domingo, 14 de junho de 2020

SAP S/4HANA On-Premise (AnyPremise) Release Version Updates 1511 – Current State

This blog post will provide S/4HANA On-Premise releases version updates at a high level to get the glance of innovations delivered as part of each release.

What is SAP S/4HANA?

SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (short SAP S/4HANA), is the next-generation business suite, fully built on the most advanced in-memory platform – SAP HANA. It is designed with the most modern user experience – SAP Fiori – and can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud or hybrid. SAP S/4HANA delivers instant value across business functions and industries with the ultimate sophistication: simplicity.

SAP S/4HANA – Digital Core

SAP S/4HANA is SAP’s next-generation Digital Core
  • Optimized for SAP HANA
  • New architecture and data models
  • Principle of one
  • Renewed applications
  • Fiori based User Experience
  • Cloud & on premise deployment models
SAP S/4HANA (“High-Performance Analytic Appliance”) is SAP’s ERP for large enterprises. It is the successor of SAP R/3 and SAP ERP and is optimized for SAP’s in-memory database SAP HANA.
The offering is an Enterprise Resource Planning software package meant to cover all day-to-day processes of an enterprise (for example, order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, plan-to-product, and request-to-service) and core capabilities. It integrates functions from lines of businesses as well as industry solutions, and also re-integrates portions of SAP Business Suite products such as SAP SRM, SAP CRM and SAP SCM. However SAP Business Suite 4 only runs on the SAP HANA database, and thus it is packaged as one product: SAP S/4HANA. SAP’s classical R3, ERP and ECC based business suite and related products were designed to run on several database platforms, including those from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM.
The platform SAP HANA has been available since 2010, and SAP applications like SAP ERP and the SAP Business Suite have been able to run on the SAP HANA database and/or any other database.
The launch of the new suite, called SAP S/4HANA, took place on 3 February 2015 at the New York Stock Exchange. The event introduced cloud and on-premise editions and launched the on-premise edition.
The S/4HANA product offering consists of two editions: SAP S/4HANA On-Premise and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
SAP S/4HANA On-Premise is similar in terms of coverage, functionality, industry-specific support, and localization to the current SAP Business Suite (in 39 languages, 64 country versions).
SAP S/4HANA (on-premise) releases are once per year. Version coding for both editions: YYMM example 1909 – September 2019.
SAP S/4HANA On-Premise releases:
  • SAP S/4HANA 1511: November 2015
  • SAP S/4HANA 1610: October 2016
  • SAP S/4HANA 1709: September 2017
  • SAP S/4HANA 1809: September 2018
  • SAP S/4HANA 1909: September 2019

SAP S/4HANA 1511

This is a major milestone as part of our roadmap to help customers across industries and regions drive their digital transformation with the next-generation business suite, SAP S/4HANA delivers a massive wave of simplification and innovation in the core, covering the mission-critical business processes across lines of business: such as in finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research&development, and human resources.
Enterprises can now drive end-to-end digitized operations across their key business functions via a fully digitized enterprise management solution – named SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management.
SAP S/4HANA is designed for digital business and provides an instant insight by using a single source of truth, real-time processes, dynamic planning and analysis.
With SAP Fiori user experience and less complex data model it is designed to run simple, and in parallel reduces the data footprint of the company.
S/4HANA 1511 release simplified the business processes.
  • Streamlined Procure to Pay
  • Accelerated Plant to Product
  • Optimized Order to Cash
  • Enhanced Request to Service
  • Core Human Resource
  • Core Finance

SAP S/4HANA 1610

With brand new functions and significant simplifications across lines of business (LoB), the addition of the full SAP S/4HANA Finance scope, and the SAP Fiori 2.0 user experience, SAP S/4HANA 1610 continues where its predecessor left off on its mission to reinvent ERP for the digital age. Here we take a look at some of these highlights in more detail.
From the start, SAP S/4HANA was designed to enable businesses to both master the challenges and leverage the benefits of digitalization for businesses. As the modern digital core, it serves as the nerve center of the enterprise. Built on the SAP HANA platform, SAP S/4HANA has the power to significantly accelerate the speed of both transactional and analytics performance and radically reduce an organization’s data footprint. As a system of intelligence, it offers decision-making support, simulation, pattern recognition, and prediction capabilities to help organizations transform from the reactive to the proactive.
Integration not only between departments, but also with suppliers, customers, the workforce, and the Internet of Things makes immediate and valuable insights across an entire business a reality.

