Transformation from On-premise to Cloud (a Consultant's Starter Pack)

[Dan_Daroga]

Co-authored by Dan Daroga & Robert van Dijk

Updated 27.03.2024

Transitioning from On Premise to Public Cloud is no simple matter. From a Consultant’s perspective, it’s more than understanding the differences in terms of functionalities, but rather a transformational journey which starts with adopting a Cloud mindset,  understanding  the Cloud principles and practices, and adopting these. 

Many SAP Consultants are considering the transition to Public Cloud, and we have seen an increase in Public Cloud projects. For this reason the authors believe it is required to prepare a starter kit for those consultants navigating through this complex, yet exciting journey.

This blog post is based on our experiences and learning, including as well other colleagues’ input who have already completed this transition. 

The contents of this blog:

1. Transition to the Cloud: An On-premise to Cloud story
2. Cloud mindset
3. How to onboard yourself to the Cloud (SAP Activate)
4. How to familiarize yourself with the Cloud (the Golden rules)
5. What are the recommended trainings (SAP RISE – Learning journey)
6. How to get started
7. Resources & Abbreviations

1. Transition to the Cloud: An On-premise to Cloud story 

Harry has been working for SAP for more than 22 years and as a Finance Consultant. He can tell some great tales from the transition from the days of R/2 and R/3, the change to SAP ECC and then more recently SAP S/4HANA. Harry is an On-Premise consultant, very knowledgeable and experienced. In the last few years, Harry has noticed the company’s shift to Cloud as the strategic path forward.  The latest product innovations are on the Cloud, whilst some of the functionality and solutions that Harry used are no longer being developed further. Some are only supported in the Cloud or using a Cloud solution. This has made Harry concerned as all of his knowledge and expertise are based on the On-Premise solutions. Harry has decided it is time to embrace the Cloud, but he soon realizes that the transition to the Cloud is not just about bridging the functional (solution gap). 

Harry decides to reach out to Meghan, a Finance colleague of him and someone he felt could help mentor him to Cloud. Meghan has been working for SAP for around 12 years, initially in On-Premise, and the last 4 years she has been solely focusing on the Public Cloud. Her  focus  area is Finance, and she explains to Harry that to transition to Cloud will new skills and also a Cloud mindset. With a Cloud mindset Meghan is referring to a new approach to work that takes advantage of what the Cloud offers. 

2. Cloud mindset

Meghan starts to explain to Harry that there are 6 key principles associated with adopting a Cloud mindset.  With a Cloud mindset Meghan is referring to a new approach to work that takes advantage of what the Cloud offers. 

1. Earn your Customer Every Day - Focusing on your customers – earning their business and their trust every single day by listening to them to understand their need(s) and challenge(s).
2. Continual Learning & Relentless Improvement - The learning will never stop, and if failure happens, use it as a learning opportunity.
3. End-to-end Ownership – SAP solutions are cross-functional, so as part of the delivery cycle, “you deliver it, you own it”.
4. Data-Driven Decision Making – Lets make decisions based on real-data and not opinions/speculation/assumptions.
5. Ruthless Prioritization - It is fine to say NO to a customer and try to limit the amount of work in progress.
6. Empowerment & Delegation – Trust in your colleagues, feel free and empowered to contribute with ideas and solving problems.

3. How to onboard yourself to the Cloud (SAP Activate)

Cloud as a standardized solution 

Meghan wants Harry to understand that the adoption approach between On-premise and Public Cloud is vastly different. Where for the On-premise approach you adopt the solution to the business, whereas the focus for Public Cloud is adopting and using the standard Best Practice processes (scope items) and solution whilst still having reasonable configuration flexibility via Central Business Configuration / Manage Your Solution application (SSCUIs).

