Within just few months after the release of SAP S/4 HANA, SAP’s next generation business suite with Logistics solution lined up for  release to the customer this month. A quick analysis of the features in the planning component has been analyzed and some of my observations are shared here. Although my initial guess was that the primary focus of SAP was on the simplification of tables. Code optimization and release of Fiori apps, but there are quite a good number of changes in transactional part side in planning area.

Sales and Operations Planning:  The current ECC functionality of SOP is going to be replaced with integrated business planning (IBP) in a long run. Since IBP (S&OP on HANA)  supports all SOP features along with advanced statistical forecasting techniques, multi-level demand and supply planning, collaboration tools and the most user-friendly excel based UI and web-based UI, what-if scenarios which will definitely going to bring much value than ECC-SOP for new customers and for the existing customer who are planning to implement IBP-SOP. Also since SAP has been investing more effort in enhancing IBP functionality than APO, it is a right thing to invest in IBP rather than go with conventional SOP approach. Of course, there is an additional cost associated to install and implement IBP functionality but it is worth enough to invest.

Storage location based MRP run is no longer supported - With S/4 HANA Logistics, there is no provision to exclude MRP run for a single storage location from the pre-defined MRP parameter set for plant-material combination. In ECC 6.0, the MRP run of the excluded storage location can be handled using reorder point planning with a maximum lot sizing procedure. Since storage location MRP area concept will be used to take care of the planning of each storage location, it reduces number of fields from material master related to storage location MRP planning. It also helps to plan storage location MRP with any planning type such as PD, P1 etc…

MRP run on HANA: MRP run has been optimized to the maximum extent using MRP live (MD01N transaction) functionality and Customers are having an option to go in the path of either classical MRP on HANA platform   or to go with MRP live. Since MRP Live reads the data, calculates shortage and writes planned orders at database level instead of performing at Application server level, there will be a considerable improvement in performance.

MRP live differs from classic MRP in the following ways.

1. 1. MRP live does not generate MRP list: By using S/4 HANA, there is much improvement in the performance of the system, hence MD04 ( stock requirement list ) output will be much faster which eliminated the need to view the old results i.e  MRP list.
2. 2. Multi-level, make to order planning ( MD50) is not optimized for HANA: Since this transaction is to take care of performance issue, there is no further refinement required. With HANA platform, it will be optimized further.
3. 3. Individual project planning (MD50) not optimized for HANA.
4. 4. MRP live always creates purchases requisitions: It is an unnecessary process step of converting planned order to purchase requisition that has been eliminated by SAP. This help the amount of work to be performed by purchaser ( in some cases MRP controller  used to handle)  who used to take care of converting planned orders to purchase requisition.

1. S/4 HANA no more support net change plan in the planning horizon (NETPL).  With the improvement in MRP run with HANA (both classic and MRP live), NETPL is a redundant one and the system can generate planned orders outside planning horizon. Thanks to HANA platformJ.   A new planning file (PPH_DBMV) replaced the old planning file entry tables MDVM/MDVL and DBVM/DBVL to improve the performance in reading planning file entries.

Forecast based planning:  Going forward with S/4 HANA Logistics, Forecast based planning will be moved out and the suggested approach is to go with a normal MRP type PD, P1,P2,P3 or P4.  As per SAP team thought process, Forecast based planning approach is symmetrical to planned independent requirement maintenance table derived from statistical forecasting. This may be true for finished product where PIR functionality used. But in some scenarios where PIR maintenance functionality not used, Forecast based planning is a required functionality.

Graphical planning table for capacity evaluation: The classical graphical planning table has lot of disadvantages such as complicated customizing, non-user friendly, not suitable for web-based environment, Capacity locking issues etc.  With the revised approach,  a drag and drop approach has been used to change the start dates of the operations and resources. But there is no major investment made to make it user friendly and also to make it a web based tool.

LIS replacement with a powerful HANA based platform: with a powerful UI s which will provide reports dynamically with a multi-dimensional reporting. Once the production planning analytics reports are available, the LIS can be switched off which will take out lot of redundant data, pre-aggregated data, locking conflict which in turn will improve the performance. Also LIS supports with material number of 30 characters and SAP is not going to invest time in LIS anymore.

Heard in the beginning that APO component - PPDS (Production Planning and detailed scheduling) will be a part of S/4 HANA logistics first version, but it looks like that SAP has postposed this task to the next release.  With a major shift in SAP strategy to match with digital transformation, there is a lot of learning required for the SAP professionals to enable the technology changes to fit into the business needs. Please share your thoughts…

S/4 HANA was launched in February’2015 with its initial business innovation as ‘Simple Finance’ with expectation of next innovation for ‘ Simple logistics’ in Q4’2015.  SAP released S/4 HANA on-premise edition for 1511 in Nov’15 and it appears that SAP is re-designing the most of its applications and business functions on the following

Principles

• HANA capability (In memory database with ‘On the fly’ calculation, Combination of Row and column based data structure , simplified data model with no aggregates & indexes, real time & high volume processing , Elimination of locking , increased throughput) in
  • Finance (No need for reconciliation of FI & CO with One line item table as single source of data)
  • Production planning (Reduced cycle time for MRP with no need for long running batch jobs )
  • Inventory management (Real time alerts , reduced safety stock)
  • Procurement (Real time calculation of procurement KPI)
  • Material valuation (Multi currency usage , multiple valuation methods)
  • Period end financial closure (Much faster declaration of financial results for interim analysis and to stock exchange & share holders)
  • Reporting  in all business functions (Real time with simulation & predictive analysis  due to OLTP & OLAP capability in same system)
• Fiori (Intuitive user experience) in
  • Order management for Sales representative (Sales order fulfillment cockpit for identification of issues and its resolution)
  • Procurement for Procurement clerk (Single cockpit for purchasing approvals with all information)
  • Planning for Material planner (Simulate supply alternatives)
• Unifying other applications to core ECC
  • Features of existing applications (like SCM, CRM, PLM, GTS etc) and newly acquired cloud solutions (like Ariba, Success factor etc) are being made available in ECC (being terms as ‘Digital core’).

Features

Below slide is presented in session with partners on 13^th Nov.

Following links & notes may be accessed for further details on released features.

http://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511

2189824 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Release Information Note

2214213 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Restriction Note

2214409 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Compatible Add-ons

PDF attached to note 2214409 states that the applications (GTS11.0 , MDG 8.0 etc) have been added on to digital core , it also says that certain products (like EWM9.3 , Rail car mgmt 6.17) ‘will not be released’ as Add ons , we need to see what it means actually or SAP’s plan on these products with S/4 HANA. However, it is quite clear that SAP will release many ‘Add on’ in future releases for native integration with ECC on S/4 HANA .

Directions

ECC Core is now being named as ‘Digital core’ and most of the ECC modules (FI , CO , SD , PP , MM , LE , QM , PS , PM) are being adapted to cloud . As it appears CRM , SRM , SCM applications have been moved to Core for ‘On premise’ and C4C , Ariba and IBP have also been added as cloud solutions as extensions to core. List of functionalities for these extensions are not yet clear.  However, it is quite clear that SAP is working towards

• Strengthening core ECC (now digital core) with simplified data model and Fiori
• merging features of different other applications in core ECC (Digital core) as expected in blog in URL SAP S/4 HANA Simple logistics expected to combine features of multiple SCM applications

Also find that ECC WM has not been adapted to cloud, does it mean SAP will not do any further development in ECC WM (as declared earlier) and EWM (also available in cloud) will be natively integrated with digital core ?

