SAP S/4HANA On Premise White Paper SAP S/4HANA output management PDF

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SAP S/4HANA On Premise White Paper

SAP S/4HANA output management

Typographic Conventions

Type Style

Description

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Words or characters quoted from the screen. These include field names, screen titles, pushbuttons labels, menu names, menu paths, and menu options. Textual cross-references to other documents.

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Document History

The following table provides an overview of the most important document changes.

Table 1 Version

Date

Description

1.0

September 30, 2016

Initial Version: SAP S/4HANA RIG

2.0

November 16, 2016

Updated: SAP S/4HANA RIG

3.0

July 13, 2018

Updated: SAP S/4HANA RIG

4.0

May 21, 2019

Updated and Released for customers: SAP S/4HANA RIG

5.0

December 3, 2019

Updated and Released for customers: SAP S/4HANA RIG

Table of Contents

1

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5

2

Documentation Links........................................................................................................................... 6

3

SAP S/4HANA output management ....................................................................................................7

4 4.1 4.2

What are the options available for customers implementing SAP S/4HANA? .................................. 9 New customers who are doing a fresh implementation (green field implementation) ........................9 Existing customers who are using the existing output management solutions (system conversion/Selective data transition) ................................................................................................11

5 5.1

SAP S/4HANA Output Management key information and SAP notes for implementation .............. 12 Why would customers implement SAP S/4HANA Output Management? .......................................... 12

6

How, What, When - Implement SAP S/4HANA output management .............................................. 14

7

Configurations for SAP S/4HANA output management ................................................................... 17

8

“NAST” VS SAP S/4HANA output management .............................................................................. 27

9

Additional Information ....................................................................................................................... 28

Disclaimer ....................................................................................................................................................... 31

1 Introduction

Centralized output management as part of the internal and external communication strategy has greater significance from a business point of view. It provides auditing, tracking, controlling and optimizing capabilities inside and outside the organization. This white paper attempts to clarify and outline the possible approaches for “output management” for SAP S/4HANA. “Output management” is a cross topic and cuts across multiple Line of Business Areas.

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2 Documentation Links

Documentation Product Information (search for “SAP S/4HANA output control”) http://help.sap.com/s4hana SAP note 2470711 - S4TWL - OUTPUT MANAGEMENT https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2470711

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3 SAP S/4HANA output management

The new digital core SAP S/4HANA (Deployment Options - On Premise and Cloud) provides significant innovations and simplifications around both functional and technical objects. “Output management” is one such hot topic, which has been a regular part of the discussions within implementation teams. It has often been observed that there is more confusion among user groups of implementation teams on the topic of “output management”. The output management is recommended to be referred as “ SAP S/4HANA output management” (onpremise and cloud). Typically, the customer has three options to implement SAP S/4HANA: • • •

New implementation System conversion Selective data transition

While SAP considers the usage of the SAP S/4HANA Output management as strategic direction, today it is optional for customers to decide between SAP S/4HANA output management and the existing

output management solutions (e.g. NAST). It is also important to highlight that today there are no plans to deprecate existing output management solutions. However, investment in this area will only be made within the new framework. For S/4HANA On-premise, SAP S/4HANA output management, is the future output management framework. Conversely, for S/4HANA Public cloud, SAP S/4HANA output management is MANDATORY. This document is mainly focus on on-premise installations of SAP S/4HANA. Thus, more information regarding SAP S/4HANA output management for S/4HANA Public cloud could be found in the SAP Best Practices Explorer – Scope Item Output Management (1LQ).

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The table below highlights some of the important technical and functional considerations to the implementation teams for SAP S/4HANA output management. Table 1 Technical Considerations

Functional Considerations

Adobe XFA (XML forms architecture) is the default technology for form templates.

Transaction – SFP is not supported to edit output forms (Gateway based) in SAP S/4HANA. Instead, the Fiori App “Maintain Form Templates” is offered. With this app, you can download existing templates, edit them offline, and upload them again.

Existing form technologies are still supported (SAPscript, Smart Forms, and Adobe Forms).

Print programs must be reviewed and made compliant with OM for S/4HANA though.

Java Stack installation is required to use Adobe forms for output management.

Customers must not run their own ADS/Java stack. SAP offers Forms by Adobe (cloud solution of ADS). See SAP Note 2219598 for more information and links to documentation.

