Book Image

Manage Your SAP Projects with SAP Activate

By : Vinay Singh
Book Image

Manage Your SAP Projects with SAP Activate

By: Vinay Singh

Overview of this book

It has been a general observation that most SAP consultants and professionals are used to the conventional waterfall methodology. Traditionally, this method has been there for ages and we all grew up learning about it and started practicing it in real world. The evolution of agile methodology has revolutionized the way we manage our projects and businesses. SAP Activate is an innovative, next generation business suite that allows producing working deliverables straight away. Manage your SAP Project with SAP Activate, will take your learning to the next level. The book promises to make you understand and practice the SAP Activate Framework. The focus is to take you on a journey of all the phases of SAP Activate methodology and make you understand all the phases with real time project examples. The author explains how SAP Activate methodology can be used through real-world use cases, with a comprehensive discussion on Agile and Scrum, in the context of SAP Project. You will get familiar with SAP S4HANA which is an incredibly innovative platform for businesses which can store business data, interpret it, analyze it, process it in real time, and use it when it's needed depending upon the business requirement.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Dedication
Preface

A new implementation


For a new implementation, where the customer is implementing a new SAP S/4HANA system with initial data load, SAP Activate brings in innovations, and the mentioned innovations can be discovered in the discover phase of SAP Activate:

Customer implementing a new SAP S/4HANA system

Let's see phase by phase how SAP Activate supports a customer's implementation of a new SAP S/4HANA system.

SAP Activate's discover phase lets you try and experience the digital business processes offerings:

Innovations delivered with SAP Activate for a new implementation to SAP S/4HANA:

  • Preconfigured trial role-based self-led evaluation of SAP S/4HANA based on model company
  • Utilizing SAP Fiori user experience
  • Integrated help functionality embedded into the product
  • Free, click-through license for customers and prospects
  • For cloud and on-premise

For the prepare and explore phase of SAP Activate, SAP has delivered the following innovation (for new implementation); this allows customers to start with a model company:

  • Prepare setup of projects, install—SAP HANA DB (with applications core), SAP S/4HANA, and Fiori UIs
  • Explore ready-to-run business and integration processes optimized for SAP S/4HANA leveraging preconfigured enterprise structure and predefined master data
  • Enterprise template to support multiple countries in one client
  • Includes International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
  • Embedded into the standard product shipment of SAP S/4HANA

For the realize phase of SAP Activate, SAP has delivered the following innovation (for new implementation); this simplifies customers, scoping and configuration activities:

  • Helps realize solution scoping and scope activation
  • Guided configuration allows customers to work with SAP best practices
  • User adaptation is a self-service configuration enabling customers to view and change basic settings, such as organization structure
  • Expert configuration option available to help customer adapts to SAP model companies and add additional processes as needed
  • Predefined mappings to target business objects; this makes the task of landscape transformation easier
  • Support for initial data migration (for new implementation scenarios)
  • Best practices for integration, for example, integration between SAP ERP HCM and success factors employee central

For the deploy phase of SAP Activate, SAP has delivered the following innovation; this simplifies customers, onboarding and deployment activities:

  • Embedded learning and documentation for simple onboarding of end users
  • Role-based learning content
  • Guided tour to jumpstart the onboarding process for new users
  • Context-sensitive screen help

For the run phase of SAP Activate, SAP has delivered the following innovation, which is integrated with solution manager 7.2, to ease the operate, monitor, and support phases:

  • SAP solution manager integration for operations, monitoring, and support
  • Continuous innovation with content lifecycle management
  • With SAP solution manager 7.2, SAP best practices provide reference content for process models, project implementation guidance, and configuration documentation through WBS for each deployment scenario

System conversion

Complete conversion of an existing SAP business suite system to SAP S/4HANA is basically the use case where the customer does not want to go for a new implementation but rather just convert the existing system to SAP S/4HANA:

System conversion

For system conversion, SAP Activate brings in the following innovation, which runs through various phases that enable customer to experience trial (in discover), technical preparation steps, test conversion (prepare and explore), functional conversion and cutover (realize), reference content (realize), onboard and deploy (deploy), and operate, monitor, and support (run):

  • Role-based self-led evaluation of SAP S/4HANA based on preconfigured business scenarios in trial systems
  • Step-by-step guided system conversion with technical preparation and test conversion, with migration best practices based on optimized migration tools for SAP S/4HANA
  • Best practices for integration, for example, integration between SAP ERP HCM and success factors employee central
  • SAP solution manager integration for operations, monitor, and support
  • Context-sensitive screen help
  • With SAP solution manager 7.2, SAP best practices provide reference content for process models, project implementation guidance, and configuration documentation through WBS for each deployment scenario

Landscape transformation

This is the use case when a customer wants to consolidate their existing regional SAP business suite landscape into one global SAP S/4HANA system. Selective innovation from the preceding two scenarios (new implementation and system conversion) can serve the purpose of this scenario as well, depending on the requirements, such as integration content:

Landscape transformation

As discussed earlier, the following are the three scenarios for the transition to SAP S/4HANA. Let's see how the SAP Activate methodology provides support for all deployment approaches and what the major improvements from ASAP 8.0 and SAP Launch are.

A quick reminder: The SAP Activate methodology is designed to succeed all variants of ASAP and SAP Launch. The following table depicts this:

Scenarios

Earlier

Now

Supported implementation

New implementation

ASAP 8.0

The SAP Activate methodology for on-premise edition

  • SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition
  • SAP business suite

SAP Launch

The SAP Activate methodology for on cloud edition

  • SAP S/4HANA on cloud edition, for example, marketing
  • Ariba, C4C, and SFSF

System conversion

NA

The SAP Activate methodology for S/4HANA system conversion

  • SAP business suite

Landscape transformation

NA

The SAP Activate methodology for S/4HANA landscape transformation

  • SAP S/4 HANA on-premise edition
  • SAP S/4HANA on cloud edition, for example, marketing

Table: The SAP Activate methodology is designed to succeed all variants of ASAP and SAP Launch

The major improvements can be summarized as follows:

  • 10 or less key deliverables per phase, thus easier access to key guides and accelerators
  • Leverage guided configuration
  • Reduced project lifecycle; only four phases
  • Enhanced planning and strategy workshop for SAP S/4HANA to guide the customer through the decision and planning process:

Mapping SAP workstream's Activate to ASAP and SAP Launch