Product Information
Document Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
In today’s world, “Intelligent ERP” is the core of digital transformation for most of the organizations. In this context, “Enterprise Content Management”(ECM) can be defined as an intelligent suite of offerings for efficient management of information or content for an organization.
An ECM solution is expected to provide tools and functionalities to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver the content generated by the organization.
SAP Document Management System (DMS) for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and On Premise is a strong offering under the ECM umbrella. It is a cross application component that provides robust document, and content management capabilities. It provides sophisticated tools and functionalities that avoid data redundancy, maintain data consistency, provide easy accessibility via the rich search functionality, easy versioning and automatic classification.
As part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution, SAP also provides a repository to store the content, that resides on the SAP Cloud platform.
This blog covers the current DMS solution mainly from SAP S/4HANA Cloud perspective though some information has been provided from the on-premise perspective too. Nevertheless, the on-premise and the cloud versions are almost similar in terms of functionality.
Why DMS?
Customers create different types of content along the entire life cycle of their products in phases like research, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, procurement etc. In order to efficiently share the information created in different phases and to access it from different areas, it is necessary to have a rich solution that incorporates strong document management features.
The use cases may vary from a service technician who needs maintenance manuals as reference for servicing the equipment, to a design engineer in a R&D organization who is responsible for creating design and drawings of a new component and storing them appropriately.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud has 2 main offerings here – the “Manage Documents” application and the “Attachment Service” reuse component.
Manage Documents Fiori application
The “Manage Documents” is a standard Fiori application in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud that supports versioning, search capabilities, status handling, attributes & classification, description in different languages, object Links, file handling etc. In this context, a document is defined as a carrier of information. This information is either needed for the user/person responsible or for an exchange between systems. A document contains information that can be stored, and it can take many different forms (such as technical drawings, graphics, programs, or text). When complete, this information gives a full description of an object. We use the term document info record (DIR) to refer to the master record in the SAP System that stores all the business information for a document. While the document info record contains the metadata for a document (such as classification properties, status, object link etc. ), the original file (for example, the design drawing) contains the actual information in the document.
The ‘Manage Documents’ Fiori app also has a Machine Learning based automation for classifying the document. This reduces lot of manual effort.
Currently, Material (Technical Object: MARA) and Document Info Record (Technical Object: DRAW) can be linked as part of object linking.
Features like search based on classification, full-text search, change record integration, representation of further object links, harmonized document handling are planned for future releases.
Currently, the business role “Design Engineer” is used to create and manage the life cycle of a Document Info Record. A SSCUI (self-service configuration UI) is available to configure the Document Types (as an optional step).
Attachment Service
Attachment Service is a UI component that allows attachment of documents to a business object at header and item level. All leading applications (business objects) mandatorily consume this component to enable file attachments in order to ensure similar functionality and user experience across all the Fiori applications.
The capabilities include uploading individual files as well as URL as attachments, saving attachments in draft before confirming, upload/download attachments without ActiveX Plugins and many more. Any number of files can be attached – at the header and the item level of a business object. Files that are individually up to 100 MB can be uploaded using the Attachment Service. Additionally, it also offers capabilities to assign / unassign an existing attachment from a different business object. Users can also specify the Document Type while creating attachments. This is only possible with the DMS type of attachments and not for GOS. There is also a navigation capability to the DIR in the Manage Documents app.
Internally, applications in SAP S/4HANA Cloud that use Attachment Service rely on Document Management System (DMS) or Generic Object Services (GOS) for processing attachments. This decision is internal, technical and dependent on the requirement of the leading business object. Based on this, the attachments can be managed via the “Manage Documents” app (if the leading business object is relying on DMS ).
Several file types are supported, and the extensions can be maintained as part of configuration in the transaction DC30. This together with the Virus Scanner component allow or restrict the usage of a particular file type.
