11.3 Setting Up the Project in SAP Cloud ALM and Preparing a System Conversion

Setting Up the Project in SAP Cloud ALM and Preparing a System Conversion

SAP Cloud ALM turns the SAP Activate methodology into assigned, trackable tasks. For conversion projects, a set of analysis tools shows what has to change before the technical conversion starts. Both topics come from the S4C03 unit Setting Up Systems for Implementation.

Project Setup in SAP Cloud ALM

The partner project manager needs access first, because they create the project and assign the tasks to everyone else. The setup steps:

1. Users: the IT Contact adds the team members, who already exist in SAP Cloud Identity Services.
2. Roles: review the standard project roles, edit or delete them, and create roles such as one per line of business. One role can be assigned to several people, so LoB tasks reach the whole LoB team.
3. Project and roadmap: create the project and choose the SAP Activate roadmap (see the table below).
4. Timeboxes: enter the dates of each phase, working backwards from the planned go-live. The Explore phase with the fit-to-standard workshops usually needs the most time. The Overview app shows remaining days and open tasks per phase.
5. Team: assign people to roles and switch off unused roles; several roles or users can be combined into a team.
6. Scope (new implementations only): in Manage Scopes, choose the SAP Best Practices package for Private Edition or the Enterprise Management Layer (for companies with many intercompany processes), then select the business processes and local versions from the Digital Discovery Assessment (DDA). You can select them manually, filtering by country and business process group, or import an Excel file exported from the DDA (More → Import & Export → Export Excel in the DDA, then Scope from file). The DDA is only a starting point; the scope usually changes after the workshops.
7. System group: group the development, quality, and production systems; the IT Contact supplies the system names.
8. Deployment plan: enter the upcoming releases within the project timeboxes, assign the system group, and then assign the deployment plan to the project.

The clean core tasks and quality gates are part of every Private Edition roadmap, not only of the clean core success plan. For conversions, the existing scope is analyzed and documented with SAP Signavio Process Manager (included in RISE with SAP) instead of scoping in SAP Cloud ALM.

Preparing a System Conversion

SAP Signavio Process Insights, Discovery Edition

Included in RISE with SAP, it analyzes a one-time data load from the ECC system, and the analysis expires after six months; the full edition monitors daily without expiry and offers more functions. It shows processes that run inefficiently and units where processes run better than elsewhere, which feeds the fit-to-standard discussions. It succeeds the Business Scenario Recommendations report and Process Discovery.

SAP Readiness Check

The SAP Readiness Check is started from SAP for Me → Services & Support → ALM. It compares the customer's system with the SAP S/4HANA simplification items, which describe functions that were changed, replaced, or removed, and it can also be run before a release upgrade. Its report includes:

The SAP Fiori Apps Recommendations report, run from the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, gives a dedicated list of apps. SAP S/4HANA delivers more than 500 business role templates, which customers copy and refine in the development system. The Custom Code Migration app (on SAP BTP) checks custom code against the Simplification Database and gives a detailed effort estimate (section 11.6).

Pre-Conversion Projects and the Technical Conversion

1. Resolve the pre-conversion projects found by the Readiness Check: data management, customer-vendor integration (synchronizing customers and vendors with business partners, section 2.2), reconciliation of financial data, and the cleanup and remediation of custom code.
2. Choose the method: SUM 2.0, with or without the Database Migration Option, which usually reduces downtime.
3. Plan the conversion in the Maintenance Planner, which includes running the Simplification Item Check in the ECC system. The Readiness Check and the Simplification Item Check serve different purposes, so both are required. The master Simplification Item Catalog is in SAP for Me.
4. Address custom code with the Custom Code Migration app and the ABAP Test Cockpit, run the technical conversion with SUM, and finish with application-specific follow-up tasks and thorough testing.

Selective Data Transition: Business Transformation Center

For a selective data transition, run the SAP Readiness Check for SAP ERP Usage and Data Profiling (SAP Note 3112362), upload its result in SAP Cloud ALM with Manage Analysis Files, and create a Digital Blueprint with Manage Digital Blueprints. Further apps let you deselect data, for example company codes that have not been used for years, so that less data is transferred.

Rapid Activation of SAP Fiori

SUM does not generate the SAP Fiori launchpad, so after a conversion the launchpad is set up with Rapid Activation. It works only with the embedded deployment, which is recommended since SAP S/4HANA 1909. The task list SAP_FIORI_FOUNDATION_S4 activates the launchpad, scopes apps from SAP business role templates in the development system, and activates the customer roles in the quality system before they are transported to production. It creates the foundational roles SAP_FLP_USER and SAP_FLP_ADMIN and two composite roles with a customer prefix, for example Z_FIORI_FOUNDATION_USER and Z_FIORI_FOUNDATION_ADMIN, to which customers add their other roles.