SAP S/4HANA – Frequently Asked Questions – Part 7 – Q32015 update
In time before the summer break and right after our great 1 HY results with SAP S/4HANA an update in our FAQ series:
What is SAP’s latest SAP S/4HANA shipment, and what is the scope of that solution?
SAP has shipped SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition 1506 on June 18, and right on time for an important milestone in the cloud. SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition 1506 includes three cloud offerings:
- SAP S/4HANA, cloud marketing edition
- SAP S/4HANA, cloud project services edition
- SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition
SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition is an important step in the “cloud ERP” world is covers all the key business processes like procure to pay, order to cash in Logistics, and accounting and financial close, treasury and financial risk management in the Financial area. For more details on the scope of the 3 solutions check this blog.
SAP CRM and SAP S/4HANA: SAP has different solutions for customer relationship management. What solution should be use in which cases?
Let’s think in 3 pillars: the recommended solution for CRM sales and service functionality for the S/4HANA On-Premise Edition is the solution SAP CRM 7. The recommended solution for sales and service functionality for the S/4HANA Cloud Edition is the solution SAP Cloud for Customer. The recommended solution for marketing functionality for both S/4HANA Editions, On-Premise and Cloud, is SAP hybris marketing.
What are the deployment options supported between SAP S/4HANA and SAP Customer Relationship Management?
SAP S/4HANA and SAP CRM can be implemented in a co-deployment model. All existing SAP CRM 7 systems are compatible with S/4HANA On-Premise Edition in a side-by-side or co-deployment model. More than a just a technical connection, the new SAP CRM 7 add-on option for SAP S/4HANA allows a simplified system landscape with a sharing of the SAP HANA database and the SAP NetWeaver stack. The CRM middleware is still needed, and SAP has a simplification roadmap for this middleware. From a user experience perspective, SAP is planning a harmonization starting with new Fiori skins for the SAP CRM WebUI.
What is the future of SAP Product Life cycle Management in the SAP S/4HANA context?
Over the last 24 months, SAP has made a huge investment in SAP PLM, and offers a rich portfolio of solution around “Connected Product” strategy that helps customers accelerate their PLM efforts. SAP’s goal is to make the transition from the current SAP PLM scope in the SAP Business Suite to SAP S/4HANA as simple as possible. From a UX perspective: SAP plans to transform the current on premise solution step-by-step towards a FIORI User Experience and plans to allow customers to follow that technology path step-wise. Find more details on the SAP S/4HANA roadmap for SAP PLM (slide 13).
What are the different implementation options that SAP S/4HANA customers have for HR processes today?
If the customers are ready to bring all the HR process in the cloud, they can start with migration of their data to SuccessFactors and run all the HR processes in the cloud. SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA are seamlessly integrated. For those customers who want to phase out the transition, we have different scenarios available. For the customers running SAP ERP together with On Premise SAP HCM on the same instance, they can move to SAP S/4HANA On Premise together with the SAP HCM and continue to leverage HR data inthe rest of the modules of S/4HANA. Those customers who today run SAP HCM separately from ERP can connect the SAP HCM to S/4HANA On Premise. However, SAP ERP HCM will not be simplified –HR started with user experience Renewal earlier. These features will continue to be available including the FIORI self-service applications for employees and managers.
What is the strategy for analytics in SAP S/4HANA?
SAP S/4HANA analytics is the solution that SAP provides as underlying operational reporting and analytical engine in SAP S/4HANA, which enables business users, business analysts and IT to do real time process analytics and operational reporting on live transactional data. SAP S/4HANA analytics can be consumed as embedded analytics within SAP S/4HANA business processes. This can be done through the use of hybrid transactional and analytical applications such as SAP Smart Business cockpits, which support closed loop decision making processes incl. drill-down, analysis, collaboration and embedded transactional functions. Beside this, SAP S/4HANA Analytics can be used in standalone analytic on premise use cases with the SAP BusinessObjects BI suite.
What will happen to SAP HANA Live and SAP HANA Live customers?
SAP HANA Live is based on Calculation Views in SAP HANA and will continue to be supported as an important native capability of the platform. Existing HANA Live content will remain valid with no changes/adaptations required, until customers decide to move to SAP S/4HANA and replace the traditional ERP data model with the new simplified one by activating the S/4HANA foundation package, at a time of their own choosing.
Can I test SAP S/4HANA on premise edition today?
