SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model: What’s New as of 2024-11-19?

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Hello, my fellow SAP enthusiasts! Welcome to our latest blogpost on SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud – Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM)! 

In the fast-evolving world of business process management, staying ahead of the curve is essential. SAP PaPM Cloud – UM continues to innovate and expand, offering powerful new features that drive smarter decision-making and optimize performance. In this blogpost, we’ll dive into the latest updates to the Universal Model in SAP PaPM Cloud – what’s new, what’s improved, and how these advancements can help organizations streamline their processes and achieve better outcomes. Whether you're already using SAP PaPM Cloud UM or just exploring its capabilities, this blog will give you an overview of the key features to look out for. Let's explore how these updates can elevate your financial and operational strategies! 

If you want to catch up the previous blog posts from my colleague, you can always go through and read them all using this tag PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew. 

Let’s now dive into those exciting new features!

GENERAL  

Copy Functionality Enhancement  

When copying an object entity such as Environment, Field, Function, Activity, Process, Report, or Pages, the original object remains selected. With the new enhancement, after a single object is copied, the system automatically opens and redirects to the General Information screen of the first copied entity and start configuring or enhancing it.  

Is Protected Attribute for Process and Activities, Teams, Layouts, Reports and Pages  

In SAP PaPM Cloud UM, environments and its elements can be protected using the “Set Protection” functionality. For further information about this, you may refer to the Application Help for Universal Model Manage Environments.  

Users can see if an environment is protected or not with the read-only attribute Is Protected in its General Information section.  

This is also true for Process and Activities.  

 

In relation to this, for Teams, Layouts, Reports and Pages, “Is Protected” attribute is now visible and its value depends on whether the Runtime Environment is protected or not. 

“No” if its Runtime Environment Is Protected = “No”  
“Yes” if its Runtime Environment Is Protected = “Yes”  

  

  

  

 
MODEL 

Manage Functions: Diagram  

APIs can exist in one of five states: Active, Beta, Decommissioned, Deprecated, or Internal—each marking a different stage in the API’s lifecycle. No need to worry about the state of a function—you can easily check it in Diagrams, where each node displays icons representing the current API state.  

When Function is in Internal state, you will see ‘I’ and upon hovering icon it will display which state it is:   

  

When API state is Active, there should be green check mark in left corner of function.  

  

When API state is Beta, there should be blue letter B in left corner of function.  

  

When API state is Decommissioned, there should be red X in left corner of function.  

 

When API state is Deprecated, there should be orange triangle in left corner of function.  

 

For more information about API states, you can refer to SAP Help Portal: Change API State of Function | SAP Help Portal and APIs and Events Deprecation Policy | SAP Help Portal.  

Add Join Conditions for Unmapped Relations via OData Service Connection type 

This is a new enhancement to Manage Connections with Target Type = OData Service that gives users more flexibility with unmatched relations. In the past, relations without a predefined join condition were hidden from the list during synchronization, limiting their usability. With the new enhancement, these relations will appear in the list, allowing users to manually define a join condition and enable syncing for these previously unavailable relations.  

Upon synchronization, some relations will not have join conditions, user will see information message that models without join condition in relation was excluded.   

 

Relation without join condition will be visible in relation section of the Model, with “Sync Relation” = Remove  

 

User can manually add join conditions for these relations, enabling sync functionality even if metadata doesn’t provide a condition by default.  

  

Upon saving the configuration, re-synchronization of models and re-activation of environment, relations will be added to corresponding model entity.   

 

Validation Checks for View and Model View

We’ve introduced validation checks to ensure that all mandatory fields and dropdown selections are correctly populated in Model View and View functions. Key validation features include:  

Validation for View Functions   

• Obligatory Fields Check: Ensures that all required fields in both the Header (General Information) and Fields sections are filled in. If any required field is left empty, an error message stating “Value is required” will be displayed.   
• Dropdown Selections Validation: Validates that proper items or tables are selected from dropdown menus. Incorrect selections trigger specific error messages related to the selected fields.   

Example of validation messages:  

When field is left empty in View Function General Information section

   

When field mapping has duplicates in View Function  

 The same validation checks are also implemented in Model View function.  

Manage Model Calculation UI incorporates Intellisense 

The newly implemented feature is about maintaining and editing of formula on the Assignment section of the Model Calculation Function.    

On the assignment section we have introduced the Edit button.  Choosing this button, a pop-up screen will appear where the user will see a template. It was enhanced so that whenever a user adds a character to the formula box a predictive text appears thereby assisting the user to edit/configure the formula. 

PROCESS 

‘Copy to’ Functionality in Manage Process  

Building complex processes with numerous activities and links can be time-consuming. To streamline this, the SAP PaPM Cloud UM now offers the 'Copy To' option in Manage Processes, allowing users to copy entire process, including all activities and links, from one environment to another.  

Copy To functionality for Process in Protected Environment would work as well.  

For better tracking of copied processes to another environment, you can check the 'copyProcessestoEnv' log in the Event Logs.  

  

Navigate to the Manage Activity object page from Activity Show Screen  

If you need quick navigation to Manage Activity object page from Show Screen, you can use additional menu item that we added in dropdown.  

Clicking the Activity menu item will redirect you to the Manage Activity page. This Activity menu text is composed of <activity.description> - Activity.  

