Understanding SAP Central Business Configuration in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition

SAP Central Business Configuration is a tool that will make it possible to configure business processes spanning different SAP cloud solutions from one central place. Currently, SAP Central Business Configuration supports the system provisioning and configuration of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition since January 2021. The future vision is for SAP Central Business Configuration to support implementation of all solutions in SAP’s Intelligent Enterprise to enable end-to-end provisioning and configuration of solutions such as SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and others. 

• Built on the foundation of SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition preconfigured business process content.
• Scoping via Business Adaptation Catalog (BAC) & end-to-end processes.
• Quick access to a preconfigured, ready-to-run system.
• Option to adapt preconfiguration to customer needs
• Extended configuration for areas not equipped with preconfiguration content.
• Enable delta deployment of scope extensions (for example, additional countries/regions with preconfiguration).

SAP Central Business Configuration aims to increase business process flexibility, reduce time to value and total cost of ownership, and support roll-out of business processes in smaller iterative steps.

SAP Central Business Configuration consists of the following components; select each component to read more.

SAP Central Business Configuration enables you to manage your configurations for SAP cloud implementations and ongoing operations centrally via the Project Experience.

The guided workflow process steps include:

1. Scope: Select the scope items (business processes) and countries in which to activate them, then assign systems as the deployment targets.
2. Organizational Structure: Specify primary finance settings such as group currency and fiscal year variant, set up the organizational structure, and deploy the settings.
3. Product-Specific Configuration: Carry out configuration activities to define business processes and release transports to the target systems. The configuration activities visible are based on the active scope.
4. Production System Settings: Maintain current settings in the productive system such as bank accounts for company codes and financial statement versions.

Note

Releasing transports and maintaining the production system settings only occurs in a 2-system landscape. In a 3-system landscape, these activities are handled in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. In addition, there is no Production System Settings phase in SAP Central Business Configuration for a 3-system landscape.

Customers who implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition prior to January 2021 still use the Manage Your Solution and Configure Your Solution Fiori apps in their SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition system to maintain configuration values for different business processes. These customers will be contacted by SAP individually to schedule their conversion to SAP Central Business Configuration. Conversion is executed by SAP and will not affect the customer’s existing configuration. After the switch, all future configuration changes, such as activating new business processes or countries will take place in SAP Central Business Configuration.

Customers who implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition after January 2021 received an SAP Central Business Configuration system along with their Quality and Production systems. These customers have a 2-system landscape (2SL), referring to the Quality and Production systems.

In September 2022, the ability to have a third system landscape with development capabilities became available. The development system is called the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition ABAP Environment. Customers who implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition after September 2022 received an SAP Central Business Configuration system along with their Development, Test (formerly Quality), and Production systems. These customers have a 3-system landscape (3SL).

The following training information will explain how to provision SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition system landscapes, activate business processes, and define the organizational structure and product-specific configurations for both 2SL and 3SL scenarios.

Prior to SAP Central Business Configuration, the Manage Your Solution and Configure Your Solution apps in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition Fiori launchpad were used to complete configuration activities. Customers that implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition prior to January 2021 will continue to use this method to maintain their systems until their systems are converted by SAP. Until all customers are converted to SAP Central Business Configuration, the Manage Your Solution app will not be removed from the launchpad.

User assistance is accessed through the question mark icon in the top right corner of the SAP Central Business Configuration system. You will find:

• In-app help: On-screen "hot spots" describing elements of the user interface with links to detailed information and step-by-step tutorial videos.
• SAP Help Portal links: Application help with interactive graphics, concepts, task descriptions and instruction videos.

• SAP Central Business Configuration in the SAP Help Portal
• SAP Central Business Configuration in the SAP Community
• SAP Central Business Configuration free training on openSAP
• SAP Central Business Configuration Learning Journey (SAP Learning Hub subscription required)

Access the SAP Central Business Configuration In-App Help.

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SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition is the system where your enterprise business data lives. SAP Central Business Configuration is a separate system that lives in SAP Business Technology Platform where you provision your systems, activate the business scope, and complete configuration-related activities. Both systems are integrated with the customer's SAP Cloud Identity tenants. SAP Cloud Identity Services includes two tenants: Identity Authentication Service (IAS) and Identity Provisioning Service (IPS).

SAP Cloud ALM is used by implementation consultants and customers to manage the project implementation tasks of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and complete the regular system maintenance tasks after go-live. The implementation tasks are populated from the SAP Activate Roadmap tasks for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. An integration can be set up between SAP Cloud ALM and SAP Central Business Configuration to allow you to navigate directly to the SAP Central Business Configuration in relevant tasks. The customer's IT organization also uses SAP Cloud ALM as a powerful tool to monitor the health of all systems in the integrated landscape.

