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Jan Musil Assigned Tags

April 19, 2021 | 9 minute read
SAP Activate

How to use SAP Activate methodology in Focused Build for SAP Solution
Manager
multi-country deployment projects SAP Best Practices

SAP Cloud ALM

 3  22  12,734
SAP S/4HANA

I originally published this blog post on SAP Activate Jam space about 4 years ago under SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended
title “How to use SAP Activate in Global Deployment Projects.” I updated it for this edition
publication to reflect the latest thinking about the use of SAP Activate methodology in
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multi-country deployments. I encourage SAP Activate practitioners to share their enterprise management layer
learnings and practices in the comments to this blog post.

Over the past few weeks, I had several conversations with SAP customers and SAP Similar Blog Posts 
colleagues about how they can use SAP Activate framework in multi-country
implementation projects. While SAP Activate does not offer a dedicated multi-country RISE with SAP: Get your projects
template roadmap in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer application, the concept will scale for started right with SAP Activate
both initial build of the multi-country template (coupled with initial deployment in first and Ready-to-Run Business
sites) and on-going rollout of the multi-country template into subsequent rollout Process Content
locations/business units in additional countries.
By Jan Musil Feb 01, 2021

The goal of this blog is to provide an outline of how to approach multi-country

SAP Activate in S/4HANA rollout
implementation programs with the SAP Activate methodology and how to leverage
to Brazil
available accelerators in your program. I will outline the key principles, accelerators and
tools that support SAP customers in their multi-country deployments. By Renan Correa Dec 29, 2021

Enterprise Management Layer for

SAP S/4HANA – Focus Topic:
Deployment
By Petra OHLINGER May 19, 2021

Related Questions 
Project team SAP Activate training
By Christine Vincent Aug 23, 2022

SAP Activate Methodology

By Teofilo Markovic Jun 06, 2023

General description of SAP

Figure 1 – Overview of multi-country deployment using SAP Activate methodology
Activate methodology

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Overview By Uwe Scheerer Oct 01, 2021

The Figure 1 above shows the overview flow of the multi-country or multi-site deployment
and rollout consisting of the Template Project and Rollout Project. The Template Project
section on the top of the image shows the build of the multi-country template, including
the use of fit-to-standard re-using the pre-delivered business processes and the initial
deployment to the first wave of sites. The decision on the first set of sites may be driven by
decision to follow either geographical deployment or deployment per business
unit/function in the business. The second part of the image is the Rollout Project (in the
lower part of the Figure) that shows the key steps for execution of rollout project activities,
including the use of fit-to-standard that leverages the template with ready-to-run
customer specific processes created during the initial multi-country Template Project.

In this blog post, I will not be discussing the strategic decisions project team and project
leaders need to make to determine optimal deployment strategy (geographical, by
business unit, or combination of the two). But rather, focus on the tactical activities that
support the creation a multi-national template and the steps to roll it out into multiple
locations in subsequent Rollout Projects with SAP Activate. I will discuss how the SAP
Activate approach is used for global projects and I’ll point out any differences or specific
activities global template and rollout teams need to consider while building or rolling out
the template.

Template Project
Figure 2 below shows the details of the Template Project in which the project team follows
the SAP Activate methodology. We will go into more details in this section.

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Figure 2 – Overview of template project flow in multi-country deployment using SAP

Activate methodology

The template project team is re-using available pre-configured ready-to-run business

processed, either the pre-configuration packages from SAP or packages provides by SAP
ecosystem partners. SAP offers the following packages that project teams should use to
get their projects under way:

Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – used for customers
deploying RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition
SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – used for customers deploying SAP
S/4HANA Cloud
SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA – designed for customers deploying their SAP
S/4HANA system in their own data center

These packages provide customers with ready-to-run business processes and are the
starting point for conducting the fit-to-standard workshops as part of the solution

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definition and design activities. The fit-to-standard analysis workshops in your Template
Project are run in the same way as in the SAP Activate projects – this accelerator details
how to prepare and conduct fit-to-standard analysis workshops. Last year, we have
introduced new remote playbooks for customers that are running their project in a remote
setup. Here is my earlier blog post on the topic.

Project teams in Template Project should also apply the Solution Standardization Board
(SSB) governance model to minimize the number of unnecessary custom code and
custom objects in their system. We will not detail this topic in this article, but you can
review the details in the previous blog post about project governance and SSB here you
can also find the story from Andre Malan about the value SSB provided to his customer’s
project here.

The result of the fit-to-standard workshops is a backlog containing all delta requirements
in the form of user stories that are complemented with additional solution design
documentation (like user experience mock-ups, functional specs, etc.). The backlog
summarizes what the project team needs to build during the Realize phase to complete
the template for the deployment in the first rollout location(s).

In addition to conducting the standard SAP Activate fit-to-standard analysis workshops

during the Explore phase, the project team in the Template Project needs to categorize the
business processes in scope to indicate the level of standardization/globalization. This
categorization will help the project team later during the Rollout Project to scope and plan
the fit-to-standard workshops for the rollout sites. For example, the rollout project team
will not be allowed to make any changes to global process, they will have limited ability to
make changes to standardized processes and they will be able to influence execution of
full scope of local processes in the Rollout Project fit-to-standard analysis.

