S/4HANA self upgrade for SD consultant.

Hi Friends,

As we all know there is new innovation at SAP technology side and many companies adopting to
it, upgrading their systems to new one etc, but when we look into self upgrade from consultant
perspective may be we wont find something consolidated details which can be referred
immediately.

Self update for any SAP consultant to align parallel with SAP developments specially with
respect to S/4HANA related is very much required now to continue with long career in same.

Myself being SAP SD consultant when I started my journey to learn S/4HANA from its very first
release 1511 there were so many confusions what to learn, from where to start, where to refer,
practice etc. But today I think after 2 years of continuous efforts I am able to consolidate some
contents which I learnt through continuous research on website, practice and through leading
S/4HANA early bird team from my past company.

I know still there are so many SAP SD consultants who want to learn S/4HANA but there might
be many confusions, may be the same what I too faced from my last 2 years tenure of learning.

Hence I decided to take some time to write this post to help all my SAP SD consultant friends
share some knowledge about learning contents for S/4HANA on consultant perspective.

Whatever i am sharing here its just from my learning experience and as per my understandings
and level of knowledge i have. I am may be wrong some time but please excuse if so.

Here are the minimum S/4HANA content that every SD consultant must know in order to say
himself as S/4HANA ready consultant, so that he can practice further and try to get involved in
any projects.

1. Introduction to SAP S/4HANA.

 Evolution of SAP S/4HANA
 Key Aspects of SAP S/4HANA
 S/4 HANA Roadmap
 Benefits of S/4 HANA from business perspective
 Traditional ERP vs S/4 HANA.
2. S/4 HANA Simplification List 1511/1610/1709
 List of Simplification for SD
 List of Simplification for MDM
 Meaning of S/4 HANA versions release (On-Premise and Cloud)
3. Introduction to SAP Activate Methodology
 New Implementation
 System Conversion
 Landscape transformation
4. Master data changes in S/4HANA
 Customer/Vendor creation using Business partner approach
 CVI Integration
 BP related configuration in SPRO and assignments
 Foreign Trade data In the Material Master
 MRP data In the Material Master
 Material Number Field_ Length Extension
 5. Innovations: Sales and Distribution
 What does SAP SD look like in SAP S4 HANA
 Solution capabilities of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Sales and
Distribution
 Data Model Changes In The SD Pricing
 Fiori Apps for SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Sales and Distribution
 Architectural Changes/ Configurations related to Sales.
 Billing Document Output Management.
 SD Rebate Processing Replaced By the Settlement Management and
configuration
 Credit management and configuration(FSCM – OPTIONAL)
 Back order processing with Advance ATP.
6. Introduction to SAP Fiori
 Introduction to Fiori.
 Overview of SAP Fiori Apps related to Logistics.

As per my understandings above are the minimum topics that any SAP SD consultant should
know who are already working on various projects implementation/roll out/support on ECC 6.0 or
older versions.

From my next post I will try to highlight on some of these topics and you may also try to search
through online in order to get any articles/videos/blogs etc for learning.

Hope this post helps and shows some path for new learning if you are in confusion.

Happy learning.

Thanks & Regards,

High Level Solution – What is S/4 HANA
SAP S/4HANA is a real-time enterprise resource management suite
for digital business. It is built on the advanced in-memory platform. It
comes up with the deployment option of, in the cloud or on premise.
S/4 HANA provide instant value across all lines of business
irrespective of industry or business size. SAP HANA (SAP’s In Memory
Database Platform) is now an established platform for SAP, especially
for Analytics in the Systems of Differentiation domain, but
increasingly in the ERP space and Systems of Record.

 “In Memory” is a technology that:

– Allows processing of massive quantities of real-time data

– Provides immediate results from analysis and transactions

– Utilises main memory (RAM) of the system for faster processing

 In practices, this means:

– Immediate Answers: Calculations, analytical operations

executed 1000x to 10,000x faster
– Real-time Access: Data doesn’t move through as many layers, no
aggregation and logic is at data layer not application layer

– Single Version of the truth: As a result of simpler data model,

and no longer a need to move data to a separate OLAP for
Operational reporting with data latency

– Deeper Insight: Analyse massive amounts of data in fractions of

a second
– Lower TCO: Reduced requirements for expensive DBA to
manage indices, reduced storage as a result of no indices or
aggregates and compression

The recent announcement of S/4 HANA reinforces the potential for

improvements in the speed, efficiency, agility and simplification of
SAP enabled business and IT processes. SAP S/4HANA is SAP next-
generation business suite. It is not a legal successor of any SAP
Business Suite product. It is a new product, built entirely on one of
the most advanced in-memory platforms today and incorporates
modern design principles through the SAP Fiori user experience (UX).
SAP S/4HANA delivers massive simplifications (e.g. customer
adoption, data model, user experience, decision making, business
processes and models) and innovations (Internet of Things, Big Data,
business networks, and mobile-first) to help businesses Run Simple in
the digital economy.

