Dear Expert,

I want to know what is difference between S/4 HANA and Bw on HANA,

Which will be best for future industries and career growth ?

Waiting for reply.

Thank you

Jatin Chauhan

Hello,

I wonder if and if so how you can create customers/vendors with reference to other customers/vendors with transaction BP in S4HANA on premise 1511.

Can anyone tell me?

Kind regards,

Bart

SAP Mentors and the SAP S/4HANA Product Management team held their second S/4HANA validation workshop in Walldorf on April 12-14. Owen Pettiford (Comprise) and Arno Mielke (SAP) connected the ten influencers with the corresponding SAP experts.

While the first workshop in December was dedicated to the general overview, the April workshop now put more weight on the roadmap and the deltas in architecture, analytics, Fiori, Acitvate, Best Practices, Finance, Material Management, Industries ….

Another focus was the road to S/4HANA, migration, system conversion and the experience with the customer implementations supported by the mentors and by the SAP Regional Implementation Group RIG.  Last but not least the experts discussed tips and tricks for integration and S/4HANA extensions based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform.

The mentors provided very valuable feedback on critical factors where SAP should pay special attention:

• Functional Scope: Especially for the cloud versions it is necessary to invest more development resources to extend the capabilities and further increase maturity.
• Effort for conversion: Customers still fear the costs and risks to move to S/4HANA. Further investments in Activate is needed.
• Variety of Versions and Product Naming is often perceived as confusing. Consolidation and simplification is recommended.
• Documentation should provide more detailed comparison between the various editions and the difference compared to ECC. SAP should make it easier to find concrete available features.
• Partner enablement and the cooperation with partners needs to be intensified.
• And there were many other precious hints about vision, business cases, customer engagement, education, trials etc.

The following topics were identified as most important benefits for customers and partners:

• UX delights users with role based entry to the system. Simplified and smarter transactions with better workflow improve user productivity.
• Real time Analytics combined with transactional processes, embedded search and standard content without the need to build custom reports are key differentiators.
• Features like soft financial closing, real time planning, stable procedures, no need for replication,  performance boost etc. pave the way for improved and simplified processes
• Speed of Innovations is facilitated by HANA optimized code, based on solid architecture foundation and good technology strategy and execution
• Early involvement of communities with customers, partners, user groups …, incorporation of feedback, and a lot of good documentation.
• Customer support and partner support is well received; especially the support of first customers by the RIG and from development.

The rapid speed of innovation in digital business demands for an early involvement of partners and customers in short feedback cycles. The mentor workshop is an important part of this cooperation. We decided to move forward with these workshops every half year with successively deeper drill down.

Hi All,

I Have so many attribute views,analytical views an calculation views.

I Need below kind of view in HANA

may i know which system tables i have to use for getting above information.

please help me to get above view

Regards,
Srini

Dear All,

We have imported all the delivery units related XS component & assigned with appropriate role.But still sap logo page only displaying.

We couldn't get the login page to enter the credentials.

DU:

HANA_XS_BASE- Completed

HANA_XS_EDITOR - Completed

HANA_XS_DBUTILS - Completed

HANA_XS_LM - Error

HANA_XS_IDE - Error

HDC_XS_LM - Completed

HDC_XS_BASE - Completed

Attached the error screenshot.

Even we have cleared the browser cache too.

Regards,

Nethaji

SAP S/4HANA 1511 - FPS 01 (released 3rd FEB 2016)

Updates of this release will be studied and highlighted / added to the table.

SAP S/4HANA 1511 - Initial Version (SP00) & Feature Pack FPS1 (SP01)

This document is an effort to captures a summarized view of "Simplification-Listing" & the restrictions of KEY Functionalities.

Base information has been referred from SAP Notes, Release Information, S/4HANA 1511 sap help.

Supportings

Key SAP NOTES :

2189824 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Release Information Note

2214213 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Restriction Note

2214409 - The release information for Add-Ons.