Cloud implementation specifics features

Meghan is asking Harry to familiarize himself with the specifics of a Public Cloud implementation / differences in comparison with On-premise or Cloud Extended and understand the basic principles:

• Upgrades to Public Cloud solutions are automatically applied by SAP periodically. As part of further reading, Harry will need to get familiar with the upgrade procedure and what it entails (Identifying new features coming up with the new release and assess the impact on the existing customers, Pre-Upgrade testing, Regression testing etc.).
• Two tier system landscape: Public cloud solutions typically use only one quality system and a production system (this is the status at the moment of writing the blog post– see also chapter 6 – Extensibility options). This is quite new to Harry who comes from the more traditional On-Premise landscapes with three-tiers structure.
• Customer must take ownership of many more tasks during a Public Cloud implementation such as data migration, testing and change management.
• Cloud customers are handed over to SAP Cloud Support for long term system management. In Cloud the content lifecycle management (CLM) is the responsibility of SAP as part of the release strategy and SAP will support that content but there will still be a guidance for customers to have their own CoE for 1st level support and content not covered by CLM.

Implementation shift between the more traditional SAP S/4HANA On-Premise (Design to blueprint) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud (Transformative, Fit to Standard) 

Meghan wants Harry to understand the differences and  importance of the two types of implementation approaches. In the traditional implementation approach, Harry was focused on the Consultative approach, trying to customize and configure the solution to fit to the customer’s business needs / requirements. Usually, On-Premise implementations are heavily customized (although Harry still recommends keeping the Core clean where possible).

With the Cloud approach, Harry should rather focus to lead with ‘standard’ and best practices instead of being the Client Superhero Finance consultant. He would need to understand the agile approach, accelerators and the rapid delivery steps.

Cloud delivery approach – “We adopt best practice functionality”

Meghan is advising Harry on the set of principle generally valid for any Public Cloud implementation project.

• Buy-in from key stakeholders – convince the main actors from the client on the merits of having a standardized, cloud-based solution.
• Change management – a strong change management team could assist in changing habits / adopting the new processes.
• Release management – be familiar with upgrade and release planning and impacts.
• Out-of-the-box setup.
• 80:20 rule (standard vs customization).
• SAP Activate agile approach.
• SaaS type responsibility.

SAP Activate – the foundation of a Cloud implementation

Meghan stresses to Harry that he needs to become familiar with all the phases of the Activate methodology for a Cloud project and the associated activities per each phase. She refers him to the Roadmap Viewer [link below figure 1.0].

Fig 1.0

Source: SAP Activate Methodology for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

4. How to familiarize yourself with the Cloud (the Golden rules)

Now that Harry has completed the onboarding process, Meghan proceeds to emphasize the Five Golden Rules for Cloud Implementation

• Adhere to fit-to-standard and agile deployment detailed in SAP Activate:
• Leverage SAP standard processes where possible (Fit-to-standard) instead of asking the business what they want to have. This is a big transformational shift for Harry who needs to adjust his mindset to promote pre-delivered processes
• Deploy your solution incrementally with short releases and sprints (agile deployment).
• Use pre-configured solutions with predefined processes and utilize SAP Fiori user experience (UX).

Harry has been using SAP GUI transactions all his consulting life and he was resistant to Fiori applications, but as he found out, transaction codes are no longer us in the Public Cloud!

• Scope items from the SAP Best Practice processes
• Country versions (also found in the SAP Signavio Process Navigator)
• Use of modern integration technologies:
• Use APIs for integration - only whitelisted API’s can be used.
• Use SAP BTP for Cloud integration.
• Use modern extensions technologies:
• Develop customer extensions in a side-by-side approach using the SAP BTP
• Leverage business logic extensibility within in-app extensibility (key-user extensibility) and try to avoid classic coding enhancements where possible.
• Ensure transparency on deviations:
• It’s recommended that any deviations are clearly documented as part of the implementation as this will help the customer replace “gaps” with standard capabilities if they are offered in the future. 

5. What are the recommended trainings (SAP RISE – Learning journey)

Harry feels comfortable that he now understands what is meant with Cloud mindset and the fundamental differences between Cloud vs On-premise. However, he is curious to learn more about Public Cloud and wants to understand what learning journey and certifications are available with SAP Public Cloud. Meghan is talking him through the learning journey from the SAP Learning Hub.