Repository
As part of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Content Management strategy, managing documents must be via CMIS in SAP S/4HANA Cloud (ArchiveLink is not supported). Content Management Interoperability Services [CMIS] is an open standard that allows different content management systems to inter-operate over the internet. Specifically, CMIS defines an abstraction layer for controlling document management systems and repositories using web protocols. The Open Interface (CMIS) allows SAP applications, partner solutions and customers to connect to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and the SAP Cloud Platform (SCP).
For a SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer, SCP-Document Service is provided as a default repository with a defined storage capacity. Connection to other external repositories (connectivity via content bridge) is an upcoming feature.
For SAP S/4HANA On-Premise, SAP Content Server will be supported via ArchiveLink interface only and external repository (Ex:OpenText) can be supported via ArchiveLink/CMIS interfaces. The default setting is SAP DB for on-premise but for a large volume of documents, SAP DB would not be a viable option hence nstead SAP recommends to use an external storage. Technically, KPro is the internal framework that allows SAP S/4HANA systems to communicate with content repositories
Public APIs in DMS
APIs have been published in the SAP API Hub to enable external consumption. Many CDS views have also been made available (normally prefixed with ‘Document Info Record’). They can be viewed in the SAP API Hub. The available APIs are :
- Document Info record – Create, Read, Update (This service enables creation, read and update of the Document Info Records(DIR) along with object Links)
- Attachment – Create, Read, Rename, Delete (This service enables managing the attachments based on Document Management (DMS), and Generic Object Services (GOS) – functionalities as creating, reading, renaming, and deleting attachments)
Future Outlook
SAP and OpenText are establishing a stronger partnership so as to combine respective strengths of the two market leaders to further extend SAP’s unified business data platform with unstructured content for the Intelligent Enterprise on SAP Cloud Platform. The main objective is to improve the flow of information through the end to end business processes that may extend across solutions. This will help in achieving highly efficient cross system document sharing and better collaboration between applications such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP C/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors etc.
Stay tuned to for the next blog in this series.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA cloud release information: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- DMS : Document Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Follow us via @SAP and #S4HANA or myself via @AnuuChand.
Hello Anupama,
thank your for this very useful blog!
One question: What about "Document Center" (aka Mobile Dokuments) - is this no longer on the ECMS Roadmap? Or can it be integrated in what you describe?
Also, you state that OpenText is kind of a strategic partner - what application or ECMS use cases can we expect here? Currently Iknow there is a scope item for inbound invoice processing, but this is merely about OCR.
thank you,
Johannes
Hello Johannes,
Document Center is currently used to connect SAP DMS from SAP S/4HANA OP to a repository. In OP, he can also view the files in the repository using the Doc Center UI. However, in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, the doc center is only used for connection to the repository ( default - Document Service).
With the OpenText partnership, SAP plans to deliver stronger and richer capabilities in the ECM area in order to cater to multiple cloud products ( like SAP SuccessFactors along with SAP S/4HANA Cloud) and bring in a unified model of content consumption and delivery.
Best regards,
Anupama
Hi Anupama
Thanks for your informative article on this area. I have a Client who has purchased the Standard SAP S4 HANA OP License for ERP . They have a requirement of storing Documents like P.O. etc... received from the Vendor and also provide a link to it in the Sales Order so that it can be pulled up when they need to refer to it. Please advise if SAP DMS is available to provide this storing and retrival functionality or do we need to consider an external application like Opentext.
Thanks for your advise.
best
Raj
Kindly watch for the latest updates in the DMS area - lot of new features ( similar to your ask) and rich functionalities have been planned.
Regards,
Anupama
Hello,
for what concerns some of the limitations above (a.o. ArchiveLink for on Premise, ...) there is a "universal Archivelink connector" named YAC allowing to connect your SAP ERP or S/4HANA system to any storage solution, such as: SharePoint (online and on premise), SAP Document Center, Alfresco, any custom DMS supporting REST/SOAP, etc. The connector does also support the management of metadata (sending SAP data as documents metadata) and versions in the DMS.
For more information on that product, send a mail to info@znk.lu
Best regards,
K. Benakli
Hello Anupama,
Thansk for sharing useful infomation.!
