with my colleagues, I noticed it is still confusing to understand how the HFC application is done. Therefore, I am going to explain the topic further in this short blog.

Background and Motivation

One loud feedback we heard from our customers is that too many weekend maintenance work in the SAP ERP Cloud Public Edition. We aim to reduce this disruption to customer’s weekend work and harmonize the cloud maintenance operations at the same weekend for multiple SAP cloud products. This becomes the motivation of introducing the new HFC application process.

New HFC Application Process from September 2026

In the SAP Document SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, 3-System Landscape Upgrade & Maintenance Schedule, it has one slide titled “Maintenance Calendar”. I screenshot a portion of that busy table for our discussion as seen below.

HFC Application Schedule after 2608 Upgrade

Let me focus on the Column October in this blog, but you can apply our discussion to other months. We assume four weekends per month. Every weekend, we have four hours Contractual Maintenance Periods (CMP). This is still in place as part of our contract. Until now, we used most of it. However, from now on, we will try to use as less as possible to reduce the disruption.

Standard Contractual Maintenance Periods (CMP)

First, we pretty much moved the old infrastructure related maintenance to be online. Therefore, there is no more dark-blue weekend. Then, we combined all the work needs downtime into one called the Standard Maintenance Weekend, shown as dark-green like October 10-11. Subsequently, we have one more row of light-green on Oct. 17-18, called the Online Software Change Weekend. Of course, we still have the Optional Maintenance Weekend (not shown) on a needed basis, as part of the Contractual Maintenance Periods. All of these weekend work are system maintenance related.

Next comes the HFC itself. Before moving on, I talk about a new technique we use to apply HFC: When applying HFC to the P tenant, the Blue Green Deployment Method (see my blog) is used. This creates a “near zero downtime maintenance” (nZDM). The downtime is less than 1 min on average to switch the database schema from the old content version to the new content version. To users, this is a no downtime applying a HFC. In contrast, for non-P tenants, we still use the conventional method and it takes 30 to 60 min downtime to apply a HFC.

In addition, we changed the biweekly HFC release schedule to once a month, such as HFC05 for October, HFC06 for November, etc. One week later, we release a critical bug fix HFCxx+, no new features are added. By looking at the October column closely, we can observe:

The HFC05 is only applied to the T and other tenants. This creates a one-week Preview window to check out the new features in the T tenant.
For the P and D tenants, we only apply HFC05+, aka the bug free version of HFC05 to it. This makes P and D tenants more stable.
For the P tenant, it gets HFC05+ without a downtime.
Only two weekends are impacted by HFC application. Another two weekends are free of maintenance, unless there is an urgent repair needs to be carried out.

When we focus on the entire month of P tenant, we notice that it only receives one downtime (dark-green) weekend out of four!

In summary, we can see the benefits of the new HFC application process as following:

The HFC is released monthly, and the D/P Tenants receive a bug free HFC
Creating a one-week preview window on T tenant for each HFC content, before the D/P Tenants receive the same. This is consistent with the major upgrade (two-week preview window).
The downtime disruption to customer’s P tenant is drastically reduced (4 vs. 1 in a month):
- Only one downtime weekend each month for Standard Maintenance.
- The HFCxx+ is applied without a downtime.
- Two weekends are free of any maintenance activities.
The downtime Standard Maintenance Window is harmonized with other SAP Cloud Products to synchronize the maintenance schedule.

Summary

By listening to our customers, we took the advantage of new maintenance techniques and regrouped maintenance activities, the impact of applying HFC to customers are drastically reduced after the 2608 Upgrade.

References

One Controlling Area by Design: Why SAP Made This Choice for the Public Cloud

2026-07-20T16:53:22.545000+02:00

Introduction

If you have been part of an SAP implementation, working as a CO consultant, you have almost certainly sat in a workshop where someone asked: "How many controlling areas should we use?" . What followed was rarely a short conversation. Teams debated regional autonomy, currency configurations, chart of accounts alignment, fiscal calendars, and organisational boundaries; often for hours, sometimes for days. The difficulty? The controlling area has no equivalent in the real business world. It is a SAP system construct, not an organisational entity. Yet it consumed disproportionate design energy in project after project.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition resolves this by design: exactly one controlling area. This is not a limitation, it is a deliberate architectural choice that simplifies implementation, enables consistent analytics, and reduces total cost of ownership. Critically, it does not prevent you from meeting regional requirements for currencies or deviating fiscal calendars. It just changes how you meet them, in a cleaner, more maintainable way.

