Landscape Overview
- SAP Cloud Identity consists of two different services - Identity Authentication Service (IAS) and Identity Provisioning Service (IPS). Together, they provide secure access to the customer's SAP Cloud applications. This is the first system provisioned and it's typical to have two tenants (test and production).
- SAP Cloud ALM is included at no cost in the Enterprise Support for cloud editions package, which is automatically included with any SAP Cloud solution. Cloud ALM runs on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and provides applications to designed to support project management, system operations, and manage service requests.
- SAP Central Business Configuration also runs on SAP BTP and is used to activate business process content in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems.
- SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a platform as a service where you can develop and host integrations, extensions, applications, along with a wide range of other functionality.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Systems:
- The Starter System is a preconfigured system with all SAP Best Practice business processes active in addition to master data that is used by the partner implementation team to demonstrate business processes to customer line of business experts during Fit-to-Standard workshops.
- The Development System is where the business processes are activated, configured, and customized. Changes made in the development system are transported to the test system.
- The Test System is the quality assurance environment used to test out configurations and changes made in the development system. After testing and confirming business processes are functioning as expected, changes are transported to the production system.
- The Production System is where the customer runs their day-to-day business activities.
Note
When the Production System is provisioned, the Starter System is automatically decommissioned 30 days later. In some implementations, this can cause issues because the Stater System may still be needed for Fit-to-Standard workshops in other line of business areas or other countries. For this reason, an optional Sandbox System can be subscribed to (for an additional fee) to be used as an alternative for Fit-to-Standard workshops conducted after the Starter System has been decommissioned. Find additional information about this optional Sandbox System in the SAP Activate Task: Evaluate the Need for a Sandbox Tenant.SAP for Me
SAP for Me is the one-stop digital platform for customers and partners to use a variety of self-service tools to manage their systems, solutions, support cases, and more. SAP for Me is an essential resource at the beginning of an implementation because the customer system admin granted the IT Contact permission will use the Systems & Provisioning dashboard to provision all systems required for the implementation. You can customize the home page by choosing from many different predelivered SAP cards, and the calendar shows upcoming product-related events, license key expiry dates, and support sessions. The SAP for Me mobile app for iPhone and Android enables customers and partners to easily interact with SAP and have full transparency into their SAP product portfolio in one place.
SAP for Me dashboards include:
- Customer Success enables partners to manage their cloud and on premise customers with information about customer products, licenses, and orders.
- Finance & Legal enables customers to manage their SAP orders, payments, licensed products, and license consumption.
- Partner Solutions enables partners to manage, upgrade, and build partner solutions and certifications.
- Partnership enables partners to access the latest SAP PartnerEdge news, partnership details, agreements, contracts, and partnership tracks.
- Products & Portfolio enables customers to manage all cloud and on premise products in their portfolio, in addition to a view of upcoming road map innovations.
- Sales & Marketing supports partners in tracking their pipeline of sales deals and open quotes with customers.
- Services & Support helps customers and partners request support, manage support cases, search for relevant SAP Knowledge Base Articles (KBAs) and SAP Notes, and directly access tools to manage the lifecycle of products (SAP Roadmap Viewer, current SAP Cloud ALM projects, etc.).
Note
The SAP ONE Support Launchpad has been completely decommissioned, and SAP for Me is the area where you submit and keep track of support cases. Check out our mapping table to find which tiles from the ONE Support Launchpad match to the dashboards and tiles within SAP for Me here.
- Systems & Provisioning is where the customer system admin can provision their purchased SAP cloud solutions, keep track of all SAP cloud and on premise systems, view and manage remote connections, and see information on license and migration keys.
- Users & Contacts is where customers and partners can access information about important contacts within SAP and their own organization. For example, if you don't have permission to access a system or area you think you should be able to access, use this dashboard to look up the SAP system administrator within your organization. Only the SAP system admin within your own company can assign additional permissions to your SAP user ID.
Note
Learn more about how to use SAP for Me here.
SAP Cloud Identity Services
SAP Cloud Identity Services run on the SAP Business Technology Platform and include both the Identity Authentication Service (IAS) and Identity Provisioning Service (IPS). Collectively, these services provide a single sign-on (SSO) experience across a customer's SAP systems and ensure that system and data access are secure.
