SAP Solution Manager for S/4HANA: Your Cockpit for the Digital Core

When a pilot is getting ready to take off for a flight, there is a set of checks that they go through. They utilize the tools at their hands in the cockpit to aid in those checks. In a very similar way, SAP Solution Manager can help you get ready to take flight toward S/4HANA.

SAP Solution Manager Tools

Solution Manager has a number of tools that can be leveraged in getting you ready to plan your move to S/4HANA. The first tool, which is also the one that is most tightly integrated with the rest of the system, is Process Management. Process Management was completely rewritten in Solution Manager 7.2, so if your only exposure to Process Management was prior to Solution Manager 7.2 you are in for a nice surprise. One of the great features of leveraging Process Management is that you can create an executable library of all of the transactions and custom objects you are using in your existing SAP environment.

Using that usage data, you can then leverage another tool called Scope and Effort Analysis or SEA. This tool is going to do your Change Impact Analysis. This will give you insight into how things are changing in the release of SAP you are moving to. The changes can encompass not only your custom code, but also your business processes. This will give you a good idea of the amount of testing that will need to be done in the areas that are effected.

This, of course, moves into the Test Suite and building your Test Plans off of the results from the SEA report. The report will help you make sure you have adequate test coverage in your environment. By utilizing the Manual Test execution, your testing team can plan the tests that need to be executed. Create Test Packages that break the scope of what needs to be tested down to smaller process based tests. Then assign those packages to the correct people on the team to do the testing. These tests could spawn defects which would be tracked as incidents in ITSM (IT Service Management).

As you can see, Solution Manager’s functions are all tightly integrated. Just like a pilot cannot rely on only one instrument to fly the plane, Solution Manager is most effective when you use the tools in tandem. The prospect of that, however, can sound daunting. In no way would I suggest that you should tackle implementing all of the scenarios in Solution Manager at once. We have worked with our customers to develop a phased approach to be able to implement features in bite sized pieces. This not only allows the changes to be incorporated at a pace of change that is tolerable for all, but allows adoption of the functions. That phased approach is tailored to each customer based on their business needs and drivers. By adopting these tools you can ensure your team has a safe flight to S/4HANA.

Learn More

Want to learn more about SAP Solution Manager as your cockpit for the digital core? Check out my webinar replay!