Change of name of product

SAP changes the name of the product as the product evolves and the same has happened with Simple Logistics too. SAP has now renamed Simple logistics as S/4 HANA Logistics which will comprise

• S/4 HANA Sales
• S/4 HANA Manufacturing
• S/4 HANA Supply chain
• S/4 HANA Sourcing and procurement

New methodology

SAP also launched new methodology ‘SAP Activate’ for new implementations, system conversions, landscape transformations for best practices & guided configurations with agile project delivery. It is the successor of the ASAP 8 methodology for on-premise and SAP Launch methodologies for cloud solutions.

Market  trend

S/4 HANA can only be deployed in HANA database and that is a real threat to other database manufacturer’s. Refer URL http://news.sap.com/sap-hana-must-be-hurting-oracle. There are 22000 customers using SAP. There are active discussions in Pre-sales / project discussions on migration to HANA database at least a first step. SAP says that 80% migrations are being done by SI (System integrator) and hence that is a huge opportunity for SI in next few years.

SAP has retrofitted only a part of whole functionalities to S/4 HANA and it will take some time in years to complete it. But it is quite apparent that implementation of S/4 HANA will take much less time (through guided configurations , less interfaces etc) for a SI and the role of SI in supporting S/4 HANA applications also will get reduced. Same logic goes for Functional consultants also as there will be less scope for configurations and support. But it will take at least 10 years (my guess) from now to reach that stage and it also depends on many other market factors. Journey with S/4 HANA has just started and we need to see how market catches up or reacts to these innovations with HANA’s USP in near / mid and long term!!

Time for another quick update on our FAQ series, in time for our 1511 release update for SAP S/4HANA.

What is SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management?

At the center of SAP S/4HANA Suite we have a SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, which has been built by simplifying the SAP ERP solution and starting to re-integrate and simplifying portions of the SAP Business Suite products like SAP SRM, CRM and SCM into this core. The SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management is available on-premise and in the cloud, with different licensing / subscription models.

The S/4HANA Digital Core is the description for the „ECC component“ we deliver as part of SAP S/4HANA. This can be more than the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, as some elements that are technically delivered as part of the core will be positioned and licensed separately.

What is the content of SAP S/4HANA on-premise 1511 delivery?

As of Q4/2015 we are introducing SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution. This will be updated with a full ERP scope and subsequently following an industry enablement roadmap.

The solutions, Streamlines Procure to Pay, Accelerated Plan to Product, Optimized Order to Cash, Enhanced Request to Service, Core Human Resources and Core Finance within the blue box represents the business priorities. The white boxes represents the End to end Solutions.

What is the content of SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1511 delivery?

The scope of SAP S/4HANA Cloud enterprise edition solution is close to a full ERP scope (Business All in One scope) however focusing on supporting standard scenarios. SAP S/4HANA Cloud marketing edition Cloud project services edition providing simplified key scenarios with a clear focus and priority on the cloud qualities, which are guaranteed across all UIs and all processes to ensure that a true SaaS solution is offered.

Where did the term Simple Logistics aka sLOG go?

Simple Logistics or sLOG was an internal working name for the S/4HANA simplifications in that specific area. For the official launch and going forward, we will use the umbrella term ‘Materials Management & Operations’ instead of ‘sLogistics’ or ‘sLOG’. The scope of Materials Management & Operations includes all modules except Finance and HR. You will find the information in the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management roadmap under the respective end-to-end processes.

What means the new term “Materials Management & Operations?

SAP Simple Logistics was an internal Project Name and now we rename this term to “Material Management & Operations”. This term is an Umbrella term, as we combine multiple LOB:

• Manufacturing
• Supply Chain
• Sourcing & Procurement
• Sales

What is the scope of Materials Management & Operations in S/4HANA (Enterprise Management)?

Innovations in Materials Management & Operations fall into 3 different categories.

The one is role-based user experience, with a new Responsive design. The UIs run on any devices, desktops, tablets, smart phones, and even smart watches and have been redesigned for exception-bases issue handling.

Second set of innovations are in the S/4HANA Core, which has been modernized by simplifying & optimizing the technology footprint, and by collapsing Online Transaction Processing & Online Analytical Processing to make the functionality more relevant and designed for data-driven businesses.

Thirdly, by eliminating functional redundancieswhich have been built into the Business Suite over the years.  The user benefits from a superior solution.

Innovation Highlights achieved in SAP S/4HANA for this area

• Reduce cycle time by optimizing material flow for Internal requirements (MRP)
• Gather Real-time stock & material flow insight with pre-built analytical views
• Material Planner can easily simulate supply alternatives
• Available to promise: New ATP algorithm based on HANA embedded in mass component check in production
• Leverage simplified data model of inventory management for real-time, high-volume processing
• Easy to consume data model supporting flexible analytics
• Real-time alerts based on current stock requirements situation
• Decrease stock buffers due to better transparency & insights
• Improve percentage on-time delivery
• Elimination of locking, increased throughput for standard price utilizing material ledger valuation, streamlining multi currency usage, and multiple valuation methods

What is the “Simplification Item Database” which is called in connection with SAP S/4HANA?

To support the customer to detect custom code which need to be adapted moving to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition a customer can verify his current custom code based on the offered custom code analysis tools (as part of the NW 7.50). The customer can verify if his current custom code complies with the SAP S/4HANA data structures and scope.

In the context of custom code management a central component is a data store called "Simplification Item Database" that will contain all information about the changes that have taken place between the classical Business Suite and SAP S/4HANA. The following figure describes basically the supporting custom code management approach related to SAP S/4HANA.

The Custom Code Management Tools offer the opportunity to analyses the impact on custom code of a future move to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition in current customers SAP Business Suite.

Do you have SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Simplification examples?

Simplification example 1 (Procurement): Operational Procurement – Self Service Requisitioning

Business Context:

• Give employees self-service requisition capabilities to create, manage, and track their own orders efficiently 
• Simplify the purchasing process for casual users and employees and enable employees to purchase goods and services directly, while ensuring they are following purchasing policies and pricing agreements and using preferred suppliers. Automate, tightly control, and streamline the purchasing process using cross-catalog search, catalog-driven pricing, contract logic, and an approval workflow.
• Use Ariba Procurement Content for catalog buying and efficient catalog content management

Simplification:

• The ERP Shopping Cart functionality is no longer necessary within SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition 1511 thanks to the new SAP S/4HANA Self Service Requisitioning functionality.
• Impact: the SRM-MDM Catalog is not part of SAP S/4HANA delivery. However, SRM-MDM catalogs can be connected like all other OCI capable third party catalogs.

Simplification example 2 (Finance): Accounting and Financial Close - Financial Reporting

Business Context:

• Streamline financial reporting and multidimensional analysis 
• Reduce risk and cost of real-time financial reporting and multidimensional data analysis for accounting standards with SAP solutions. Use predefined reports and configurable reporting tools to leverage general ledgers, sub-ledgers, and consolidation applications. Drill down into financial statements and source applications such as materials management or sales and distribution. Support all auditors in regulatory or tax audits with audit information and tax retention functionality.

Simplification:

• Provide better and more actionable business insights by utilizing the comprehensive portfolio of business intelligence solutions
• Improve compliance and auditability by enabling the production and publication of reliable, complete, and auditable financial and regulatory statements
• Reduce audit cost by leveraging comprehensive audit trails, audit information system, and tax data retention and reporting

Simplification example 3 (Logistic): Manufacturing Execution – Basic Subcontracting

Business Context:

• Manage the subcontracting process from planning to execution and monitoring
• Overcome capacity bottlenecks and reduce inventory with proactive, sound decision making throughout the subcontracting process. Meanwhile, you can integrate financials and other business areas to gain the visibility needed to detect and resolve potential problem areas. The result? Perfect planning, execution, and monitoring of the entire subcontracting process.