If a customer doesn't already have SAP Cloud Identity, these systems are automatically provisioned when a customer system admin triggers the provisioning of any SAP Cloud solution they have purchased through SAP for Me. This generates an email notification sent to the system admin where they can activate their Cloud Identity account, and proceed with provisioning their other SAP cloud systems required for implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
The customer system admin uses the IAS in the beginning of the implementation to create user accounts and assign permissions for other members of the implementation team who need access to SAP Central Business Configuration, SAP Cloud ALM, the SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems, and SAP Business Technology Platform. The IPS is used during this time to run jobs that trigger the creation of user accounts and assignment of permissions in the new systems.
SAP Cloud ALM
SAP Cloud ALM runs on the SAP Business Technology Platform, and is included in the Enterprise Support for cloud editions for all customers purchasing SAP cloud solutions.
The customer's SAP Cloud ALM systems needs to be provisioned through SAP for Me, and users need to be created and assigned permission for each implementation project team member (partners and customers) via SAP Cloud Identity.
There are three main components of SAP Cloud ALM used during an implementation and after go-live for SAP S/4HANA Cloud: SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation, SAP Cloud ALM for Operations, and SAP Cloud ALM for Service.
SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation
SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation provide applications to manage the entire implementation following the SAP Activate Methodology. SAP Cloud ALM turns the tasks and deliverables that are documented in the methodology into actionable items that can be assigned to the team member(s) responsible for completing each task. A team member can document additional information about the task and mark it complete when finished, which the project manager can see through the visual dashboard tiles in the Overview app and generate reports that can be used for progress update meetings with the Analytics app. The partner project manager is responsible for setting up the implementation project with the SAP Activate Roadmap of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (3-system landscape) - Implementation, defining the project timeboxes for delivery activities, setting up the team, roles, and assigning tasks to relevant roles, creating the system group and deployment plan, and setting up the correct scope based on the business processes selected on the customer's Digital Discovery Assessment. After go-live, the customer project manager can use SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation to manage the tasks that need to be completed during and after each release upgrade by creating a project with the SAP Activate Roadmap for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (3-system landscape) - Upgrade. The tasks generated for this project are based on the SAP Activate Methodology Run phase and ensure a customer completes all necessary activities in their SAP S/4HANA Cloud system during and after each upgrade.
Note
Learn how to use the SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation apps in the Expert Portal.
SAP Cloud ALM for Operations
SAP Cloud ALM for Operations provide applications targeted to the customer's IT support team for maintaining and monitoring their SAP system landscapes. The operations apps have visibility into any system set up as a managed landscape, and therefore provide a one-stop shop for monitoring the health of a customer's entire landscape of integrated systems. These apps help ensure smooth business operations and enables the customer's IT team to be proactive in addressing potential issues.
Note
Learn how to use the SAP Cloud ALM for Operations apps in the Expert Portal.
SAP Cloud ALM for Service
SAP Cloud ALM for Service provide applications designed to make the end-to-end service delivery process between SAP and customers as transparent as possible. For example if a customer requests a specific service from SAP outside the scope of a standard implementation, they can track all action items along the service delivery process and when they will be delivered, collaborate with the SAP Service Delivery Team, receive a summary of the service results and outcomes, and document and assign any follow-up tasks after the service has been delivered.
Note
Learn how to use the SAP Cloud ALM for Service apps in the Expert Portal.
SAP Central Business Configuration
SAP Central Business Configuration is the tool used to activate business process content in different local versions (countries/regions), define core finance settings that affect the entire system (e.g. group currency and fiscal year variant), build the customer's organizational structure, and enter configuration values specific to the active business processes.
SAP Central Business Configuration runs on the SAP Business Technology Platform and is connected to a customer's SAP S/4HANA Cloud starter and development system tenants. In the future, the goal is for SAP Central Business Configuration to be used to configure and deploy content across multiple SAP Cloud solutions, but at this point in time, it exclusively supports SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.
SAP Central Business Configuration provides guidance throughout the sequence of activities completed to activate business processes in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. There is a central overview page where you can see activities that have been completed, and those than need to be completed.
