Exploring an Example of a Service Process Flow for Dealing with Incidents and Changes

According to the Roles and Responsibilities document for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, SAP is responsible for delivering standard services. In the context of incident management, this includes receiving and processing incidents which the customer has created (for example as cases in SAP for Me).

The processing of incidents is restricted to the tasks listed as standard services, such as the tracking of the resolution process, the escalation as defined by the escalation process, or the implementation of the solution or the workaround.

When it comes to troubleshooting both technical or functional incidents in the SAP applications that are not included in the standard services, SAP offers SAP Cloud Application Services at an additional charge, such as:

• SAP Cloud Application Services for application operations: A fixed scope package that covers more than 100 tasks of the Roles and Responsibilities document that can also be performed by customers or affiliates. Concerning incident and change management, this includes:

  • Troubleshooting technical/non-functional incidents that are not included in the standard services (according to the Roles and Responsibilities document)
  • Changes of the technical system configuration that are not included in the standard services (according to the Roles and Responsibilities document)

• Functional Application Management: A custom-tailored SAP Enterprise Cloud Services offering for application change management. It offers SLA-based full application operation and support for incident management, problem management, change management, as well as service request management. Among others, it consists of:

  • Troubleshooting functional incidents in SAP applications
  • Root cause analysis and resolution of problems in SAP applications
  • Changes of functional configuration in SAP applications (accepting tickets for non-standard scope from Key Users and providing an analysis of requests for change, including scope definition, commercial validation, and approval)

Both SAP Cloud Application Services can be requested with the help of a Service Request template, which you can find on tab Service Requests in the Services & Support area in SAP for Me.

In an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition environment, the standard services listed in the Roles and Responsibilities document that can only be performed by SAP include tasks to keep the customer system landscape running. These services are already covered by the service fee. SAP Cloud Application Services for Application Operations (available at an additional charge), complement the standard services with many common maintenance tasks. According to the Roles and Responsibilities document, these tasks need to be performed by the customer, if applicable, and if the SAP Cloud Application Services are not used.

The SAP Cloud Application Services portfolio for application operations is categorized into Core Technical Operations, Transports, Setup & Integration, and System or Client Copy Support. At the centre is the Application Operations Toolbox, emphasizing Joule Enablement.

The following video explains the difference between standard services and SAP Cloud Application Services for application operations.

In addition, SAP Cloud Application Services for application operations provide multiple options to start the customer's AI journey with tasks to establish Joule readiness as well as Joule integration tasks.

To summarize, SAP Cloud Application Services for application operations are designed to:

• provide a better support experience for customers during the entire SAP S/4HANA Cloud lifecycle.

• have SAP in the game to support technical cloud issues in case the customer (or the partner in case of application management services) is struggling.

• reduce the incident volume leading to improved stability of the application.