SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – What’s New in November 2020

Main SAP Readiness Check pages:

• http://www.sap.com/readinesscheck
• SAP Note 2913617 – SAP ReadinessCheck 2.0
• SAP KBA 2968380 – SAP Readiness Check Report 2.0 – troubleshooting guide
• Incident component for technical issues during report generation: SV-SCS-S4R

Just last week, we celebrated the exciting milestone of the 10,000th analysis processed on SAP Readiness Check 2.0, which was released just back in May of 2019.  We are quickly closing in on the lifetime milestone of 25,000 analyses since the inception of SAP Readiness Check back in 2017.  This includes all analyses processed on SAP Readiness Check 1.0 for SAP S/4HANA, SAP Readiness Check 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Readiness Check for BW/4HANA.

Today we are pleased to announce the general availability of the following new SAP Readiness Check capabilities:

1. Financial Data Quality (FDQ)
2. Effort Drivers for “Potentially High” Ranked Simplification Items

Please refer to our main SAP Note for SAP Readiness Check for guidance on how to enable FDQ and effort drivers: 2913617 – SAP Readiness Check 2.0

1. Financial Data Quality Check

-helping customers and partners by providing early insight into data quality issues-

Since inconsistencies in financial data block the financial conversion process, these inconsistencies must be resolved. In some cases, this has turned out to be a major effort driver and stumbling block, as project teams need to assess each error and decide how best to remediate the inconsistency.

Until recently, the only way to analyze the quality of financial data in a system, in preparation for the financial data conversion, was to conduct a reconciliation analysis on the system after it had been technically converted to SAP S/4HANA. This means you had to go through the effort of converting a sandbox system prior to having visibility to these errors.

Now, SAP Readiness Check offers the Financial Data Quality check. With this check you can analyze the quality of financial data in your existing productive SAP ERP system during the prepare phase of your project.  Bringing this insight forward allows you to properly plan for the effort required to remediate any inconsistencies.

The Financial Data Quality Check provides a heat map, highlighting hot spots of inconsistencies.  In addition, this new check categorizes the different error types, to further help the project team assess the associated effort:

Note: the total number of inconsistencies is not the sole indicator for the remediation effort, rather the number of error types (message numbers) must also be considered. You may be able to resolve thousands of errors of a single error type with the execution of just one report. The more error types you have, the more effort it will likely take to resolve them.

SAP Readiness Check categorizes the different error types into four categories to help you understand the effort needed to resolve them (as shown in screenshot above):

• A: Standard automated correction available – SAP Note 2956096.
  • Inconsistencies of this category can be analyzed and potentially resolved with the help of the FIN_CORR_MONITOR report. Refer to SAP Note 2956096 for further details. In case of questions, contact FDQ department under sap.financial.data.quality@sap.com.
• B: Manual correction, correction instructions available – SAP Note 2714344
  • Inconsistencies of this category need to be resolved manually. For instructions, refer to the SAP Knowledge Base Article 2714344. In case of questions, contact FDQ department under financial.data.quality@sap.com
• C: Please contact SAP Support
  • An SAP support specialist is required for a deeper analysis and advice on the resolution. We recommend that you contact the SAP support specialists for a deeper analysis and advice on the resolution by creating a support incident under component FI-GL-MIG. In certain cases, a resolution may require specialized SAP services and imply surcharges.
• D: Customer specific correction
  • One or more system-specific corrections are required to fix this error. We recommend that you consult your implementation partner or contact SAP support by raising a message to the FI-GL-MIG

For more information and recommendations on FIN_CORR_RECONCILE error messages, see SAP Knowledge Base Article 2714344 – Financial data migration to SAP S/4HANA: Most frequent Error Messages – Information and Recommendations.

Besides the number of inconsistencies, you can also find the number of documents and open items in a second tab, to see if archiving would be beneficial prior to starting the reconciliation process.

Note: SAP Readiness Check provides an aggregated view only. The individual documents are not loaded due to data sensitivity concerns and the potential data volume. Run transaction FIN_CORR_DISPLAY (SAP Note 2755360 – Reconciliation prior to S/4HANA Conversion) in your SAP ERP system for details.

2. Effort Drivers for “Potentially High” Ranked Simplification Items

-Revealing fact-based insight on where time and effort is truly required-

In the past, customers have asked questions like: “ok now I have these simplification items that are relevant for my project, but which of these come with the most effort? Which are the big hurdles here? And which ones are easiest to implement?”

As a result, earlier this year, we introduced effort ranking categories to the Simplification Items check, which are based on past SAP S/4HANA project experience:

These categories include “Low,” “Medium,” “Potentially High,” and “Assessment Required.”

This classification helps to provide some context to our customers and partners on the anticipated level of effort they would need to provision to address the simplification items relevant to the analyzed system.