Simplification:

• Separate planning of every subcontractor is possible without having to create an MRP-area-specific material master record.
• The planning logic is simplified. There are two rather than three different ways to plan parts to be provided to a subcontractor

Are there examples of best practicesin SAP S/4HANA ?

The processes delivered with SAP Best Practices core support main industry requirements and cross enterprise priorities and are optimized for SAP S/4HANA. SAP Best Practices support requirements of 11 core industries, not including industry extensions.

Following tree examples of best practices:

Order and Contract Management – Sales Order Processing with Collective Billing

This SAP Best Practices describes how to use the standard sales processing (sell-from-stock) for mass processing. The process starts with the creation of several standard sales orders. In periodical intervals, all sales orders due to deliver and with availability of the material are selected and deliveries are created.

For optimization of shipping costs, all sales orders which are delivered to the same customer are packed into one delivery document.

For Lean Warehouse Management storage locations, Warehouse Management transport orders and picking documents for picking are automatically created. The materials are picked and the actual amount of picking is noticed in the delivery.

In the next step, goods issues are posted and the materials can leave the warehouse. In periodical intervals, all deliveries are selected for billing. For cost optimization, all deliveries due to invoice to the same customer are packed into one invoice document. The revenue is posted to accounting.     

Key Process Steps Covered

• Create sales orders
• Create deliveries via collective run
• Execute picking
• Post goods issue
• Create billing documents via collective run

Benefits

• Cost optimization in collecting customer orders due to deliver to the same customer in one delivery via a collective run
• Cost optimization in collecting deliveries to the same customer for one invoice via a collective run

More to come, lets stay connected via @SDenecken

SAP S/4HANA 1511, on-premise edition 1511 is out now (see the announcement http://news.sap.com/sap-delivers-massive-wave-of-innovation-for-sap-s4hana/). It contains a first set of extensibility features for key users. In other words, key users can extend existing SAP Fiori apps within the SAP Fiori UI itself.

You can find a general overview on the extensibility features for key users in the following document The Key User Extensibility Tools of S/4 HANA, and a general introduction to S/4HANA extensibility in S/4HANA Extensibility – The new White Paper.

The first key user extensibility features that are available with SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 are UI flexibility, custom fields and custom logic.In the following user assistance document you can find the feature description of the SAP Fiori application Custom Fields and Logic:

http://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511 -> section: SAP NetWeaver for SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition -> General Functions for Key Users.

or follow this link.

As a first starting point, you might want to check out the short video that you can find in section Extensibility ( link ).

For SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511, the extensibility tools for key users have to be set up and connected to the adaptation transport organizer (ATO). The necessary steps are described in section Setting Up Adaptation Transport Organizer in chapter App-Specific Implementation Information under the heading Implementation Information ( link ).

Note: Please see also the following SAP Note that contains the corrected list of components that are required for using the key user apps, and a corrected list of ABAP statements that are available with ABAP for key users in SAP Note 2212658.

Today we thought it is good timing to talk about the S/4HANA product scope guide we have developed in light of the latest release of SAP S/4HANA, the 1511 update. Our target is to demystify and shed some light on key innovations of S/4, to make this transparent to our customers and partners.

This is a major milestone as part of our roadmap to help customers across industries and regions drive their digital transformation with the next generation business suite, SAP S/4HANA delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation in the core, covering the mission-critical business processes across lines of business: such as in finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research&development, and human resources.

See our recent video with the details:

S/4 on Air

Enterprises can now drive end-to-end digitized operations across their key business functions via a fully digitized enterprise management solution - named SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management.  And we just updated the roadmap, check out the official road map content  available on the SAP Service Marketplace (Product Road Maps > Cross Product > S4HANA)

With this blog let us dive a little bit deeper.

So first - if you compare, what is S/4 Enterprise Management about - scope wise?

It is simple: The feature and function parity is similar to SAP ECC 6.0x

PLUS

• major innovations in core modules like Finance and Logistics areas -> let us call them Materials Management and Operations (replaces the name of the afka sLOG, was an internal project name anyhow)

PLUS

• Inclusion of additional industries in the Core

PLUS

• Full leverage of the in-memory technology of SAP HANA, including the HANA Cloud Platform and the unique UX capabilities of SAP Fiori of course

Here is the SAP S/4 Enterprise Management Product Map from the 1511 release. The known standard structure to explain our solution.

With the Business Priorities: the blue boxes…  Procure to pay, or order to cash, etc… and End to end Solutions: the white boxes here, like, Production planning, Accounting and Financial close, just to mention a few.

And cross topics that enrich S/4HANA - like Integration and Analytics for example. But now let us map some of the key innovations to this map.

Via extensive co-innovation and strategic customer and partner feedback we have come up with key innovations across the Suite to enable the digital transformation for our clients. You will find all details in the S/4 community and on sap.com/s4hana, in the video above I just selfishly picked my 3 favorites from the areas listed.

Now the clear question is: Where can I get the roadmap or like some say: Give me the roadmap! We have updated as announced in the planned quarterly cycle, you find more on the SAP Service Marketplace – but let me explain some details. Randomly picking one area – ah, inventory management.

You see it has impact in several end2end processes, actually 3 in this case.

• Via the roadmaps you can see what is available today – on the left side

• What we are working on as we speak, for the next 3 quarters – in the middle

• And what you can expect in some further updates – most till 1611 release

We also highlight the integration into other products per LOB, here the example for Supply chain LOB – especially interesting if you consider APO, IBP or eWM scenarios. And we give details on cross topics like here for example for Analytics – where we are leveraging the in-memory engine and platform very nicely. And of course we demystify what industry functionality is available with S/4, a key information for most if the client discovery workshops SAP is offering and providing to clients as we speak.

Let me summarize

S/4HANA delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation with its digital core, covering the mission-critical business processes across all lines of business. Key highlights see video from Teched live here:

Check out the details of the S/4HANA 1511 update, contact SAP for your individual discovery workshop and create your own roadmap.

You want more Information?

First check out our S/4HANA community on SCN, leverage the SAP Training hub for dedicated S/4HANA education, join the open.sap.com courses for S/4HANA …and also check out discover.sap.com/s4hana for more

Follow me to stay connected @SDenecken

As stated in one of the previous blogs on ‘ SAP S/4 HANA simple logistics expected to combine features of multiple SCM applications’ in URL http://scn.sap.com/community/s4hana/blog/2015/11/05/hana-journey-and-features-of-scm-products-in-s4-hana-simple-logistics, it is now quite clear on SAP’s roadmap on Supply chain management (SCM) solutions from SAP’s video in URL https://vimeo.com/146090331 and below image

that SAP will unify the following SCM solutions as a part of S/4 HANA

• APO’s GATP and PPDS (was planned in 1511 release, but postponed till next release)
• APO’s DP and SNP as IBP (Integrated business planning)
• SNC (Supply network collaboration)
• SPP (Service parts planning)
• EWM (Extended warehouse management)

SAP has not adapted ECC LE WM to cloud. EWM will be the default warehouse solution in S/4 HANA.

• TM (Transportation management)

Expected benefits

Logically (To be verified later), we can expect the following benefits due to merger of features of different applications in a single system S/4 HANA

• Core Interface (CIF) & RFC communications are not needed  (and hence simplified landscape with less TCO)

• Data will be consistent  (There is no requirement to transfer master & transaction data between systems / applications)

• Advanced functionality (Presently APO GATP does not have direct integration with TM . Both APO GATP & TM offer the functionality of scheduling of sales order. If both APO GATP and TM are available side by side, then scheduling (and similar other functionalities) can be more advanced).

