Moderation note: There is a more updated version of this content by successor Tony Liu available here https://blogs.sap.com/2020/01/02/simplification-item-catalog-simplification-item-check-and-sap-readiness-check-for-sap-s-4hana/

As you know SAP S/4HANA 1709 will be general available shortly, so I, on behalf of the colleagues working on the topics, would like to share with you the applications to support SAP S/4HANA 1709. You may already know Maintenance Planner, Custom Code, Software Update Manager (SUM), so here I would like to focus on the applications related to the simplification items.

Simplification Item Catalog

Most of you know the SAP S/4HANA simplification list with PDF and XSL format provided by Frank Wager and Markus Goebel. It is a collection of simplification items, which are used to describe which incompatible or disruptive changes occur in SAP S/4HANA (on premise) compared to SAP ERP or to previous SAP S/4HANA.

Last year together with the SAP S/4HANA colleagues, we decided to move the content from wiki based to an online tool so that the SAP S/4HANA colleagues could maintain the information machine readable. Lots of feedbacks from the migration planning workshop provided by SAP Digital Business Services improved the tool and content significantly. Now it comes to a stage where you can access it as well.

In short the simplification item catalog is the central place for SAP to maintain simplification items; it is the central place for you to find the latest simplification items for SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW/4HANA and download the content.

How to access

URL: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#sic

Customers with a valid s-user can now see all released simplification items, like SAP S/4HANA 1610. The simplification items for SAP S/4HANA 1709 will be visible shortly together with SAP S/4HANA 1709.

You could search and filter the simplification items. You could download the content into a zip file in the list view as well. The zip file can be uploaded into the simplification item check, which will be explained later.  

For one simplification item, there are:

• Business Impact Note: it describes how the item impacts the system and business processes
• Source Release and Target Release: they describe the basic relevance information; an item is relevant if the customer comes from the source release and goes to the target release maintained in the item
• Check: it offers the possibility to have more relevance information like table checks for certain content or activated business functions and some more; in addition if an item is relevant it offers the possibility to have consistency check classes that can check whether all prerequisite conditions are met in the system to ensure a correct conversion process

For example: the simplification item SI2: MasterData_BP.

If the customer had SAP ERP 6.0 and higher or SAP SFIN and higher are installed in his system and would like convert to SAP S/4HANA 1511 and higher, in addition if there was data in table KNA1 or LFA1 then it was relevant;

In case the item is relevant the consistency check would be performed by the class CLS4SIC_LO_MD_BP, which is delivered via SAP Note 2502552. The check report will call the class automatically and present the check results.

Simplification Item Check

When you worked for SAP S/4HANA 1511 or 1610 project, you must know the pre transition check (R_S4_PRE_TRANSITION_CHECKS from SAP Note 2182725). Now with SAP S/4HANA 1709, a new framework is available, we call it Simplification Item Check

• it is completely new re-designed based on the content in the Simplification Item Catalog
• it has two checks:
  • relevancy check: as described above in the simplification item catalog, the calculation is based on source release, target release and relevance check section
  • consistency check: by executing to get what customer needs to do before the conversion to bring the system in a consistent state
• it has the check framework and set of consistency check classes
  • check framework is delivered via SAP Note 2399707
  • consistency check classes are delivered via the central TCI-based SAP Note 2502552 and other notes which have been set as prerequisite of 2502552
• it can be executed standalone for both the relevancy and consistency check. In addition, it can also be executed by SAP Readiness Check and Software Update Manager (SUM)
  • the result of the section Simplification Items in SAP Readiness Check comes from the relevancy check for SAP S/4HANA 1511, 1610, 1709 and higher release in the future
  • the SUM executes both the relevancy and consistency check starting from SAP S/4HANA 1709. For old release SAP S/4HANA 1511 and 1610, the report R_S4_PRE_TRANSITION_CHECKS is still used.

How to access

When all prerequisite notes have been implemented successfully in the SAP ERP system, it can be started with the report /SDF/RC_START_CHECK

• The report can be executed in dialog mode or in a background job (under certain system conditions the check can take hours)
• It can also display the last check results
• It can also display all executed check results with log view
• By default it uses the SAPOSS connection to connect to the SAP support portal to fetch the latest simplification item content from the simplification item catalog,
• In addition, it provides the option to upload the content manually as well for the system does not have the connection to SAP support portal due to security reason. The selected radio button indicates which option is used.
  • download the content as zip file from Simplification Item Catalog
  • use the button “Upload Simplification Item Catalog”

For example: the same item SI2: MasterData_BP which has been shown in Simplification Item Catalog above, it is relevant for the below ERP system because there is data in LFA1. Such relevant information is present here. These relevant information is available in SAP Readiness Check as well if the simplification item check is executed by SAP Readiness Check.

In the on-line mode, after the relevancy screen is present, there are buttons to perform the consistency check for all relevant items or perform for selected items. It is also possible to apply or revoke exemption if exemption is possible. In the background mode, the consistency check for all relevant items will be performed after the relevancy check.

When the consistency check is performed, the following screen would be present. For such items, there are only WARNING messages with SAP Note. User could follow the note to proceed. Because there is no ERROR message in this example, it would not block SUM during the conversion.

SAP Readiness Check

The SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA is live since 29.05.2017. The landing page is https://help.sap.com/viewer/p/SAP_READINESS_CHECK. It summarizes the most important aspects of the conversion project in an easily consumable way. One aspect is the relevancy of simplification items.

How to access

URL: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#readiness

SAP Readiness Check executes the simplification item check together with other checks and present the result in the new designed Simplification Items section, which was live on 14.09.2017.

• There is a general statistics information on top of the section
• Filter by the group directly in the page
• Clicking the item can navigate to Simplification Item Catalog
• Tooltip to indicate the detail relevancy information

For example: the same item SI2: MasterData_BP which has been shown in SAP Readiness Check above, it has the tooltip “item is relevant. Database table LFA1 based check passed”.

Summary

the relation of the three parts and SUM could be described with the following diagram.

The Simplification Item Catalog is the single source of truth for simplification items.

The Simplification Item Check performs the relevancy and consistency checks based on the content in the Simplification Item Catalog.

SAP Readiness Check triggers the Simplification Item Check together with other checks and present the results in one unique dashboard.

The Software Update Manager triggers the Simplification Item Check during the system conversion to make sure the system is in a consistent state before conversion.

Additional Information

With SAP Note 2502552, I get all TCI objects to perform the consistency check, how could I find which simplification items contain consistency check

Type “CLS4SIC_” in Check Identifier in Simplification Item Catalog, then you would find all items which contain consistency check

I use the custom code ATC check and get the custom code note, how could I find the related simplification items? 

Type the note number in SAP Note in Simplification Item Catalog, then you would find the related items