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Upgrading your SAP S/4HANA is often a rare opportunity to shift your user experience fundamentals. Knowing which shifts to make with your technical upgrade or post-upgrade simplifies planning effort and resources.
Image of a forklift moving a container - Image source: SAP
In this post are some practical tips on timing when to shift assuming:
These are the major shifts in SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA user experience as at SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01 or higher:
Hint: This blog post is relevant for customers running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. For example: customers running RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, or SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition tailored option. This blog post is also relevant for customers running the SAP S/4HANA product on other infrastructure such as on-premise server or hyperscaler.
Important: You only need to do this move if you are NOT already using embedded FES. Most RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition will already be using embedded FES. If you are not sure, check with your technical team.
A very simplified diagram below shows the difference. Essentially:
RECOMMENDATION: Do WITH your technical upgrade
While the benefits are considerable, this is still a disruptive architectural shift. You will need to:
IMPORTANT: Standalone FES will continue to be supported in SAP S/4HANA 2025. Refer to the references below for official information. Embedded FES remains SAP's recommended deployment mode. Several of the rapid activation tools will not work or can only provide limited benefits in standalone mode. Standalone mode also requires significant additional effort due to the dual system approach, for example, in role/user maintenance and OData/ICF services activation & transport.
Refer to:
Embedded FES reduces system landscape complexity:
Embedded FES typically reduces architecture costs:
Refer to:
Embedded FES provides agility-at-scale by providing rapid activation task lists and other improved operational tooling. that reduce effort and speed up managing your SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA content. For example,
Customer experiences suggest that this shift is easiest to manage as part of a technical upgrade. Expect:
IMPORTANT: The guides Moving from Standalone to Embedded Deployment in SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA - Rapid Activation Transport Move to Production Strategy have been updated for SAP S/4HANA 2023.
Refer to:
This can be a good option that saves time, especially if you currently use less than 100 SAP Fiori apps, including custom-built apps based on SAP Fiori UX, such as SAP Fiori design, SAP Fiori elements, and/or SAPUI5 development.
You have the advantage of using new rapid activation tools immediately to set up your embedded FES to current best practices.
To migrate your current content, consider that:
Refer to:
This can be useful if you have a large number of custom-built apps, 3rd party apps, standalone (non-S/4HANA) apps), or SAP Cloud solutions that you want to manage side-by-side on SAP Build Work Zone.
Important: SAP Build Work Zone is NOT a replacement of embedded FES for SAP S/4HANA. Your SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA content must still be deployed on your SAP S/4HANA server and federated to SAP Build Work Zone via content exposure from SAP S/4HANA.
Make sure your team is skilled up in the latest recommended tools and processes. In most cases, moving to the embedded server provides many opportunities to simplify and speed up business-as-usual support. For example, by using rapid content activation for SAP Business Roles and custom business roles.
Set an expectation that some user personalization is likely to be lost. There is some migration tooling for personalization however customer experiences so far suggest that almost always you lose some personalization. The degree of loss depends on the number of apps used, personalization features used, and the difference between your source and target SAP S/4HANA releases.
Be aware that there some restrictions on moving app views (aka app variants), partly due to lifecycle shifts in how public views are managed. You may want to take the opportunity to downgrade public views to private views where needed. You can explicitly recreate new public views using Adapt UI. Refer to:
SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition and on-premise customers can find some statistics on your current app usage through SAP Early Watch. Refer to:
Important: You only need to do this move if you have created custom technical catalogs using the Launchpad Designer on SAP S/4HANA 2022 or lower releases and are now upgrading to SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01 or higher.
Customers starting on SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01 or higher are recommended to use Launchpad app manager only. You should avoid using Launchpad Designer.
RECOMMENDATION: Do WITH your technical upgrade
This is a minor technical shift which is quick to complete. Typical expected effort is a few hours to a few days, depending on the number of custom catalogs created.