The target architecture is based on Adobe Document Services (ADS) and Adobe Forms only.

ADS is an additional component available via SAP S/4HANA configuration.

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4 What are the options available for customers implementing SAP S/4HANA?

For customers implementing SAP S/4HANA, there are two options available for enabling output management (per application): • •

Keep existing output management solution, e.g. “NAST” SAP S/4HANA output management

4.1 New customers who are doing a fresh implementation (green field implementation) Customers can choose to implement either the new output management or existing output solutions like NAST. To validate the applications available in your system offering S/4HANA Output Management follow this procedure: •

Through transaction SM30, consult the view APOC_I_OBJ_TYPEV

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•

Select all the applications for which the “Activation mode” is not equal to “3 - Never Active”

•

The result will show all the applications available in your system:

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Another option when the S/4HANA system is still not available is to review the note 2248229. This note contains the required BRFplus files to carry out the output management setup for SAP S/4HANA that require BRFplus logic (not all S/4HANA Output Management applications). Therefore, for the applications using BRFplus, those files could be used as an initial reference. For example, the table below lists the files available for S4CORE 104 SP00 of SAP S/4HANA 1909 FP00: Table 2 SAP S/4HANA Release

Applications

S4CORE 104 SP00

4.2 Existing customers who are using the existing output management solutions (system conversion/Selective data transition) When the customer is performing a system conversion or Selective data transition, then the customizing tables for the “NAST” based output management (NAST Output Control) are copied 1:1 when the system is converted/upgraded from an old version to SAP S/4HANA system. The customer has the choice to continue with the “NAST” based output management (NAST Output Control) or to implement and configure the new SAP S/4HANA output management in the converted SAP S/4HANA system. Old documents that are migrated from the old system, for example ECC system, can still be processed with “NAST” output management (NAST Output Control). If the customer has implemented and configured SAP S/4HANA output management, the new documents created out of the SAP S/4HANA system will use the new SAP S/4HANA output management.

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5 SAP S/4HANA Output Management key information and SAP notes for implementation

The detail of how to implement SAP S/4HANA Output Management can be found in help.sap.com searching for “S/4HANA Output control”. The implementation team should also consider the following notes:

Table 3 SAP Note

SAP Note Description

2470711

S4TWL – Output Management

2248229

Output management for SAP S/4HANA – BRF+ files

2267444

Output Management Adoption in Purchase Order

2267376

Billing Document Output Management

2359421

SAP Smart Forms in SAP Portfolio and Project Management for SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA output management includes cloud qualities such as extensibility, multi-tenancy and modification-free configuration. The configurations for SAP S/4HANA output management (explained below) significantly differ from the configuration that is used when output management is based on NAST Output Control.

5.1 Why would customers implement SAP S/4HANA Output Management? Pros: •

• •

Unified solution across multiple applications like Materials Management, Sales and Distribution, Finance, etc. Same look and feel for business users and administrators. Lower TCO than enabling and configuring multiple output frameworks. SAP S/4HANA output management is the only output framework that has full integration with Fiori applications (Fiori is the New UX). BRFplus based output parameter determination is more powerful and flexible. The benefits are:

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✓

•

• •

The user can send multiple messages to multiple recipients using multiple channels at the same time ✓ The user can configure everything without ABAP development ✓ The user can base each determination step on application-specific fields that can be extended ✓ The user can use pre-delivered content/determination rules to allow running output control out of the box ✓ Extensibility via CDS is supported New technology for forms, which supports fragments for gateway-based Adobe forms, helps to separate the layout and content, helping to lower TCO when changing layout or static content like logo or footer texts. Fully integrated in standard extensibility with usage of CDS views State-of-the-art email support. Flexible configuration and email templates. Support of multiple recipients (To, CC, BCC) for email.

The graph below summaries the key benefits of the solution:

Cons: SAP S/4HANA output management does not support the transmission media listed below. Instead, the NAST – output management (NAST Output Control) can be used. • • • •

8 Special functions 9 Events (SAP Business Workflow) A Distribution (ALE) T Tasks (SAP Business Workflow)

It is also not the intention to include those transmission media in the S/4HANA output management in the future, as they do not belong to output management and there are dedicated frameworks for these services in SAP S/4HANA. For example, SAP Business Event Handling (allows to generically trigger a class or function call) or SAP Business Workflow for events and tasks. For more info refers to section 8. SAP S/4HANA output management focuses on the output of transactional data (from business objects) to business partners. Hence system integration (ALE) is also not part of this framework.

