Highlights of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 Release

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The second major release of the year 2024 is here! The SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 release is filled with innovations that boost your productivity and support your everyday work life.

I am thrilled to give you further insights on our fully-fledged cloud ERP, supporting your journey to the intelligent, sustainable enterprise in this blog post.

If you prefer rather watching than reading, you are welcome to check out my product update video:

Figure 1: Check out my top highlights of the release in this video.

Before I start with feature-based innovations, I am proud to announce that we have generally uplifted our system availability service level agreement for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and Integrated Business Planning from 99.7% to 99.9% for all our customers. This leap signals our reliability and the investments into technology, hardware, procedures, and automation that we continuously make to deliver a world-class SaaS ERP service to you. This marks another superior level of service availability and helps customers to plan business operations with greater precision at less risks. To put it into context: This cuts the upgrade downtimes by another 66%.

The new service level agreement sets a high standard for our cloud operations moving forward. 

And there’s more: Since mid-July, GROW with SAP premium subscription has expanded to include SAP Sales Cloud and Concur Expense solutions. Both enhances our Cloud ERP and gives it more horizontal width to allow customers bring more use cases onboard our solution.

And we keep the good news coming! While delivering more functional and technical based value to our public cloud customers, we reduce the complexity of monetizing digital business models by bringing contract accounting and invoicing capabilities into the core SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition offering. With the 2408 release, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition for contract and accounting will be part of GROW with SAP. We are giving our customers full access to the high volume, high performance and high automation invoicing, and subledger solution that focuses on service, subscriptions, pay-per-use, and multi-sided business models, without extra metering based on revenue and expenses. No action required for our existing GROW customers, the expanded functionality is included up to their licensed GROW FUEs and will automatically become available from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 for all customers.

Learn more about GROW here: https://www.sap.com/products/erp/grow.html

Figure 2: Discover the value of GROW with SAP.

We offer you even more room to GROW: Constantly updating our methodology stays important! For this release, we are excited to announce significant updates to our GROW Adoption Plan, designed to streamline and enhance the adoption process for customers and partners. By integrating new deliverables and accelerators into the GROW Adoption Plan and SAP Cloud ALM, companies can achieve a faster and more efficient implementation experience. This release features GROW Adoption Plan tagging, combining new adoption deliverables and related accelerators, including the Multi-Country Deployment and Application Lifecycle Management accelerators with new content. Additionally, our updated quality gates now include the first iteration of adoption elements, which will further integrate into SAP Cloud ALM.

Available for some time, but in between releases and therefore, potentially new to some, we are also offering our customers guidance for transitioning from the two-system-based landscape to the three-system landscape of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Figure 3: We are offering our customers guidance for transitioning from the two-system-based landscape to the three-system landscape of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Also, SAP introduces new sustainability capabilities to support organizations in meeting their sustainability ambitions and goals as well as regulatory requirements. These include automated ESG reporting via the SAP Sustainability Control Tower and AI-enhanced carbon footprint calculations through the SAP Sustainability Footprint Management solution. Additionally, both solutions feature a carbon calculator engine for comprehensive emissions reporting, and the upcoming SAP Green Ledger will integrate greenhouse gas emissions into financial decision-making.

Speaking of artificial intelligence: A lot has happened here in the past months. With SAP’s Business AI strategy, we are defining the future by embedding SAP Business AI along our entire portfolio:

Relevant – Reliable – Responsible

Figure 4: With SAP Business AI, we accelerate your business processes and optimize decision-making.

Enough upfront news–without any further ado, let’s check out what I additionally consider as highlights of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 release.

Modern and Intelligent Experience

SAP User Experience

Through artificial intelligence, we help to get your work done faster and change the user experience–starting with our generative AI copilot, Joule. After a successful phased roll-out in the Early Adopter Care program, Joule will grace your SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system with a continuous delivery shipment very soon, at current state of planning in quarter 3/2024. Joule works as follows: Formulate your business need in natural language and Joule will provide easy access to applications and data, lowering manual tasks and boosting productivity.

Figure 5: Our natural-language, generative AI copilot Joule provides easy access to applications and data.

SAP Business AI offers you a cutting-edge SAP Fiori experience via smart summarization and easy filter. Smart summarization jump starts your collaboration or follow-up by extracting the essential information of the object pages of the SAP Fiori elements applications you are using in the system. With easy filter, you can select data of “list report-based" SAP Fiori apps instead of defining filter values manually. All of this in natural language. These AI use-cases are available in beta testing. Check out the SAP Customer Influence page to sign up: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3698

Figure 6: AI-assisted smart summarization extracts the essential information of the object pages of the SAP Fiori elements apps you’re using in the system.