When a release upgrade occurs, new business processes become available and a customer may want to turn on one or more new processes. Whether this occurs in the middle of an implementation or after go-live, customers and partners use SAP Central Business Configuration to move the workspace to the phase where business processes can be selected, select the relevant processes, and move forward through the guided activities to ensure additional follow-up tasks related to the activation of new processes are completed.
For example, a new process may require an additional organization entity to be added to the organizational structure, and will likely include one or more configuration activities where data needs to be entered. Business content in SAP Central Business Configuration is automatically released to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud development system, where it can be further transported to the test and production systems to be used productively.
Note
SAP Central Business Configuration was launched in January 2021, which means customers who implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud prior to this date use a different method of activating business processes and maintaining configuration values for those processes. These customers will be contacted by SAP individually to have an SAP Central Business Configuration system deployed.
SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)
In the context of an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition implementation, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is the engine powering many applications including SAP Cloud ALM, SAP Cloud Identity Services, and SAP Central Business Configuration. It's also where the SAP standard integrations have been developed and run, and where customers can access the additional low/no-code tools included in their GROW with SAP enablement package to build extensions, automate processes and create engaging business sites with SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Process Automation, and SAP Build Work Zone. Beyond this, SAP BTP has around 90 services to support any type of customization or extension a customer may need. Explore all services in the SAP Discovery Center.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Systems
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Trial System
The Trial System is a shared landscape with guided tours to help you experience SAP S/4HANA Cloud applications as different business roles. Each tour guides you through business process flows and apps the user would work with to complete their job tasks. Start your free trial here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Starter System
The Starter System is a preconfigured system with the enterprise scope (all lines of business enabled) and business data that aligns with the test scripts found in SAP Signavio Process Navigator for each business process. Partners use the starter system to deliver Fit-to-Standard workshops to customer line of business experts during the Explore phase of the SAP Activate Methodology. The purpose is to teach the customer experts how to navigate the new system and to gather configuration data and customization requirements. Customization requirements are documented in SAP Cloud ALM to ensure there is a record of each requirement the partners must implement in the customer's actual system during the Realize phase of the SAP Activate Methodology.
3-System Landscape (3SL) for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
In August 2022 (release 2208), the 3-system landscape (3SL) became available. The 2-system landscape (2SL) included a Quality system, where customizations were both created and tested, and a Production system. 3SL includes a Development system, Test system (previously named, Quality), and Production system. This enables developers to build more complex on-stack extensions using stable SAP objects in the development tenant (client 80) of the development system, and separates testing activities into a dedicated test system.
There is now an SAP Activate Roadmap for customers who originally implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2SL and want to transition to 3SL.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Development System
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:
- Development tenant / 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. The development tenant 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. Changes are recorded on development workbench requests and are released for transport with the Transport Organizer view in ABAP Development Tools.
- Customizing tenant / client 100 is the main workspace, used for business process configuration and key user extensibility with the SAP Fiori extensibility apps. The customizing tenant 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. Changes to business configuration in this tenant are recorded on customizing requests and are released for transport with the Export Customizing Requests Fiori app. Key user extensions built with the SAP Fiori extensibility apps in this tenant are added to software collections and released for transport with the Export Software Collections Fiori app.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Test System
An administrator imports development requests, customizing requests, and software collections with the Import Collection Fiori app in the test system to validate business configurations and extensions. Extensions can then be forwarded to the production system from within the Import Collection Fiori app.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Production System
An administrator imports development requests, customizing requests, and software collections with the Import Collection Fiori app in the production system to make the business configurations and extensions available for productive use.
Note
When the Production System is provisioned, the Starter System is automatically decommissioned 30 days later. In some implementations, this can cause issues because the Stater System may still be needed for Fit-to-Standard workshops in other line of business areas or other countries. For this reason, an optional Sandbox System can be subscribed to (for an additional fee) to be used as an alternative for Fit-to-Standard workshops conducted after the Starter System has been decommissioned. Find additional information about this optional Sandbox System in the SAP Activate Task: Evaluate the Need for a Sandbox Tenant.