Finance in S/4HANA 1610 the

what, why and how: Part 2

Published on December 18, 2016

Ugur HasdemirFollow
Entrepreneur | Innovation and Digital Transformation lead | SAP S/4HANA Consulting
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Last week I shared the What and How on Finance in S/4HANA. In part 1,
we have learned the product and understand the key benefits of Finance in
S/4HANA. Now I will continue with possible migration scenarios.

If you have missed the first part, you can read it from here.

The How... different scenarios and migration paths

One of the 5 pillars of S/4HANA is the choice of deployment. Both On-

Premise as well as Cloud deployments are supported. In this blog you will
gain an inside in the On-Premise deployment and migration scenarios.
When you go for the On-Premise deployment option there are 3 options; a
completely new installation, a system conversion or a landscape
transformation.

A new installation is quite straight forward since no migration activities

are necessary except from bringing in your balances, stocks, open items
and other standard cut-over activities. In a system conversion scenario
however, there are additional steps to perform which will be explained
further on.

The best strategy for your company, either new install, conversion, cloud
or On-Premise depends on the requirements and complexity of the current
IT environment / SAP systems. After reading this blog you will get more
insights in de system conversion options and activities involved. A specific
assessment and analysis should be performed on your individual situation
to define the best path.

Currently there are 3 major migration scenarios for customers running

SAP ERP 6.0 on any database. Starting from the bottom these are the
following:
Migrate to Suite on HANA:

This scenario is purely a technical database migration. This can be an

intermediate step if your company has to renew its hardware but there is
no time and/or budget for an additional migration project to S/4HANA. Of
course there can be more valid reasons. Maybe the company needs to
upscale or renew hardware because of performance issues or expansion. In
these situations going for an in memory HANA appliance is a no-brainer.

Since this is only a technical migration, no application migration is

involved. However you still get the performance improvements and the
data compression provided by the HANA technology.

The biggest advantage is that HANA Live will be available so you can
make use of real-time in memory reporting.

Migrating to S/4HANA Finance:

Migration to S/4HANA Finance can be chosen for different reasons. Your

company can move to S/4HANA Finance when only the innovations in
Finance are relevant, you would like to enable specific functionality like
Central Finance or you use this path to mitigate risk and shorten the lead
time of the project. There can be many other reasons like these. If the last
applies keep in mind that you still need to go for a migration to reach the
final destination.
In this blog I will go further with the details of the S/4HANA Finance
migration. These steps are also valid for a migration to S/4HANA 1610.

In S/4HANA Finance, I have already explained all the innovations in Part

1 of my blog. As mentioned in the previous blog, S/4HANA Finance 1605
and S/4HANA 1610 are now equal in terms of functionality in Finance. In
terms of migration there are however still some deltas such as the business
partner and the 40-digit material number.

Migrate to S/4HANA:

If you want to enable all S/4 innovations including the ones in Supply
Chain, Sales and Procurement a direct migration to S/4HANA 1610 is the
preferred path. During this path, the Finance migration, which is also
required for an S/4HANA Finance migration, is part of the game as well.
And I can say that the finance migration part is the most difficult one (see
below).

There are also additional migration activities like the migration of the
customer/vendors to business partners. Along these, there are also
transactions or even functionality which is replaced or removed to another
module.

To capture this information and to be able to perform a fit-gap SAP

provides a so called simplification list for each release where you can find
all deltas compared to previous releases. I have more to say about the
simplification list further in the blog.
The migration and system conversion process

SAP provides are clear process for the conversion to S/4HANA. In the
below figure you can see the required steps and sequences. Along the
technical migration steps, there are application specific preparation steps
(from t2 to t4). For a successful migration it is important that functional
expertise of all the relevant domains are involved in this phase of the
project.

T1: you need to be aware of system requirements, start releases and data
volume. All information is provided in the Conversion Guide.

T2: the maintenance planner checks your components, add-ons and

business functions to ensure compatibility with S/4HANA.

T3: The Pre-check tools provide a detailed report about the technical
readiness of your system to S/4HANA. There is separate pre-check
available for the migration of financial data.

T4: the migration tool checks the code of your SAP Business Suite system
where it does not comply with the scope and data structures of SAP
S/4HANA.

T5: this is the technical step where the database migration (if needed) and
the software update is performed.
T6: in the final part we perform the adoption of the innovations. E.g.
adopting the new UI (Fiori 2.0), configuring and modeling the Fiori apps
and enabling and modeling KPI dashboards based on CDS views.

More about the simplification list

The Simplification List provides the key information by application or

functional area about the simplifications in SAP S/4HANA. Each
simplification item details the steps that need to be taken for the
conversion from a business and a technical point of view. Actually it is a
collection of all business impact SAP notes. All items in the simplification
list refer to a business impact note.

This is your entry document to an application conversion from the

business suite to S/4HANA.