• Few issues with interfaced systems (As per present set up, SAP does not allow change in an object if the object is distributed to another system to keep the data consistent in that object. As for example, if a delivery (created in ECC) is distributed to EWM, then almost all fields of ECC delivery are greyed out (display mode only) so that the data in that delivery can be changed only by one system) . Rescheduling of delivery in ECC is sometimes needed (for several business reasons like payment through letter of credit, delay in customs document etc) after delivery is distributed from ECC to EWM, but that rescheduling is not possible. Probably, these problems will disappear if the object (delivery) stays in same system.

• Implementation is expected to be much simpler and faster

Unification of several applications is one of the design principles for S/4 HANA as stated in other blog in URLhttp://scn.sap.com/community/s4hana/blog/2015/11/16/principles-features-directions-methodology-and-market-trend-with-sap-s4-hana-1511-update . Note also that Simple logistics has now been renamed as S/4 HANA Logistics.

Road map of S/4 HANA looks very much promising. Journey with S/4 HANA has just started and there are ‘Many miles to go’ for fully unified and complete S/4 HANA solution. It will be very interesting (with good learning) to see how all these applications will be operating in a single system.

SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics together with SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA (SAP BW on HANA) provides the best-of-breed suite of analytical services and enables you to drive your business in real-time on the next generation of platform, SAP HANA.

Whether you need, consolidated, de-normalized reporting on data collected from several SAP / non-SAP applications and for data governance OR
real-time reporting on data from one single SAP S/4HANA component.
Whether you need, aggregated reporting or on historical data, that might not be online in the underlying SAP Business System OR
bringing reporting within SAP S/4HANA to the next level.

Analytics services provided on the SAP HANA platform will meet and exceed your requirements:

Now let us have a closer look at the data perspective!
When a BW system is running on an SAP HANA database, the BW data is stored in a special schema known as the BW-managed schema and is exposed via InfoProviders (e.g. DataStore Objects, InfoObjects, etc.).
In other (remote) SAP HANA schemas, data can be stored in SAP HANA tables and accessed via HANA views which are based e.g. on Core Data Services (CDS) technology.
You can make data available from any SAP HANA database schema of your choice in BW. You can also make BW data (data from the BW-managed schema in the SAP HANA database) available in a different SAP HANA schema. To do so you can use virtual access methods such as Open ODS Views (using HANA Smart Data Access for remote scenarios) and data replication methods like SAP LT Replication Server.

In this blog we focus on integrating data from the SAP S/4HANA Analytics schema with corresponding data in BW using the example of ERP – Sales & Distribution. And with that we will answer the following core questions:

• Will SAP S/4HANA Analytics support all my reporting requirements?
• How can I align this with my EDW strategy and (e.g. non-SAP) data?

Overview of Scenarios:

Scenario A (HANA Smart Data Access & Modeling via Open ODS):
Transactional and master data via S/4HANA Analytics consumed by BW
(Consumption of SAP S/4HANA Analytics transactional and master data views by Open ODS Views in BW)

Scenario B (Modeling-free only in embedded case):
Transactional data provisioning via S/4HANA Analytics Open CDS View in BEx Query
(Consumption of SAP S/4HANA Analytics Open CDS views in BW via ODP Transient Provider)

Other possible scenarios:

Loading of data into BW using Interface Layer of S/4HANA Analytics as data source (Extract data from S/4HANA Analytics interface views into BW)

The following guide gives an overview of different SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics & SAP BW Data Integration scenarios and shows how to implement them. The focus is on integrating data provided by SAP S/4HANA Analytics with corresponding data in SAP BW using the example of ERP – Sales & Distribution:

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-68337

The process of Custom code check requires Netweaver 7.5 ABAP system which customers may not have available and would require a new system to be installed that would need time and resources delaying decision. In most cases this system is only created for this purpose and needed only for few hours.

This can be done by copying CAL (Cloud Access Library) solution and has security advantage that the instance is created only for this purpose to run reports and can be terminated after report is completed. The solution can be periodically updated based on new Notes and Simplification Database so latest is available.

Once you have the zip file of the Migration Repository Information, it takes 30 mins to create the instance after few clicks and the you just need to run programs SYCM_UPLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO to upload repository info and SYCM_DISPLAY_SIMPLIFICATIONS which complete in less than an hour. The cost of the instance is USD0.87 per hour that the instance is "active", if it is suspended the cost is negligible.

Your comments are welcome.

If you are interested in your choices for HA/DR and S/4HANA, I encourage you to attend a free webinar Dec 8, presented with SUSE. We will look at the major choices you have, see how HANA runs on the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Enterprise Cluster, and discuss best practices.

This is a good use of time for those who are interested in S/4HANA (or any other HANA-based solution) but want to know a bit more about real-world deployment details.

The webinar will be run twice on Dec 8, for both Europe and NA time zones:

4pm CET: Event Registration

1pm EST: Event Registration

                                   With introduction of S/4HANA Enterprise Management, SAP brings in another robust solution to complement the digital economy needs of the customers. The user experience is going to be entirely different and no more traditional GUI and here comes Fiori apps and screen personas. Being an order to cash consultant I would like to share some simplifications and changes that Order to Cash Community would see with release 1511.

Here are few notable simplification items for Order to Cash functionality.

• Customer creation will be through Business Partner setup and XD transactions are no more available.

• SD Credit Management is no longer available and now replaced with FSCM Credit Management.

• SD Rebate functionality is taken away and replaced by SAP Settlement Management.

• Sales Order will have additionally document level and group level ATP check.

• New pricing tables and increase in pricing routine field length.

• SAP ECC Transpor​tation module is not part of future strategy of SAP anymore and SAP do not intend to bring any innovation in the module. Instead, suggested to use SAP TM module to support the growing demand of SAP Transportation requirements.

• A big change in billing output determination is introduced and extensive use of BRF+ functionality is suggested.

• Another major change is the introduction of SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting in place of ERP SD Revenue Recognition. Transaction VF42 to VF48   will no longer be in use.

• Advanced order processing introduced with use of Fiori apps where users can make use of order processing cockpit approach and define their own KPI`s.

          Order Entry Dashboard / Cockpit:

Keep reading for some more updates in coming weeks.

Let´s talk about the product scope guide we have developed in light of the latest release of SAP S/4HANA, the Cloud Edition 1511 update.

Our goal is to demystify and shed some light on key innovations of S/4 Cloud Edition, to make this transparent to our customers and partners. Let us take a look into the Scope of the #S4HANA 1511 Cloud Editions:

We currently offer 3 editions for the market to choose from: SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition the cloud project services edition and the cloud marketing edition

Why 3 editions?

Because we are enabling customers to consume in his desired fashion with his focus. SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition- and entire ERP to run your entire business in the cloud, the SAP S/4HANA, cloud project services edition – focusing on managing projects efficiently till the billing and the SAP S/4HANA, cloud marketing edition – focusing on improving your segment of 1 approach via fast innovation, closely to be seen in connection to our Cloud4Customer and hybris offering.

How about the roadmap?

We will have a quarterly innovation cycle for the public cloud. This is SAP-governed, meaning they will be automatically applied by SAP. And of course we are leveraging the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud infrastructure (IaaS), data centers, and security qualities for the SAP S/4HANA, public cloud edition where we do provide innovation updates every quarter to be consumed by the customer and managed by SAP.

Let us drill down into the S/4 cloud enterprise edition

Here is the SAP S/4 cloud Enterprise edition Product Map from the 1511 release.