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6 How, What, When - Implement SAP S/4HANA output management

Table 4 Output management for SAP S/4HANA

Scenarios

NAST Output Control

Combined

SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Mandatory (Default)

Not available

Not applicable

SAP S/4HANA New Implementations – On Premise

Possible – Check Table 2

Possible (Customer can continue to use existing “NAST” (NAST Output Control).

Possible

SAP S/4HANA System Conversion/Land Scape Transformation – On Premise

Possible – Check Table 2

Possible (Customer can continue to use existing “NAST” (NAST Output Control).

Possible

Further insights: Customers doing a new implementation (green field implementation) or existing customers using the existing output management solutions (system conversion/Selective data transition) can consider the points below: •

The customer requirements to the different output scenarios need to be checked against the current features and functions of SAP S/4HANA output management. SAP S/4HANA output management should be used only if there are no showstoppers. for example, limited IDOC capabilities as it is described in Section 8. Otherwise the existing OM solution (e.g. NAST based Output Control) shall be used.

•

In the case of a new implementation, customers can implement and configure SAP S/4HANA output management for the applications that are currently supported (refer to section 4.1). In parallel, for the rest of the applications, the customer can also implement other existing output solutions (e.g. NAST Output Control).

•

In the case of SAP S/4HANA adoption using the system conversion/Selective data transition approach, customers can continue to use the existing output solutions (e.g. NAST Output Control) and it is not mandatory to migrate to SAP S/4HANA output management in SAP S/4HANA On Premise system. Customers can use both determination strategies in parallel but for different application components. The erstwhile configuration and master data, which was required for “NAST Output Control”, is still relevant in SAP S/4HANA on premise system.

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•

Customers who have implemented SAP S/4HANA output management in SAP S/4HANA On Premise system can switch to existing output solutions (e.g. NAST Output Control) and vice-versa if the application allows this.

•

For Customers implementing SAP S/4HANA cloud Public option, SAP S/4HANA output management is mandatory. Table 5 Supported Channels • • • •

Printer Email XML – Integration with the Ariba Network IDOC (Limited support only)

Supported Form technologies

Supported UI technologies • •

Fiori SAP GUI and SAP GUI for HTML

• • • •

PDF-based print forms with fragments (default) PDF-based print forms Smart Forms SAPscript

Table 6 Master form template

A master form template defines a universally valid layout and features reusable parts of a form, such as header, footer, or logo (only available for PDF-based print forms with fragments). This allows you to maintain general content and application-specific content separately. If you make changes in the general content (master form), the application forms will be updated accordingly.

Determination of master form template

Master form templates can be determined based on preconfigured parameters, such as company, sender country, or channel. This makes it easy to define separate logos or footer texts per company.

Output parameter determination via BRFplus

All output parameters can be automatically determined via a configuration activity based on BRFplus. The benefits are: •

You can send multiple messages to multiple recipients using multiple channels at the same time.

•

You can configure anything without the need for ABAP exits.

•

You can base each determination step on application-specific fields that can be extended.

•

You can use pre-delivered content/determination rules to simply run output control out of the box.

•

Extensibility via CDS is supported.

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Dispatch time

Immediately or scheduled via batch job (applicationspecific)

Application log

The system creates one application log per output request instance. In addition, you can filter messages by output request item. You can display the log in the business application or via transaction “SLG1”, once an output item has been processed.

Used frameworks/services

• • • • • • •

BOPF BRFplus KPro Gateway Services Fiori Web Dynpro SAP GUI

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7 Configurations for SAP S/4HANA output management

TECHNICAL SETUP: The technical setup is described in SAP Note 2292571. Also, additional information can be found in SAP Help.

1.

bgRFC (Background Remote Function Call) The new output management utilizes “bgRFC” to process outputs with immediate dispatch time. “bgRFC” is configured using transaction “SBGRFCCONF”.

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Connection to ADS can be checked in transaction “SM59”. Please see the screenshot below:

2. Storage System and storage Category

Storage System: Setup the Storage System (content repository) through the following...