For your reference, below is the list of categories that project team in Template Project
should use during the design of the multi-national template. These categories are
assigned to the business scenarios and processes to indicate the span of control for the
business process. This categorization helps with management of the scope of work during
the rollout — e.g. only processes that can be changed by the rollout sites should be
considered for the fit-to-standard workshops. Here are the categories:

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Global Process – A process is global when it is integrated throughout the organization:

that is, when it is cross-functional or cross-organizational. An element that is flagged as
global cannot be changed in a local rollout; in other words, the structure element and
all associated business content are predetermined.
Standard Complete Process – A process is standardized if it must be executed in the
same way in the entire organization (in all relevant organizational units). A standardized
complete element (and its business content) can be seen as a proposition from the
global template that should be used as delivered. However, the local team may extend
the structure element with additional substructures and with additional business
content.
Standard Partial Process – A process is standardized if it must be executed in the same
way in the entire organization (in all relevant organizational units). A standardized
partial element (and its business content) can be seen as a proposition from the global
template that should be used as delivered, but the process consists of subprocesses
that are locally regulated by legal requirements, and these need to be defined on a local
level. The local team can design their own processes if the parent company agrees to
this.
Harmonized Process – These business processes will be standardized in the future. It is
recommended that the local rollout team use the harmonized processes. A process is
harmonized if it is recommended to execute the process in a specific way.
Harmonization is a first step toward standardization but without mandatory elements.
One reason can be for organizational readiness, or there may be many legal
requirements preventing standardization. For the local team, the same activities are
allowed or forbidden as for standard partial processes.
Local Process – A process is local if it is not possible, or it makes no sense, to define it
as global, standardized, or harmonized: for example, locally unique taxation processes.
Local units must design this process for their needs. These processes are necessary for
obtaining executable software for testing. For the local team, the same activities are
allowed or forbidden as for standard partial processes.

The rest of the Template Project is managed in a similar fashion as any other project that
follows the SAP Activate methodology. The project team in a Template Project should
build the template using the iterative, incremental build of capabilities in short sprints.

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Then, the template is deployed in the first set of sites and customer uses the functionality
to run their business in these first sites. You can refer to the SAP Activate methodology in
SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer for detailed guidance in the specific roadmap that fits the
solution your project team is deploying.

Rollout Project
Let’s briefly talk about the Rollout Project. The main change that the Rollout Project team
applies is that they use the template with customer specific business processes as the
foundation for fit-to-standard workshops as you can see in Figure 3 below. The assignment
of categories we have explained above dictate which processes need to be included in the
scope of the fit-to-standard workshops – e.g. only the processes that the local project
team has ability to extend (Standard Complete), change (Standard Partial and
Harmonized) or the ones they need to define completely based on local design (e.g. Local
processes). In the Rollout Project the goal is to further reduce the deviation from the pre-
defined template and governance principles such as Solution Standardization Board
should be used to assess deviations from the customer specific standard defined in their
template.

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Figure 3 – Overview of rollout project flow in multi-country deployment using SAP Activate
methodology

The Rollout Project team follows these steps for each of the rollout locations:

Use template into the Development system (in case of dedicated landscape for rollout
project, the rollout project team deploys the template to their dedicated Development
system).
Perform fit-to-standard analysis focused on Local processes and adjustments of
Harmonized/Standardized processes per governance set forth by Template Project
Capture backlog items for all identified delta configuration items, including delta
design documents.
Implement the agreed upon delta requirements in the Development system.*
Test the solution in the Test environment.*
Deploy the solution into the Production system for the rollout site.*

* Note that the above description is based on RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private
edition and the system names may differ for other solutions.

Additional Remarks
Implementations project teams embarking on multi-national deployment projects will
benefit greatly from using Application Lifecycle Management tools that provide support,
automation and control for the activities like requirements management, testing.
Customers planning their deployment should consider using ALM tools like SAP Cloud
ALM or SAP Solution Manager. Teams that are using SAP Solution Manager and adopted
agile principles in their project should consider using the Focused Build For SAP Solution
Manager that supports them in planning, management and execution of global template
build and rollouts. They will find following document useful in setting up their environment
and using it in conjunction with SAP Activate methodology – download guide here.

Please share your feedback and questions in comments to this blog post. Share your
experiences from multi-country deployment projects and techniques you used

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successfully to control the complex and large-scale SAP deployments. You can explore
more resources in SAP Community using tag #sapactivate.

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3 Comments

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Bob Byrne
April 19, 2021 at 2:59 pm

Great blog Jan Musil Nice coverage of how SAP Activate can help with the multi-country approach for implementation projects
with SAP Activate.

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Dimitri Gurewitsch
April 21, 2021 at 6:24 am

Thanks a lot for the hints Jan. One "semi-technical" question still open. You write "the rollout project team deploys the template to
their dedicated Development system" - IN WHICH FORM could the template be delivered to other sites, countries, teams ?

Like 1 | Share

Jan Musil | Blog Post Author

April 21, 2021 at 12:12 pm

Thank you, Dimitri. I assume you focus on how to package the configuration in your question, but there is also the solution
documentation, design documents, setup guides and such. Best is to use ALM tool like SAP Solution Manager to help you
manage this. When it comes to config here are the options most teams use.

Let’s talk S/4HANA first - in case of centralized landscape you don’t need to worry about it as all teams can share the
same systems in the landscape. In case you have separate system or landscape to rollout into, you can move
configuration using BC-Sets or if you are completely re-using the template system your initial setup could be done with
system copy. The setup of integrations will need to be re-done manually, so best is to have detailed documentation similar
to what SAP delivers in setup guides.

If we talk about SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public cloud) your rollout team will activate new country or add new organizational
entity and start configuration for that country/entity using the configuration capabilities in the solution. There is an
accelerator in Activate for S4HC that provides more details. You can find it in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer.

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