The known Standard structure to explain our solution to the Market, with Business Priorities: the blue boxes like procure to pay, plan to product or order to cash, etc… and end to end Solutions: the yellow boxes, like, Production Engineering and planning, accounting and Financial close - just to mention a few.

We also have a focus on dedicated industries like Professional Services. And cross topics that enrich S/4 cloud edition -  like Integration and analytics for example. But now let us map some of the key innovations to this map

Via extensive co-innovation and strategic customer and partner feedback we have come up with key innovations across the offering to enable the digital transformation for our clients. You will find all details in the S/4 community and on sap.com/s4hana

Let me highlight one other edition - time permitting  - let us look at the S/4 cloud project service edition, and there are great demos out there.

If your Business Challenges is

• No integrated sales orders with project management allowing to create customer invoices for time and expenses - including external services - recorded against a customer project.
• No possibility to create Invoices on a time and materials basis, on a fixed-price basis, or on a combination of both
• Missing analysis of project profitability based on project costs and revenues

Than this is ideal for you to get some of the following business benefits

• Easy project definition, staffing  and management
• Project related expense recording
• Cross project and client reporting for fast decision making
• Manage billing request proposals
• Single customer invoice with all necessary details
• Simple procure and Invoice to pay

And again we tie this closely to other cloud assets like Succesfactors and Ariba.

Let me summarize:

S/4 Cloud Edition delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation with its digital core, covering the mission-critical business processes across all lines of business in on-premise AND in the cloud

Check out the details of the S/4 Cloud edition 1511 update, contact SAP for your individual discovery workshop and create your own roadmap.

You want more Information?

First check out our S/4HANA community on SCN, leverage the SAP Training hub for dedicated S/4HANA education, join the open.sap.com courses for S/4HANA …and also check out discover.sap.com/s4hana for more

Follow me to stay connected @SDenecken

Introduction

As a first step within the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise system conversion the customer will execute the Maintenance Planner. The Maintenance Planner checks the system with regards to business functions, industry solutions, and add-ons. If there is no valid path for the conversion (for example, the add-on is not released yet), the Maintenance Planner prevents the conversion.

• For more details see Conversion Guide (SAP Help) or the related SCN Blog (The System Conversion to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 - Technical procedure and semantic adaption tasks SCN Link).
• It is recommended to get familiar with the SAP S/4HANA system conversion basic information.
• The following SCN Blog provides specific information about the role of Business Functions within SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 and is based on the basic understanding of the system conversion process.

Business Functions

A business function is a building block of a business function set. From a business perspective, it represents a self-contained function that you can switch on. From a technical point of view, it is a set of switches that assign repository objects to the business function. Business functions are switched on at a system level. For more details regarding Business Functions see SAP Help: Link

Business Functions Sets

The business functions are grouped in business function sets in your ABAP-based ECC system. There are two types of business functions sets:

• For most Industry Business Solutions, there is one business function set for each industry. You use this to change your clients of an ECC system over to the applications and solutions tailored for an industry. This business function set covers all industry business functions that can be used for an industry solution to be used exclusively on one system/one instance.
• In addition to the industry-specific business function sets, there is a general business function set. This contains the Enterprise business functions and the Enterprise Extensions. These contain functions for the standard applications of Accounting, Logistics, Human Capital Management, and some additional industry-specific applications.

A business function set is activated when you have activated at least one of the related business functions. We therefore recommend that you activate the business function set when you start configuring your system, since the required industry-specific view of your Implementation Guide is only created once you have activated the related business function.

For more details regarding SAP ERP Business Functions and Industry Business Solutions see SAP Help: Link

Business Functions Status in SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511

Business Functions can have the following status:

• Always on,
• Customer switchable,
• Always off.

During the system conversion to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 the following figure gives an overview about the handling of different status of Business Functions.

ALWAYS OFF in SAP S/4HANA

If a business function was switched“ON” in the Business Suite start release system, but defined as “always_off” in the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition target release, then a system conversion is not possible with this release.
(for Business Functions where the status cannot be reverted on start release)

SAP Note 2240359 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Always-Off Business Functions. Find attached the list of Business Functions which are in state ALWAYS_OFF in SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 (as well included in SAP note as attachment):

Note 1: In this constellation it is not possible to convert this system and start a conversion program with the target of productive use. If the intention is a proof of concept to experience SAP S/4HANA it is possible to convert the system by applying a workaround in a non-productive testing environment.

Note 2: The status of following Business Functions which are currently (SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511) in state “always_off” are planned to be changed.
Find attached the list of Business Functions which are planned to be changed.

ALWAYS ON in SAP S/4HANA

If a business function was switched "OFF" in the start release system, but defined as "always_on" in the target release, then the business function will be activated during the conversion

SAP Note 2240360 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Always-On Business Functions. Find attached the list of Business Functions which are in state ALWAYS_ON in SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 (as well included in SAP note as attachment):

Note 1: See SAP Help Portal: http://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511 --> Conversion Guide

CUSTOMER SWITCHABLE in SAP S/4HANA

If a business function is defined as "customer_switchable" in the target release (SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511), then the business function status remains unchanged from the status on start release.

Future roadmap and related Business Functions

For the following applications and industries there is a future roadmap. See additionally the following SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Roadmap: Link

• Commodity Management
• Additional Industries:
  • Healthcare
  • Retail / Fashion
  • Oil & Gas
  • IS-U (WASTE) - (*Roadmap for still to be defined
  • IS Media (*Roadmap for still to be defined)

The Business Functions related to these applications and industries are accordingly as well on a roadmap to be adapted. Find attached the list of Business Functions which related to these applications and industries.

Related information sources

Guides/Documentation

Related SAP Notes

In one of my earlier blogs I had shared a document that stated "what is SAP S/4HANA 1511 & WHAT it is NOT !!!"

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-68846

Continuing with the study and analysis of innovations in SAP S/4HANA 1511 MMO - Materials Management & Operations ( Simple !??! Logistics) area, I share below my findings further :

The Key Principles :  SAP HANA based products

Followed by SAP for and in SAP HANA based products :

• Re-Architecture for HANA
• Consolidation of Existing Functionality
• New Innovation based on and utilizing the HANA-Capabilities
• Retiring of Obsolete Functionality

• (A) At “Solution Stack” level à The same is visible in  >> what SAP “DIGITAL CORE” and supported  by EXTENDED Line-of-Business(LOB) Solutions
  • The Digital CORE = SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Solution
  • Line-Of-Business Solutions
    • § LOB Sales like BRIM, Sales Planning & Performance
    • § LOB Sourcing & Procurement like Supplier Collaboration, Business network…. And so on
• (B) Within a particular solution, in our case – SAP S/4HANA 1511 Edition, this results into the Technical impact as  : Functionality Consolidation, Obsolete – Replaced by, Not-Supported, Available in 1511 but NOT in S/4 Architecture

Solution Landscape – with S/4HANA 1511

For customers who plan to migrate to SAP S/4HANA 1511 release the suggestive solution landscape would look like a “bundle” of applications & add-ons” natively integrated and orchestrated for an “end-to-End” process.  [ *Solution consolidation in SCM & Manufacturing, will be added to the diagram soon ]

SAP S/4HANA 1511 in a NUT-Shell....

Summarizing key changes within S/4HANA

Analysis of PP & QM areas will be added to findings.... however I am sure the similar principles have been followed in other modules too....

THE READING on the WALL !!

While SAP S/4HANA 1511 release do promise many simplifications and innovations, it would be worth a wait for the product to stabilize and incorporate full-listing of new innovations (as promised and mentioned in Road-MAP - especially in SAP High-end products like SCM, SRM, CRM and so on ).