Figure 7: With easy filter, you can select data of “list report-based" SAP Fiori apps instead of defining filter values manually.

To enhance transparency around significant system changes, we’ve established a scalable communication strategy, allowing the delivery of important messages to specifically chosen customers and users, following the "need-to-know" principle. This in-app communication was highly requested by our customers and partners through advisory groups and our influence portal and permits us to spotlight essential customer activities in the system. Catering messages to such specific requirements facilitates delivering reminder information solely to those customers who haven't yet performed important requisite system activities and those users who possess the necessary authorization to carry out these tasks. A first example of this approach is the targeted communication pertaining to SAP Fiori launchpad settings, i.e., the switch to spaces and pages.

Figure 8: Target users get system pop-ups after login showing critical must-dos and must-knows for their user role including a linked document for details.

Finance

In finance, we introduce new review booklet for cost centers. This app provides a concise display of both actual and planned costs, organizing several predefined reports under 'Actuals' and 'Plan/Actuals' pages. It provides business applications that embed crucial insights into the relevant business context, supporting the answering of critical business queries effectively and efficiently. It seamlessly integrates application logic, guidance, and multidimensional insights and upholds the promise of "insight to action" within embedded analytics, enabling users to analyze actuals and plan data in a single report while providing the flexibility to toggle between guided views and generic slicing, dicing, and pivoting based on specific business requirements.

Figure 9: Display, analyze, and validate cost center data with the new review booklet.

Additionally, we enable you to analyze and summarize data from the cost-center review booklet into actionable financial business insights with the help of generative AI. This use case is available in beta testing. Check out the SAP Customer Influence page to sign up: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3698

Figure 10: Gain financial business insights with the help of generative AI.

GRC, Trade, and Tax

This release delivers an innovative experience in managing US-internal tax configuration powered by Joule. The process of maintaining tax jurisdiction codes and rates has been simplified from a dozen steps to only three! Users just can use a natural language prompt to retrieve detailed information from the AI, then verify, simulate, and save the configured tax jurisdiction codes and rates. Once the connection between your SAP system and the LLM is configured, users can chat directly with the AI to retrieve detailed address-based tax jurisdiction information. Furthermore, the LLM delivers links to the respective state tax or revenue authority, providing users with an easily accessible way to verify their tax rate information prior to simulating and saving the changes. This use case is currently available in beta testing. To register, check out the SAP Customer Influence page: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/3698

Figure 11: Joule helps to simplify the process of maintaining US-internal tax configuration.

Sales

One of the key highlights here is the auto-activation of the intelligent scenario for input recommendations for sales orders. This feature significantly boosts efficiency and cost savings by hastening the activation of the intelligent scenario for sales order recommendations. Implemented when scope item 73P gets activated, the system employs an auto-training mechanism that periodically trains the machine learning model based on the business data from the past year. Users have the flexibility to enable or disable this auto-training in the ‘Intelligent Scenario Management’ app. This functionality guarantees automatic set-up, training and operation of the intelligent scenario, making the sales order completion more efficient and intuitive while reducing costs.

Figure 12: Auto-activation of the intelligent scenario for input recommendations makes the sales-orders process more efficient and intuitive.

Product Compliance

With this release, we enable the generation of product compliance documents with integration into the safety data sheet process. Users can now generate a first selection of sections of an EU safety data sheet (without country/region-specific additions) for product compliance solutions using Adobe Document Services. This not only extends the product compliance solution with integrated document generation capability but also streamlines the generation of documents for product compliance data. This is based on versatile Adobe form templates and form data providers. The generated documents are seamlessly integrated into the safety data sheet process. This also comes with new apps to manage and release data for handling and storage as well as stability and reactivity of products, making it a comprehensive tool for product compliance.

Figure 13: You can now easily generate a first selection of sections of an EU safety data sheet using Adobe Document Services.