Meghan proposes that Harry focuses on the essential trainings needed to get him started.

She encourages Harry to go through the following three main courses, followed by either certification (in the following sequence):

1. Onboarding with SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition – This training journey will enable Harry to explore the skills needed to implement the public deployment option for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and perform SAP Activate activities and tasks. This recaps what Meghan showed Harry in the Roadmap Viewer, but much more detailed.
2. Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud – Finance - to become competent with the Finance specifics of an SAP S/4HANA Cloud project. This is a more in-depth course needed to understand the differences between the Finance Cloud and On-premise
3. Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud - Treasury Management - Neither Meghan, nor Harry are real Treasury experts, however Meghan advises Harry to still go through the course and ascertain at least the high-level understanding of the Treasury processes. This course is specialized for Treasury experts, but seeing as 11% - 20% of the certification questions are from this training, it is worth it to have at least a high-level understanding of Treasury.
4. SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public) – Finance Implementation. Once all prerequisites are fulfilled and Harry have gone through the learning journey, Meghan strongly suggests he should apply for certification and stay competent with each new release.

Meghan explains that to be able to complete the certification (see #4), the first training is foundational covering multiple topics whilst training #2 & #3 are functionally oriented training. For the training number #3, even if you are not a Treasury consultant, a basic understanding is needed for the certification.

Below is an overview of the trainings and certifications for the Starter and Expert level.

S4HPC Level	Training / certification topic	Learning Hub Courses / Certification	Duration*
Starter	Onboarding with SAP Activate for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition	Learning Journey Link	~4 days
	SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition implementation with SAP Activate	Learning Journey Link
Expert	RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition – Finance §  Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud - Finance	Learning Journey Link	~6 days
	§  Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud - Treasury Management	Learning Journey Link
	SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public) – Finance Implementation	C_S4CFI_2XXX / C_S4CFI_2308

*The duration is an estimate made by Meghan to give Harry some kind of idea of how much time he would need to set aside to get himself up skilled.

6. How to get started

How to login, what is needed (how to get sandbox system access)

As is the case with the On-Premise situation, Harry asks Meghan if there are no sandbox systems which are available for internal users which he could access and play around with to familiarize himself with the Cloud solution and user interface.

Meghan directs Harry to the Partner Edge – a central location where there the consultant/partner can request access and use a 30-day trail system. Link to SAP Partner Edge for a free 30-day trial system: LINK

Harry proceeds immediately by testing some of the Best Practice scope items  from the SAP Signavio Process Navigator tool and following some the test scripts that can be found there as part of the accelerators.

Landscape

Meghan makes Harry aware of the complexity that a Cloud environment can have with a host of components, applications, systems, connections etc. that is needed to bring all the different pieces together, and she shows Harry the below figure 2.0 and 2.1 in the hopes that this will provide at least a high-level understanding of the main components.

Note: this is the current state of planning and may be changed by SAP at any time without notice

Fig 2.0

Source: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Early Adopter Enablement
SAP Activate for 3-system landscape (August 26, 2021)

Note: 3-system landscape is the only valid option for any new projects, however there are still customers using 2SL (planned to be converted to 3SL in the future).

Fig 2.1

Source : SAP S/4HANA One Cloud Early Adopter Enablement
SAP Activate for 3-system landscape (August 26, 2021)

Extensibility possibilities (key user extensibility, Steampunk, Embedded Steampunk)

In the next step towards understanding key aspects that Harry will face as a Cloud consultant, Meghan tries to illustrate the extensibility concepts and tasks that could potentially befall Harry in his daily work. The three extensibility options are, 1. Key user extensibility, 2. Steampunk (also called Side-by-Side) and 3. Embedded Steampunk [See figure 3.0].