An example of an item in the simplification list is about master data and

specifically the business partner. All related information is provided in
detail. The purpose, the business process related information and obsolete
transaction codes. But also the required actions. This document in
combination with the relevant SAP notes really gives all the information
for a smooth conversion.
The most tricky part: Migration of Finance

Now let us discuss the migration of finance. Whether you go for a full
S/4HANA migration or only for an S/4HANA Finance migration, in both
cases you always need to migrate your financials. The migration tasks
consist of the following steps:

 Preparation and migration of Customizing (GL, CO, AA, ML, Banks)

 Data Migration (migrate transactional data into the new data structures
and generating Compatibility Views of obsolete tables)

 Activities after migration (some last steps, enriching transactional data

and releasing the system).

To give you an idea of some of the migrations in customizing you can

think of defining document types for posting in Controlling, migration to
New Asset Accounting or migrating your House Banks to the new
structure. Check the previous blog to see the differences with Finance in
R/3, it will clarify some of the necessary migrations steps.

For the preparation and migration for Finance a very clear path is provided
in the IMG for the above mentioned steps. There is some guidance,
however the steps in the IMG are not always in the correct sequence!
Functional expertise is very essential.

Finally to control all migration activities a migration monitor is now

provided in S/4HANA 1610. In the monitor you can keep track of all
activities and the status of the individual steps.
As you can see a migration to S/4HANA should be taken as a project in
which the involvement of both technical (ABAP and Basis) and functional
application consultants is required. Especially for the Financial migration
the expertise and experience of a SAP FiCo consultant is a must. In the last
part (t6) experience and knowledge of Fiori UX and Embedded Analytics
options is very welcome as well. These things will make the difference
compared to your old R/3 system.

As mentioned before, a migration to S/4HANA is non-disruptive and

backwards compatible. Compatibility views (CDS views) are generated for
all obsolete tables meaning that old programs will continue to work. Even
your custom programs, except when you have INSERT/WRITE statements
to one of the obsolete tables. These should be redirected to the new data
structure. All these necessary steps are captured in the migration path and
tools are provided by SAP to make your system ready for S/4HANA.

I hope you have enjoyed part 2 of this blog and gained some insights in
typical S/4HANA migration options and activities.

Stay tuned for more S/4HANA news and demo videos on specific topics.

This blog first appeared on my personal website www.s4hanablog.com

Ugur Hasdemir
Entrepreneur | Innovation and Digital Transformation lead | SAP S/4HANA Consulting
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5 comments

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Ken Gorf FCMA

Non Executive Director
Good blog Ugur, clear information. I recommend you also look at the West Trax SAP
Maturity Assessment which provides an accurate view of the client's current
operational system - the real starting point for whichever journey is chosen.
2y
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1 Like
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Andrew Corrigan
Sofware Solutions For Brick & Mortar Retail
West Trax SAP Maturity Assessment highly recommended.
2y
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Ugur Hasdemir
Entrepreneur | Innovation and Digital Transformation lead | SAP S/4HANA Consulting
Thank you Ken. I have heard about the West Trax solution. Very interesting! By the way
Isard Haasakker says hello.
 2y
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Nguyen Tan Cuong

Looking for new challenges
thank you
2y
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Data Migration in S/4HANA

revamped
Published on November 17, 2017

Ugur HasdemirFollow
Entrepreneur | Innovation and Digital Transformation lead | SAP S/4HANA Consulting
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Together with a revamped business suite you can expect revamped data
migration tooling. We are used to work with LSMW for years as the
legacy data migration tool for new implementations and migrations.
LSMW is still an available tool in S/4HANA, but working with LSMW
can be a cumbersome process, this is also the reason why a lot of third
party solutions (based on LSMW) are created and sold to make life easier.
Now we have new tools available, can we completely forget the old
fashioned LSMW?
Changes in data migration

Together with the innovations related to data models, user interfaces, etc.
in S/4HANA, SAP has revised the way we load data into SAP.

The reason to come up with a modern and easy to use migration tool is to
simplify and fulfill the following challenges and requirements:

 Migrate data from SAP/non-SAP systems to S/4HANA

 Provide a data migration solution without programming requirement

 Incorporate custom objects in an easy way

 Mapping data between source and target system

 Reduce effort and minimize downtime

Before going into detailed explanations, I will provide you the list of
available tools for data migration in S/4HANA. Besides the two new tools,
we still have LMSW and RDM:

 LSMW

 Migration Cockpit (MC)

 Migration Object Modeler (MoM)

 Rapid Data Migration (RDM) with Data Services

Are you interested in the different migration tools in S/4HANA and
various possible transition scenarios? Would you like to know more about
the availability of LSMW and have detailed explanations on the Migration
Cockpit and Migration Object Modeler? Are you wondering why you still
need the more advanced Rapid Data Migration tool and what this tool is all
about? After having gained insights in these tools, you probably also want
to have a nice overview of when to use which tool?