S/4 HANA Sales and Distribution, released 1511 is the first

functionality that is fully S/4 HANA optimised.

High Level Solution – What is S/4 HANA Sales

SAP S/4 HANA Sales is a comprehensive solution powered by S/4
HANA that delivers instant insights with on-the-fly analysis across all
dimensions of sales and distribution along with logistics data
simultaneously without system limitations due to the need for
prebuilt aggregates and data marts. It offers an Intuitive User
Experience and the migration to S/4 HANA Sales will be Non-
disruptive.
S/4 HANA Sales has been built (rebuilt) to help meet the evolving
business needs of sales and logistics departments. It is a broad
offering covering “end to end solutions for supply chain” with data
architectural changes and a new set of functionalities that were not a
part of the previous SAP Business Suite on HANA. It fully leverages
the latest in-memory and real-time capabilities of SAP HANA, and
provides a modern user experience for business users on almost any
device, a simplified data model and on-the-fly reporting.

On the technical side, implementation of S/4 HANA Sales redefines

data aggregation and indexing using the in-memory capabilities of
HANA. This allows calculations to be performed ad hoc for supply
chain transactions. On the functional side, new capabilities (listed
below) are made available with the S/4 HANA Sales and distribution).

Capabilities introduced with S/4 HANA Sales &

Distribution:
With introduction of S/4 HANA Enterprise Management, SAP started
simplifying all the SAP business solution on the “Principle of One”.
Few of the capabilities which were introduced in the umbrella of
Principle of One:

SAP Global Trade Services (GTS) replaces ECC SD Foreign

Trade
In the ECC or before S/4 HANA 1511 there were two way of mapping
your foreign trade functionality. Light version of foreign trade
functionality was managed using SD Foreign Trade (FT) with minor
enhancement and GTS in case of full fledge FT. GTS is an additional
instance/ services which is available with extra licence cost. The FT
functionality of SD is no more available with SAP S/4HANA 1511
onwards as SAP GTS is the successor for the business requirement. If
you are using Foreign Trade (FT) and planning to move to S/4 HANA
Sales you need to plan for GTS with extra license cost.

SAP Credit Management replaces ECC FI Credit Management

The FI-AR Credit Management is not available with SAP S/4HANA
1511 and onwards version. If you are using this functionality in ECC
or Suits on HANA then, you need to plan for S/4HANA Credit
Management. Earlier it was part of Finance FSCM credit
management now it’s integrated to cater requirement of SD credit
management.

Settlement Management replaces ECC SD Rebate

Most sought after offering of SAP functionality rebate (popular with
FMCG companies) will no more be supported in the S/4 HANA
Enterprise Management. Settlement Management in S/4 HANA Sales
replaces SD Rebate Processing. Technically in S/4 HANA, existing
rebate agreements can only be processed up until the end of the
validity date of the agreement, it must then be closed by a final
settlement. Going further new agreements can only be created
based on condition contracts with settlement management
functionality of SD.

SAP Revenue Accounting replaces ECC SD Revenue

Recognition
Popular ECC functionality SD Revenue Recognition (especially in
consumer durables and shipping industry) is no more available within
SAP S/4HANA. Instead of SD Revenue Recognition a new available
functionality, SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting should be
used. Newly introduces functionality supports the new revenue
accounting standard as per International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS15) and also adapted by local Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles (GAAPs). To comply with IFRS15, ECC SD
Revenue recognition needs to migrate to the new solution to work
with S/4 HANA.

ECC Sales support dropped

ECC Sales support (CAS - Computer-Aided Selling) functions not a
very popular ECC functionality, is no more available in SAP S/4HANA.
SAP provided the reason to drop CAS functionality, it is not the target
architecture. More user-friendly processes are available with SAP
CRM on premise or C4C (cloud for customer). You can select one of
these instances as per your requirement.