In the role of a Cloud Consultant Meghan points out that Harry should feel comfortable to support the customer/partner with key user extensibility. Meghan mentions that key users (which Harry will be an example of) will be able to execute a range of extensions that include, for example:

• UI flexibility (hide/add/move/combine fields, rename labels, define new variants etc.)
• Custom fields (add and edit custom fields)
• Custom business logic or Custom business objects (add business logic to existing enhancement options or create and manage custom business objects)
• Custom analytical queries (create and manage analytical queries)
• Custom CDS views (create own data access by making use of a Core Data Service views (CDS views)
• Custom forms, Custom tiles
• …

For Steampunk (Side-by-side and Embedded Steampunk), Harry’s role will be more of a bridge between the developer and the business (customer / partner). Harry will not be expected to develop any custom code unless he has these skills and wishes to help here.

She continues that Embedded Steampunk allows Cloud-ready ABAP Development on top of an ABAP Platform Cloud based solution like SAP S/4HANA Cloud (this will entail having a 3- system landscape, see figure 2.1), by adding the ABAP developer role to the existing key-user role to build extensions directly on SAP S/4HANA Cloud. For decoupled extensions and especially SaaS partner solutions SAP recommends using SAP BTP platform.

Fig 3.0

7. Resources & Abbreviations

Essential Resources

• SAP Activate roadmap viewer (Landing page)
• SAP Activate (on SAP Community)
• SAP Support Portal
• SAP Signavio Process Navigator
• SAP Help Portal

Additional most useful Resources

1. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community – Connecting peers and SAP experts to exchange information about product solutions and best practices. In the Cloud community collaboration is even more prevalent compared to On Premise. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community
2. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Blog posts – Connect to an expert, follow a topic, ask questions, or simply see what other peers are talking about or questioning. Feel free to check it out.

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Blog Posts
• Bonus blog post: Cloud Mindset Now
• Bonus blog post: Solution adoption – Sustained Customer Success with SAP S/4HANA Cloud

3. SAP Learning Hub & Learning Rooms – The Learning Rooms allow the collaboration with peers and SAP Experts, in a community environment, to achieve common learning objectives. Following the Learning Hub helps consultants to gain an understanding of the topics and further expand the basic knowledge by becoming competent. It gives in-depth knowledge provides the option to become certified.

• SAP S/4HANA Learning Hub
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Implementation Learning Room

4. Customer Influence Portal – Customer Influence and Adoption: SAP offers a range of programs that give customers the opportunity to influence SAP software development decisions and adopt new innovations early on.

More details can be found with the below link.

• SAP Influence Portal

5. SAP S/4HANA Cloud – Extensibility for Customers and Partners

SAP S/4HANA Cloud supports 3 different extensibility options. 

• SAP S/4HANA Extensibility – The new White Paper (Blog post)
• The Key User Extensibility Tools of SAP S/4HANA (Blog post)
• SAP S/4HANA Extensibility: A Learning Journey (Blog Post)

6. Central Business Configuration

Central Business Configuration provides the ability to deliver pre-configured ready-to-run processes and allows consistent scoping and configuration. There are several sources which will enable consultants/partners to understand CBC and learn how to deliver the Starter system for new implementations.

• CBC InfoHub to further expand your knowledge. 

7. SAP Cloud Tutorials

Have a look at the following link for the Cloud tutorials (release 2308).

2308 – Cloud Tutorials

Abbreviations

#	Abbreviation	Short description
1	SSCUI	Self-Service Configuration User Interface
2	SaaS	Software as a Service
3	SAP BTP	SAP Business Technology Platform
4	SAP GUI	SAP Graphical User Interface
5	WBS	Work breakdown structure
6	CBC	Central Business Configuration
7	ABAP	Advanced Business Application Programming
8	BTaaS	Business Transformation as a Service
9	APIs	Application Programming Interface’s
10	CLM	Content Lifecycle Management

We have now covered what we believe are the most essential topics in a transition to Cloud, however our experiences and takeaways are by no means exhaustive, and they serve as a starting point for the journey. We invite you to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section as we regard this blog post to build and improve on the Cloud transformation rather than a prescriptive listing of To Dos and Don’ts.