Implementing SAP S/4HANA

The implementation methodology for all SAP S/4HANA implementation projects is SAP Activate. The SAP Activate Methodology includes a structure of project phases, tasks, and deliverables that vary based on the solution that you are implementing.

You will find this methodology structure in the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer. It's the central tool that guides your SAP S/4HANA implementation project by providing specific instructions and supporting accelerators to help you execute tasks and deliverables throughout each implementation phase and after go-live. Content is continuously updated to provide current and accurate information.

The structure of SAP Roadmap Viewer includes:

• Phases

  Stages of the project, including Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy, and Run. At the end of each phase, a quality gate exists to verify the completion of the deliverables.

• Deliverables

  Outcomes that are delivered during the course of the project. Several deliverables are included within a phase.

• Tasks

  Work to be performed. One or several tasks comprise of a deliverable.

• Workstreams

  A collection of related deliverables that show time relationships within a project and among other streams. Streams can span phases and are not necessarily dependent on phase starts and end.

• Accelerators

  Provides assistance in the form of How-to guides, Best Practice recommendations, prescribed templates, and links to learning materials. Accelerators can be linked to Phases, Deliverables, or Tasks.

First of all, SAP Best Practices provides so-called Scope Items for each solution, which contain Process Flows and Test Scripts as well as preconfigured content for the corresponding business processes. Each scope item is identified by a 3-digit code (f. ex. 4X5) and contains the preconfigured content for a specific process.

This is particularly important for customers of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition as the system configuration almost exclusively relies on these scope items. The use of scope items in Public Cloud is mandatory, whereas it is optional in private cloud / on premise.

The number of available scope items differs between the public cloud and the private cloud / on premise deployment model. However, some scope items are identical, for example, 4X5 (Recurring Services).

In addition, SAP Best Practices provides Configuration Tools, available for cloud and on-premise deployment models.

In the context of Public Cloud, SAP Activate provides the following:

• Best Practices

• Configuration Tools

• Methodology

The Guided Configuration capabilities and Content Lifecycle Management tools are available today in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud solutions.

SAP Central Business Configuration is the tool designed to let you configure a business process spanning different SAP cloud solutions from one central place. SAP Central Business Configuration supports the configuration of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition but aims at seamless implementation of end-to-end business processes across SAP's cloud portfolio. Every new SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition customer uses SAP Central Business Configuration for their implementation.

SAP Best Practices for Public Cloud provide the Scope Items for each solution. For the deployment model, Public Cloud, all available processes are preconfigured through the corresponding scope item.

Scope items for SAP S/4HANA Service Public Cloud are as follows:

• Service Contract Management (3MO)

  The scope item describes the creation of service contracts in SAP S/4HANA Cloud along with additional capabilities.

  Note

  Scope Item 3MO is very similar to Scope Item 426.

• Service Contract Management with Advanced Variant Configuration (6GU)

  The scope item covers service contract creation with configurable products using advanced variant configuration (AVC).

• Service Monitoring and Analytics (43B)

  This scope item covers all of the analytical applications available in service, starting with the service management overview, which helps the customer service manager to analyze various data related to service orders and contracts. This scope item helps to display and monitor issues that impede the fulfillment of service transactions. As a sales manager, you can use the Order to Cash dashboard to analyze incoming and open service orders.

• Warranty Claim Management – Customer Claim Processing (63Y)

  This scenario enables you to create a warranty claim from a customer that can be validated and decided upon. You can then trigger the payment for a reimbursement request.

• Warranty Claim Management – Supplier Recovery Processing (5HR)

  This scenario enables you to create a warranty claim that can then be forwarded to the respective supplier for a reimbursement.

• Credit Memo Processing for Service Management (4GG)

  This scope item enables credit memo processing for service processes.

• In-House Repair (3XK)

  The in-house repair supports the repair of devices, based on time-and-material and fixed-price scenarios. Select repair objects, perform prechecks, share a quotation, plan and execute the repair and bill your customer. It integrates with customer returns.

• Intercompany Billing for Service Documents (53Y)

  This scope item encompasses the creation of intercompany invoices and simultaneous posting of intercompany invoice to the accounts payable of the ordering company.

• Procurement for Service Management (3NI)

  This scope item covers the integration of service management with procurement. Purchase Requisitions are created with reference to the Service Order line item and subsequent processes are executed. Procurement costs are updated in the service order.

• Recurring Services (4X5)

  This scope item encompasses the recurring services planning, scheduling, and execution with reference to the customer service contract and covers single cycle plans (both time-based and counter-based) and multiple counter plans.

• Service Management with Advanced Variant Configuration (6GS)

  Enable more configuration options to the service products. Allow users to make choices to detail out the service. This scope item builds on the service management process.