Next-Generation UX with SAP Fiori 2.0

Starting at the top, one key innovation in SAP S/4HANA 1610 is the SAP Fiori 2.0 visual theme. Using tiles, links, or the search function, users access all the applications they need from one single personalized entry point. Overview pages, list reports, and work lists based on domain-specific information provide tailored task overviews, with notifications alerting users to priority issues. Drilling down, users can investigate and resolve open issues – with the SAP Fiori visual theme applied across the board, even to own developments.

Expanding the Core

Delivering on the simplification road map, a number of important developments are now included in their entirety in the latest on-premise release of SAP S/4HANA.
First, SAP has added the entire scope of SAP S/4HANA Finance. This single source of truth for all financial data means reconciliation is a thing of the past, and the optimized financial accounting processes help companies’ finance experts improve efficiency and ensure compliance. Highlights include real-time understanding with SAP RealSpend and SAP Financial Statement Insights, and parallel valuation methods for legal, group, and profit centers, making reporting profitability for both the group as a whole and individual units possible.
Second, SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) is now part of SAP S/4HANA. With flexible deployment options, customers can run SAP EWM either as a centralized or a decentralized application with SAP S/4HANA 1610. Innovations, such as the direct use of master data and the supported use of 40-digit material numbers, are now also available. The key benefit comes, of course, with the central consistency that SAP S/4HANA provides. There are no redundancies, no duplications, just a simplified SAP system landscape.

Innovating the Core

SAP S/4HANA not only provides customers with the software to deal with the new opportunities presented by the digital age, such as IoT, Big Data, business networks, and machine learning, it also creates software for entirely new technologies that are essentially the results of this digitalization.
In the age of the smart product, one of the new topics addressed by the latest on-premise release is that of embedded software. Whether it is in our phones, cars, or household appliances, “built-in” software has become ubiquitous. With SAP S/4HANA 1610, completely new capabilities support manufacturers in the management of this kind of software across the entire product lifecycle. Businesses can accelerate new product development by responding quickly to information gathered from their intelligent products, leverage requirements-based product design and impact analysis, and monitor the product development status, including design, quality, and development progress.

SAP S/4HANA 1709

S/4HANA 1709 released on Friday, September 15th, 2017, there are new topics added to its S/4HANA Core.
SAP released Future Package Stacks (FPS) each Quarter and for On-premise installation, customers can choose which FPS to be included during the implementation of the project. After implementation customers can migrate it to next release or FPS.
Major innovations shipped as part of the S/4HAAN 1709 version.

User Experience:

Digital assistance “Co-Pilot” feature introduced. SAP CoPilot is a plugin-loaded service operated from the cloud using the SAP Cloud Platform. SAP CoPilot can be integrated into the launchpad for both SAP Fiori on-premise deployment models: Gateway-Hub deployment and Embedded deployment.
The main capabilities of Co-Pilot are,
  • Notes: Business user able to take notes
  • In-Context Chat: Chat with other business user and share information across the platform
  • Quick Actions: Creation of business objects

Transportation Management

Transport managed was a standalone application with this release TM is part of S/4HANA Core. A single system supports transportation management capabilities within S/4HANA to simplify the system landscape.
Integrated transport management in SAP S/4HANA 1709 supports the entire transportation chain using TM 9.4 as base functionality.
Businesses can manage transportation demands by planning, optimizing, tendering subcontracting and settlement of freight processes. It can support to book carriers in accordance with requirements of international trade and hazardous materials.
The following are the end to ned functionalities supports in SAP S/4HANA 1709 release.
  • Domestic and International transportation for the shipping industry.
  • Inbound and Outbound freight management based on the sales order, purchase order, deliveries and stocks.
  • Material transfers and returns
  • Embedded analytics and key performance indicators for real-time performance visibility and tracking

Advanced Variant Configuration

In manufacturing innovations, Advanced Variant Configuration is one of the most important functionalities delivered with this release. The new variant configurator will support the Lot Size of One in a world where customization and individualization of products is a growing trend. New Fiori Apps delivered and existing Apps are enhanced to support best user experience.
Handles the complexity of configurable products
  • The new engine developed in partnership with Fraunhofer Institue for Industrial mathematics
  • Simulation and configuration
  • Single source of truth for configuration data
  • Analytics for validation of products
  • Available in the cloud and On-premise

HANA 2.0

HANA 2 is built on version of HANA 2 and it is a mandatory database platform for S/4HANA 1709.

