Introduction:

While delivering SAP S/4HANA on-premise services at customer site or when I meet any consultant from the implementation partner company, the first question I get is the list of pre-requisites to be handled before SAP S/4HANA transition with respect to Enterprise Asset Management (formerly Plant Maintenance. Henceforth it will be termed as EAM  in this blog) application. This happened many times & still I am getting this question. So, I thought of writing a blog which helps customers, partners, consultants, users & other stake holders with this frequently asked questions.

Simplification List/Items (SI checks):

Simplification list provides detailed functional-level descriptions of the required changes to individual transactions and solution capabilities in SAP S/4HANA. It supports customers who are converting from SAP ECC/on-premise edition to SAP S/4HANA. The Simplification List provides information on the activities customers need to complete before, during, and after the conversion to SAP S/4HANA.

This list is prepared during “prepare phase” of the transition. The list is available in the system using the TA: /SDF/RC_START_CHECK.  These pre-checks will check the usage of the existing SAP Business Suite system during the planning phase prior to the actual conversion to SAP S/4HANA, identify the relevant Simplification Items.

Different actions/steps have to be taken for different applications for the smooth SAP S/4HANA transition. SAP provides SAP S/4HANA Transition Worklist item ( which I will refer here in this blog as S4TWL ) NOTES for each item.

Transition phases to SAP S/4HANA:

SAP S/4HANA Transition Phases

Prepare Phase

The Simplification List, therefore, serves three purposes:

• Planning the actual system conversion from a traditional ERP solution to SAP S/4HANA.
• Reducing efforts during the actual conversion by taking necessary steps/actions for each simplification items in advance.
• Avoids re-work by implementing SAP S/4HANA-compliant strategic capabilities (when rolling out new capabilities).

Note:

• All the items mentioned below may not be valid for all the customers. Run the TA: /SDF/RC_START_CHECK to know the items which are valid for you.
• Following simplification is valid as of SAP S/4HANA 2022. New items may be added in future.
• Impact & validity of each simplification items will vary across different customers.

Simplification List for the EAM Application:

Overall list & comments:

Details of each item:

1. S4TWL – Object List Number Field Length Extension

Note# 2580670

SAP has decided to extend the object list numbers (data element OBJKNR, domain OBJKN) from the data format INT4 to the data format INT8. This change affects all the tables (e.g: OBJK) that contain a field with a reference to the data element OBJKNR.

Required actions:

• Its information only.
• SUM will take care of it automatically.

2. S4TWL – LIS in EAM

Note# 2267463

Its an information only item where future analytical reports, transactions are based on HANA & CDS which simplifies the process by reducing the tables & improves the performance.

Required actions:

• Enhancements and modifications of the LIS will not work for the future analytic solution.
• Custom report will stop working after update which are accessing the tables S061 to S065, S070, S114 to S116.

3. S4TWL – Download Data in MS Access out of List

Note# 2270076

SAP GUI supports downloading data to MS Access. This functionality is not the target architecture. Though, this functionality is available in SAP S/4HANA on-premises but not considered as future technology.

Notification to MS Access DB

DB Details for storing Notification data

Required actions:

• Stop downloading data to MS access.
• Use download to Excel or Open Office. Within Excel / Open Office you can use the embedded tools for populating to DB.

4. S4TWL – Scheduling of Maintenance Plan

Note# 2270078

Maintenance scheduling transaction IP30 (Reports RISTRA20) uses the outdated technology & it is still available in SAP S/4HANA system but not considered for future. This transaction is replaced by new transaction & report — IP30H & RISTRA20H.

TA: IP30H in SAP S/4HANA System

Required actions:

Check for the scheduled background jobs (SM37) with the old report RISTRA20. Delete those jobs & replace them with the new report (RISTRA20H).

5. S4TWL – Batch Input for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

Note# 2270107

Transaction IBIP uses Batch Input (outdated) technology to create transactional data for EAM objects. This is still available in SAP S/4HANA system but not considered for future.

TA: IBIP in both ECC and SAP S/4HANA systems

Required actions:

Plant maintenance offers lot of BAPI’s (mentioned in the note 2270107) to create transaction data. Create custom programs using these API’s to create EAM object data in the system instead of TA: IBIP.

6. S4TWL – Changes In List Reports For Order and Notification

Note# 2270108

Transactions IW37 & IW49 are w.r.t order operations are improved further (performance) in new TA: IW37n & IW49n. Though the existing TA’s IW37 & IW49 are available in the SAP S/4HANA system but are not considered for future.

TA: IW37N and IW49N

Required Actions:

• run the reports ‘QM_PHASE_FILL’ and ‘RIAFVC_IPHAS_FILL’ before the upgrade to SAP S/4HANA.
• start using the new TA: IW37n & IW49n instead of IW37 & IW49.

7. S4TWL – WebDynpro Application for Maintenance Planner (<= EhP4)

Note# 2270110

Maintenance Technician role is obsolete for SAP S/4HANA release. Though it is still available in SAP S/4HANA but not in future.

Use the new Maintenance Planner and Maintenance Worker Roles available in SAP S/4HANA.

Required Actions:

Activate the Business Functions (LOG_EAM_SIMPLICITY_2 to 6) in TA: SFW5 to get the full functionality of Maintenance Planner and Maintenance Worker Role.

SFW5 in ECC System

SFW5 in SAP S/4HANA System

8. S4TWL – Enterprise Search in EAM

Note# 2270123

With SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition, the Enterprise Search models are now replication free search models using HDB. This means reliance on TREX & other replication data processes are eliminated. Now, the searches are based on SAP S/4HANA DB tables directly.

Required Actions:

Check the note 2270123 to follow the mentioned steps to activate the search models or if you are intending to use value help within WebDynpro App.

9. S4TWL – SAP Graphics in EAM Transactions

Note# 2482659

SAP Business Graphics used in Plant Maintenance applications are no longer supported in SAP S/4HANA. Example of affected TA: IP19.

TA: IP19 in ECC

TA: IP19 in SAP S/4HANA

Other affected transactions are available as the PDF attachment in the NOTE.

Required Actions:

Use the tabular display.

10. S4TWL – Mobile Asset Management (MAM)

Note# 2270080

The ‘Mobile Asset Management’ solution is not supported in S/4HANA. User can use the fiori apps on mobile or use “asset manager” (additional license required).

Additional Information:

Simplification items check:

• can be run manually in advance on the actual SAP ERP system.
• It is necessary to resolve all “red” inconsistency checks, otherwise the system conversion will fail.
• will be run by the Software Update Manager (SUM) at least twice during the conversion procedure

Next Steps:

This blog detailed out the list of EAM items which are changed or deleted in SAP S/4HANA product compared to Ehp/ECC product & consultants are required to demo these changes to stake holders before SAP S/4HANA transition so that their daily work is not affected by these changes.

Overall, I have shared the contents with respect to all the EAM simplification items which are valid till SAP S/4HANA 2022.