2182725 -  Procure latest SAP Notes for Pre-Checks

2241080 - Custom Code Checks

2190420 -  SAP S/4 HANA: Recommendations for adaption of customer code

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition – SAP Help Portal Page

http://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511

Hi,

Can you please let me know how can sales and procurement data is creating for business partner in S4HANA?

Thanks.

Hi All,

I know there is an impact of S/4 HANA on Logistics Transactions as well,

My Question is how to do GR against OBDs for STOs as I can see only 2 options here PO and Material doc.

Where as if we are not using S/4 HANA we can see all options:

Thx,

Vivek

Hi,

.

when i try to enter Fiori App "Create Supplier Invoice" in S/4HANA 1511 FPS01 i get following error:

/n/IWFND/ERROR_LOG:

Can anybody help with this issue?

Best regards,

Tomislav

Hi there,

We've installed SAP S4 Hana on premise edition with all the best practices activated in our demo environment.

Now we've two companies in the system created by the best practices for DE and US.

Our goal now is to create another company but with other country which we don't have best practices. What is the best approach for this? Do the customizing just like the old way or can we adapt the standard best practices for US or DE for this country?

Another question regarding future upgrades, if we change the standard configurations maded by the standard best practices could this changes be replaced by future upgrades?

Best regards

I am working with a client who required liquidity forecasting. They are moving to S/4HANA on-premise, and are looking at Fiori for some of the interfaces.

In the documentation, on page 214 I have found this information:

The sentend at the top of the S/4HANA 1511 column "Use Cash Position Detail app Liquidity Forecase in SPS 1511" does not make sense.

I have looked at the "Cash Position Detail" app, and it doesn't seem to cover liquidity forecasting, and there is little documentation around this app, just 2 images.

When I search for a Liquidity Forecasting app in S/4HANA on-premise 1511 I find there aren't any:

Is there an app in S/4HANA on-premise which covers this functionality? How would users perform this activity in S/4 1511?

Thank you

Hi,

We implemented S/4HANA 1511 FPS1 RDS

On FIORI Launchpad >> when I click  "Manage Your Solution" -- it tries to open required FIORI app & calls required ODATA service... However gets stuck-midway and gives error...

Debugging shows that this statement fails... 

https://server-ip:port/sap/opu/odata/sap/E2EIE_IC_MNGCLDSOL/SysStateSet?sap-client=100

{"error":{"code":"005056A509B11EE1B9A8FEC11C21D78E","message":{"lang":"en","value":"Resource not found for the segment 'SysStateSet'."},"innererror":{"transactionid":"570FAC292F639B16E10000000A100C05","timestamp":"20160420224244.3646670","Error_Resolution":{"SAP_Transaction":"Run transaction /IWFND/ERROR_LOG on SAP Gateway hub system and search for entries with the timestamp above for more details","SAP_Note":"See SAP Note 1797736 for error analysis (https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1797736)"}}}}

When I checked the ODATA-Service E2EIE_IC_MNGCLDSOL  -- it works fine with certain Entity-sets, however gives error for few of entity sets.

Is any component missing ?

Recently, I ordered and installed the SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1511 Fully-activated Software Appliance (Blu-ray) into our internal environment for demo and presale purpose. I want to share some experience about how to order and smoothly install the software appliance.

Ordering Blu-ray

• Partner ordering - create customer message following the instrustions in 2041140 - Order SAP Preassembled rapid-deployment solution as a physical shipment
• Customer ordering - create customer message following the instructions in  2202234 - Order SAP Preassembled rapid-deployment solution as a physical shipment as part of an SAP service delivery

Notes:

1. At the current point in time, customers need a service engagement with SAP Consulting for receiving any (i.e. not just for the S/4HANA discs) pre-configured Blu-Ray disc. This is not needed for partners.

2. Customers & partners need valid licenses for the pre-configured components on the discs (partners e.g. T&D license, customers regular or trial license contract):

a) S/4HANA

b) HANA

c) SAP Cash Management

d) SAP BPC for NW (used for Integrated Business Planning for Finance)

It will takes several days before you receiving the media sent from SAP. Keep in mind that you need a blu-ray drive to read the content (There are two CDs within the package).