Production Engineering and Operations (PEO)

PEO is one of the great feature released with S/4HANA 1709 release. PEO connects engineering operations with manufacturing planning and execution.
  • PEO offers the following features
  • Engineering change management (EBOM and MBOM with version control)
  • Handover of EBON to MBOM
  • Detailed production process with Work Instructions
  • Enhanced Production Operations and Execution
  • Product Genealogy and Action Log

SAP S/4HANA 1809

SAP announced the availability of SAP S/4HANA 1809 in September of 2018. 1809 includes a number of technical advances that augment the evolving digital core and the new “Intelligent ERP” approach that defines the S/4HANA strategy. It also introduces a range of functional and industry-specific innovations.
AP S/4HANA is the foundation of the “intelligent enterprise”, and comes as an innovative, robust and scalable core ERP. The core ingredients of the intelligent ERP are:
  • A digital age UX: aiming at hands-free experience, powered by digital assistance, and delivering value-adding experiences by instant insights leveraging the latest SAP Fiori technology
  • Automation: ERP augmented by machine learning from SAP Leonardo, and predictive analytics to increase automation and efficiency
  • Next-generation processes: reinventing and redefining processes with applied best practices built on the latest innovations

Innovations and Intelligence

Procurement
In the area of Procurement, delivering number of Machine Learning capabilities with 1809, for example:
  • Increased invoice automation and efficient invoice monitoring for exception handling
  • Reduction of free-text items by automatically proposing the creation of a new catalog item
  • Proposal of material group for free-text items in purchase requisitions
  • Provision of options for materials without source of supply
Sales and Distribution
Quotation Conversion Rates is an innovation in Sales and Distribution which truly delivers on the promise of an intelligent ERP. As an internal sales representative or a sales manager, you can use Quotation Conversion Rates to track to what extent your quotations are being converted into sales orders before expiring. By leveraging machine learning capabilities, you can gain predictive insights into quotation conversion by comparing actual and predicted results. The Quotation Conversion Probability (also known as Order Probability) is the probability that a quotation item will be converted into a sales order item. The probability, expressed as a percentage, and net value of the quotation is used in order to calculate a total expected order value.
Manufacturing
In Manufacturing, we’re introducing Demand-driven replenishment. With the demand-driven buffer level management, you can plan and manage supply chains much more efficiently. Providing decoupling points with strategic stock positions, manufacturers can avoid the so-called “Bull-Whip-Effect”, where the variations in demand increases as you move further up the supply chain from customer to supplier.
Moreover, in inventory management, we included intelligence by leveraging predictive analytics and machine learning for decision support.
Finance
Finance as well has quite a few intelligent innovations in store for you, for example, predictive accounting. When a sales order is confirmed in the system, this is not recorded in accounting until goods have been delivered and the invoice has been sent. With the predictive accounting functionality, based on the sales order, a predictive goods issue and a predictive invoice is registered.  This will initially be supported for selective sales processes.
SAP CoPilot
The SAP CoPilot allows you to communicate with SAP S/4HANA using natural language via voice or text, and it is a first big step to deliver a hands-free ERP. With the SAP CoPilot, you can ask the system, for example, to show sales orders for a specific company from this week, to show standard orders changed by a specific person, to show sales orders with a specific customer reference. In Procurement, the SAP CoPilot enables Smart Buying by creating purchase requisitions using natural language.

SAP S/4HANA 1909

With the 1909 release of SAP S/4HANA, SAP continues to focus on delivering leading-edge value in three key areas: intelligent automation, insight and prediction, and next-generation best practices. And tremendous progress can be seen across all lines of business.
Here are some key highlights:
  • In finance, improvements in the continuous closing process will drive increased process efficiency and faster insights into your business. Integration of SAP Analytics Cloud with financial planning provides quicker, clearer insight so you can run your business more effectively.
  • In manufacturing, intelligent robotic process automation (IRPA) helps deliver predictive material resource planning (pMRP) so you can better serve your customers while reducing inventory costs.
  • Predictive analytics now helps improve sales forecasts and delivery performance. Added blockchain capabilities make supplier quotes more secure.
  • Improved integration across all lines of business drives end-to-end processes that lead to improved customer-centricity.

