Seamless integration between SAP S/4HANA & Google Workspace

In May SAP and Google Cloud announced their partnership to expand native integration between Google Workspace and SAP S/4HANA in this press release.  “It’s all about collaboration” is a widely used and commonly agreed statement these days and with the partnership we want to foster collaboration based on Google Workspace integrated into SAP S/4HANA.  

Many of our customers at SAP are moving to Google Workspace and are struggling with exporting data in a Google format, conversion of files, importing data from Google Sheets into SAP etc. To avoid all those manual steps and translation errors a seamless integration between SAP S/4HANA and Google Workspace is being implemented. 

Connecting SAP software processes with the powerful collaborative capabilities of Google Workspace will innovate how work gets done across the enterprise. 

High Level Architecture

The customer benefits are clear: 

• The efficiency of ready integration, enabling customers to adopt the solution quickly 
• The ability to export and import data between SAP software and Google Docs and Google Sheets for instant access to real-time editing and simultaneous collaborative engagements on these documents and spreadsheets 
• The confidence of having a clean data source due to the one-step integration, which enables version control and removes layers of potential translation when sharing application data and documents 

We are happy to report that the first steps in our integration journey have become reality.  

The initial set of features is already available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2208, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition 2022 and SAP S/4HANA 2022, leveraging an SAP Business Technology Platform service for a tight integration and a consistent user experience (additional license required: SAP Document Management Service, integration option). 

Integration between SAP Tables and Google Sheets

In this new blog series we would like to keep you updated about the delivered integration capabilities, provide you a central entry point to the available documentation and answer frequently asked questions. 

Common integration architecture 

First let’s take a look at the integration architecture and the prerequisites to enable the integration features described later on. 

Architecture

• The Google Workspace account is customer owned and customer managed. 
• The SAP Document Management Service, integration option, running on a customer owned tenant of the Business Technology Platform is a core piece of the integration between SAP S/4HANA and Google Workspace.  

After subscribing to the service, the integration between the SAP Document Management Service and Google Workspace needs to be configured. 

• On S/4HANA side the integration towards the SAP Document Management Service is set up via the communication scenario SAP_COM_0190 and the authentication is based on oAuth2SAMLBearerAssertion flow.  
• Users must be maintained in all 3 systems with the same e-mail address and according authorizations to be able to use the integration. 
• The UI integration is based on URL navigation, the user will need to log on to Google Workspace to access the Google Workspace applications. 
• Single Sign On is supported by connecting SAP S/4HANA and Google Workspace to the central IdP infrastructure 

The details for the mentioned configuration steps can be found in this help.sap.com section. 

Features delivered with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208 and OnPremise S/4HANA 2022

After the configuration of the common integration architecture, both features are available immediately. 

Export to native Google Sheets 

For all important UI tables the standard table export has been enhanced so that the table data can be exported to Google Sheets.  A ‘File Browser’ dialogue is available to browse the Google repository and decide on the preferred location for the table export.  After the export the Google Sheets is opened directly for further processing.  

With this Google native integration for the broadly performed task of exporting table data, we hope to majorly improve the UX for Google Workspace users already with the first delivery. 

Import data from Google Sheets into SAP S/4HANA Upload General Journal Entries application 

To upload General Journal Entries from Google Workspace to SAP S/4HANA, a template is exported from the SAP S/4HANA General Journal Entries application to Google Sheets where it is directly opened.  Once the user entered all relevant data, the Google Sheets can be uploaded and posted in SAP S/4HANA. 

This is our frontrunner use case for importing data from Google Sheets to SAP S/4HANA. 

Demo

Let´s get more concrete with a short demo of the Table Export and Table Upload scenario in the SAP system. 

Next Steps 

We are working intensively together with Google Cloud to deliver the best possible integration. Refer to the Google Cloud blog post to get more insights on the Google content. 

For 2023 there are plans to  

• enhance the S/4HANA Document Management with a Google Workspace integration. To be able to link SAP business Objects with Google Workspace documents and work on the documents directly from SAP S/4HANA. 
• deliver broader application adoption for the upload from Google Sheets and more capabilities for the export to Google Sheets. 

This is the current state of planning and my be changed by SAP at any time without notice!

Our customers are really pushing this integration and it is only the beginning between SAP and Google Cloud. We will keep you updated once the features are shipped for further SAP releases or additional integration capabilities are available. An FAQ section will be added based on customer feedback. 

Please take a look on additionnal resources and do not hesitate to post comments or reach out to me for further information.

Additional Resources 

• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Roadmap Explorer 
• SAP´s UI Technologies enabling Google Workspace 
• SAP Help Portal – Integration with Google Workspace
• What’s New 
  • Table Export 
  • Table Upload 
  • SAP Document Management Service