ERP Innovations

Manufacturing

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 introduces advancements in the ‘Monitor Material Coverage’ SAP Fiori apps. The ‘Monitor Material Coverage – Net Segments’ and the ‘Monitor Material Coverage – Net and Individual Segments’ apps now offer additional columns displaying the number of rescheduling proposals for a material. This improvement assists businesses in avoiding supply shortages or an excess of supplies. This is achieved by indicating the number of Material Requirements Planning (MRP) supplying elements with rescheduling proposals for each material. Additionally, the system can reschedule in, reschedule out, or cancel a process based upon a calculation for the entire planning horizon. The enhanced features enable better management of supply shortages and excess supply with MRP material coverage apps, providing a more effective and streamlined operation.

Figure 14: Manage supply shortages or excess supply with additional columns in the ‘Monitor Material Coverage’ SAP Fiori apps.

Supply Chain Management

In this release, we ship the warehouse-driven split of the outbound delivery order. This feature empowers organizations to separate packed and unpacked items, quantities, or handling units from an existing outbound delivery order into a new one. This offers increased flexibility in case a complete picking is not possible, added functionality if space in the truck is limited, and the ability to split outbound delivery order items for which no warehouse task has been created yet. It’s also possible to split handling units into a new outbound delivery order. The release therefore provides businesses with improved logistical abilities, offering greater adaptability in managing outbound delivery orders.

Figure 15: The warehouse-driven split of the outbound delivery order empower organizations to separate packed and unpacked items, quantities, or handling units from an existing outbound delivery order into a new one.

Solution and Subscription Business

Here, I want to highlight a feature from the latest CFD release which I believe has huge business value for organizations transitioning to solution-led business models. The introduction of advanced solution bundling enables you to pre-configure complex solution orders which can contain multiple configurable and non-configurable items, and sell them on a single solution order, providing greater flexibility whilst saving effort on manual input. This enables the sale of complex end-to-end solution offerings tailored to specific customer needs.

Figure 16: Pre-configured bundles can be added to a solution order and processed for further fulfilment.

Service

In this release, we enable you to add maintenance plan templates in service contracts. This enhancement simplifies the workflow drastically, particularly for those dealing with service contracts that include maintenance plans. During the creation process of service contract templates, you can already add maintenance plan templates to service contract items. After creating a service contract from a service contract template, the maintenance plan templates are also copied. When you release a service contract item, a new maintenance plan is automatically created using the maintenance plan template. If you don’t use service contract templates, you can add maintenance plan templates directly in a service contract.

Figure 17: Maintenance plan templates facilitate the service contract process significantly.

Enterprise Porfolio and Project Management

To better support the engineer-to-order process, we ship an innovation to reserve materials using project demand. When it comes to project demands, we offer three categories: resources, services, and materials. In the category of materials, we now offer ‘Project Stock Reservation’. A project procurement controller or project manager can select the WBS element, the plant, the material ID, the quantity, and eventually also the storage location, and then reserve material for a project on a certain date. Once the demand is requested, a reservation number gets generated. With the monitoring capabilities, you can view how many quantities have been delivered in case certain quantities in stock are issued against the material. This creates transparency for the project procurement controller.

Figure 18: The ability to reserve material using project demand makes workflows more efficient and project management more effective.

Professional Services

The shared risk-based revenue recognition for professional service projects feature addresses potential customer projects that exceed the initial scope, allowing service providers to bill at regular rates before charging reduced rates for any additional work. A new revenue recognition key (SPTMSR) supports this shared risk model. This enables more precise revenue recognition where additional work is required, increasing flexibility for revenue recognition and reducing manual efforts to adjust accrued revenues. In this model, if the need for additional work is identified, the system considers the reduced rate during revenue recognition. The feature signifies an important step towards enhancing accounting accuracy and transparency in service-oriented sectors, promoting mitigation of financial risk, and improving overall project management.

Figure 19: Shared risk-based revenue recognition for professional service projects enhances accuracy and transparency.

Sourcing and Procurement

A purchase contract is an agreement between a buyer and a supplier with agreed pricing, quantity, terms, and conditions. Since purchase contracts are long-term documents, they are subject to change over time. By enabling versioning of purchase contracts, businesses can meticulously track various versions of contracts each time a modification is made to an active purchase contract. Following alterations to fields set for versioning, the system automatically creates a new version. The new version can then become an active document, subject to the approval process. The versioning feature enhances transparency and efficiency by enabling comparisons between two document versions, including changes notable in pricing. This function ultimately aids in fostering improved collaboration between buyers and suppliers.

Figure 20: Versioning in purchase contracts fosters improved collaboration between buyers and suppliers.