SAP Fiori 3

SAP Fiori 3 is SAP’s new target design, which evolves the SAP Fiori design language for all SAP
products to fully support the Intelligent Suite. Flexible, simple, and convenient, with machine intelligence guiding users to make their work easier.
CONSISTENT
  • A harmonized look and feel across products
INTELLIGENT
  • Embedded intelligent user guidance – via machine learning and/or rule-based
  • Dynamic content on home pages pushes time-critical content, so users know what needs their attention now
  • Digital assistant
INTEGRATED
  • Integration of content from different products into a single screen eliminates time-consuming cross-product
    navigation
  • One digital assistant for all products
  • Notifications across devices inform users of changes as they occur so they can respond immediately

Additional Information

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SAP Central Finance – Central Payments & Withholding Taxes (WHT)


In this blog we will discuss the details of Withholding tax (will call it WHT from now) in case of SAP S/4HANA Central Finance (will call it CFIN from now). In coupe of sentences I will give a background on WHT
Tax that is charged at the beginning of the payment flow in some countries. Usually, the party that is subject to tax does not pay the withholding tax over to the tax authorities himself. When a customer that is authorized to deduct withholding tax pays invoices from a vendor subject to withholding tax, the customer reduces the payment amount by the withholding tax proportion. The customer then pays the tax withheld directly to the appropriate tax authorities
source%20-%20SAP.com
source – SAP.com
SAP have TWO types of solution:
  • Classic WHT
  • Extended WHT
Please refer to SAP help for the details & usage of these solutions.
In CFIN the WHT is support however there are some restrictions which needs to be considered.
Important Pre requisite – SAP S/4HANA CFIN supports ONLY Extended Withholding Tax. In all source company codes, for which withholding taxes shall be replicated to the Central Finance system, Extended Withholding Tax must be activated in the respective source system (& not classic WHT) although for those company codes or companies which do not use WHT at all this can be ignored.
Withholding taxes are calculated in the source system and transferred to the Central Finance system exactly as they are posted in the source system. They are never re-calculated in the Central Finance system. It is important to ensure that WHT configuration in both (source & CFIN) system is same although the customising codes can be managed via mapping.
In CFIN you can have below TWO cases:
Central Payment Is Activated:
If Central Payment is activated for a certain source company code, then the tax impact will be visible in the Central Finance system that are not anymore available in the source system and hence it calls for a need to do tax reporting from CFIN system and this is not just for WHT rather for all taxes. Also an important topic is Certificates. Certificate numbers are always generated in the Central Finance system so all certificate related settings needs to be done in CFIN system only.
Central Payment IS NOT Activated:
If Central Payment is not activated, then the CFIN system is just carrying the replicated data and in this case the source system should be used for any tax reporting.
Consistency check for WHT for ONGOING REPLICATION ONLY
During the replication of FI documents with withholding taxes to the Central Finance system, the system checks the withholding tax configuration and the below tables are compared:
  • T059P (Withholding Tax Types)
  • T059Z (Withholding Tax Codes)
  • T001WT (Company Code Spec. Information per WHT Type)
  • T001RWT (Rounding Rules for Company Code and WHT Type)
  • T059MINMAX (Minimum and Maximum Amounts for WHT)
  • T030 (Standard Accounts Table)
Result – If the configuration of customizing entities, like for example withholding tax types and withholding tax codes does not match in the source and the Central Finance system, the posting results in error in AIF that needs to be actioned upon.
Replication scenarios of WHT
Details of the fields involved in replication the structure can be referred to – ACCIT_WT
  • Withholding taxes posted at the time of invoice (ongoing replication)
  • Withholding taxes posted at the time of payment (ongoing replication)
  • Withholding taxes in reversal documents
  • Withholding taxes in the initial load of documents and open items
  • Withholding taxes within document changes

Limitations:
  • No Accumulation Transfer is possible
    • If WHT without accumulation is needed then activate Central Payment can be activated and you can start WHT reporting and start preparing your WHT reporting in the Central Finance system. But if it’s used with accumulation the business processes needs to be revisited as it’s a CFIN limitation that accumulation data is not replicated to the CFIN system.
    • If Central Payment is activated in the middle of the month or the middle of the year and monthly or yearly accumulation is in use then be aware that NO information about accumulated WHT for the past part of the month or year are available in the CFIN system. Therefore, it is important to consider that Central Payment is activated at the beginning of a month or year, depending on the use of accumulation.
  • No Localization based on country specific requirements.
Important & Relevant SAP notes to be referred:
  • 2184567 – Central Finance: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • 2623514 – Central Finance and Withholding Tax – SAP Notes
  • 2771656 – Central Finance and Withholding Tax: Consistency Checks and Country Mapping
  • 2292043 – Prepare source system for activating clearing transfer in Central Finance
  • 2641045 – Central Finance and Withholding Tax with Initial Load – Source System

Happy reading and keep learning..
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terça-feira, 9 de junho de 2020

SAP CAI + S4HANA Cloud + Whatsapp = A Marvelous User Experience!