SAP Central Business Configuration is its own individual product with a feature roadmap independent from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and other SAP Cloud solutions. The current focus is on each SAP Central Business Configuration release providing enhancements to the configuration capabilities for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. In the future, additional SAP Cloud solutions will be included.

Because SAP Central Business Configuration is an independent product, release features will not be published with the RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition content. Instead, refer to the What's New information in the dedicated SAP Central Business Configuration Help Portal webpage.

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition implementations, first a starter system is deployed with preconfigured organizational and product-specific data that aligns directly with the test scripts for different business processes on SAP Best Practices Explorer. The purpose of this system is for consultants to demonstrate the business processes to customer experts who do the relevant job tasks in each LoB to determine if there are any special customization requirements and to gather the data necessary to set up the customer's future SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems.

SAP Central Business Configuration is used to activate content in the starter system. First, you create a dedicated workspace for the starter system, called the Evaluation Project. Next, you follow the guided workflow activities in SAP Central Business Configuration to activate the predefined scope, organizational structure and product-specific configuration to complete the set-up of the starter system. After the starter system is activated, you can log into the system to create users and assign permissions for members of the implementation team to use the system to demonstrate to customers and gather configuration data.

In the 2-system landscape (2SL), the customer's actual SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems are called quality and production. The starter system is ultimately decommissioned after quality and production are configured, because it's no longer necessary. In SAP Central Business Configuration, you create a dedicated workspace for the quality and production systems, called the Implementation Project. Next, you follow the guided workflow activities in SAP Central Business Configuration to trigger provisioning of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems, activate the customer's actual scope, build their unique organizational structure, and configure their product-specific configurations. These tasks occur first in the quality system, then are transported to the production system. These transports are triggered in SAP Central Business Configuration.

In a 2-system landscape, the Implementation Project in SAP Central Business Configuration consists of the following phases:

• Scope and Organizational Structure: define business scope, define primary finance settings, setup organizational structure, and request activation of license-dependent business scenarios.
• Product-Specific Configuration: perform configuration activities, request production system, and release configuration to production system.
• Production System Settings: perform required configuration activities that must be done directly in the production system.

Learn about Initial System Access for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition in your 2-system landscape.

The 3-system landscape (3SL) refers to the addition of a development system, called the SAP S/4HANA Cloud ABAP Environment. The Quality system was also renamed to the Test system, although the purpose of the system is the same.

Within a system, there can be one or more client tenants with different purposes. A client is an organizational unit in the system with specific user master records and authorizations. The SAP S/4HANA Cloud starter and development systems have two client tenants. Client 080 is for developer extensibility in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud ABAP environment, where developers have full ABAP development tool access to released SAP S/4HANA Cloud business objects and extension points. Client 100 is the main project, used for business process configuration and key user extensibility with the SAP Fiori extensibility apps.

The development tenant (client 080) is client-independent, meaning development objects built here can be accessed from the customizing tenant if permission is granted. This is because development objects are stored in database tables without a client column.

The customizing tenant (client 100) is client-dependent, meaning configurations or extensions made here can only be accessed within the customizing tenant. This is because master and transactional data is stored in database tables within a client column.

In SAP Central Business Configuration, you create two evaluation projects, with one workspace connected to the development tenant of the Starter system, and the other workspace connected to the customizing tenant of the Starter system. After the predelivered content is activated in the Starter system, implementation consultants should focus their time on preparing to deliver Fit-to-Standard workshops using the customizing tenant. There will likely be minimal need to use the development tenant of the Starter system. However if necessary, custom developments can be moved from the development tenant of the Starter system to the development tenant of the Development system through abapGit, an open source developed Git client for the ABAP server to import and export ABAP objects between ABAP systems.

After all data required to configure the customer’s actual system has been collected from Fit-to-Standard workshops, you create two implementation projects in SAP Central Business Configuration. One workspace is connected to the development tenant of the Development system, and the other workspace is connected to the customizing tenant of the Development system.

In a 3-system landscape, the Implementation Project in SAP Central Business Configuration consists of the following phases:

• Scope and Organizational Structure: define business scope, define primary finance settings, setup organizational structure, and request activation of license-dependent business scenarios.
• Product-Specific Configuration: perform configuration activities, request production system, and release configuration to production system.

Learn about Initial System Access for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition in your 3-system landscape.

Start the provisioning of your SAP Central Business Configuration, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, and SAP Cloud ALM tenants for 3-system landscape.

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Set up and enable users for SAP Central Business Configuration using the Identity Authentication Service and Identity Provisioning Service.