There is also one document called First Steps: Installation of SAP S/4HANA, On-Premise edition 1511 fully-activated Software Applicance which gives you an overview of the various sources of information that are available for the delivered SAP production.

Preparing Installation

Get one certified SAP HANA server with the hardware configuation below (in my case, I deploy HANA DB and SAP application server in one host):

OS: SLES 11 SP3 / SP4

CPU: 8

RAM: 256GB

HDD: 500GB

Performing Installation

Make all techinical steps mentioned in SAPNote_2202234_deliverables_2016_4.pdf attached within note 2041140

About how to installation this software applicance, you can also refer to openSAP -> Implementation of SAP S4HANA -> Week 4 Unit 3 insts4hana Video.

https://open.sap.com/courses/s4h4/items/6OJgSCw5Ni8yG7nOlL7eYe

Problem Fixing

After renaming, you need to perform the following activities to fix problems you may face which are not recorded in installation guide.

1. Change hostname related to the embedded webdispatcher configuration from vhcals4hcs to your current hostname in S4H_ASCS01_<hostname> profile.

2. Adjust value of HANA paremeter ssl/server_pse to new hostname if you want to use https protocal to access HANA XS service, for instance, s4demo21 is the current hostname for the machine. Then kill HANA webdispatcher service to take change into effect.

3. Clean Fiori cache according to SAP Fiori - Cache Management: Clearing caches after applying patches

or you may face DNS resolution error which redirects to vhcals4hcs.dummy.domain when clicking some Apps like imcoming sales order.

Addtional Information

1. If you want to logon the embedded webdispatcher, the password for user admin is Welcome1.

2. Reconfigure transport system in needed.

We installed 1511 FPS1 and activated RDS .

On FIORI launchpad we are able to see only few tabs - for Sales ...

(A) is this because the RDS has not been installed properly ?

(B) is it because of required Roles / catalog not assigned to my UID ?

(C) Is there any KPI setting required ??

(D) Any components missing ?

(E) which times should come in catalog that show no time ?

Any input / suggestion / help appreciated.

Hi,

I need an assistance to change the maintenance level of currency from setting company code dependent to 

setting company code independent at define ledger & currency types.

I am using s4hana.

I have attached the screen shot.

Hi guys,

We are in the process of Migrating an ERP 6 EHP7 System to S/4HANA 1511.

During SUM Phase whichs executes Pre-conversion checks I'm stuck with this error

I have applied all Notes mentioned in Note 2182725 - S4TC Delivery of the SAP S/4HANA System Conversion Checks.

SUM phase its showing the following error.

Error

SUM-Phase: PREP_EXTENSION/RUN_S4H_PRE_CHECK_CONS

ERROR: Errors occurred during Execution of S4Hana pre-checks to verify if upgrade is possible. For more information, see the log file of the background job S4_PRE_TRANSITION_CHECKS.AS4. The following is the content of the summary error log file:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Execution of S4Hana pre-checks to verify if upgrade is possible ERRORS and RETURN CODE in S4_PRE_TRANSITION_CHECKS.AS4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4 ETG012 "Start Time Stamp 20160421130412 (2016 04 21;" "13:04:12)"

4 ETG012 "SAP S/4HANA Pre-Transition Check Class Consistency" "Checks."

4 ETG011 "The Check Program is started via SUM."

4 ETG011 "System ID: AS4; SAP_BASIS 740, SP 0008."

4 ETG012 "The software component exception list file exists" "and contains 19 entries."

2EETG012 "Overall Result: The SAP S/4HANA pre-transition" "check data is NOT consistent !!"