Asset Management

In this release, we introduce an enhanced feature of recording the "As-Found" condition in the 'Perform Maintenance Jobs' app. The app offers maintenance technicians an improved way to record the initial condition of an asset during proactive and routine maintenance jobs, even when the maintenance order does not have a maintenance notification assigned. If the specific technical object differs from the overall order header, a new notification will be created automatically while the technician records the "As-Found" condition. Previously, the malfunction data tab was enabled only if the order has an associated notification. Now, these tabs are accessible by default in orders with notifications. Additionally, configurations can allow users to maintain malfunction data, thereby providing users with better recording of asset reliability data which in turn enhances the overall user experience.

Figure 21: We enhance the recording of the “As-Found” condition in the ‘Perform Maintenance Jobs’ app.

 

Environment, Health, and Safety

A new application for managing the investigation process significantly improves the tracking and oversight of investigation projects, allowing for more effective and efficient processes. The ‘Manage Investigations’ app offers a comprehensive platform where pertinent details such as investigation phase, persons involved, and timelines can be meticulously documented and managed. Administrators can determine the course and progression of investigations, and delegate necessary tasks for seamless operation. This new tool pursues both procedural integrity and simplicity, with a user-friendly interface coupled with robust functionality. Ultimately, it enhances user experience, strengthens accountability, and fosters greater efficiency in managing the investigation process.

Figure 22: The new ‘Manage Investigations’ app fosters great efficiency in managing the investigation process.

 

Two-Tier ERP

In two-tier ERP, Tier 1 acts as an original equipment manufacturer on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and Tier 2 acts as a service subsidiary on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.  With this set up, organizations can perform claims processing and subsequent reimbursements between their service organization and original equipment manufacturer. In this release, we introduce a refined warranty claim process, aiding you in effectively managing and navigating through the complexities of warranty claims. The process offers improved visibility into various aspects such as claim creation, processing, submission, and tracking. In addition, the solution accelerates assessment and administration of warranty claims with built-in automation that streamlines the end-to-end warranty management. As a part of service management, this efficient mechanism ensures quicker resolution time, reducing both manual effort and the overall operating cost for the business. Essentially, the enhancement in the warranty claim process signifies an evolution towards improved customer satisfaction and a more strategic approach to service operations.

Figure 23: The new warranty claim process offers improved customer satisfaction and a more strategic approach to service operations.

SaaS Foundation

Extensibility

The cloud extensibility model with a three-system landscape in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition enables customers to seamlessly leverage SAP innovations, resulting in future-proof extensions that are compliant throughout their lifecycle and do not require adjustments during cloud innovation cycles. With this model, we can develop cloud-ready business apps, services, or custom extensions that are both upgrade-stable and cloud-ready. With developer extensibility, as a customer or partner, you can use one-off delivery for ABAP development intended to remain within your SAP S/4HANA Cloud landscape which enables you to import the developed custom ABAP code in a three-system landscape into the test and production system of the current landscape.

With multi-off delivery, we take it a step further. Custom development can be performed by a partner on behalf of a customer, in a separate development system which is not connected to the customer landscape, and then deployed on the customer's three-system landscape using the ‘Git-Enabled Change and Transport System’ (gCTS). The source code of ABAP extensions is stored in remote Git repositories, with gCTS being used to transfer (push and pull) the ABAP custom code between SAP S/4HANA Cloud landscapes and Git repositories. This is especially useful for scenarios where source and target landscapes can't be connected via transport routes. The SAP Fiori app ‘Git-Enabled CTS (gCTS)’ helps to manage tasks such as connecting to remote Git repositories, pushing and pulling commits, and managing branches. Commits are created in the development environment using ABAP development tools for Eclipse (ADT) when a task of a transport request is released. Find more information here.

Figures 24 & 25: Multi-off delivery brings a multitude of possibilities for custom development.

Public Sector Management

Public sector functionality within SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is broadening in terms of geographical availability. In addition to the US, Canada, and Germany, services such as grants management, budget management, and fund accounting is now also available in the UK, the Netherlands, and Australia. The global deployment of our service has started and is gaining great momentum. Be prepared for the availability in additional countries by the year 2025.

Additionally, we bring new, comprehensive budget management functionalities:

• Addition of a Substitution Tool for Budget Maintenance.
• Enhancement allowing the consumption of budget for expected expenses rather than the posting date.
• Feature to check Public Sector budget availability using project hierarchies.
• Updates to facilitate the generation of budget documents.
• Improved reporting on budgets versus payments and open invoices.