While business and clients may want to adopt a more "cautious" approach, they cannot effort to "simply-sit-and-watch", and they sure need to start "planning" their journey and road-map if they wish to (in near future) adopt SAP HANA based products.... 

For New Clients too, adopting the technology while it's "still evolving" can give a good platform to start however one would definitely want to be in "study-mode" and watch and learn from the frequent updates and modifications that are currently being introduced in the product.

Many of large existing clients with complex landscape and heavily customized systems, a Landscape Consolidation roadmap and or a Green-field implementation approach might be more appealing rather than "Complex Conversion & migration projects"

Move towards adopting SAP S/4HANA should be looked as not just TECHNICAL but rather a "Business Transformation" Project.

Look forward to your comments and views...

With S4/Hana there is no need to argue about where data came from. It's real, not a copy, so you can confidentially use it in decision-making

Maybe you hope to get one of the many CSI box sets for Christmas, and are looking forward to snuggling down in your onesie to hear various suspiciously good-looking scientists intone "The Evidence never lies". One of the themes that also crops up is "preserving the chain of custody", from corpse to court. The key hear is that if a piece of evidence is going to be used in court, then there needs to be a full audit trail which documents all of its movements, processes and locations all the way back to the crime scene. There are plenty of high-powered defence lawyers on the show ready to cry "Challenge!", and making sure the "chain of custody" is rock solid is critical to winning the case.

In Business Analytics, often the Chain of Custody breaks down under a challenge.

Imagine one of your executives looking at a dashboard and seeing that on-time delivery or quality is way down at one of the plants. How does she evaluate the precision and reliability of that number. Who created it, and when: has it been aggregated or passed through some analysts spreadsheet on the way? Are we sure that the supplier is counting "days late" the same way that we do? Do we understand which Exchange Rate was applied?

The fundamental problem is that Analytics uses a different source of truth from the underlying transaction. For a generation we have been building data warehouses which duplicate data in lots of sophisticated ways. Data goes through a variety of schemas, filters, aggregations, mappings and summarisations before it arrives on that dashboard.

Drill-down breaks down at High Volumes

In most ERP systems, the auditability of numbers is pretty solid. The concept of "drill down" was introduced by SAP in the 1990s to exactly provide this level of control: so that when anyone saw any number, perhaps in a General Ledger, they could drill down to the associated transactions to bolster their confidence that the number was accurate. This was fine when data volumes were small, but as soon as data volumes became large the Thirty Years War started between the primacy of transactional data and analytic data. Companies like Hyperion or Cognos sprang up to build summarised data cubes so that data could be duplicated in more accessible forms.

Data Warehouses have a "Provenance" problem

In the art world, a painting is only valuable if it has "provenance", that is another form of Chain of Custody: an auditable, verifiable chain from the artist to the current owner. It lists who owned it, what they paid for it, if it has been touched-up or re-framed, all the way back to the original artist. Without this the picture's value may be sharply reduced. Just this week, in the New York Times a debate is raging about whether the drawing “La Bella Principessa” is by Leonardo da Vinci or not. It makes a 100 times difference to the value, so as a buyer, you'd like to be sure.With a capable forger, it always comes down to provenance.

In business we also need "provenance" for the data. Can it be trusted?

If we are going to take a business decision on a number, we need to be sure that the number is correct. And with the duplication of data we could never, truly be sure. There was always a nagging doubt. Until now.

S4Hana eliminates the need for a Chain of Custody

This is where S4/Hana come in: it eliminates the need for a chain of custody, as the analytics is driven from the transaction. No filters. No aggregates. So that the same level of confidence can be used for my analytical data as for my transactions. Need to run a profitability by customer heat map in the middle of the day? Rather than uploading a batch from a business process periodically, the analytics is wired directly into your sales orders, including that one entered just seconds ago.

Although this piece of evidence isn't being used to send a hoodlum to the slammer, it still might be used to consider switching suppliers, change plant production or put a manager on notice. You want to be able to go into the next quarterly meeting and be able to confidently say "We follow the evidence, wherever it leads" and not have anyone yelling "Challenge!" and questioning your Chain of Custody.

For more on what S/4HANA can do for your business take a look here.

This article was originally posted in SAP Business Trends

Let me recap some key highlights from the this year Teched sessions I was allowed to do: TEC116 - Key Use Cases for SAP S/4HANA and How to Enable Them Technically. Most of the content of course in light of the latest release of SAP S/4HANA, the 1511 update.

The focus was on how SAP S/4HANA enables the digital transformation of businesses. The session explains key use-case scenarios that are helpful in driving the transformation and a compelling case to start your own journey towards SAP S/4HANA. I did explain the business drivers and the technology concepts, both important to understanding and applying the right way in your landscape.

And we see in the hundreds of projects how S/4 delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation in the core, covering the mission-critical business processes across lines of business such as in finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research&development, and human resources.

And we just updated the roadmap, check out the official road map content  available on Service Marketplace (Product Road Maps > Cross Product > S4HANA).

Important question that keeps coming up: if you compare, what is S/4 Enterprise Management about - scope wise?

It is simple, the feature and function parity is similar to SAP ECC 6.0x

PLUS

• major innovations in core modules like Finance and Logistics areas -> let us call them Materials Management and Operations (replaces the name of the afka sLOG)

PLUS

• Inclusion of additional industries in the Core

PLUS

• Full leverage of the in-memory technology of SAP HANA, including the HANA Cloud Platform and the unique UX capabilities of SAP Fiori of course

We also completed a short demo on real-time Inventory management, for your viewing pleasure linked below:

Let me summarize. S/4HANA delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation with its digital core, covering the mission-critical business processes across all lines of business.

Check out the details of the S/4HANA 1511 update, contact SAP for your individual discovery workshop and create your own roadmap.

Follow me to stay connected @SDenecken

I have just come back from three full days in Walldorf taking a deep dive into the new SAP S/4HANA product. It was a no-holds barred approach with SAP happy to show the solution as it currently is, as well as providing insight into the future direction. A big thank you must go to Sven Denecken for arranging the event – and a slightly larger one to the team that supported us throughout our journey.

Let’s start at the beginning

If you did not already know SAP S/4HANA is a new product. It is new in many senses of the word new. New as in the latest ERP offering, the go-to version for SAP. New as in brand-new in terms of the content and the way the solution has been assembled. Therefore the first key take-away to share is there is no Upgrade to move to SAP S/4HANA.  System conversion, or landscape transformation are the processes you will need to follow to move from your current SAP ERP landscape. SAP ERP customers’ have been spoilt with endless upgrades to consume new functionality via Enhancement Packages. The concept of an upgrade is to take your full ERP solution, and add the latest functionality and support packs. There is little effort aimed at cleaning up the current ERP solution and removing redundant code or processes. Moving to SAP S/4HANA will enable customers to stop and consider the state of their current landscape and create a cleansed ERP environment moving forward.

New tool with a new UI

There has been a real fanfare around SAP Fiori and the benefits it provides. SAP S/4HANA has a Fiori front end and significant investment has gone into this. Assuming we are talking about the On-Premise version of SAP S/4HANA (I will cover off cloud later) it is worth highlighting that currently the full solution cannot be consumed solely by SAP Fiori. From the engagements I have had with customers who are moving to SAP S/4HANA there is a real requirement to keep the SAP Gui screens (for the short term). This is primarily down to the change management impact of moving tens of thousands of users to a new way of working. Some of the Fiori tiles within the Launchpad are not actual Fiori apps, but take the user to the Browser version of the Gui. Again this to me is not a big issue. The real benefit of Fiori is to simplify processes.  It is worth noting that, SAP Fiori is not a new way to consume SAP transaction codes, Fiori provides the user a simplified user experience to perform their key tasks. The beautiful UI paired with the reduction of key strokes is what makes the full solution stand out. Where SAP exceeds expectations is the way Fiori tiles consume embedded analytics. Keeping the user in a single place and providing the user with all of the relevant information to make the right decision is worlds apart from the current status quo, of moving from spreadsheets, reporting tools and various SAP ERP transaction codes. Over time the full user base will naturally migrate to a full SAP Fiori front end, however the current solution provided by SAP will provide the ability to move users into SAP Fiori at the pace the customer sets.

