What is it?
Commercial Project Management which was hitherto an add-on in ECC, is now available on S/4HANA as an add on (from release SAP S/4HANA 1610) and as an i`ntegral part of S/4HANA Core itself (from release SAP S/4HANA 1709).
What it’s not?
Although this is a natural extension of Commercial Project Management in ECC, the following Important points are differentiators:
- SAP Fiori launchpad is the default starting point for CPM. Classical access via NWBC is still possible but not recommended.
- RDA setup required as part of CPM BI content activation is not required anymore and is simplified to a larger extent with HANA enabling realtime master data access and reduced data footprint
What’s new?
- New Fiori Apps to simplify and accelerate your project business scenarios – Overview of Commercial Projects for a quick holistic view, Single project overview for deep dive into projects, Procurement and Billing apps targeted towards important transaction specific scenarios etc.
- Simplified planning approach that directly uses material masters, activity type lists, cost elements, and employees from SAP S/4HANA.
- Additional new forecasting scenarios which caters to different types of forecasting methods.
- Improved capability to schedule and transfer several project plans and forecasts at once to financials during the month-end process.
- Detailed information on what’s new in these releases can be obtained from respective Innovation Discovery platforms: [S- user login may be needed]
Is there any functionality not available in S/4HANA Edition which was available in ECC? (A.k.a Simplification List)
Yes, there are very few change w.r.to CPM. The changes have been done taking into consideration to achieve simplified business processes. For most of them alternatives are available.
You can check the simplification list in the help portal in the landing page of the specific release under the node Conversion & Upgrade Assets. For example the simplification list of SAP S/4HANA OP1709 FPS2 is
available here.
General Availability
CPM as an add-on for SAP S/4HANA 1610: November 18, 2016 (PAM Link)
CPM in SAP S/4HANA 1709: September 15, 2017 (PAM Link)
SAP RIN note
Release information Notes should come in handy for consolidated information on many aspects of a specific release from installation prerequisites, supported versions of software to additional notes to make CPM up and running quickly:
CPM as an add-on for SAP S/4HANA 1610:2382542
CPM in SAP S/4HANA 1709: 2507203
What’s the Minimum HANA Version required
CPM as an add-on for SAP S/4HANA 1610:
If you are using SAP HANA 1.0 Revision 122 or higher is needed. When using SASP HANA 2.0 you would need Rev 2 or higher is needed.SAP S/4HANA 1709 requires SAP HANA 2, i.e. it is not supported to operate SAP S/4HANA 1709 on an SAP HANA 1 database.For the precise minimal required version (Support Package Stack and Revision of SAP HANA 2), please see the release information note of SAP S/4HANA 1709 (SAP Note 2482453)
Is this an add-on?
If you are using SAP S/4HANA 1610, CPM will be an add-on like the CPM on the ERP. This release is called as SAP Commercial Project Management 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA.
However, starting from release 1709 of SAP S/4HANA CPM is embedded as part of S/4HANA core. Activation of the required business functions is sufficient to get CPM up and running starting from SAP S/4HANA 1709.
The naming convention for CPM embedded in S/4HANA will follow the overal S/4HANA naming conventions and will be called as SAP S/4HANA 1709 etc.
Old Versioning
CPM 1.0, CPM 2.0. Latest on these tracks is CPM 2.0 SP08 as of Q2 2018.
There are no major innovations planned for this release and mainstream maintenance is supported till December 31, 2025.
New versioning
Now after being part of SAP S/4HANA core starting from 1709, CPM will follow the versioning of S/4HANA itself.
Latest GA release being SAP S/4HANA 1709 and next upcoming release in September 2018(SAP S/4HANA 1809).
What’s the journey so far?
CPM started as part of add-on on ERP with two releases CPM 1.0 and CPM 2.0. With the availability of S/4HANA we had release for 1610 named SAP CPM 2.0 FOR SAP S/4HANA. Further in the next version of S/4HANA we have moved into the core starting from SAP S/4HANA 1709.
This has the advantage of a reduction of the technical complexity since no separate add-on installation is required.
SAP Commercial Project Management will now also follow the release cycles from SAP S/4HANA so that also upgrade processes are simplified.
Fiori Apps and Fiori launchpad support started from SAP CPM 2.0 FOR SAP S/4HANA. Latest release of SAP boasts itself with 4 Fiori apps and complete CPM functionalities are accessible from Fiori launchpad itself.
Software Components
CPM as an integral part of SAP S/4HANA consists of S4CORE as the software component.
However, if you are using CPM as an add-on on S/4HANA like in 1610 (SAP CPM 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA), it will comprise the following CPM specific software components:
CPM_S4H
S4CORE
For a complete list of required software components pls see the Product availability Matrix.
What happened to the BI Content? Any changes ?
RDA in BW is removed which was there for updating real time data from PS. Currently in S/4HANA we use HANA calculation view is used which can read required data directly from the DDIC tables. This way complicated RDA setup is hugely simplified.
Even for fetching master data for other info objects like resources and resource types which are created in ERP earlier ABAP reports need to be run, which is also now simplified with HANA views. Now newly created data will be directly fetched and available in CPM.
Most of the planning functions are made PAK (Planning Application Kit) enabled, which means that the HANA capabilities can be utilized to improve the performance of planning functions.
Inclusion of PPM projects in CPM is possible without any extra RFC data extractors starting from 1709 release.
Clients required
- SAP GUI
- SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, Edition for Microsoft Office
- SAP NetWeaver Business Client (optional – Not Recommended)
- SAP Lumira (optional)
[We always recommend to have latest edition/patch of Analysis Office for better compatibility and improved performance related to workbooks]
Any pictorial depiction of the typical landscape?
Any new Business Functions?
No, the same three core Business Functions of CPM are being used in S/4HANA too:
- /CPD/CA_CPD_PWS_1
- /CPD/CA_CPD_PFP_1
- /PICM/CA_CPD_PICM_1
Additionally, the activation of the business function OPS_PS_CI_1 is a prerequisite for working with Project System (PS) projects
Do I still need to have SAP GUI installed?
Yes. SAP GUI is still required, especially for accessing the SPRO customizations when it is required.
Though for a normal end users this may not be required, any customization changes if required will be done via SAP GUI.
What if I we are upgrading from lower release?
If you are interested in upgrading from CPM as an S/4HANA 1610 to the latest release of CPM in SAP S/4HANA 1709, pls refer to the upgrade guide.
https://help.sap.com/doc/760ce610a2af4174a329d2d8315378e2/1709%20000/en-US/UPGR_OP1709.pdf
What we need to do if we want to convert our ECC release to S/4HANA?
Conversion from SAP ERP to S/4HANA 1709 to get latest CPM functionalities is possible.
Pls refer to the following page:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/62c8d2b1a71046a09b9c7ec745910ae4/latest/en-US/024d488c1db14dc7a796d51656...
What should we do if we are a new CPM customer?
If you are a new CPM customer, you can get the most recent CPM innovations by installing the latest SAP S/4HANA release.
Pls refer to the page How to Install a New SAP S/4HANA Systemfor more information.
Still have questions?
If you still have have questions, use the below resources to get required help/information quickly:
- Refer to existing blogs in the community page & you if you have best practices to share, you are welcome to contribute to the same by writing new blogs.