The simplification items are assigned to the different categories based on real-world project experience:

• Low: Simplification items in this category can typically be handled within a few days during the implementation project (e.g. reading an SAP Note, customizing/configuration tasks).
• Medium: Simplification items in this category can typically be handled within a few weeks during the implementation project.
• Potentially High: The effort to handle simplification items in this category is usually high. However, the required effort varies depending on the customer-specific setup of applications (effort drivers).
  • Example: SI2_FI_AA New Asset Accounting: the effort to implement this depends on factors like the number of active company codes in your current system, number of currencies, New or classic G/L being used, new or classic Asset Accounting being used, New Depreciation Engine already active etc.
• Assessment Required: For simplification items in this category, SAP cannot make a generic statement. For an effort ranking, a subject matter expert assessment is required.

While some simplification items still require an assessment to properly evaluate the potential effort (category “assessment required”), where possible we introduced logic to automate the evaluation of key metrics, which we termed “effort drivers”.  Based on the analysis of these effort drivers, the effort ranking category can potentially be recalculated.  Currently, we have defined effort drivers for only those simplification items with the “Potentially High” effort ranking.

This means that those simplification items ranked as “Low” or “Medium” with the “(calculated)” notation next to the ranking category, were once ranked as “Potentially High.”  The effort ranking was reduced in these cases, based on the automated evaluation of the effort drivers associated with those specific simplification items.

The screenshot below highlights two simplification items that were both recalculated to be ranked as “Low” effort based on the automated evaluation of their effort drivers:

To view the individual effort drivers of a simplification item, select the “Effort Drivers” hyperlink below the effort ranking.  This detailed view then provides a description of the drivers, including the impact on a conversion, and either a gauge or color-coded text to indicate the analysis results.

The screenshot below provides a subset of one simplification item’s effort drivers (Simplification Item “Asset Accounting”):

Please note: The effort ranking does not take into account custom code and user training activities in the analyzed system. The actual project effort and duration depend on other factors that this tool cannot determine automatically.

Now how to enable the new features in SAP Readiness Check?

Financial Data Quality Check:

1. Implement (or update to) the latest version of SAP Note 2758146.
2. Implement SAP Note 2972792.

Once you have implemented these SAP Notes, a checkbox for this new capability is available when executing the RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA report. To include the Financial Data Quality check in the SAP Readiness Check analysis results, select the checkbox prior to scheduling the analysis (see screenshot below). During the execution, the TMW_RC_FDQ_DATA_COLL job will be performed.

Afterwards, upload the collected data and the FDQ tile will appear at the bottom of your dashboard.

Please note, once implemented, the Financial Data Quality check will remain deselected by default. When selected to be in scope, the selection of the Schedule Analysis option will initiate a prerequisite note check of the system. Any missing notes for the conversion reconciliation process will then be provided. These notes must be implemented before SAP Readiness Check can be scheduled, with this check active.

There is the potential, depending on the volume of financial data, that this check could run longer than other checks. If necessary, it is possible to schedule the Financial Data Quality check in isolation from the rest of the SAP Readiness Check data collectors. Once complete, the results of the Financial Data Quality check can then be appended (using the Upload function) to the analysis session created with the original ZIP archive.

Effort Drivers:

1. Implement (or update to) the latest version of SAP Note 2758146.
2. Implement SAP Note 2903677.

Once you have implemented these SAP Notes, a checkbox for this new capability is available when executing the RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA report. To include this information in the SAP Readiness Check analysis results, select the checkbox prior to scheduling the analysis:

Afterwards, upload the collected data and the effort drivers will appear in effort ranking column.

You also can see the effort drivers detail information by clicking the “Effort Drivers” link below the effort ranking value.

Release of SAP S/4HANA 2020

SAP S/4HANA 2020 [Initial Shipment Stack] was released on October 7^th this year and is now also available in the SAP Readiness Check report (RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA) and Simplification Item Check Framework report (/SDF/RC_START_CHECK).

You will need to download the latest content of simplification item catalog before you want to select SAP S/4HANA 2020 [Initial Shipment Stack] as per screenshot below:

Press this button in report /SDF/RC_START_CHECK:

In case this button does not work, please follow the steps below to manually update the Simplification item catalog content:

1. Open the URL https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/sic/overview with your s-user.
2. Download the Simplification item catalog
3. Back to the simplification item check framework.
4. Click “Upload Simplification item catalog from file” and upload the file which you downloaded from step 2 (see above screenshot as well)

Screenshot for step 2:

Former blog posts of this series:

• Main new features of SAP Readiness Check 2.0 release May 2019: SAP S/4HANA: How ready are you?
• July and August 2019 released features: SAP Readiness Check 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA – FAQ & What’s New in Releases
• September and August 2019 released features: SAP Readiness Check 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA – What’s New in Releases 20.09.2019 and 29.08.2019
• November 2020 released features see below in this blog post

Follow the tag “SAP Readiness Check” and turn on your notifications to stay up to date on any new SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA features.

Good to know

If you hold an SAP Enterprise Support maintenance contract, you can sign up for our recurring Live Must-Know Webcasts delivered in multiple languages (German, English, Spanish, etc..), where we lead you through the execution of SAP Readiness Check and interpretation of the results: How to interpret your results from the SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA 

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments section below.

Kind Regards,

SAP Readiness Check Team