• Service Order Management and Monitoring (3D2)

  This scope item encompasses the field services planning and execution comprising both Fixed Price and Time and Material services. The process incorporates service order creation, release followed by subsequent confirmations, and billing to customer.

  Note

  Scope item 3D2 is very similar to Scope Item 41Z.

• Service Order Processing with SAP Field Service Management (49X)

  This scope item describes service order processing scenarios between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Field Service Management.

• Service Quotation (4GA)

  This scope item covers the service quotation process: legally binding offers with fixed conditions made to a customer for the performance of services. It helps customer service managers to provide cost estimates before placing an order. Time and Material (T&M) and Fixed Price based cost estimates are supported with automatic creation of service orders once accepted by the customer.

• Customer Returns (BKP)

  This scope item deals with the customer return scenario including product inspection, logistical follow-up processing, and customer compensation.

• Customer Returns for Non-Stock and Service Materials (3TE)

  This scope item handles returns order processing of non-stock and service materials including corresponding compensation.

• Customer Returns for Sales Kits (5CX)

  This scope item supports the customer returns order processing of sales kits in returns management.

• Customer Returns with Direct Shipment from Customer to Supplier (1Z3)

  This scope item deals with a customer return scenario where the customer sends products directly back to a supplier.

• Lean Customer Returns (BDD)

  This scope item deals with the simplified processing of customer returns.

• Returnables Processing (BDW)

  This process enables the shipping of standard pallets and their return.

For deployment model Private Cloud / On Premise, you can use the available scope items for automatic configuration or use the Implementation Guide to manually configure the process.

Scope Items for SAP S/4HANA Service Private Cloud and On Premise are as follows:

• Service Contract Management (426)

  This scope item enables service contract management.

• Service Contract Management with Advanced Variant Configuration (6GU)

  The scope item covers service contract creation with configurable products using advanced variant configuration (AVC).

  Note

  Scope Item 6GU can be integrated with Scope Item 426.

• Service Monitoring and Analytics (43B)

  This scope item covers all the analytical applications available in service, starting with the service management overview, which helps the customer service manager to analyze various data related to service orders and contracts. This scope item helps to display and monitor issues that impede the fulfillment of service transactions. As a sales manager, you can use the Order to Cash dashboard to analyze incoming and open service orders.

• Warranty Claim Management – Customer Claim Processing (63Y)

  This scenario lets you create a warranty claim from a customer that can be validated and decided upon. You can then trigger the payment for a reimbursement request.

• Warranty Claim Management – Supplier Recovery Processing (5HR)

  This scenario lets you create a warranty claim that can then be forwarded to the respective supplier for a reimbursement.

• Credit Memo Processing for Service Management

  Service processes can be integrated with Credit Memo processing.

  Note

  There is no scope item available for Credit Memo Processing for Service Management in SAP S/4HANA Service On Premise.

• In-House Repair (3XK)

  In-House Repair supports the repair of equipment, based on time-and-material, and fixed price scenarios: It allows you to perform prechecks, share a quotation, plan and execute the repair, and bill your customer. Use customer returns to run the logistics process.

• Intercompany Billing for Service Documents

  The process of Intercompany Billing is not available using SAP S/4HANA Service OP 2023.

  Note

  Please mind that Intercompany Service Orders are available for SAP S/4HANA OP to map Intercompany Processes and will be explained in Unit Working with Service Order Management. The process for Intercompany Service Orders is similar but not identical to the process provided by scope item 53Y.

• Procurement for Service Management

  This process covers the integration of service management with procurement. Purchase Requisitions are created with reference to the Service Order line item and subsequent processes are executed. Procurement costs are updated in the service order.

  Note

  There is no scope item available for Procurement for Service Management in SAP S/4HANA Service On Premise, but the process can be configured.

• Recurring Services (4X5)

  This scope item encompasses the recurring services planning, scheduling, and execution with reference to the customer service contract and covers single cycle plans (both time-based and counter-based) and multiple counter plans.

• Service Management with Advanced Variant Configuration

  This process enables configuration options to spare parts regarding service management processing.

  Note

  There is no scope item available for Service Management with Advanced Configuration in SAP S/4HANA Service On Premise, but the process can be configured.

• Service Order Management and Monitoring

  Service Order Management and Monitoring comprises field services planning and execution. The process incorporates service order creation, release followed by subsequent confirmations, and billing to customer.

  Note

  There is no scope item available for Service Order Management and Monitoring for SAP S/4HANA Service On Premise, but the process can be configured.

• Service Order Management (41Z)

  This scope item enables the creation, planning, execution, confirmation, and billing of service orders.

  Note

  Scope Item 41Z is very similar to Scope Item 3D2.

• Service Order Processing with SAP Field Service Management

  Service order processing scenarios can be between SAP S/4HANA On Premise and SAP Field Service Management.