One question for the DMS file content search, does S/4 HANA 1809 support full text search for DMS file content?
Regards
Chuanping
Hello Anupama,
Great blog, appreciate that you took the time to share this with us all.
In your blog you mentioned "..For a SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer, SCP-Document Service is provided as a default repository with a defined storage capacity. "
I'm interested to know, for a typical S/4HANA Cloud Multi-Tenant Customer:
Appreciate your help.
Regards,
D
Hello Anupama,
Do you know if Archivelink is still supported in STE (single tenant edition) of S/4HANA?
Technically, STE is similar to an S/4 on premise, but I want to make sure.
Kind regards,
Johannes
Hi Anupama,
I'm struggling with the link
because it seems that there is a permission issue with this link. Could you please check.
Best regards
... any progress on this issue?
I've already reached out to Anupama again. At the moment we have to wait until the documentation gets adopted.
The link still not in use.
Hello Christoph,
Hope you are able to open the link now. If not, pls let me know.
Best regards,
Anupama
Hi Anupama, I have also a permission issue to open the link. Best regards, ChristofThe permissions for the link/document unfortunately still do not work (tested with S-User and P-User).
I think the link has old version No.
This link works well.
https://help.sap.com/viewer/f369b2eff700401494ba6e7c9a573288/LATEST/en-US/70414d95dcfe4f588032ddca36f5d7ec.html
When it comes to ECM and SAP S4 integrations the most common or default conversation is about OpenText... My question is, Does SAP S4/HANA Archivelink framework only supports OpenText or there are other ECM tools we can leverage such as Sharepoint/Office 365 if its already an established platform in an organization ?
SAP ArchiveLink, which is only available with SAP S/4HANA on Prem (not in SAP S/4HANA Cloud), is also supported by other providers.
Hello ANUPAMA CHANDRASEKHAR ,
the text at the top of this page reports about the upcoming feature, which allows other external repositories/manufacturers to connect a DMS/ECM to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The current specification is available to us. Is there also a date when SAP will make the feature available?
Best regards,
Timo
For SAP S/4HANA On-Premise, SAP Content Server will be supported via ArchiveLink interface only and external repository (Ex:OpenText) can be supported via ArchiveLink/CMIS interfaces. The default setting is SAP DB for on-premise but for a large volume of documents, SAP DB would not be a viable option hence nstead SAP recommends to use an external storage. Technically, KPro is the internal framework that allows SAP S/4HANA systems to communicate with content repositories
-> Is SAP DB mentioned above storage type SAP System Database (refer to https://help.sap.com/doc/saphelp_nw74/7.4.16/en-us/4d/002cc784ed5c4be10000000a42189e/content.htm?no_cache=true)
The below link is still not available , Says you are not authorized, even though i have a valid S user ID to login to marketplace
https://help.sap.com/viewer/f369b2eff700401494ba6e7c9a573288/1905.500/en-US/70414d95dcfe4f588032ddca36f5d7ec.html
Also , Anupama, please share DMS overview implementation steps using Easy DMS , or inbuild DMS with S4HANA and On premise, Eg the references / KBAS etc. Tried searching but mostly found for Oncloud
Hi Anupama,
As per the above document published few years back,
Thanks.
Dear Sunil
Best Regards
SSB
Dear Sunil,
Regards
Sagar S Bhide
Hi, Do you have step-by-step to link S4HANA with external content repository for the SAP archivelink interface ?
https://help.sap.com/doc/saphelp_nw74/7.4.16/en-us/4d/002cc784ed5c4be10000000a42189e/frameset.htm
Hi Anapuna,
Thanks for your very informative blog.
We have configured some custom Document Types for a Client using the standard "YP2 Manuals" type as a template to give a few more options.
We are experiencing 2 issues.
We are using the same External Number Range as the YP2 type and can create a YP2 document with an externally defined number range in this case text however the custom document type does not allow us to use text.
The 2nd issue is that we get an authorization error when trying to create a document type using a custom type.
How do we add these document types as authorization objects?
Regards,
Andrew