Business Driven Configuration Enriches Fit-to-Standard Process

for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Business Driven Configuration brings business questions into the Fit-to-Standard process. The
business questions help business users and project teams make critical decisions to drive the
configuration values for their solution. Let me document an example of how this works. We will
focus on the activities which are performed in the Prepare and Explore phases of SAP Activate.

Prepare phase

During this phase, the consultants supporting the deployment adjust the set of questions by
selecting those which correspond to customer’s chosen scope. Each question is assigned either
to a scope item or functional area. This selection of questions is then shared with the customer
business users to be prepared prior to the Fit-to-Standard workshop(s). The business users
answer the questions along with being up-skilled on the solution functionality in self-
enablement. Additionally, consultants may provide additional insight in case the business users
have difficulty addressing the questions.
Explore phase

The consultant collects the answered questions and uses them to prepare for the Fit-to-
Standard workshops in the Explore phase. The answers to the Business Driven Configuration
questionnaires provide insight into areas which should be in focus in each workshop and are
used to probe questions in areas that need specific configuration values defined so the solution
meets the customer’s needs. Once the workshops begin, the consultants follow the standard
process for Fit-to-Standard (i.e. walk through the processes using the test scripts and process
diagrams for scope items in the project scope). They deep dive into areas that have been
determined critical, per the answers from the customer or understanding of the customer
specific needs. And finally, once the decisions are made and confirmed, the project team
determines the configuration values (including the self-service configuration apps that will be
used to configure the solution). Note, depending on the scope of the project, there are typically
multiple Fit-to-Standard workshops per each functional area to allow sufficient time to define
the configuration needs.

Once the configuration values are defined and the Explore phase activities are completed, the
project team starts configuring the Quality System and conducts frequent transports of the
configuration to Production System
The steps a project team takes to determine the configuration values and required extensions
to the pre-delivered solution in the Explore phase (the pre-activated SAP Best Practices in SAP
S/4HANA Cloud). Let us now shift our attention to the steps the project team takes to
personalize the pre-delivered system with customer-specific configuration and how the solution
can be extended to cover a customer’s unique requirements beyond configuration.

The purpose of the Realize phase is to incrementally configure, extend, and test the pre-
configured solution to reflect a customer’s integrated business processes based on
requirements defined in the Explore phase and captured in the delta requirements backlog.
Additionally, during this phase, the project team loads customer data into the system, plans
adoption activities, and prepares cutover plans and plans for operationally running the solution.
The following activities are key to the Realize phase for SAP S/4HANA Cloud:

Configure the customer solution in the quality environment using Agile iterations and the
backlog created in Explore phase

Walk through solution processes with the stakeholders to confirm the solution has been
configured to meet their requirements

1. Execute data migration loads into the quality environment

2. Conduct overall end-to-end testing of the solution
3. Integrate with other SAP system(s) and customer legacy systems, as required
4. Continue with project team enablement on key concepts and system operations
5. Prepare cutover plan and plan change management and end-user enablement
6. Receive quality and production environments

During the Realize phase, the project team uses a series of Agile sprints to incrementally
configure, test, and confirm the entire end-to-end solution and to perform legacy data uploads.
The project team actively works with business representatives to ensure a good fit of the built
solution to the requirements from the backlog. The project team releases results of multiple
Agile sprints to the business users in a “release to production” to accelerate time to value and
provide early access to finalized functionality.