  

Activity function Value Help 

In Manage Activity, when the user is defining an Activity Function using the Value help, an additional column is added to give additional information to the users what is the API State of the available function that can be used in the Activity. 

 

Using of activity layout for data export   

A new enhancement has been introduced in Manage Activity for exporting of data wherein it will apply the set default layout for the activity in the exported data file.  

Note:  Exporting of data can be exported into a CSV file or XLXS file.  
The exported data can be downloaded from the Manage Comments application.  

What are the layouts that will be applied during exporting of data?  

Exporting Data with Show Screen Layout in General Information  

First, if the activity has a defined layout in Show Screen Layout field in General information, like the image below:

  

In the exported data file, the layout used in the activity, like in the image below:  

  

will be the layout applied in the exported data file.  

  

Exporting Data with default non-standard layout in Show Data screen  

Second, if the activity has a defined default layout in Show Data screen, like the image below  

  

  

  

In the exported data file, the default layout used in the activity show data screen, will be the layout applied in the file without the need of defining Show Screen Layout section in the Activity.  

  

Exporting Data with standard layout in Show Data screen  

Lastly, if no defined layout in Show Screen Layout field in General information and in Show Data screen, Standard default layout is used.   

  

  

  

In the exported data file, the default standard layout wherein all fields are displayed, used in the activity show data screen, will be the layout applied in the file.  

  

Just an additional information, if an Activity user (with data authorization limitation) will be exporting the data, based on the data authorization (Activity Field selection and Data Privilege), it will be applied on the data to be exported.  

Show Screen: Apply Activity Filters for every Activity layout  

In our latest update, we've added a feature to improve data filtering consistency in Show Screen. This enhancement is especially helpful for Process users who need to provide pre-filtered data to Activity users, ensuring that the data displayed aligns precisely with user-defined filters across multiple layouts.  

Now, by setting "Apply Field Selection on Show" to YES, any Activity Fields defined will apply uniformly across all Activity layouts for a seamless experience. Regardless of whether the layout is Standard or Additional (created by user); users will see the same filtered data, maintaining consistency throughout their work process. When users switch from one layout to another, the application will reapply the filter to ensure data consistency.  

 

Comments and Eventlogs Availability in Activity Show Data  

Comments are now available in Activity Show Data Screen only. You will not see comments pane in Modelling Show Screen. As an enhancement, added option to create and read comments in the object page of the record.  This makes it easier to collaborate and provide feedback in context, ensuring that communication is more focused and accessible where it’s most relevant.  

  

In addition, all event log functionalities are now available on the object page. This powerful update allows you to view and analyze historical changes, compare different versions of objects, and track modifications—all in one place. This provides deeper insights and a more comprehensive understanding of object evolution.  

 

Individual Log Entry upon import data (Update and Insert write mode)  

SAP PaPM Cloud Universal Model now offers record-based traceability for imported data. Each record will have a separate log entry that includes the Old Value and New Value when the Update and Insert write modes are used during the import process.  

The Old Value represents the value prior to the update, while the New Value signifies the value following the update.

 

You can easily view the Old and New Values by clicking on the event log icon for a record that has been updated and expanding the section labeled 'Changes.'  

Importing and exporting of data in xlsx file format 

With the new enhancement, excel file can now be used for importing of data. The excel files that can be used for importing the data may be introduced to the system via Manage Comments and via comments. 

The structure of the excel file should be the same on what we have for the csv files, it should have a header line in which the technical name is used as header columns.  This feature also supports importing of data with complex business objects, like the one which has hierarchy, in one go.  The enhancement only allows an excel file with a maximum of 64MB to be used as an import file or an error message will appear if the user tries to upload a file of more than 64MB. 

Excel files can be added via Manage Comments; 

 

as well as via Activity Show Data 

 

Importing Files can be done via Activities Screen; 

 

Or via Show Data Screen 

 

Complex business objects (Parent-Childs, Document-LineItems, etc.) are supported, if the entities data is provided in separate tabs of the excel file. They are imported in one go. 

 

Exporting of Data can be done on Show Data Screen 

 

Uploading an excel file with more than 64MB of data will return a Maximum file size error. 

REPORT 

Manage Reports: Show Report  

We have introduced an enhancement in Reports wherein if “Auto-Refresh Page” setting is enabled, the user will be able to see if another user makes any changes (such as adding text to the editor or insert of Show Element) in the same report page. This will ensure that users will always see the latest updates in real-time without the need to refresh the page.  

  

Just be aware that to balance performance and usability, the system will limit refresh to no more than once every 30 seconds. This prevents excessive refreshing while keeping the information up to date.  

Administration 

Manage Tenant Connections: AI Core Service  

Manage Tenant Connections has introduced a new Connection Target Type called "AI Core Service" which can be created to refer to a specific AI Core Service destination. This will allow communication between applications running in SAP BTP and SAP PaPM Cloud UM to be able to utilize Artificial Intelligence in the application. For more information on how to configure this, see Manage Tenant Connections: AI Core Service.  

As SAP PaPM Cloud UM continues to evolve, staying up to date with its latest advancements will ensure you maximize the value of your investment. We hope this overview has given you a clearer picture of the exciting possibilities that lie ahead. Be sure to explore and experiment with these features to fully leverage their potential within your organization! 

See you on the next blogpost! 😊