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After you select the scope and define the organizational structure in SAP Central Business Configuration, the content is deployed to the development system tenants and activated. After content is activated, you complete product-specific configuration activities, such as defining expenses or work items and groups in SAP Central Business Configuration. After completing a configuration activity, you are prompted to assign the change to a customizing request. You can assign the changes to a new request or an existing one. These customizing requests can be further edited or released to the Test system with the Export Customizing Transports SAP Fiori app, which lives in the customizing tenant of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Development system.

Additional business configuration done in the customizing tenant of the Development system, such as creating a custom workflow or teams and responsibilities are also recorded as customizing requests. The Export Customizing Transports SAP Fiori app is used to release these changes to the Test system too.

Key user extensions built with the SAP Fiori extensibility apps in the customizing tenant of the Development system must be added to a software collection and released in the Export Software Collection SAP Fiori app and to make them available for import in the Test system.

Changes in the development tenant (client 080) are recorded on workbench requests. To make a development available for import in the Test System, you release the workbench request with the Transport Organizer view in ABAP Development Tools.

The Import Collection SAP Fiori app is used in the Test and Production systems to import customizing requests, software collections, and development requests. The Test and Production systems only have one tenant (client 100).

SAP Central Business Configuration is designed to provide guidance for your implementation project by controlling the sequence of activities that are completed. In the Project Experience, you can manage your team members, complete activities to set up and configure your systems, and view the project status. Activities are grouped into phases, and each phase ends with a milestone.

Milestones serve the following functions:

• Trigger the change of project phases
• Lock project activities of project phases that are currently not active
• Trigger and control processes in the background to simplify the user experience

The Project Status lets you know the current state of your project and can give an indication of what activities are occurring in the backend. Project Statuses can be:

• Active: the project is available or in use and project activities can be executed.
• Closed: the project is terminated, usually after the Go Live milestone has been set. It is still possible to initiate change in this status.
• Decommissioned: this status is used for the starter project when it is no longer necessary and can be decommissioned.
• Setup: the project is being initially set up, upgraded, or there are operations being performed by the SAP Support team.

Navigate the Project Experience and interact with the user interface in SAP Central Business Configuration

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On the initial login to SAP Central Business Configuration, each user will be presented with a one-time popup window, requesting users to click 'proceed' in order to acknowledge that the user has read and understood the provided information and hyperlinked privacy statement. Without clicking 'proceed', access to SAP Central Business Configuration will not be possible. Please refer to the popup message and the hyperlinked privacy statement for details.

Note

In order to click 'proceed', no certification is required by the user.

You can easily switch between projects and create additional projects. You can also move to an earlier phase by using the Initiate Change functionality. This allows you to unlock activities for an earlier phase and then sequentially move forward through the required activities.

For example, after a customer goes live with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, a new business process may be released in an upgrade they want to activate. The customer would use the Initiate Change functionality in SAP Central Business Configuration to move back to the Scope phase to activate the new scope item, then continue through the Organizational Structure phase (some scope items may require additional organizational entities), the Product-Specific Configuration phase to complete any necessary configuration for the scope item, and finally, the Production System Settings phase.

Perform evaluation project activities and create the implementation project.

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The Teams tab provides an overview of project team members and their specific project roles. Some activities, like scoping, can only be processed by one user at a time. This ensures the data is consistent. Other activities, such as defining the organizational structure and configuration of business processes allow multiple users to work at the same time.

The Deployment Targets tab is where you select the tenant to which your SAP Central Business Configuration workspace is connected. You will create an individual workspace for each tenant in the Starter and Development systems. The assigned deployment target automatically sets up the corresponding technical business options in scope for the project. In total, you will have four workspaces:

The Change Logs tab provides detailed information on the changes performed in Project Experience. For audit purposes, it's important to have tracking and logging history in place that captures changes in project activities with the time, name, fields changed, and area.

In SAP Central Business Configuration, you start scoping in the Project Experience area with the Define Scope project activity. You begin scoping by providing basic information about your company, such as the countries/regions and industry you operate in. The tool will propose relevant bundles and scenarios with predefined content. You can then further adjust the business scenarios in your solution. Built-in rules ensure that your selected content is logical and consistent from a technical and business point of view.

With SAP Central Business Configuration, customers are able to scope:

• Countries in which the chosen business processes will run
  Note

  When defining your initial scope or using the Initiate Change functionality to define additional scope, we strongly recommend not to scope more than five countries or regions at a time.
• Predefined scenario bundles
• Additional non-standard scenarios

The new Configuration Localization Toolkit (CLT) enables you to activate countries that are not covered by SAP Best Practices. You can create a localized country in your project by selecting a source and target country. When you deploy the content to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system, the new country will be activated based on the configuration and setup available in the source country.

Check SAP Note 3107866 to find the business process and countries released for use in CLT.

Note

It is not possible to change the source/target country combination after you confirm your selections.