Then continue reading this blog on www.s4hanablog.com

SAP S/4HANA – The Path to Simplification

Tags: sap shana shana business
May 4th 2017

View original

This week I was following a discussion on a social media where my friends were
arguing SAP positioning against a highly-customized SAP environment.

While it may be hard to say goodbye to many years of custom-developments,

there is not doubt that the SAP S/4HANA is the best opportunity to re-think the
way how the new ERP will support your existing processes and how this will
help getting rid of the custom-codes (or at least some of them).

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A SAP S/4HANA project is full of great opportunities and it has firmly
established itself as the next generation business suite to support digital
businesses, helping the company to drive through the storm.

SAP S/4HANA it is not a legal successor of any SAP Business Suite Product. SAP
S/4HANA is a new product

What does that means?

If you have the SAP Business Suite and you are going to implement SAP
S/4HANA, you can’t look to this project as an upgrade… It has to be seen as a
new implementation, even if your project’s approach is going to be a system
conversion or landscape transformation.

SAP S/4HANA may not give you the full SAP vanilla flavored system when your
project is finished… It may be hard to get rid of 100% or the developments and
customization that you have in the ECC system today, but SAP S/4HANA will
enable you to think different and you should always to consider the benefits of
running SAP standard, if your company’s business model allows you to do it this
way.

Think about the developments you have today and try to list the ones that
differentiate your business from other companies and competitors? What are
the ones that increases customer service and profitability? Evaluate if they
bring true benefits and cost saving or if it is just another “nice to have” feature,
that in the end it keeps your support team busy maintaining it, just because the
end-user wants to have one extra button here or there. Think on the many
products and features that you may have missed, things that SAP released in it’s
core or products that are out there that you could evaluate and if they would
replace some of the developments that you have today or not.

SAP says that: Run Simple to Run LIVE… companies should be able to react in a
timely manner to economic and business changes, and if your ERP system is too
complex, there is a risk that you will never be able to adapt to changes fast or
not react at all.
The new digital economy is disruptive and the game rules have changed.
You must consider the potential that SAP S/4HANA has to reduce not only
custom developments but also interfaces and 3 rd partner applications you may
have in your system, reducing the maintenance and license cost, support and
other direct/indirect cost those applications may bring to the company.

The foundation of S/4HANA innovation is the revolutionary in-memory

column-store based capabilities of SAP HANA, that enables both OLAP
(analytical) and OLTP (transactional) data to reside in one system, allowing to
analyze, report, simulate and predict in real time, LIVE and leading to smarter
and quicker business decisions. The secret of success on those analysis requires
that all of your processes are carefully reviewed and adhere to the best
practices as much as possible, from Procurement-to-Pay all way to Order-to-
Cash and etc., at the risk of looking to data on your screen that doesn’t reflect
the real numbers.
Researchers shown that 90% of the company’s CIO’s are considering some kind
of cloud strategy to the next 5 years…Shifting from legacy systems to cloud
technology, increasing agility, scalability to support growing demands, better
embedded security and reduced TCO. SAP offers S/4HANA in a SaaS mode with
different flavors: HEC (HANA Enterprise Cloud), Private Cloud, Public Cloud.

Depending on the cloud strategy, the customization and developments are not
possible or limited, so here is another reminder to consider running simple
when you start your project, even if that is a on-premise implementation, as
companies can move to Cloud at any time later.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud has been conceived to co-exist in a diverse system

landscape with native integrations to other SAP solutions and open interfaces
for further integrations and extensions via the SAP Cloud Platform to anything
out there.

It may be difficult at the beginning. Try to think this way: think that the
company was running another ERP for more than 20 years and now they took
the decision to move to SAP (why it took so long, right?)… So imagine that
everything that they had in the old ERP will go away… how would you handle
the core business processes without the developments they had in the old ERP?
It is going to be scary at the beginning, but the pay-off will come latter… how
many times you rejected the idea of implementing a new product SAP was
offering because it would not “fit” on your current system highly-customized
landscape?

Less developments, more standardization and best practices will allow you to
consume those products in a more efficient way and those products could be
the answer to the developments you had to do in the past. Take this
opportunity to ask “why not?”, and push your company towards to
simplification. It will set free your IT department to work on items that brings
real value to the business and to be more innovative, instead of coming to the
office and spending the whole day coding, repairing code or thinking what
needs to be adapted in the program to accommodate an acquisition, a merge, a
new tool that the company is considering to buy and etc.

SAP S/4HANA is a once in a lifetime career opportunity to many people… I

know many people that are proud of their R/2 R/3 project but the fact is that
comparing R/2 to R/3 move versus moving from ECC to S/4HANA has a huge
difference, it’s way bigger and the S/4HANA gives you the opportunity to not
only improve what you already have but totally re-imagine what is possible to
your company in the next years.
“If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be
serving someone who is.” Jan Carlzon

This post first appeared on Web Service Testing A

Blackjack GUI And API, please read the originial post:
here
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