4 ETG011 "UIX01TRV"

4 ETG011 "UIX02EA4"

4 ETG011 "UIX02EAP"

4 ETG011 "UIX02RT4"

4 ETG011 " "

2EETG011 "1 Software Component with errors:"

4 ETG012 "The used check class is CLS4H_ECC_DIMP" "(application component IS-A)."

4 ETG012 "Dynamic call of class CLS4H_ECC_DIMP, method" "IS_SW_COMPONENT_USED successfully executed."

4 ETG012 "ECC-DIMP is used and relevant for SAP S/4HANA" "pre-transition checks."

4 ETG012 "Dynamic call of class CLS4H_ECC_DIMP, method" "GET_MINIMUM_TARGET_RELEASE successfully executed."

4 ETG012 "The check requires the minimum target release" "ECC-DIMP 999 SP 99."

2EETG012 "Source sw component ECC-DIMP: Target sw component" "ECC-DIMP: no upgrade target release available !"

4 ETG012 "The used check class is CLS4H_SAP_APPL" "(application component LO-AB)."

4 ETG012 "Dynamic call of class CLS4H_SAP_APPL, method" "IS_SW_COMPONENT_USED successfully executed."

4 ETG012 "SAP_APPL is used and relevant for SAP S/4HANA" "pre-transition checks."

4 ETG012 "Dynamic call of class CLS4H_SAP_APPL, method" "GET_MINIMUM_TARGET_RELEASE successfully executed."

4 ETG012 "The check requires the minimum target release" "S4CORE 101 SP 0000."

2EETG012 "The target release 100 SP 0001 is lower than the" "required minimum target release 101 SP 0000."

Why is asking for Target Release S4CORE 101 SP 0000 When Maintenance Planner calculated for S4CORE 100 SP 0001

Also target release ECC-DIMP 999 SP 99 does not look valid.

I found out these errors are related to Notes  2185960 and 2194272 which contains Check Classes, but couldnt find out why the its showing that message

Hope anyone faced this and could provide some help on how to overcome this.

Best

Martin

SAP S/4HANA Cookbook

The SAP S/4HANA Cookbook covers the most important aspects of implementing SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4HANA).

It consists of a small set of HTML landing pages that provide abstracts for specific topics, along with links to further deep-dive information.

The content on these pages follows an iterative approach and will be updated regularly.

Comments are disabled on this page to keep it lean.

Please use the SAP S/4HANA forum to raise questions about SAP S/4HANA.

For comments regarding the cookbook itself, please use the accompanying blog.

Table of Contents

1. What is SAP S/4HANA (this page)

• Overview
• What is available now ?
• Further capabilities in context of SAP S/4HANA
• Transition Options
• Extensibility & Adaptation
• Best Practices & Enablement by SAP
  

2. SAP Simple Finance, On-Premise Edition 1503: Implementation Information

• This first on-premise version of SAP S/4HANA was released in March 2015. Since this version currently has the highest implementation figures, there is a separate page on it in the cookbook.

3. Implementing SAP S/4HANA with SAP Activate (New, Apr 11)

• This page gives an overview of the accelerators consolidated in SAP Activate that  help SAP partners and customers throughout the different phases of SAP S/4HANA implementation projects

Note: For access to SAP Notes and roadmap information, an 'S-user' is required (see here).

SAP S/4HANA: Overview

SAP S/4HANA: What is available now ?

Further capabilities in context of SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA: Transition Options

SAP S/4HANA: Extensibility & Custom Code Adaptation

Best Practices & Enablement by SAP

Comments are disabled on this page. Please use the forum to raise questions, comments, or ideas.

Introduction

Currently many SAP customers plan and evaluate the migration from their classic ERP system running on any DB to Business Suite on SAP HANA or S/4HANA. For both scenarios custom ABAP code needs to be adapted for SAP HANA. This paper shares best practices in order to minimize the adaption effort. The recommended procedure has already been applied successfully in many different SAP Hana migration projects.

Basic facts about the adaption of ABAP code for SAP HANA

In general all ABAP code runs on SAP HANA as on any other supported database. Some SQLs are faster on HANA , e.g. when selecting columns without an index. Only ABAP code which relies on specific features or capabilities of the predecessor database must be analyzed and corrected. There are three main aspects for custom ABAP code adaption for SAP HANA:

Mandatory corrections of your code to avoid functional regression

Target: ABAP code, SQL code or database calls which build on specific features of the predecessor database
(e.g. native SQL, ABAP code relying on certain sort order of a SQL result set)

Recommended SQL performance optimizations in order to avoid performance degradations

Target: “Bad” SQLs in custom code playing a dominant role in the runtime profile of productive business processes. Special focus is on SQLs which are executed very frequently (e.g. SELECT in loop).