You first select a bundle that includes many scenarios (scope items) grouped into a package. Additional scenarios can be added after selecting a bundle. License-dependent and non-standard scenarios show a "lock" icon because they need to be requested. Within a bundle or scenario, you can choose which country/region to activate the scenario in. The documentation of each scenario provides a link to SAP Best Practices Explorer for additional information.

You must choose a group ledger scenario when defining the initial scope. The two choices are:

• Accounting and Financial Close - Group Ledger IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards)
• Group Ledger US GAAP (United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)

My Selected Scope provides an overview of all business scenarios (scope items) you have chosen. You have the ability to filter scenarios by country/region.

You must request license-dependent scenarios from the SAP Service Center by creating a case. Selecting the Open button in this activity brings you to SAP Best Practices Explorer to find the relevant app IDs and scope item information.

Note

Find information on requesting SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition license-dependent or non-standard scenarios in SAP Help Portal.

Add countries/regions, bundles, and scenarios to your scope. Request license-dependent and non-standard scenarios via ticket.

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This activity requires you to assign a deployment target for your system. The deployment target is created and maintained in the backend by SAP, but in the Project Experience, a consultant or customer still needs to assign the target. The assigned deployment target automatically sets up the corresponding technical business options in scope for the project.

Note

Once a deployment target is assigned, it cannot be decoupled from the assigned system.

Assign a deployment target to your project.

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Relevant configuration activities are identified based on the scoping selection.

Confirm that you've finished your scoping by completing the milestone.

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Next, you define the fiscal year variant and group currency. The fiscal year variant defines the number of posting periods in a fiscal year and how many special periods are needed. The group currency is used as the global currency and allows amounts to be compared in a single currency.

Note

The fiscal year variant and group currency are applied to the entire system and cannot be changed after confirmation.

Define the fiscal year variant and group currency for your project.

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The Organizational Structure app allows you to easily create and adapt your company's organizational structure (org structure). The selected scope defines which organizational entities are required to run the underlying processes. The system also runs consistency checks to ensure all organizational hierarchies contain the relevant entities (for example, every plant requires at least one storage location if logistics is in-scope), and that all required relationships are defined (for example, every distribution chain requires at least one plant to be assigned).

The following types of relationships exist between the units of an organizational structure:

• Tree relation: Country-specific parent-child relationship (1:n). For example, plant to legal entity.
• Additional relation: Relation of an organizational unit from a country-specific tree to another organizational unit of the same tree or to a global organizational unit. Additional relationships have an n:n cardinality, meaning each of the organizational units for which an additional relationship is possible may have an additional relationship with one or several organizational units.

The Organizational Structure app allows you to easily create and adapt your company's organizational structure (org structure) with several different views:

• Graphic view: Graphical, scope-dependent, and guided creation of organizational units
• Table view: All org units are listed in a table
• Simplified mode: The buttons that guide you through the creation of new org units are hidden in this mode to gain a better overview of your org structure

Note

Non-confirmed entities are in the "staging" area, where they can be easily changed or deleted. Make sure you confirm only the units you want to deploy to the back-end system. Once confirmed, the entity cannot be deleted!

When you are finished maintaining the organizational structure, select the Confirm button to confirm the entities, then complete the activity.

Create organizational units and assignments between units, then confirm the organizational structure of your company.

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Confirm the milestone to complete the first phase of your project and display information about the progress of the milestone confirmation.

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If you need to change or add something done in a previous phase, you can select the Initiate Change button in the upper right corner of SAP Central Business Configuration. You will then be prompted to choose the information you wish to change, for example, activating an additional country or business scenario (scope item).

Initiate a change to enhance your scope, organizational structure, or configuration settings.

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The configuration activities in SAP Central Business Configuration are designed to support customers in adapting the preconfigured SAP Best Practices content to their requirements. The available configuration activities are based on the active scope and country selections. Configuration activities may vary by country, because not all business scenarios (scope items) are available in all countries. Configuration activities can be mandatory, recommended, or optional.

Configuration Activity Types:

• Mandatory: Must be configured. For example, organizational structure.
• Recommended: Default content exists that a customer can use, but many will need to change the standard content or add their own content. For example, Chart of Accounts or Pricing.
• Optional: Default content exists and most customers don't need to change the standard information. For example, Delivery Block Reasons.

Configure a business process in a 3-system landscape (3SL) by adapting configuration settings, releasing transport tasks, and executing transport requests.

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Several activities during implementation are listed in SAP Central Business Configuration, but not actually completed within the configuration tool, such as data migration, business process testing, and integration setup. In these cases, the activity in SAP Central Business Configuration links to the most applicable area or information to complete the task.

For example, the Integration Setup activity in SAP Central Business Configuration links to the Integration Setup deliverable and corresponding tasks and accelerators in the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer. The Business Process Test activity in SAP Central Business Configuration links directly to the Test Your Processes app in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition Quality or Test System.