The Controlling Area Debate - An Artificial Problem

In SAP on-premise or private cloud, the controlling area is the second highest-level organisational unit in Controlling. It determines the fiscal year variant, chart of accounts, and CO currency settings (group currency). Company codes are assigned to a controlling area, and all assigned entities must share the same settings.

This setup leads to a recurring design question in implementations: should you create one controlling area for the whole enterprise, or separate ones per region, country group, or business unit? Arguments on both sides have been made countless times:

The fundamental issue is that the controlling area was designed many years back, for SAP products with less functionality. In a unified, cloud-delivered system with embedded analytics and continuous innovation delivery, its structural purpose largely disappears. The debate around it is a symptom of mapping an on-premise design pattern to a cloud reality where it no longer fits.

Why SAP Chose One Controlling Area for the Public Cloud

1. Fit-to-Standard and Lifecycle Stability

S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition is a fit-to-standard solution. SAP pushes new innovations on a regular basis to all tenants simultaneously. Every additional degree of structural variance, such as multiple controlling areas, increases the surface area for regression, conflict, and manual remediation during upgrades. One controlling area directly reduces this risk and keeps the solution upgrade-safe across its entire lifecycle.

2. Consistent Embedded Analytics and the Universal Journal

The Universal Journal (table ACDOCA) is the single source of truth for all financial and controlling postings. Embedded analytics, Margin Analysis, and group-wide reports rely on harmonised organisational and currency settings to deliver consistent results without additional transformation layers. A single controlling area guarantees that fiscal periods, currency types, and organisational hierarchies are aligned across all entities from the moment of go-live.

3. End-to-End CO Integrity Supports Intercompany Processes

Cost allocation methods like for example universal allocations, direct activity allocations, and settlements all operate within the boundaries of a controlling area. With one controlling area, these processes run seamlessly across all company codes. There are no cross-area gaps, no reconciliation interfaces, and no manual period-alignment steps.

Intercompany cost flows work uniformly when all entities share one controlling area. The alternative, routing costs across controlling area boundaries, requires workarounds that increase data complexity and audit risk.

Benefits of One Controlling Area

Faster time to value: Fewer structural decisions in the design phase means quicker, cleaner implementations.
Unified CO processes: Universal allocations, activity allocation, and settlement work across all entities without gaps or workarounds.
Consistent analytics out of the box: All embedded reports and Margin Analysis work consistently across all company codes from day one.
Lower TCO: Reduced configuration variance, less testing effort, and lower risk during upgrades.
Future-ready with UPA: Universal Parallel Accounting enables full regional requirements (currencies, fiscal calendars) without structural duplication.
No unproductive design debates: Teams focus on business process design rather than system architecture choices that do not reflect real organisational boundaries.

Requirement 1 — Regional Currency Reporting

A common concern is: "We need management reporting in USD for our US entities and EUR for our European entities. Doesn't that require separate controlling areas?"

It does not. Within one controlling area, the enhanced currency concept addresses both local and managerial reporting needs simultaneously.

Practical Recommendation

The company code currency is already predefined in the system and is the national currency of the company code (e.g. USD for US entities and EUR for many European entities). You can use the additional freely defined currency to setup a second currency that plays the role of the group currency. One setup option could be to use group currency (USD) for enterprise-level views. European managers could then get EUR from the freely defined currency; US managers get USD from the group currency. Group and freely defined currency can of course also be defined vice versa (group = EUR and freely defined = USD).
No separate controlling area is required.

Requirement 2 - Deviating Fiscal Year Variants with Universal Parallel Accounting

Another common requirement: "Our Asia Pacific entities operate on an Apr–Mar fiscal year. Surely that requires its own controlling area?"
Not in S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition - and the reason is Universal Parallel Accounting (UPA).

