SAP S/4HANA Compatibility Packs

betty_guedez · ‎2025 Apr 03

Product Information

Betty Guedez

April 2ND, 2025

SAP S/4HANA Compatibility Packs in a Nutshell

Updated as of release 2023

Let's have a look at a highly relevant topic when transitioning to SAP S/4HANA, especially now that we are in 2025: Compatibility Packs: how to understand them in an easy way, where to get information about them and what the timelines are now in which Compatibility Packs will be operating, depending on the strategy recently released by SAP.

I am Betty Guedez, Product & Engineering Solution Architect at SAP Regional Implementation Group RIG. I feel honored to come back to this community with an SAP strategic topic like this.

If we ask Joule, we get that "... Compatibility Packs in SAP S/4HANA are designed to ensure that certain functionalities from older SAP systems remain available in the new SAP S/4HANA environment. These packs allow customers to continue using specific features (...), providing a bridge during the transition period. They help maintain compatibility and support business continuity while customers adapt to the new system...".

Compatibility Packs are functionalities that were deployed as embedded processes in the SAP ERP and that will remain available in the SAP S/4HANA for a specific period, at the end of which SAP will execute the final stages of the strategy.

In a recent announcement, SAP shared a new timeline for Compatibility Packs. Now, together with Customer Service (CS), Logistics Execution and Transportation (LE-TRA) and Production Planning - Process Industries (PP-PI) (specific solutions that already had their expiration period set for 2030), all existing RISE S/4HANA systems can continue using their Compatibility Packs until 2030 (not 2025 anymore). This is carefully explained in SAP Note 2269324 - Compatibility Scope Matrix for SAP S/4HANA

Figure 1: SAP S/4HANA Compatibility Packs timeline as of January 2025

Compatibility Packs, Readiness Check and Simplification Item Check

As mentioned above, SAP's Compatibility Packs offer customers temporary and limited usage rights to run specific SAP ERP solutions they have licensed on SAP S/4HANA, as outlined in their agreements. It is crucial to know this at the time of thinking about transitioning to SAP S/4HANA. That is why the SAP Readiness Check shows a Compatibility Scope Analysis on its main dashboard, providing information about simplification items related to Compatibility Packs and their status.

Figure 2: SAP Readiness Check Dashboard

In the SAP Readiness Check dashboard, 2 categories under Compatibility Scope are visible: Relevance and Status. By Relevance: each item in the list is related to specific compatibility package ID and some other details like Description, Component and the specific business impact note that must be carefully reviewed. If there is an alternative solution, this detail is also provided.

By selecting Compatibility Scope by Status, you will see information on different alternatives (if available), along with the previously mentioned details.

Figure 3: SAP Readiness Check Compatibility Scope Analysis

Later, during the transition to SAP S/4HANA process, Compatibility Scope details are provided in the SAP Simplification Item Check (SIC), issued in the SAP ERP backend. The procedure to find them is as follows:

Through transactions SA38 or SE38, execute the program /SDF/RC_START_CHECK, and use theRelevance Check to identify what functionalities are currently in use.

Figure 4: SAP Simplification Item Check

Then, analyzing the content of the column labeled "Category", filtering it to include only "Non-strategic" values (according to SAP Note 2931193 - Explanation of Simplification Item Categories) - which is easier after downloading it to an Excel spreadsheet:

Figure 5: Compatibility Packs Analysis after downloaded from SIC

For both cases, SAP Readiness Check and SAP Simplification Item Check, the second analysis for these objects must take place:

Non-strategic Function (alternative exists): Another solution for the functionality exists to fulfill all major requirements expected. Transition must be evaluated and planned. Example: Simplification Item SI13: FIN_CO S4TWL - EC-PCA - Classical Profit Center Accounting Planning, can be replaced by SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning with SAP S/4HANA (SAC), according to SAP Note 2993220 - S4TWL - EC-PCA - Classical Profit Center Accounting Planning
Non-strategic Function (alternative exists with roadmap): An alternative functionality is available in SAP S/4HANA, although the offering varies in scope. Those variations have been included in a roadmap for that alternative. Example: SI8_FIN_General S4TWL - Report Writer / Report Painter in Finance and Controlling, explained in SAP Note 2997574 S4TWL - Report Writer / Report Painter in Finance and Controlling
Non-strategic Function (alternative planned): The successor functionality is not yet available, but there is a roadmap. Example: Simplification Item SI01: CS - S4TWL - Customer Service, SAP Note 2962632 - S4TWL - Customer Service.
Non-strategic Function (no alternative planned): For these, there is currently no replacement planned. One example of this is SI7_FIN_AA - S4TWL - Group Assets. SAP Note 3532580 - Group Assets: Succession solutions contains guidance on how to proceed with this.

Compatibility Packs in the SAP Early Watch Report

As many of you probably know, the SAP Early Watch (aka SAP EWA) is an automatic service at no extra charge, that analyzes the areas of an SAP running instance, providing information on situations (maybe critical or not) and proposing solutions to protect performance and stability of the system, usually issued on a weekly basis. It is an SAP service that has been among us for long time now. For setup steps of this diagnostic, please refer to SAP Note 2520319 - How to access the SAP EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) apps in SAP for Me.

The SAP EWA provides various diagnostics and statistics, like risks that can affect business continuity, critical KPIs per system, bottlenecks, general security alerts and recommendations to improve system performance and operations. SAP EWA also brings risk mitigation strategies and a long list of insights. Additionally, the SAP EWA includes information on the usage of Simplification Items related to Compatibility Packs that are approaching an expiration date in an SAP S/4HANA system.

Written or online, the SAP EWA delivers information about the status of Compatibility Packs in an SAP system. In SAP For Me, once you get to the SAP EWA Solution Finder, after opening the report chapter for the system, a list of the Compatibility Packs in use over the last three months is pulled. For each, a specific SAP Note with background information of the business process and an alternative path forward is provided.

So, if already in an SAP S/4HANA system, the SAP EWA helps track the progress in transitioning to the new solutions when still using Compatibility Packs. With the SAP EWA, following the usage of each Compatibility Item and tracing the progress in replacing the functionality is an ongoing process.

For RISE with SAP customers, the SAP EWA tracks the replacement of Compatibility Packs with the expiration set for 2030, so no messages will be raised for now. For others, the SAP EWA highlights Compatibility Packs expiring at the end of 2025 in red, as a warning that actions must be taken soon.

As a conclusion, I must say that making a decision about what to do next, in terms of transitioning from the old to the new redesigned, improved business processes is something that shall not wait too long. Compatibility Packs bring a unique opportunity to adopt the new innovations available, gain efficiencies by leveraging new and better practices and give business users the time to adapt to them with minimal disruption and in a timely manner.

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