New methodology – Activate

SAP has released a new methodology to implement SAP S/4HANA. The core concepts are based on successfully implementing true Cloud products.  SAP has focused on best practices to perform the initial configuration set up. The tools beneath the methodology are slick and easy to use. Where customers want to review the full scope of SAP S/4HANA running a proof of concept with best practice configuration for defined business processes will provide a good overview of the capabilities of the system (and restrictions). The use of guided configuration will speed up implementations, and there is the ability to make additional changes after the initial build. For those functional consultants who have spent large chunks of their career within the SAP IMG – don’t fear it has not disappeared (within the On premise version) the new tools update the core steps within the IMG, and you have the ability to update it with your own values. One first impression the tools are great and will be a real help to net new customers (customers who are starting from a clean S/4HANA environment) who are moving into SAP S/4HANA. Customers who are moving to SAP S/4HANA via a system conversion will not be able to make use of some of these tools and the associated methodologies. It feels like some current SAP ERP customers will look to re-implement to SAP S/4HANA to benefit from the new functionality and the ability to remove redundant code and configuration.

It is a Cloud tool

It is worth noting that there are two SAP S/4HANA version, the On-Premise version and the Cloud edition (there are three deployment options here which actually means there are three cloud editions). Whilst they are both called SAP S/4HANA there are some significant differences. Not all of the On-Premise functionality is available in the cloud version. The cloud version does not have any SAP Gui screens whereas the On-premise version does. Keeping with SAP’s Cloud first strategy, new functionality is released in the Cloud first and then to the On-premise version. The Cloud will have quarterly releases, and the On-premise version will have annual releases (there are feature support packs that will be released during the year for the On-premise version). The Cloud version does not use ABAP, whereas the On-premise version does. The ability to customise is heavily restricted (although still possible) in the Cloud edition whereas there are no restrictions within the On-Premise version.

Where to start

SAP has created a number of tools to help you review SAP S/4HANA 1511 so you can understand what you would need to do to fully benefit from the new product. The Maintenance Planner tool will enable you to see if there are some restrictions for you, and the Simplification items list will provide a list of items that need to either be activated prior to moving to SAP S/4HANA or data conversions will be required.custom code extractor will check your current custom code and show what needs to be changed to run on SAP S/4HANA. There are free trials of the solution so you can explore the new functionality in your own time.

Overview

The SAP S/4HANA tool has significantly grown from its first version (Simple Finance which is now SAP S/4HANA Finance). The functionality has rapidly grown and has expanded. SAP has provided a number of new tools to help customers understand the new tool and understand the best approach to deploy the solution at the right time with the right scope. The interest from customers feels like it is at an unprecedented level. The product is far from complete, but my key takeaway from my time is that the team are fully focused to make this a massive success for SAP’s customers and in turn for SAP.

Scrooge needed three separate spirits to answer questions about the Past, Present and Future. Today's Business Leader needs just one.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a much loved favourite in our house. We have a dozen versions of it on DVD, and still go to see it at the theatre most years. While watching it again I was struck by the nature of the three ghosts which feature in the story.

On the nights before Christmas, the ghost of Marley tells Ebeneezer Scrooge that he is to be visited by "Three Spirits", relating to Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas yet-to-come. Three separate spirits, with different personalities, on three different nights are needed to persuade Scrooge to change his ways.

The Three Spirits tell essentially the story of the state of the Business Information technologies. If we are trying to get a senior executive to change direction we typically also need three separate approaches. Since senior executives tend to be focused on sales, there are three fundamental techniques to answer the three fundamental questions that an executive needs

• "What did I sell yesterday?" : Sometimes called a Data Warehouse
• "What am I selling today?" : OLTP (On-line Transaction Processing)
• "What will I sell tomorrow?" : Predictive Analytics

In fact traditional database vendors suggested multiple copies of the same data, so that they could charge for it multiple times with multiple database solutions.

Could there be a better way? As you see on a poster at an airport near you, It's Simple The Answer is SAP HANA.

The Ghost of Data Past

Poor old Scrooge was given images from when he was a boy, and most enterprises really struggle with assembling old data into data cubes, and then granting access. The recently announced SAP Cloud for Analytics is redefined from the ground up and built natively on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, with the power to find insights and take action.

The Ghost of Data Present

As discussed in my earlier blog, OLTP and OLAP sign a peace treaty to end the Thirty Years War, we no longer need a separate Spirit to look at our transaction data. S/4HANA eliminates duplication of data providing one source of truth.

The Ghost of Data Yet-to-Be

In the story, the spirit shows Scrooge the future, and this is the fundamental question for Business Leaders too. With SAP Predictive Analytics software, you can predict business outcomes – and respond to change before it happens. The Christmas stocking is filled with goodies such as predictive modelling, Big Data mining, real-time business intelligence (BI), data visualization, and more, to see what trends are emerging and where performance is headed.

So unlike old Ebeneezer, you don't need three separate solutions, you don't need magical spirits and you don't need to wait for Christmas. It's Simple, the Answer is SAP HANA.

As excellently written down in Mark Chalfen’sblog, we got invited to a three day session on all what’s new in the 1511 release of S/4HANA. With the risk of sounding to over dramatic, it is safe to say that something magical is in the air, and it isn’t Santa.

Walldorf is buzzing, ofcourse that might have something to do with the Feuerzangenbowle from the Heidelberg Christmast Market, but I’m guessing it’s not. I’m guessing it has something to do with S/4.

It’s hard not to feel the energy in the air in Walldorf. Product managers and Developers are extremely proud of what they have achieved in little less then two years on S/4 (and having said that, they seem to be extremely proud of the long material number , a change required due to the inclusion of the industry solutions of S/4).

In all honesty, looking at what has been done so far on S/4, they should be proud.

Is S/4 a finished product? No it is not. Just read up on Mark’s blog and you will get a pretty good feeling on where S/4 is today. On the other hand, it is a new product and it does have enormous potential and has great value to customers already today.

If you look at the embedded analytics (first time in history), the improvements in Finance and Logistics (aka MMO) and the potential to clean house (Activate and back to semi standard), is already more then a great value proposition for a lot of customers.

In effect, the concepts are well thought true, they make sense:

Use Activate, best practices and you can use content life cycle management and automated testing (which is included in S/4 by the way!).

Use the embedded analytics, and you just might be able to remove a large chunk of BW (and for some even more then that)

Use best practices, central accounting and you might have a great transition path towards a huge TCO reduction, by removing redundant ECC systems.

Well, you see where I’m getting at.

Documentation!

You can imagine that such a huge release also releases a ton of documentation. This is where this blog might be handy. During my stay in Walldorf, I searched for the best material I could find on S/4. Read through the following links and you’re up to speed in now time. What better way to digest that Christmas turkey ;-)

Have a great christmas and New Year!

Ronald

How to transition (aka migrate) to S/4HANA

Some might call it a transition, some a migration. Truth of the matter is that moving to S/4 requires some special attention. Read all about it here:

The road to SAP S/4HANA: the different transition paths

The System Conversion to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 - Technical procedure and semantic adaption tasks

Content of MMO and Finance in S/4HANA 1511

MMO (the name S/4 Logistics didn’t seem to correctly cover the scope) and Finance have gotten a great overhaul. Especially in MMO you will find lots of improvements in material valuation, real time inventory and the MRP cockpit (oh yes that simulation functionality is cool!)