Universal Parallel Accounting - Always Active

UPA is not an optional add-on in the public cloud. It is always on. Its core principle is that every Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO) posting is written simultaneously and completely to all configured ledgers. Period-end processes, including for example allocations, settlements, WIP calculations, FX valuations, and balance carryforward, execute per ledger and respect each ledger's own fiscal calendar. This is the fundamental architectural enabler that makes deviating fiscal years possible within a single controlling area.

How the Setup Works

What "Fully Parallel" Means in Practice

Because UPA writes every posting to all ledgers simultaneously, APAC entities have complete, real-time data in both 0L and L1 at all times. There is no batch replication, no reconciliation between ledgers, and no separate posting step. CO allocations, overhead settlements, WIP/variance calculations, and so on can be executed per ledger, using the correct fiscal periods for each calendar. This is not a workaround: it is the intended operating model.

Putting It All Together — A Design Blueprint

The following configuration pattern addresses both the currency and fiscal year requirements described in this post within a single controlling area in S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition. Currencies and fiscal year variants are just examples, the configuration can look different for different companies:

Conclusion

The controlling area is one of those SAP concepts that accumulated enormous design weight over decades of on-premise implementations. It is a system organising principle that has no direct equivalent in the real business world. The debates it generated in projects were often expensive, contentious, and ultimately inconclusive.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition makes a clear architectural statement: one controlling area, always. This is not a restriction on business capability, it is a simplification of implementation complexity. Requirements that justified multiple controlling areas (regional currencies, deviating fiscal calendars, managerial reporting boundaries) can be addressed within this single controlling area design using the tools that are provided with Universal Parallel Accounting: parallel ledgers and additional currency types.

The result is a system that is easier to implement, easier to operate, easier to upgrade, and more analytically consistent - without sacrificing any of the regional and statutory requirements that real businesses need to meet.

August 2026 – Cloud ERP Expert-Guided Implementation (EGI) Schedule

2026-07-23T21:07:07.565000+02:00

Join us for our upcoming live sessions this August! Explore the Expert-guided Implementation (EGI) schedule below and register today to secure your spot.

Expert-guided Implementations (EGIs) are multi-day, remote, workshop-style sessions where participants work directly in their own system landscapes to learn how to customize and execute complex activities. Join experienced SAP service engineers for hands-on workshops focused on Cloud ERP. It's a great opportunity to learn from experts, ask questions, and gain practical skills that can help keep your implementation on track.

Activating Joule: The Pre-Requisites

Description: In this EGI session, we'll walk you through the key prerequisites and technical setup needed to activate Joule, while helping you understand its capabilities, architecture, and deployment.

For details, please read the abstract here

NA Region: August 3-4, 2026 | Register
EMEA Region: August 10-11, 2026 | Register

Unlocking AI: Joule and SAP Business AI from Strategy to Activation

Description: In this session, you'll work alongside SAP experts in a hands-on workshop to explore Joule and discover how Business AI can enhance processes and improve productivity across your SAP landscape.

For details, please read the abstract here

EMEA Region: August 10-12, 2026 | Register
APJ Region: August 17-19, 2026 | Register
NA Region: August 24-26, 2026 | Register
LA Region (Spanish): August 31 – September 2, 2026 | Register

📆 Visit the Cloud ERP (Public) value map events calendar entry linked above to register. To access the Value Map Groups, login to the SAP Community using an S-user ID or a Universal ID.

📝 Note: Access to EGI sessions require a one-time registration to SAP Learning.

Enhance Your SAP Experience with Value Maps
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👉 Watch our short demo video, then head over to our page to explore our range of topics and request a call with a topic expert for guidance tailored to your goals.

About the author:
Kristen Reddington is a Topic Expert for SAP Enterprise Support value maps, specializing in SAP Cloud ERP solutions. Kristen brings a diverse background centered on customer engagement and success. In her current role, she focuses on guiding organizations through their Cloud ERP transformation journeys, enabling them to accelerate the adoption of SAP Cloud ERP solutions through tailored value map content and SAP Enterprise Support offerings.

💡Have questions or feedback around this content?  Don’t hesitate to comment down below or contact @Kristen_Reddington