SAP MDG 8.0 Highlights after months of piloting and demo build

Hi,

In the last months I have spent a lot of time in building POCs and demos with SAP MDG 8.0. I also kicked off a customer project with MDG-M at the customer site during the ramp-up phase of MDG 8.0. As you might be aware, MDG 8.0 is out of ramp-up in the meanwhile and generally available.

In this blog I would like to share my highlights of SAP MDG 8 with you.

1.       Introduction of SAP MDG, consolidation

With SAP MDG 8.0 SAP introduces a complete new use case/scenario for consolidation. From an architectural and solution perspective this is a major and important step towards the possibility to use SAP MDG for all master data scenarios. In addition to the central creation, SAP ships now the business function for “SAP MDG, consolidation”. The UI for the end user is completely Fiori-based and the user gets guided through the consolidation process. At the end of the process the consolidated data gets activated into the operational tables of the SAP ERP or into the staging area of SAP MDG to be able to have system supported/based governance before the data ends up in operational processes. SAP MDG, consolidation is available for Business Partners (as well customers and suppliers) only in SAP MDG 8.0, but the foundation is built to support Materials and more domains with upcoming releases.

2.       Major enhancements in SAP HANA-based analytics

Basic features were introduced with SAP MDG 7.0 already, but now much more is possible: In SAP MDG 7.0 it was only possible to do analytics and reporting on Change Request header data. Now with SAP MDG 8.0 you are able to bring that meta data together with “payload” data. In other words: Combine change request data with additional data that is directly linked to the change request.

In a demo-build I was now able to configure (completely code free) tiles and drill downs with SAP Smart Business in a very simple way. In the past I needed to write hundreds line of codes to get the same result in ABAP and Web Dynpro for ABAP. One example: How many change requests were created in the actual quarter when a specific US-Plant was included?

In addition to the new possibilities of the new SAP MDG 8.0 HANA calculation views, SAP Smart Business is getting also more major and includes now more more features and user friendly capabilities.

3.       New functions and features in specific domains/applications

Many new functions and enhancements are delivered SAP MDG 8.0, but I would like to highlight the following specifically because they are a big benefit for the projects have done so far:

a. MDG-M Data Model Enhancements:

SAP MDG 8.0 includes now the entity for the table QMAT (Inspection type – material parameters). In the past we delivered that part most of the time via customer specific enhancements with SAP MDGs enhancement concept. In addition SAP MDG 8 also has more new entities such as production version, MRP areas and material ledger.

b. Hierarchy Maintenance in SAP MDG for Financial Data:

Now it’s possible to assign cost center, profit centers, G/L accounts, and cost elements to hierarchies from single-object processing. No need to create separate 2 Change Requests anymore. This improves the speed of the business process dramatically and the user friendliness increases of course.

c. Enablement of Mobile Access through Fiori Apps

In the past, SAP MDG had standard Fiori apps to submit a new change request from a mobile device, but the further processing and approval was executed in a more complex looking SAP Web Dynpro user Interface. Now, with SAP MDG 8.0, the approval of a change request is also possible via a SAP Fiori app. For a demo I configured the standard app to approve financial data with a minimum effort.

Pretty soon I plan to post some offline demos to the SCN as I did for SAP MDG 7.0 already. So please check for that upcoming update.

Best Regards

Steffen