Moving to the launchpad app manager makes business-as-usual support and maintenance of launchpad content easier. That is, the launchpad app manager provides features that support agility at scale, such as:
There is typically no impact on business users, so it is difficult to justify the activity as a separate functional project.
Run the Technical Catalog Migration tool across all of your custom technical catalogs.
Refer to:
There can be extra effort involved if you do not have a clear separation between your cross-client custom technical catalogs and your client-specific custom business catalogs. For example, if you have custom technical catalogs assigned directly to business roles, or if you have separated tiles and target mappings into different catalogs.
The migration tool will help identify catalogs that need to be adjusted prior to migration.
Important: You only need to do this move if you are currently using Groups layout mode for your launchpad and are now upgrading to SAP S/4HANA 2021 or higher.
Customers starting on SAP S/4HANA 2021 or higher are recommended to use spaces and pages only.
Be aware that functionality and features will depend on your SAP S/4HANA release. For example, new My Home page is available from SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01.
RECOMMENDATION: Do Post-Upgrade
Image: Summary of Groups versus Spaces and pages with My Home - key differences and benefits as at SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01. Source: SAP.
There are significant, mostly positive, impacts on business users:
Image: Key benefits for spaces and pages for the business user. Image source: SAP.
You have better process control by using spaces and pages to reflect desire work practices:
Hint: From SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01, spaces and pages include the very attractive new Home page. In other words, it is an obvious disadvantage to be using Groups layout from SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01.
Image: Spaces and pages in a nutshell - key features and behaviours. Image source: SAP.
There are significant, mostly positive, operational impacts on administering security authorizations:
Image: Key benefits of spaces and pages for administrators. Image source: SAP.
Step-wise user-by-user or role-by-role move is supported. This is definitely worth discussing with your business sponsors and stakeholders:
You should consider how you will govern your spaces and pages design. This maximizes business effectiveness, minimizes rework; minimizes maintenance effort, and reduces training for business users.
For example,
You should discuss with your current business stakeholders:
For any custom-built spaces and pages, you should use a templated approach to the id, title, and content of spaces and pages.
For example:
You should consider moving users step-wise to spread the migration effort over time. You can use the launchpad configuration parameters to control default features. For example:
Refer to:
You can start moving role-by-role earlier, if you are on SAP S/4HANA 2021 or higher.
You can technically activate spaces and pages in your current release, but leave groups as the default. This enables you to start to exploring the main features and review differences in your target SAP S/4HANA release.
Hint: From SAP S/4HANA 2020 it is technically possible to use spaces and pages. However for most customers is likely to be too early as there are no SAP-delivered spaces and pages for business roles as a starting point, and only basic features available.
RECOMMENDATION: This move is optional and can be done any time. You may want to defer this shift to post-upgrade.
Image: Example screenshots of the entry page to SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start. Image source: SAP.
SAP Build Work Zone provides an additional layer to:
Refer to: SAP Help - SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition
You may need to consider commercial aspects, such as the use of your RISE BTP credits.
You will need to consider architecture and cyber security aspects.
You will need to consider current restrictions, such as which content can be exposed, and which content can be federated from SAP S/4HANA. Refer to: SAP Help - SAP Build Work Zone - Restrictions
Refer to: SAP Help - SAP Fiori launchpad - Exposing Launchpad Content to SAP BTP
You will need to configure the SAP Build Work Zone site to support your use cases.
You will need to federate the content from SAP S/4HANA using the content exposure. Refer to: SAP Help - SAP Build Work Zone - Integrating Business Content and SAP Help - SAP Fiori launchpad - Exposing Launchpad Content to SAP BTP
You will need to test your configuration from multiple entry points including:
SAP Mobile Start is an optional component to provide a native launchpad for mobile devices on Apple (iOS) or Android. Refer to: SAP Help - SAP Mobile Start
You will need to consider mobile device types supported and any current restrictions.
You should update your mobile device strategy to cover any impacts to your operations, such as procedures for deploying SAP Mobile Start.
You’ll find much more on our SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA topic page
Other helpful links:
Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG and Customer Care team.
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