SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208 Intelligent ERP Update

As you certainly know now, the latest product update of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is out.

In this blog, we’ll give you a glimpse into selected innovations coming with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208 update with a focus on “intelligent ERP”.

As a good tradition, the highlights of this release update can be found on this short video too:

Let’s go back to the terminology. What is, an “intelligent” ERP at all? It is an ERP that combines the most modern technologies like machine learning, advanced analytics, situation handling and robotic process automation for end-to-end automation of business processes. This leads to optimized processes, the ability to predict and anticipate business events. This is the philosophy of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, entirely developed along those design principles since day 1.

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Store and Content for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Our aim with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, is indeed to automate our customer’s business processes wherever possible. Robotic Process Automation is a pillar of this transformation. Today, there are 15 cloud studio bot templates already available, such as Create Product Master Data, or Automatic Creation of Sales Order from Unstructured Data which leverage machine learning. Those bots can for sure be adapted to your business needs.

Automatic Creation of Sales Order with Robotic Process Automation

More than ever, in turbulent times, businesses need reliable predictions to better plan their future.

A key innovation that responds to that need is predictive liquidity planning. This application helps to understand the future long-term cash flow and see whether the company would need to search for funding or has surplus cash flows. From a risk management perspective, the app will help understand what needs to be hedged according to the company policy. You will find more details on this highlight in the video here.

Reliable Business Prediction with Predictive Liquidity Planning 

Most business process should start and end with analytics: start to understand the situation, drill into it until you get the issue, fix it on the operational side, and report back the updated and corrected status.

Therefore we are happy to share a key enhancement in the analytics area. We have enabled SAP S/4HANA Cloud as data source for SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office. Power users can access and analyze SAP S/4HANA Cloud data within the very familiar Excel interface. General Ledger Accountants, for example, could analyze the trial balance in real time with a rich and flexible reporting solution. This hybrid scenario, demonstrated in this video, will smoothen the way into the cloud.

SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office Integration 

Situation handling helps your business run smoothly by automatically informing the right users about a business event that need their attention. Now you can use the Manage Situation Types app to model both object-based and message-based situations, receive notifications directly on SAP Fiori launchpad or by email. For example the template “Process Errors in Settlement Document Release” notifies you in case of issue with a settlement document release.

Finally, i want to share an update on the cloud-to-cloud integration, which enables you to run intelligent business processes across different lines-of-business solutions in the cloud.

With HR Connectivity, bridging to SAP SuccessFactors, the new ‘Manage Workforce’ App is a key highlight to mention. This app is part of the workforce connectivity for SAP S/4HANA Cloud with a dedicated SAP Fiori user interface to edit workforce data intuitively and enhanced functionality for lifecycle management of workforce within the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system. Learn more on HR Connectivity in this video.

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 Blogs here and previous intelligent ERP updates 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

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