Lifecycle Stable Extensions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Extensibility covers a broad spectrum of topics that enable implementation consultants and customers to adapt standard business software to their business needs. This includes changes to software behavior that go beyond the capabilities of business configuration, data model extensions, data exposure, layout changes to user interfaces (UIs) or forms and reports, and creation of new UIs or own applications.
The architecture of SAP S/4HANA Cloud ensures that extensions made using the built-in capabilities are separated from the core business software layer, meaning that SAP can push upgrades out to all customer systems without affecting any customer-specific extensions that have been defined. Any extensions that can’t be performed in the core SAP S/4HANA Cloud system using the in-app capabilities should be decoupled, or separated into a different software platform to ensure the core is lifecycle stable. SAP Business Technology Platform enables these de-coupled extensions because it has a huge range of capabilities for building and hosting applications and integrations.
For all extensibility options, the virtual data model (VDM) forms the basis for data access in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The VDM is made up of core data services (CDS) views. CDS views expose business data, which is stored in abstract database tables, in a way that is based on business semantics and therefore easier to consume.
Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud can be divided into three areas:
- Key User In-App Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud using the built-in capabilities
- Side-by-Side Extensibility through the SAP Business Technology Platform
- Developer In-App Extensibility through the SAP S/4HANA Cloud ABAP Environment

Extensibility Use Cases
Key User Extensibility | Developer Extensibility | Side-by-Side Extensibility | |
---|---|---|---|
Scenario | Smaller low/no-code extensions | Tightly coupled more complex extensions and apps | Loosely coupled extensions and apps |
Target Environment | Fully integrated in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Stack | Fully integrated in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Stack | SAP Business Technology Platform |
Target Group | Key Users (admins) | ABAP developers | Developers |
Released object types | BAdIs, CDS views | BAdIs, classes, interfaces, CDS views, behavior definitions, authorization objects | BAPIs, IDocs, OData and SOAP APIs, events |
Benefits | Fully managed and integrated in SAP S/4HANA Cloud; no development skills required | Custom ABAP development directly on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud stack; use and extend released SAP S/4HANA Cloud objects; rich set of cloud extension points | Decoupled extensions independent of SAP S/4HANa Cloud operation and lifecycle management |
Discover SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensibility Options in the SAP Extensibility Explorer
The SAP Extensibility Explorer website is an excellent resource to find information about the different types of extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud with pre-built extension scenarios that you can download and use.

Explore APIs for Custom Integrations in SAP API Business Hub
The SAP API Business Hub is a rich library of content with prepackaged integrations, APIs, events, adapters, open connectors, CDS Views, and workflow scenarios. Content published here is built by SAP and our developer partners using the SAP Business Technology Platform. All content is available for public consumption.