Capabilities currently not supported by S/4 HANA Sales

The following functionalities are currently not supported by S/4
HANA Sales and Distribution in 1511/ the future releases will include
these:
· ECC SD Foreign Trade (SD-FT)

· ECC FI Credit Management (FI-AR-CR)

· ECC SD Rebates (SD-BIL-RB)

· ECC SD Revenue Recognition (SD-BIL-RR)

· ECC Sales Support (SD-CAS)

Existing features/ capabilities no longer supported by S/4

HANA Sales & Distribution
For existing SAP users, it is also important to know the functionalities
that they may be currently using but which are disabled and will no
longer be available with S/4 HANA Sales and Distribution:

 Master data in ECC – replaced by BP (business partner)

transaction. SAP working on the target approach to make it
possible to centrally manage master data for customers and
vendors S/4. Transactions XD01, XD02, XD03 or VD01,
VD02, VD03 / XK01, XK02, XK03 or MK01, MK02, MK03 etc.
are not available in S/4 HANA Sales.
 Document Index Table – eliminated from S/4 HANA Sales.
These are the tables no more available VAKPA, VAPMA,
VLKPA, VLPMA, VRKPA, and VRPMA.
 Rebate Index Table – VBOX no more available in S/4 HANA
Sales

 Transactional and Analytics on a Single In-memory

Platform – replaced by SAP HANA platform.

 Output management based on NAST - is replaced by

Business Rules Framework plus (BRF+).

How to migrate and the pre-requisites

The diagram shows the tool based conversion approach. There are a
big ecosystem of large, medium and small sized partners and
consulting companies who have create their own so called asset
around S/4HANA. They are also now luring the customers with
different lucrative brand names. However it is recommended to go
for SAP provided approach, as SAP is changing features and other
functionalities in this space very frequently.

For more detail you can reach out to your preferred consulting
companies or me for more details. To read technical details around
this topic you can access SAP
site https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/browse/search?relevancies=sol
man&entityTypes=package
The case for S/4 HANA Sales - Why
S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics is expected to offer a wide range of
benefits with a very friendly user interface enabled by a number of
SAP Fiori apps. These include

1. Providing a Single Source of Truth. Seamless integration

between transactions and analytics will attempt to streamline and
eliminate cycle times and reconciliations of the data.

2. Simplified data model resulting in increased through-put,

flexible analytics at the most granular level reporting around
Inventory management.

3. Fast MRP run, and new working model for MRP controllers
based on decision support.

4. Principle of One, scalable material valuation capabilities, utilizing

Material Ledger, that way customers can use multicurrency,
valuation methods per different accounting laws like GAAP.
5. Enhance ERP by advanced ATP capabilities in APO, new coding
to make it better, innovation benefit as functionality will be
refreshed.

6. New deployment option for bringing PP/DS on ERP, reducing

integration efforts, allowing seamless master data & UI
harmonization.

7. Enable monitoring of end-to-end order-to-cash process & take

actions for any exceptions, information on the exceptions to resolve
the issues, lower TCO due to data model simplification, support for
the most recent versions of business features such as FSCM Credit
Management, GTS Foreign Trade, SFIN Revenue Accounting, and new
analytical capabilities.

8. Increased efficiency in the Procure-to-Pay processes, new

Analytical Apps & Spend KPI’s, Ariba Network Integration for PO
Order and IV.

Risks/Special Considerations
With the announcement of S/4 HANA, we move from a world of tried
and tested SAP functionalities to a new world of mobile enabled, in-
memory technology for real time data processing and analysis being
offered on the cloud. That is a lot of change – hence the need to be
particularly conscious of the ‘side effects’. A few of them are
provided below:

 Mobility solutions – Implementation of S/4 HANA Sales

would enable sales and logistics users to access a variety of
reports/dashboards on their mobile devices. This brings in 2
challenges – the obvious one being a requirement to be
trained on the ‘how to’. But the more complex one is a
 transformational change. Suddenly the business will have
real time data. Behavioural changes would be required to
exploit the available information to create value for the
organisation. This is the change of a larger dimension and
needs to be managed effectively through a business change
team. Time and resources required for such a
transformational journey should be a part of the business
case evaluation
 Innovation and Support - Full migration of SAP’s customer
base to a HANA platform would require about 10+ years. So,
ECC 6.0 (+ Enhancement packs) will continue to be
supported in future. Beyond just support, SAP will continue
to innovate for ECC by porting certain innovations which are
created for S/4HANA to run on non-HANA Database back to
the ECC code base. This is a key consideration to plan the
‘When’ S/4 HANA question
 Licences and Costs - There is a variety of possible
combinations to optimise licencing costs with S/4 HANA and
S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics adoption. Clarity in terms of
the business requirements and mapping them to the
functionalities of S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics that will be
implemented is quite key in order to optimise costs.

Recommendations
Implementation of S/4 HANA and S/4 Sales and Logistics are
undoubtedly significant strategic decisions, both for IT and the
Business. In my view, the adoption therefore has to be very customer
environment specific. Instead of taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach,
customers are encouraged to evaluate their individual circumstances
in the context provided below and plan their next steps towards
adoption.