The solution configuration and walkthrough is the main purpose of the Realize phase to
personalize the customer system to fit their business needs as they were determined earlier in
the Explore phase Fit-to-Standard workshops. Therefore, the most important activity during the
Realize phase is to take the results of the Fit-to-Standard workshops and implement the
required configuration values to personalize the pre-delivered SAP Best Practices based system
to meet customer business needs. In addition to the configuration activities, the project team
will also implement the required extensions, adjust forms, and set up integration scenarios. The
configuration capabilities in SAP S/4HANA Cloud are supported by two distinct types of
configuration technologies and approaches: guided configuration through easy-to-use
applications available to consultants and customers, and expert configuration performed by
SAP Service Center on behalf of the customer in coordination with the customer project team
as part of the subscription contract. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Guided Configuration – For most configuration, such as setting up blocking reasons for billing or
adjusting address for a customer’s organizational unit (e.g., a plant or warehouse), the project
team can access the self-service guided configuration applications in the Manage Your Solution
application in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and select the Configure Your Solution button. All
configuration will be done in the quality system (Q-system) and can then be transported to the
production environment in short configuration cycles.
Once you view the configuration applications, the screen displays your systems current project
phase. All the configuration applications are assigned to an application area and contain
additional details, such as description, indication whether the configuration is mandatory and
thus must be accessed during the configuration activities, and so on. Here, you can also use the
filter, the search functionality, and adjust the sorting order of the self-services configuration UIs
accordingly.

Once you are ready to access the configuration application, use the Start button to start the
application and adjust the configuration values. SAP provides examples of the configuration
activities in the SAP Activate framework that show visual walkthroughs of the configuration
steps. Once the configuration has been adjusted, the project team can use the comment field
to capture relevant documentation and the status of the activities for this configuration
application.

The Self-Service Configuration, in release 1708, provides access to over 250 self-service
configuration applications (depending on the capabilities activated in a customer’s system)— a
number that will continue to grow as SAP adds new configuration applications to cover
additional settings as part of the self-service approach.
Expert Configuration – For selected advanced configuration such as enabling direct access to
configuration tables (something that is common in SAP’s on-premise solutions), SAP offers
expert configuration, which is performed by the SAP Service Center on behalf of the customer.
Customers can request that the SAP Service Center complete the expert configuration
identified and documented in the Explore phase. The expert configuration does not need to be
requested all at once; in fact, it should be part of a configuration sprint wherein one or more
processes are configured, tested, and moved to the P-system.

Configuration Sprints – Project teams run both self-services and expert activities in short 1-2
week-long Agile configuration sprints. In each sprint, the project team performs the required
configuration (using the self-service configuration or requesting expert configuration) and
requests that the configuration be pushed into the P-system. This way, the Q-system and P-
system are synchronized during the implementation, which minimizes the risk in deployment of
the functionality into production.
Key User Extensions – Key user extensibility is a part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud in-app
extensibility capability that enables customer key users to extend the standard functionality without
modifying the code. The extensions are only applicable within restricted organizational context,
meaning the key users in this scenario can do simple extensions of the application that impact their
line of business in the organization. SAP S/4HANA Cloud supports key user extensions to the user
interface (UI), adding/testing simple business logic and adding a new custom field to the UI. Refer to
this blog seriesfor more details on Key User Extensibility.
Integration – For integrations that are included in the scope of the initial project (as the team
decided during the Explore phase), the team sets up the integrations during Realize phase following
the guidance provided in the SAP Activate framework (these setup steps are detailed in the SAP
Activate Methodology in the SAP Roadmap Viewer including links to guides and documents detailing
the setup on both sides of the integration). SAP provides standard integrations for solutions like SAP
SuccessFactors Employee Central, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP Hybris, to list
a few examples. Always refer to the latest information about available standard interfaces published
for SAP S/4HANA Cloud in the SAP Best Practices Explorer. In addition to standard integrations,
each customer can integrate their custom applications with SAP S/4HANA Cloud using published
APIs. The SAP API Business Hub provides comprehensive documentation of all available APIs for
SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
The work in Realize phase is relatively broad and includes following the activities that we suggest
our readers to review in detail on the SAP Roadmap Viewer:

 Data Migration – loading of customer data into the solution utilizing the data migration
capabilities in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
 Setup of Output Management – including adjustment of forms and e-mail templates
 Adaptation of Data Sources for Reporting
 etc.