On premise edition:

S/4HANA on Premise Edition Scope Guide 12/2015

Cloud Edition:

S/4HANA Cloud Edition Scope Guide 12/2015

The rational for having 3 cloud editions in S/4HANA

What better way then to have Sven explain the rational of having three versions:

#S4HANA - a scope guide for the cloud editions

Analytics in S/4HANA

Close to my heart. Analytics. This makes all the difference in the world. Being able to act and adjust based on real time insights is a game changer (for lack of a better word). 1511 will bring CDS views to S/4 (instead of HANA Live), read all about the possibilities here:

SAP S/4HANA Analytics & SAP BW Data Integration Overview and How To Guide

Fiori in S/4HANA

After winning the Red dot award, Fiori is getting more and more improvements. Read all about the LOB support here:

Fiori Roadmap including LOB support

And look at the Fiori apps library here:

Fiori apps

Filter on backend product: S/4 on premise or cloud

Activate!

Guided configuration and best practices (aka RDS) in S/4. Read up on the vision and the advantages here:

Guided Configuration in S/4HANA

SAP Activate Library

Demos

Demo's can be found on a number of places:

SAP Demo Store

The demo store might not give you access to one of the demo boxes itself (depends on your partner status), but you could still use the presentation material and videos.

If you really like to get your hands into S/4, I suggest you spin up the trial on-premise system:

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition trial page

It would be good to wait till the beginning of January as the 1511 content still needs to be added.

Ofcourse you can also look at the Cloud edition:

Cloud Edition Trial

Not as rich as the on-premise version, but totally free to try out as opposed to the on-premise version where you will pay the Amazon (not SAP!) fees.

As promised at SAP Teched 2015, this week SAP Mentors and SAP S/4 Product Management met for an SAP S/4HANA validation workshop in Walldorf from December 15-17. A great idea realised.

Owen Pettiford (Comprise Limited) invited 8 mentor colleagues and Arno Mielke + Sven Denecken (SAP) brought them together with a seleted SAP expert team. The agenda covered technology topics (architecture, extensibility, simplification, migration, SAP Activate, analytics …) as well as insight into business topics like Finance or Material Management and Operations. The central points of the informal, open and trustful discussion were all around the customer expectations and experiences with S/4HANA.

The most important feedback was that SAP should re-emphasize again and again the clear message: SAP S/4HANA is a NEW product and it is definitely NOT an upgrade of ERP. Nevertheless SAP S/4HANA still provides most of the ERP functions, except those that become obsolete (simplified) because of new improved processes.

Positive feedback of the mentors was:

• SAP S/4 HANA provides a clear roadmap and strategy. It is an opportunity to innovate and renew the business process towards digital transformation
• Real time processing and readiness for digital economy
• Provides processes and analytics together in one environment
• Fiori user experience is well received
• Reduced database size and landscape simplification
• Helpful tools support, e.g. for migration, automated tests, simplified configuration …
• Close assistance for the first customers by the Regional Implementation Group (RIG)

Nevertheless there is room for improvement:

• The variety of the different S/4HANA editions (on premise edition, cloud enterprise-, cloud project services-, cloud marketing editions) causes some confusion on customer side.
• There is an urgent need to extend the functional content of the cloud edition
• More industry specific functions
• Some customers feel locked into HANA
• Costs for conversion, rollout to employees etc. let many customer still hesitate
• Request to further enhance Fiori coverage. Too many applications still use SAP GUI
• Localization: need to extend Best Practices for more countries to reduce configuration efforts

In order to better illustrate SAP S/4HANA the mentors requested to make system demos also externally available for partners and customers to make the innovations more tangible. For example:

• Real-time insight into financial results and Fast Financial Close
• Stock (& cost) reduction via a real time inventory system, reflecting the real physical stock.
• Solving critical production issues (e.g. broken parts) via simulation of different scenarios and real time mitigation.
• Increase efficiency for billing and invoicing by solving issues in the Sales Order Fulfillment Cockpit
• Lower procurement operations cost by increased process effectiveness

Overall the exchange workshop was very valuable for the mentors as well as for the SAP experts. The plan is to repeat this setup next year, extend it to other influencer groups and enrich with selected deep dives.

Thanks again to the mentors from the S/4 team and best wishes for a quiet time around new years eve and a fabulous start into 2016.

Arno Mielke and  Sven Denecken

In a digital world economy, Tools and Technology are changing at an accelerated phase and customers are looking for a faster implementation with a quick return on investment. If we go back to earlier years,  for any product, the next release used to take some time such as one to two years and also the delta used to be minimum. But with technology disruption, the version releases are happening at faster pace with a major additions which is driving clients to execute implementations in a shorter period with an intermediate results instead of waiting till the last phase. The existing implementation methodology of SAP (ASAP methodology)  or system integrators methodologies need to be re-visited to take care of new approaches to enable business on Cloud, on-premises or in a Hybrid environment.

SAP has come up with a new methodology called "Activate" in place of ASAP methodology for any new implementation, system conversion or for a landscape transformation to SAP S/4 HANA.

SAP Activate framework  is based on agile methodology with an embedded best practices and with a guided configuration which will help in less implementation cycle time with a streamlined project life cycle of four phases.

The methodology is divided into four phases as compared to earlier five phases ASAP methodology.

Prepare:  The prepare phase tasks are more or less similar to earlier one which primarily focusses on project governance procedures,

Explore: This blueprint print phase of earlier has been replaced with Explore phase which primarily focus on conducting  Fit/Gap workshops to explain S/4 HANA Enterprise management functionality and to assess the gaps.  In this process, the business scenarios will be divided into sprints, design sprint plans and show the standard process scenario demos using best practices, proof of concepts  for each sprint, identify the gaps and close the gaps.

Realize: Like ASAP methodology, configure and build system for the business scenarios/processes in an incremental way by executing build, test for each sprint instead of doing it for all processes at a time. This way, the client team needs not wait till the end to see the result.

Deploy: Prepare S/4 HANA to move to production environment by performing cut-over activities in production environment and support production environment.

Also, Activate brings up Guided configuration functionality which helps to minimize configuration time and test scripts preparation time. It is a tool that helps you configure, test, and supports data migration process that are needed the selected best practices. For a functional consultants who spent large amount of their time in IMG, it is not a threat but it helps in reducing the effort in configuring core steps. At a very high level, the flow is like this

. Identify Best practices ( View solution scope)

Configure your solution :  This is a self-service configuration utility which will to perform depended configuration steps in an automated way. For example, while setting up company code by answering business scope checklist steps, the system take care of the dependent configuration steps. It helps two things, one is it will reduce the errors and also minimize errors. Also, it helps in designing automated test scripts and data migration activities by providing the list of data objects and templates.

Activate supports SAP recommended  migration/conversion of  three different deployment options:

1. System conversion:  It is SAP R/3 or SAP Business suite  conversion running on any database to SAP S/4 HANA landscape
3. Landscape transformation: Landscape transformation scenario deals with designing a global on premise/cloud edition from an individual business suite landscapes.
5. New implementation: It is a brand new implementation from an existing SAP customer or third part ERP software.

My observation is that these tools will be really a great help for new implementation projects, but not much to the system conversion projects.

SAP Activate is free for SAP customers and partners upon request. SAP has provided good number of tools to support the transformation to S/4 HANA, but it is a long way to go, but the team is fully focused to make it a successive one.