Exploit SAP HANA Code pushdown techniques by using Core Data Services and SQL script procedures to speed up custom code processes significantly

This papers focuses on the first two aspects which are part of the SAP HANA migration. The third step normally happens after the migration and is addressed in custom development projects driven by business requirements.

Recommended tools

For functional corrections the ABAP platform provides static code check tools like Code Inspector and the ABAP Test Cockpit. In addition, ABAP developers and test engineers can build unit tests and scenario tests in order to ensure functional correctness. For the SAP HANA migration SAP provides new static checks integrated in the code inspector. These checks are bundled in the code inspector variant FUNCTIONAL_DB and FUNCTIONAL_DB_ADDITION.

Please check the SAP note: http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1935918 in case the variant does not exist in your system.

In addition to the static checks SAP also provides a new runtime check monitor, transaction SRCTM.

Please check the SAP Note: http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1931870 for more informtion.

For performance optimizations the ABAP platform provides runtime tools for tracing and monitoring the performance of the business processes. The main tools are Runtime Analysis, SQL Trace and the workload monitor for runtime monitoring. With NetWeaver 7.40, the new SQL monitor was introduced to analyze SQL statements in your productive system. The SQL Monitor is the recommended tool for optimizing SQLs in custom code during the migration to SAP HANA.

A very good introduction of the SQL monitor can be found here: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-47444

Please check the SAP Note http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1885926 to find information how you can get the SQL monitor in lower releases.

Additionally, the developer can use static checks integrated in the code inspector to find and avoid performance bugs in the code. For the SAP HANA migration, some additional static performance checks are available to find performance hints. The static checks are bundled in the code inspector variant PERFORMANCE_DB. But please be aware that these checks should only be used as additonal hints when fixing the issues detected by the SQL monitor analysis. Do never fix the static findings without looking in the SQL monitor before.

For condensing the custom code work package during the SAP HANA migration it is recommended to use the Usage Procedure Logging (UPL) in order to focus the functional corrections on the productively used code. Cleaning up of non-productively used code before the migration is therefore strongly recommended. A good overview about the UPL can be found here: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-54826

Recommended step by step process for the custom code adaption

Project planning phase

Before you start the journey towards SAP HANA you should first reflect the current situation of your custom code in your landscape to get an impression about the efforts needed for the migration. Topics like custom code retirement, custom code quality optimization, custom code process optimization and the custom code impact analysis are helpful offerings to refine the custom code strategy in your company. SAP is offering various services to help customers here. You can find more information about these options in the custom code management community: Custom Code Management   

Preparation phase before the migration (old system landscape)

Before you start with the migration of the database you have to do some prepartion steps in your old landscape in order to be succuessful with the project. The following steps are recommended:

Limit work package (optional)

A very important step in such a migration project is to do some housekeeping before the project starts. Get an overview about your custom code and analyze which code is really necessary for your business. Ideally eliminate code that is not used anymore before the migration starts. Use the Usage Procedure Log (UPL) to create a custom code directory containing only the productively used code.

Performance optimizations

Switch on SQL Monitor in the old productive system for ~ 2 weeks to monitor the performance of your productive business processes. Sort the SQL Monitor results in transaction SQLM by “number of execution” and optimize the 10-20 Top most executed SQLs in your custom code which affect relevant business processes (e.g. SELECT in Loop can be transformed in FOR ALL ENTRIES).

During the migration (new system landscape)

Correct functional issues via static checks

In the upgraded development system, run the code inspector with the static checks from the variant FUNCTIONAL_DB for your custom code.

Correct the priority one and two findings.

