Product Information
SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111: Machine Learning ISLM, Situation Handling, Embedded Analytics and Enterprise Search
With the current year coming to an end, I would like to introduce the latest and greatest from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 Release. Just like from my last SAP S/4HANA 2105 release blog post, this time, I will be bringing selected highlights from topics including machine learning ISLM, situation handling, embedded analytics and enterprise search.
The blog post covers the following topics:
Machine Learning: Intelligent Scenario Lifecycle Management (ISLM)
- Additional Information About Intelligent Scenarios
- Improved Connection Management for Side-by-Side ML Scenarios
Situation Handling
- Automatically Activated Business Situations
- New Use Cases in Finance and Sales
- Business Situation Event for Deletion
Embedded Analytics
Enterprise Search
Machine Learning: Intelligent Lifecycle Management (ISLM)
Intelligent Scenario Lifecycle Management (ISLM) is a framework that allows you to perform lifecycle management operations on machine learning scenarios. You can consider ISLM as a self-service tool that allows you to handle various operation requirements of machine learning scenarios. You can train an intelligent scenario and use the trained model to get an accurate inference result.
ISLM framework consists of two SAP Fiori applications, Intelligent Scenarios and Intelligent Scenario Management. These applications allow you to create and manage the lifecycle of intelligent scenarios.
For more information, refer to the SAP Help Portal on ISLM.
Additional Information About Intelligent Scenarios
With SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 release, we have enhanced our framework and we show a lot more information about the intelligent scenario from a consuming business app perspective.
Additional Information – Intelligent Scenarios
From the image above, now the user can see information such as “line of business” associated with the intelligent scenario, Fiori app ids of the consuming business scenario in which the intelligent scenario is used, scope item id and the business benefits the intelligent scenario provides. Also, which system flavour is used and most important part is the help centre documentation link of the business application where this intelligent scenario is consumed.
That makes the intelligent scenario more meaningful and the user get a lot more useful and actionable information information around the scenario.
Improved Connection Management for Side-by-Side ML Scenarios
In case of side-by-side Machine Learning scenarios, new functionality for connection change management is introduced. Once intelligent scenario is delivered to the customers, they can use ISLM framework and create a connection to the intelligent scenario to connect it to the service instance in BTP.
In case the user changes the service instance for an intelligent scenario, the artefacts created for this intelligent scenario, like the user trained, deployed or activated a model, these changes could be incompatible with the connection. Due to this reason, the entity might not be available in the service instance. As a result, this entity gets invalidated. Now you can see this in the Fiori app along with the reason for this.
Improved Connection Management for Side-by-Side ML Scenarios
In the above image, SO_AUTO_EXTRACTION scenario’s connection was changed for the deployed scenario. As a result, the system is able to identify the reason for connection failure. Reason can be that the entity is not available in the given service instance, it is not available due to connection change or is deleted. In this case, we can see the reason is stated.
Key Takeaways:
- Improved connection management for side-by-side ML scenarios in case of a connection change
- Invalidated trainings, deployments and connection changes are indicated in the UI
Situation Handling
With the use of situation handling, one could find undiscovered issues in business situations and their potential consequences by getting notifications through the SAP Fiori Launchpad or optionally via email. From exceeding budgets to missing approvals and expiring contracts, such situations can be dealt with situation handling resulting in better customer retention and lower cost overheads. For a short overview, refer to my previous blog post here or visit the SAP Help section on Situation Handling for complete detail.
Automatically Activated Business Situations
In the past, users had to manually configure and activate the situation templates. SAP now pre-configures and automatically activates the first situation templates with the 2111 SAP S/4HANA Cloud release. Starting from SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1802 release, there are over 100 situation handling templates available (all use cases and templates for situation handling can be found in the SAP Help Portal).
Note: SAP activates situation types automatically only if no such case was activated by customer.
Currently three use cases are supported for automatic activation:
- Data Migration Is Complete
- Sales Quotation Is Close to Expiring
- Unavailable Team Member in Resp. Mgmt
Situation handling – Automatically enabled business situations in Manage Situation Types app
1. Data Migration is Complete
In Data Migration app: A typical scenario where the data migration expert will be informed automatically when the task of data migration is completed and results become available.
2. Sales Quotation is Close to Expiring
In Sales Quotation app: Often it is required to automatically inform users when the sales quotation is close to expiring but is not fully converted. With this standard template, users can immediately learn about expiring quotations along with their conversion rates. This enables them to focus on quotations of this kind and proactively follow up with customers that have not placed orders yet.
3. Unavailable Team Member in Responsibility Management
In Manage Teams and Responsibilities app: If a team member is unavailable, the team owners will be informed accordingly. This could potentially help with unwanted situations where team members, who are responsible for activities such as approving tasks, business processes, or situations, become unavailable for any reason.