Hi Guys,
In this blog post, I am going to discuss one of the coolest integration in the SAP world ‘SAP S4HANA Cloud and Whatsapp’.
As many of you know, WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms, and nowadays, it can also be used for business purposes, so why not have your S4HANA system integrated with it.
Before stepping into the integration with Whatsapp, I’ll urge the readers to go through my previous blog SAP Conversational AI + S4HANA Cloud → ‘A Fantabulous Combination’ which explains the integration of SAP CAI with S4HANA Cloud.
Now let’s focus on the topic of the day.

Why such integration with Whatsapp is needed?

Let’s talk about a situation where the end-user wants to know the status of his/her order, or the user needs some details from the SAP system. It requires the user to login to the SAP system and performs the requested operation.
Now how about if we could get all such details in our smartphone right away from SAP System and that too with just having a chat conversation with the bot.
That sounds super cool and convenient…right
This blog here talks about the security aspect of the integration of Whatsapp.

How this integration is going to work?

Now, if you have worked with CAI integrations before, you would already be aware that there are some direct channels for integration with Telegram, Messenger, WebChat, etc.
But for Whatsapp, there is no direct integration channel available. The trick here is to make use of a trendy Cloud Communication Platforms called Twilio.
Twilio is a cloud communications platform as a service (CPaaS). Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and perform other communication functions using its web service APIs.

Technical Architecture


Now let’s get into the main steps involved in achieving this integration.
Step 1. Create a custom business object or CDS view or use the SAP whitelisted API.
Step 2. Create the communication scenario and arrangement for the CBO or CDS view. In case you are using whitelisted API, those are already exposed.
Step 3. Develop a Node Js Application that will act as a middleware between the SAP S4HANA Cloud System.
Step 4. Deploy the Node Js application on the SAP Cloud Platform.
Step 5. Develop and design the bot skills in SAP CAI.
Step 6. Use the deployed application URL as a webhook in the CAI Bot.
Step 7. Test the bot.
for Step 1-7 check out my previous blog.
Step 8. Create a free Twilio account on Twilio
Step 9. Enable the Whatsapp Channel.
Login into your Twilio account, expand the left side panel and click on Programmable SMS.

Then click on Whatsapp.

Twilio provides the Sandbox environment for Whatsapp. You have to set up the sandbox account on your mobile. You just need to add the number and send a message from your WhatsApp as shown below.
After the connection is successfully established, you’ll get the below message.

Step 10. Now we need to create a Twilio function that will interact with the SAP CAI using SAP CAI SDK.
From the Twilio, dashboard click on Functions under Runtime category.
First click on the Configure option, here you need to add the correct version of the npm module for SAP CAI SDK.
Add the npm dependencies and save.

Now go to manage functions and create a new function with a blank template.
Now provide function name, path, and the below code. Now Save the function.

exports.handler = function(context, event, callback) {
console.log('invoked with', event)
global.twiml = new Twilio.twiml.MessagingResponse();
    var sapcai = require('sapcai')
 let build = new sapcai.build('<CAI API KEY>', 'en')
  build.dialog({ type: 'text', content: event.Body}, { conversationId: event.From })
  .then(function(res) {
      'debugger';
    data = res.messages[0].content+"\n"+res.messages[1].content;
    twiml.message(data);
    callback(null, twiml);
  }) 
};

Add your BOT’s API token to the code. You can get the token from your bot like below.

Once the function is saved and deployed copy the function path which will be used as a webhook in the WhatsApp channel.
Step 11. Now use the deployed function’s URL as webhook in Whatsapp channel.
Navigate to the Whatsapp channel then sandbox, here give the function path which you copied in the previous step.
Save it and now you can test it.


Stay tuned for more upcoming fantastic stuff.

I hope you all have enjoyed this blog post, and I’ve been able to make myself clear. Please let me know your thoughts, doubts in the comment section below, and if you enjoyed, please like and share.
Wishing excellent health and safety to all of you and your friends & families.
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