Correct functional issues via runtime checks

Switch on the runtime check monitor SRTCM in the upgraded test system in order to monitor the tests of your business processes. Correct the additional findings found by runtime check.

After these corrections are done you should now start your standard tests for functional corrections via standard unit tests and scenario tests.

Performance optimizations

Switch on SQL Monitor in the upgraded test system in order to monitor the tests of your business processes.

Sort the SQL Monitor results by “execution time” and optimize the first Top 10 SQLs in in your custom code which affect relevant business processes.

After the migration (productive system is live on SAP HANA)

Functional corrections – runtime checks

Switch on the runtime check monitor again in the new productive system and correct the additional findings found by the runtime check.

Performance optimizations

Switch on SQL Monitor in the productive system. Sort the SQL Monitor results by “execution time” and optimize the 10-20 Top SQLs in your custom code which affect relevant business processes. After performance optimizations reached the productive system, this process needs to be repeated 2-3 times in order to achieve the best results.

Optimize your code for SAP HANA

After the successful migration you can now start to think about optimizing your business processes by using code push down techniques of SAP HANA like the Core Data Servcies (CDS) and ABAP managed database procedures (AMDP) implemented with the native HANA language SQL script.

Find more information about these capabilities in the ABAP for SAP HANA community: ABAP for SAP HANA

SAP S/4HANA Custom Code Adaption

With the system conversion approach of SAP S/4HANA SAP is offering a technical approach to convert an existing SAP Business Suite system to SAP S/4HANA. The system conversion to SAP S/4HANA is based on established lifecycle management tools (Software Update Manager SUM with Database Migration Option DMO). Things are done differently in SAP S/4HANA and a customer needs to adopt to the target capabilities of SAP S/4HANA. Many of the changes are technical in nature and have no or only limited impact on peoples work and thus do not trigger business change management. SAP at large keeps the traditional capabilities available as compatibility scope enabling a rather technical migration of these processes and leaving the time of change management at customer decision that may well happen when initially converting or at a later point in time.

Basically SAP supports the customer with different tools and approaches to plan and manage the move to SAP S/4HANA.

One tool (which is addressed within this S/4HANA SCN Blog) within the different phases of a SAP S/4HANA system conversion is the Custom Code Migration Worklist to support the customer to get transparency about the custom code which does not comply to scope and data structure of SAP S/4HANA.

Note: For more details about the system conversion process and the supporting functionality related to the system conversion see the following SAP Community Network blog (http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-68976), summarizing the different aspects of the system conversion.

Custom Code within SAP S/4HANA On-Premise

The following document contains information related to the SAP S/4HANA Custom Code Adaption within the on-premise edition. In this document:

• we are answering basic questions like "are modifications possible in SAP S/4HANA" and we try to give an overview about the custom code related tooling available for SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition
• recommended steps and sequence to adapt the custom code

Link to the document:  http://service.sap.com/~sapidp/012002523100002530422016E.pdf

Our target is to update this document (and publish via the SCN) and incorporate the learnings we receive from the different customer projects and input channels. Feedback and ideas for improvement of the document are welcome and can be given here in this SCN Blog.

Code Inspector in the Context of SAP S/4HANA

To make the results of the Custom Code Migration Worklist more detailed, dedicated Code Inspector Checks are delivered. Currently the following Code Inspector Checks are available to detail the results of the Custom Code Migration Worklist:

• Code Inspector check for SAP S/4HANA material field length extensions
• Specify operation kind (modify, select, update…) in Code inspector check  

You can execute these code inspector checks on your SAP Business Suite system (the start system for your system conversion) or in a system already converted to SAP S/4HANA.

A detailed description how to use these additional code inspector checks is describe in SAP Note 2271900. In this SAP Note you can find a dedicated How-to-Guide, to set-up these code inspector checks.