Note: If unwanted, these situation types can be disabled manually in the Manage Situation Types app.
A detailed overview of this update is provided by Andreas Welsch in his blog post Instant intelligence: Increased value with Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111.
New Use Cases and Templates Introduced for Situation Handling
2111 Use cases that we support, From finance are is about credit management, credit controllers are informed in case there is negative credit information and a document is blocked for further processing.
Internal Sales representative is informed in case there is an issue if processing is stopped if data is missing or is incomplete, also in the solution area, we can inform the solution specialist if project net value has changed.
Finance
Manage Documented Credit Decisions
Inform credit controllers instantly when a document is blocked for credit reasons and they have to process a related documented credit decision. A document can be blocked due to a negative credit check that is performed automatically in the system.
Sales
Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction
Internal Sales representative is informed automatically in case there is an issue if processing is stopped due to missing or is incomplete data.
This helps save time and improve sales office efficiency. After uploading files, internal sales representatives can switch to other tasks and navigate back to the app when receiving such notifications. In automatic file upload scenarios, human intervention can be further reduced because they don’t need to open the app from time to time to check data completeness status.
Manage Solution Orders
Inform the solution order specialist automatically when the net value is changed for an orchestrated project item. Automatic notifications allow the user to directly navigate to the object page of the solution order project item to review the item and take appropriate action.
Make sure to Visit the SAP Help Portal for complete list of all 100+ situation handling use cases.
Business Situation Event for Deletion
There are several APIs in place for extending the usage of situation handling scenarios and make the processes more flexible and robust. These APIs can be used to extract useful information that was collected during the situation instance’s lifecycle.
With the SAP S/4HANA 2111 release, this is now enhanced by deletion event (read more about business situation events). User is informed about any manual deletions of a situation instances. This can then be consumed by a platform of your choice.
Key Takeaways:
- Deleted events can be used for business situations, which means that an event is triggered every time a situation instance is deleted.
- Consumers of business situations outside of S/HANA are informed about the deletion of a situation instance via an event.
Embedded Analytics
SAP S/4HANA and Embedded Analytics make it possible to provide flexibility in reporting with a wide range of analytical data with CDS views.
How? You do not need to write codes for this!
Custom Analytical Queries App – Use of Parameters to Filter for Fixed Values
What is Custom Analytical Queries? it is an app that makes it easier to create reports, KPIs, calculated columns, etc. It provides a list of existing queries which you can adapt in different ways.
Before the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 release, user could filter only on fixed values but now it is possible to create filters by hierarchy nodes and use them to filter on a dimension. The filters can be set to mandatory or hidden, based on the intended usage.
Custom Analytical Queries App – Use of Parameters for Fixed Values
From the screenshot above, we can see sample query for ledger comparison with highlighted fields such as Lookup Entity and Mandatory or Hide check boxes.
An example of usage of this new feature is the use of parameters to restrict the calendar month for a restricted measure. In this way, the very same parameter can also be used to create a global restriction for calendar month.
Embedded Analytics in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 Release Demo
Check out the demo video above for a scenario rundown and step-by-step guide. The demo also illustrates a possible usecase.
Enterprise Search
Extendable Column and Filter in Manage Search Models
Here is a quick update on a much awaited feature for Manage Search Models in enterprise search. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 release, it is now possible for the user to see which models are extendable. Not only that, it is now also possible to filter the models based on this criteria.
Extendable Column and Filter in Manage Search Models
Before this latest update, the user had to go inside the model and navigate to the ‘Fields’ tab to check if the ‘Modify’ button appeared on the top right corner or not. Only if the ‘Modify’ button appeared, the model was extendable. This whole process is now simplified to the main page on Manage Search Models along with the filter dropdown, as show shown in the screenshot above.
Enterprise Search in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 Release Demo
This update is illustrated in demo above where I go through all the mentioned points, step by step, in the system.
Key Takeaways:
- In the app Manage Search Models, user can now clearly see which models are extendable
- It is also possible to filter the ‘extendable models’ from the drop down at the top
- Earlier, if the user wanted to know whether the model is extendible or not, they needed to go inside the model and navigate to fields tab and check if the ‘Modify’ button exists.
If you’re interested to learn more about these innovations, join our SAP Learning Hub and participate in our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Early Release Series. Read this blog post to find out how you can license for the Enterprise Support Edition as a Customer / Partner and benefit from our regular release series either live or on-demand.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
- Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blog Posts here and previous release highlights here
- Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
- SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
- Early Release Webinar Series here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- openSAP Microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA here
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Implementation Portal here