Yes this is possible. SAP just announced the availability of the SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition trial. This offering allows you to get a first-hand experience of the value that SAP S/4HANA On-Premise can bring to your organization. The trial solution brings an up-and-running landscape with pre-activated Best Practices business content for localized end-to-end business processes across manufacturing, services, finance and controlling, powered by SAP Simple Finance 1503. In addition, you will experience a next level of business operational efficiency and ease of use with embedded analytics – including preconfigured reports — and the SAP Fiori user experience. Start the experience HERE (link).
Lets stay connected @SDenecken
Eagerly awaiting the release of Simple Logistics.
Hi Sven,
What is the future road map of SAP HANA Live with S/4 HANA.
For S/4 HANA grrenfield , do you suggest HANA live?
Thx,
Kiran.
Kiran,
in S/4HANA we introduced a new concept for Virtual Data Models because the scope of what we want to achieve here includes scenarios that require strong ABAP interactivity. Herewith we want to be able to support highly integrated and embedded scenarios of both transaction and analytics and oter use cases such as the basis for Search and Fact Sheets on top of the known use cases such as Generic BI reporting and support of applications like SAP Smart Business cockpits. The technical concept we are using here is SAP Core Data Services (open CDS views).
However the usage of SAP HANA Live is still provided additionally e.g. in the area of S/4HANA in the context of Simple Finance. The concepts of Virtual Data Models based on calculation views is a standard concept in SAP HANA and outside of S/4HANA these models also remain. Next shipment for SAP HANA Live is planned for Q1/2016. In those cases where SAP will not provide data models based on the new S/4HANA structures we plan to provide tools and best practices and examples to enable our customers to either adopt the new models in existing SAP HANA Live setups or to migrate the models into the parallel setup of CDS.
For greenfield customers starting with S/4HANA CDS should be the first choice, however business cases may be depending on multiple factors.
Best regards,
Juergen Butsmann
Global Business Development, SAP S/4HANA
Thank you for valuable information!!
I understand that.
However, taking that Successfactors (plus, as I presume, Ariba, Concur etc) are replacing ABAP-based functions/processes, there cannot be a single ABAP (or HANA) based query layer anylonger! Obviously you could join that data using eg BIP-technologies on the fly or use identical Fiori/BI frontends with various datasources, anyhow, CDS or HANA Live get "downgraded" to island BI-solutions! Obviously ABAP based ERP still got a big coverage of ERP processes and data, but no 100% coverage anylonger...
--> Or did I misinterpret those consequences?
Hi Sven,
I would like to know post S/4 HANA came into picture all the models across industries will be delivered as part of standard content through HANA live for the customers which may be extended or customized as per the business requirements of the customers who are using S/4 HANA.
So HANA live will play a major role as part of moving to S/4 journey and native Hana projects won’t be having so much existence as customers adopt S/4 HANA.
Is this the scenario/understanding is right and would like to know your thoughts on the same.
Regards,
Charles
Since Logistics covers many areas and modules - a heads-up on what can be expected in first release and the overall strategy about deciding on "simplifications" & "Innovations" in each release of sLOG [will this NAME be officially retained ? - or would it eventually result into --- sSales, sProcurement, sManufacturing and so on...] that would help.
Thanks
Hello Sven,
I've read somewhere that "SAP S/4HANA on premise edition" is already available for customers.
If we want to perform a test installation, is there a specific folder on SAP marketplace download alias (/SWDC) or do we have to install sFin and sLog on top of our suite on HANA system? If the latter one, sFin is available on SWDC, sLog is not.
Thanks & regards
Wolfgang
Hi Wolfgang,
the current on-premise edition of SAP S/4HANA comprises finance scenarios only. The product name is SAP Simple Finance, on-premise edition 1503 (1503 = YYMM of release) and you should be able to download it from /SWDC (search for simple finance in Installations & Upgrades).
Logistics scenarios are planned to be added later this year.
More information on the technical transition paths specifically for simple finance can be found here: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-65072
Instead of installing it on your own, you could also try the 30-day Amazon-based trial for the SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition: http://go.sap.com/cmp/oth/crm-s4hana/s4hana-on-premise.html.
Best,
Joerg
Hi Sven,
In this blog you have stated the simplification of SAP CRM and S4 HANA integration via standard middleware is on roadmap. Do you have any latest update on this? I cannot find any documentation on the marketplace which explains how this integration works.
Any information on integration SAP CRM 7 with S4 HANA will be great help.
Regards,
Sandeep