Related SAP Notes:

• 2271900: Custom Code Management: Generation of Code Inspector Variant
• 2270689: RFC extractor to execute static checks in another system. 
• 2272014: Code Inspector check for SAP S/4HANA material field length extensions
• 2275317: Specify operation kind (modify, select, update…) in Code inspector check  

Related Information

For transitioning to S/4HANA there are two fundamental options. You could either implement S/4HANA from scratch and migrate your existing data in a greenfield approach, or alternatively you could transition your existing ECC to S/4HANA including all of its customizations and data in a brownfield approach.

To make this decision, in my experience, the following dimensions have to be evaluated:

Data Quality / Unicode / Archive

When transitioning to S/4HANA, data matters big time.

Unicode

To start with, S/4HANA does only support Unicode. If your ECC system was on multiple code pages (MDMP) a Unicode conversion would have to be included into the transition. Technically, the SAP S/4HANA transition tools (SUM DMO option) support this conversion, but more importantly, your business would have to provide the respective vocabularies, which could be integrated into a data migration approach.

Archive

While the reorganization and column store compression of an S/4HANA transition regularly shrinks your data footprint considerably, it remains important that you only take relevant data in-memory due to the huge price difference between memory and disk capacity. Therefore, you would either have to implement a data retention strategy upfront a technical transition to S/4HANA or integrate it into your data migration approach.

Data Quality

With S/4HANA, operational reporting could be run real-time on your transactional data without the need to load it into a data warehouse environment. However this implies, that there is no transformation step as it was in a traditional ETL approach any longer, so that the data quality has to be given in the system itself. To achieve this, there are two steps required.

Passive Data Governance

Either prior to your transition to S/4HANA or as part of the data migration, your data foundation has to be cleansed. Whichever you find easier or is more feasible will drive your decision.

Active Data Governance

Once cleansed, your data foundation has to be maintained clean, regardless a greenfield or brownfield approach.

Integration / Interfaces

In a real-time environment like S/4HANA, integration makes a bigger difference than ever, since real-time information on batched data has no benefit. Therefore any interface into S/4HANA or out of it would either have to be revisited prior to the transition or re-implemented with real-time in mind as part of the migration.

Versions / Patches

Simple Finance, on-premise edition 1503

Technically Simple Finance, on-premise edition 1503, is based on EhP 7 for ERP 6.0, which runs on SAP NetWeaver 7.40 and HANA as the database. Therefore a transition from an earlier release is very similar to a respective upgrade and a data migration less likely the preferred alternative.

S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511

Technically S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511, is based on S/4HANA core components that run on SAP NetWeaver 7.50 and SAP HANA as the database database. Therefore a lot of components have started to be changed and a transition would have more the character of a migration.

Modifications / Enhancements

Your modifications and enhancements would have to be checked for S/4HANA compliance. SAP provide a tool for this, that I described in my earlier blog: Make the S/4HANA Custom Code Analyser work for you and some of the corrective measures might be automatable, but there remains effort. Therefore, if you had a lot of custom code that is of no value any longer, a migration and S/4HANA compliant re-implementation of the still required enhancements might be an opportunity for further simplification.

Configuration / Features

Please be aware, that S/4HANA is work in progress and that not all the functionality that had been available in ECC 6.0 is available in S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 yet. Please check the User Assistance for SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 for what functionality has already been made available. Also not all industry solutions and add-ons, whether from SAP or 3rd parties, are S/4HANA compliant yet. For SAP products the SAP HANA readiness can be checked in the PAM. For 3rd party software you would however contact the respective vendor. Missing functionality, a non S/4HANA compliant industry solution or add-on would of course prevent you from a transition whereas you might still be able migrate, if you could provide the respective functionality in another way.

User Experience / Mobility

The strategic S/4HANA user interface is Fiori, but in SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511 quite a few transactions are still rendered in SAPGUI for HTML leveraging Screen Personas. Therefore, regardless the approach, I would recommend that you make yourself familiar with those UI technologies and get the technical foundation for Fiori in place.

Summary

If you had a streamlined system in terms of code, data and integration or could get to one without too much pain, a brownfield transition to S/4HANA would be the recommended option. However, if you had a lot of technical debt in your system, a greenfield migration would be the more feasible option that would reward you with a clean and simplified result.