Given that SAP versions ECC 6 are no more supported, I have tried to
create 4 categories of SAP ECC6 customers ranging from Greenfield,
(i.e. new implementations for customers not on SAP) to ones which
are already on a HANA enabled platform. Based on different
customer interaction, I recommends a different consideration for
each of these categories of customers – moving to S/4 HANA Sales
and Logistics is a key strategic investment decision and as with all
other investments, the business case has to be carefully considered.

New customers/implementations (Greenfield)

For any new Greenfield SAP implementations, the question arises
‘Why not S/4/HANA?”. However, careful analysis needs to be done
on the business case since SAP will still support and offer traditional
ERP on non-HANA databases.

Customers with existing SAP footprint

The adoption of SAP S/4HANA, will impact investment plans and road
maps for all existing SAP Business Suite users. Technically, it would
commit the client to SAP’s in-memory platform. Customers would
need to spend time assessing the business case of adopting the S/4
HANA platform versus running the Business Suite on other platforms,
particularly in industries that use a large number of other connected
applications.

For customers who are on SAP version ECC6 on a non-HANA

platform, the recommendation would be:
Upgrade to EhP7 – this will ensure technical readiness of the systems
whenever they decide to move to S/4 HANA.

Regarding the switch to S/4 HANA, our recommendation would be,

to start accessing the feasibility of moving to on premise or cloud
based on existing complexity and business need. S/4 HANA and S/4
HANA Sales and logistics version 1511 FPS02/ 1611 has just been
released. Given this, customers on mature ECC6 implementations
should analyse the impacts of what a real-time analytical
environment may bring them and how they could monetise the value
of speedy availability of real time information and create value for
their organisation.

For those that already have clarity on the business case and the
roadmap for S/4 HANA adoption, the recommendation is to consider
the benefits of a one-step S/4 HANA adoption including a S/4 HANA
Sales and Logistics implementation due to cost and business risk
reasons.

Customers on ECC 6 with a selective HANA side car or BW on

HANA, are already enjoying the benefits of real-time information
availability and transaction processing speed. In this case, it may be
prudent to start decision making on S/4 HANA adoption after careful
evaluation of the delta benefits of S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics along
with HANA Finance. POCs for the new functionalities in some key
areas may help establish the value and benefits for the delta
functionality before additional funds would be committed to the S/4
HANA adoption.

SAP clients with Suite on HANA – In this case, if Simple Logistics

has not been implemented, our recommendation would be to
evaluate the benefits of adopting S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics. Any
immediate decision to move to S/4 HANA would be based purely on
the business urgency to adopt the S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics
functionality. It is recommended for the Suite on HANA customers to
check the business need and maturity level of current used
functionality before moving to 1511 or higher version.

Summary
Technology is driving both rapid and transformational change.

Mobile, cloud solutions with real time transaction processing, and

analytical capabilities are all able to shift organisations towards high
value creation at a reasonable cost. Not long ago, it was commonly
accepted that what happened in last year, quarter or month would
dictate what is likely to happen tomorrow. In this world, decision
making by the CXOs was on the basis of past activity and data.

However, that can no longer be sustained. Most enterprise-level

Heads will agree that the global business environment is driving real-
time decision making and require a Single Source of Truth as a
prerequisite. Technological innovations are now able to provide the
necessary insight, in an accessible way, to support this requirement.

S/4 HANA and S/4 HANA Sales and Logistics are presented as SAP’s
New Generation technologies, created to support this new CxO’s
agenda. It is clear that adoption of such a ground breaking
innovation requires an organisational transformation and very strong
Executive Sponsorship, both of which are only secured in an
organisation where there is a significant business case to be realised
by these implementations.
You can reach out to me on mail id (dee167@gmail.com) for any
clarification or further recommendation.

References
1. SAP Service Market place

2. ASUG community

3. Interaction with clients in last couple of years (don’t want to

refer name unless approved)

Contributions
Lakshmi Singh (Cap Gemini India) – Contribution towards general
view of S/4 HANA 1511 and 1611 Enterprise Management

Disclaimer
1. SAP, R/3, ECC. S/4 HANA, Suite on HANA, Fiori, SAP NetWeaver
and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as
their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of
SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world.
2. This document is for reference only

3. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks

or service marks of others.

4. Views are mine and Lakshmi’s on based of past and current SAP
implementation experience and does not represent or endorsed by
SAP, our current or past employers.
Hope you find this post informative.
What is the difference between SAP HANA and
s4hana?

1. SAP HANA is a RDBMS like Oracle, MSSQL, DB2 etc

2. S/4 HANA stands for SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA - The
backend application layer runs on only HANA DB and front end will be
developed with SAPUI5( Fiori). In the 3 Tier architecture of SAP system,
HANA is the database layer, S/4 HANA is the application layer, Fiori is the
presentation layer.

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