SAP S4 HANA in a Nutshell

The document describes a brief summary on the scope , design and architecture and also simplification list for SAP S4 HANA on premise edition 1511.

Broad View of S4 HANA Scope

Diagram source :SAP

SAP S4 HANA Architecture

Diagram source :SAP

Before and after S4 HANA The Principle of simplified and One

Diagram source :SAP

• Simple Data Model

Only mail table exists now no redundancies

Clear separation of Master data from transactional data

Reduction of Memory footprint

• Principal of “ONE”

Only one evaluation method(Material Ledger)

Instead of 2(IM + ML)

Flexible rebate Management instead of cumbersome and expensive redundancies

• Throughput Increase

INSERT command available only on data base level (MM-IM)

No locks for standard price valuation

A Brief Summary on the S4 HANA changes based on the white paper Simplification List for SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition 1511

• Master Data:  Business partner is now capable of centrally manage data for customers and vendors. BP is now the single point of entry to create, edit and display master data.
• ProductTable T130F (Table of Field attributes) does have delivery class E (E = Control table, SAP and customer have separate key areas). In SAP Business Suite the delivery class of table T130F is G (G= Customizing table, protected against SAP Update, only INS all).
• Material Number field length:   With SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition 1511, the maximum field length of the material number is extended from 18 to 40 characters.
• Simplification The field KZEFF in table MARA is not available anymore. The current setting KZEFF is such that the field will be hidden only from the UI, but still continue to be available in the database. However, Assign effectivity parameter values/ override change numbers (KZEFF) impacts the parameter effectivity in BOM explosion by providing a popup to manually overwrite validity parameters.

• The user interface for SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition 1511 is transaction BP.
• The specific transactions like XD01, XD02, XD03 or VD01, VD02, VD03 / XK01, XK02, XK03 or MK01, MK02, MK03 etc. are not available in SAP S/4HANA on premise edition 1511
• Currently mass maintenance for customers and vendors via transaction MASS is not available (on the roadmap of a future SAP S/4HANA release)

          Hence, the value of this field needs to be reset from X to space. This ensures similar behavior in UI & in the backend.

• The Foreign Trade functionality as part of Sales & Distribution is not available within SAP S/4HANA. The functional equivalent in SAP S/4 HANA is     SAP Global Trade Services (GTS). The below mentioned fields for Letter of Credit/ Legal control/ Export control/ Preference management in Foreign Trade is supported by GTS and not through Material Master:
  • CAP product list no.
  • CAP prod. Group
  • Preference status
  • Vendor decl. status
  • Exemption Certificate
  • Exemption Cert. No.
  • Iss.date of ex.cert.
  • Military goods
• MRP fields in Material Master

The SAP S/4HANA simplification is done on the following tabs in transaction MM01/02/03.

Lot Size data in MRP1 Tab: unit of measure group is considered in only retail henceforth it is not

required to switch it on in the material master.

• Unit of Measure Group

Procurement in MRP2: MRP considers quota arrangements always, henceforth it is not required to

switch it on in the material master.

• Quota arr. usage.

BOM explosion /dependent Requirement tab in MRP4

• Selection Method

Repetitive manufacturing /assembly /deployment strategy tab of MRP4

• Action control
• fair share rule
• push distribution
• Deployment horizon.

Storage Location in MRP4

• SLoc MRP indicator
• spec.proc.type SLoc
• Reoder Point
• Replenishment qty.

Also the backend database fields for these “omitted functionality” remains existing in the system

• Material type “SERV” for services is introduced for Product Master in S/4HANA for simplification purposes. When you use material type SERV, some fields and departments that are irrelevant in S/4 are hidden from the screen. This gives all transactions relevant for material master, a leaner and simplified look.
• Business Partner IDOC Types (DEBMAS and CREMAS): The business partner related iDoc message types – DEBMAS and CREMAS are not available with Sap S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511. They are planned to be available in a future release of SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition.

If you try to transfer data using these message types in S/4HANA, data would be transferred without actually having created a business partner

• SD Data Model:
  • Elimination of Status Tables VBUK, VBUP: Status fields have been moved to the corresponding header and item tables – VBAK and VBAP for sales documents, LIKP, and LIPS for deliveries, VBRK for billing documents
  • Simplification of Document Flow table VBFA.
  • Field length extension of SD document category: Data element VBTYP (Char1) has been replaced by data element VBTYPL (Char4), also: elimination of field VBTYP_EXT (Char4)
  • Elimination of redundancies – Document Index Tables VAKPA , VAPMA, VLKPA, VLPMA, VRKPA, VRPMA
  • Elimination of redundancies – Rebate Index Table VBOX: see simplification item SD Rebate Optimization

Key benefits of the data model changes:

• Reduced memory footprint (simplified Document Flow, elimination of index tables, fewer aggregates)
• Increased performance of HANA queries and code pushdown (one select statement instead of two select statements, easier join for header/items including status and business data)
• Increased robustness of Rebate processing (no redundancies due to aggregates)
• Data Model Changes in SD Pricing

Business documents within the SAP Business Suite such as the sales order or the purchase order used

to store the pricing result in the database table KONV. In SAP S/4HANA, table KONV was replaced in

its data persistency role by the new table PRCD_ELEMENTS. However, KONV is and can still be used for

data declaration purposes. It still defines the structure of the pricing result within the application coding. The content of KONV is transferred to PRCD_ELEMENTS when moving to SAP S/4HANA.

Several other DDIC changes have been done in pricing condition table. Please refer the SAP paper for more details.

• Billing Document Output Management

With SAP S/4HANA a new Output Management approach is in place

• The complete configuration differs from the configuration that is used when output

        management is based on NAST. The configuration is based on BRF+ which is accessible for Customers.

• Output management based on NAST is not available for new documents in SD Billing. Billing documents that

are migrated from legacy systems and for which NAST based output has been determined, can be processed

with this technology.

• In application Billing it is recommended to use Adobe Forms but also Smartforms and SapScripts are supported
• In contrast to the output management based on NAST the new output management supports only the

        Channels PRINT, EMAIL, XML and IDOC (for on premise). Other channels are not available by default.

• The FI-AR-CR Credit Management
• SD Rebate Processing replaced by Settlement Management: In general, SD Rebate Processing is not available within SAP S/4HANA. The functional equivalent in SAP S/4 HANA is SD Rebate Processing is Settlement Management.
• SAP SRM: The functional scope of SAP supplier relationship management will gradually be made available with S/4 HANA a limited functional scope is now available as compared to SAP SRM. The coverage is proposed to grow overtime and procurement solution will evolve to take over SRM functions.
• SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management: The goal is that – over time – the functional scope of SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management (SAP SLC) will be available within the SAP S/4HANA stack.
• MM-Inventory management data Model:
• Material Ledger Obligatory for Material Valuation: This simplification makes it obligatory to use the Material Ledger in all SAP S/4HANA systems. When a system is converted to SAP S/4HANA the Material Ledger will be activated if not active already. Please take a note that though material ledger will be active for parallel valuation of inventory and other purposes it is not mandatory to activate/use actual costing.

In MM02 and MR21 material prices can now be maintained in multiple currencies. In Financials the inventory account balances are calculated separately for each currency and result therefore in a cleaner and more consistent valuation in other currencies than the local currency.

• Sales & Operations Planning (SOP) will be replaced by Integrated Business Planning IBP12. Integrated Business Planning supports all SOP features plus advanced statistical forecasting, multi-level supply planning, an optimizer, collaboration tools, an Excel-based UI, and Web-based UIs.