• Service Order Processing with Field Service Management

  Service Order Processing scenarios can be configured between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Field Service Management.

  Note

  There is no scope item available for Service Order Processing with Field Service Management in SAP S/4HANA Service On Premise.

• Service Quotation (4GA)

  This scope item covers the service quotation process: legally binding offers with fixed conditions made to a customer for the performance of services. It helps customer service managers to provide cost estimates before placing an order. Time and Material (T&M) and Fixed Price based cost estimates are supported with automatic creation of service orders once accepted by the customer.

• Corrective Service with Advanced Execution (6AU)

  This scope item covers the process of maintaining technical objects as part of a service offering, when a breakdown, failure or malfunction occurs in the Maintenance Service scenario.

• Preventive Service (6F1)

  This scope item covers the process of planning, scheduling, and execution of maintenance services with reference to a customer service contract and covers single cycle plans (both time-based and counter-based) and strategy-based plans.

• Customer Returns (BKP)

  This scope item deals with the customer return scenario including product inspection, logistical follow-up processing and customer compensation.

• Customer Returns for Non-Stock and Service Materials (3TE)

  This scope item handles returns order processing of non-stock and service materials including corresponding compensation.

• Customer Returns for Sales Kits (5CX)

  This scope item supports the customer returns order processing of sales kits in returns management.

• Customer Returns with Direct Shipment from Customer to Supplier (1Z3)

  This scope item deals with a customer return scenario where the customer sends products directly back to a supplier.

• Interaction Center and Service Request Management (41W)

  This scope item enables service request management in the Interaction Center.

• Lean Customer Returns (BDD)

  This scope item deals with the simplified processing of customer returns.

• Returnables Processing (BDW)

  This process enables the shipping of standard pallets and their return.

SAP Cloud ALM is the application lifecycle management offering for cloud-centric customers. It provides extensive implementation and operations capabilities for cloud solutions. SAP Cloud ALM is included in the SAP Enterprise Support for cloud editions, and therefore is available for both SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

SAP Solution Manager is a comprehensive application lifecycle management solution that can be used to manage an implementation of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. SAP Solution Manager has an additional license fee, and is not relevant for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition solution.

Core Data Services (CDS) is a common set of domain-specific languages and services for defining and consuming semantically rich data models. In other words, the CDS layer provides a universal language to read and process data across different applications.

You can create CDS views in SAP S/4HANA Cloud to model data from the database for analytical purposes, or to generate application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow other applications to consume the data. In general, CDS views are intended to be consumed by a user interface (UI), analytics, or other systems.

SAP Central Business Configuration is a tool that makes it possible to configure business processes spanning multiple SAP cloud solutions from one central place.

The Custom Code Migration app is a technical migration tool for customers converting their existing SAP ERP on premise systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. The Custom Code Migration app analyzes the custom code in a customer's system for compatibility with SAP S/4HANA.

It also evaluates usage data to identify unused custom code, which can then be removed from a customer’s system during the conversion process to lower the memory footprint.

In the Private Cloud and On Premise deployment model, you can activate a number of Business Functions to extend your functionality.

Business functions enable you to considerably simplify the process of introducing and using SAP S/4HANA. This technology enables you to selectively introduce individual features and to optimize selected business processes.

With business functions, SAP provides features in self-contained units to enable you to use specific features and enhancements for your various business processes.

The business function concept has two aspects:

• The business function as a self-contained entity comprising special features.

• The business function as a technical object in your ABAP-based system. Along with this object, you also activate the features in your ABAP-based system using transaction SFW5.

When you have activated a business function, the following changes and additional features are visible:

• New menu entries

• New fields on the user interfaces

• Customizing activities required for the implementation

• New table entries in Customizing tables and system tables

You must consider that some of the functions are always active and others have to be activated. Therefore, the following groups must be considered:

• SAP S/4HANA Always On Functions

  Functions such as CRM_SRV_1 (Service Management 1).

• Enterprise Business Functions

  Functions that you can activate individually.

The usual naming convention for Business Functions in Customer Relationship Management is CRM_XX…

The usual naming convention for Business Function in Sales & Distribution is LOG_SD_XXX...

The usual naming convention for Business Functions in Asset Management is LOG_EAM_XXX_XX.

The simplification list is a collection of single simplification items. The impact of each customer-relevant item is listed in the specification list. A simplification item can have a business impact and a technical impact. For example, if the data structure is simplified, the related custom code needs to be adapted. In other cases, functionality is replaced by a new, and simpler, successor application – possibly even based on an unchanged data structure.

Simplification items have simplification categories and provide information about the potential impact for the customer. Based on the simplification item, a custom code check analysis can be executed. Related service offerings are available, or will be available over time.