Figure 26: This release includes significant updates to the early release enablement cycle for public sector.

R&D Engineering

In this release, we ship the integration of CAD design for data and file management. With this SAP Product Lifecycle Management solution, seamless interaction between engineering designs and SAP business processes is now feasible, i.e., you can easily transfer engineering bills of material (EBOMs) from the SAP Product Lifecycle Management solution and continue to work on them as manufacturing bills of material (MBOMs) in the relevant ‘Maintain Bill of Material (Version 2)’ app. The CAD tools extend their capabilities by being able to store files in the SAP PLM Product Data Integration (PDI), leading to the development of an Enterprise Product Structure within SAP’s Product Lifecycle Management. This integration simplifies the transfer of product data via product handover to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, reducing the number of interfaces and facilitating a smoother operation. The end result is higher efficiency in engineering processes, holistic product description for increased transparency, and reduced operating costs. Overall, it signifies a major stride towards optimizing product data management in industry-specific CAD applications.

Figure 27: The integration of CAD design for data and file management enhances your engineering processes.

Business Partner Data

This release presents an enhancement in data privacy management, allowing users to concurrently assign data controllers along with specific purposes to business partners. This upgrade significantly bolsters the concept of “privacy by design and default” by permitting users the flexibility to manually or automatically attach data controllers to business partners. With options to leverage this feature via the ‘Maintain Business Partner’ and ‘Manage Business Partner’ SAP Fiori apps or through API channels, businesses can effectively manage their partner master data. This advancement not only ensures timely compliance with stringent data protection regulations but also molds business processes to instill trust among partners and customers. By enhancing the data privacy landscape, this feature equips businesses with the edge to meet legal requirements and foster a venerable relationship with their customers.

Figure 28: You can now assign data controllers along with specific purposes to business partners.

Information Lifecycle Management

SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM) allows users to manage the lifecycle of live and archived data. Users can set rules for managing data throughout its lifecycle, specifying how long it should stay in the database, how long it should be archived, and when it should be deleted. This can be done consistently across development, test, and production systems. With the 2408 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, one key feature is the self-service configuration user interface (SSCUI). This tool allows users to centrally maintain SAP ILM settings and transport them across the system landscape i.e., development, test and production systems, reducing the risk of errors and inconsistencies. Another key feature with this release is the storage of archive files to SAP HANA Cloud data lake files, ensuring fast and efficient access to archived data. Previously, these files were stored in the Neo platform. This change helps to store the SAP ILM archive files on a future-proof, fast, and cost-efficient technology stack, supporting both SAP ILM use cases: data volume management and data privacy. This change exclusively affects the underlying technology stack, with no impact on usability.

You can find more information here.

 

Figures 29 & 30: SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM) allows users to manage the lifecycle of live and archived data.

Identity and Access Management

Unlock the full potential of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition with the unified access to documentation about Identity and Access Management (IAM) on SAP Help Portal! With this, we provide a simplified, one-stop shop for all IAM-related documentation, making it easier for users to access everything you need to know about user and identity management, roles, authorization, and authentication. The documentation covers all IAM-related tasks in the different phases of implementation (prepare, realize, run, and upgrade) making the process more streamlined and efficient. This unified access to IAM documentation provides a holistic view on IAM for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and integrated products from initial system access to tasks which need to be completed before, during, and after upgrading SAP S/4HANA Cloud and allows you to familiarize yourself with its key concepts. 

Figure 31: Check out the documentation about Identity and Access Management on SAP Help Portal.

Summary

You see, the world is turning fast, and we keep you at the forefront of progress–but these are by far not all innovations we have in store with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408. Stay tuned for the individual blog posts diving deeper into selected lines of business and industries. 

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and check out our community page to ask your questions and engage with the experts. Follow the PSCC_Enablement tag to stay up to date with our latest blog posts.

Follow us on @SAP and #S4HANA, and myself on LinkedIn to not miss the next update.

📽️ Watch the Replays of Our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 Early Release Series!

From July 8 to July 12, we hosted a series of 20 compelling live sessions to highlight the exciting innovations shipped with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 release. Missed the live sessions? We've got you covered! Take advantage of the entire series or pick and choose the sessions most relevant to you. Don't miss this chance and watch them on demand–anywhere, anytime.

🔎Find All of Our Assets

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the foundation of the intelligent, sustainable enterprise and is an innovative, robust, and scalable ERP. We at Cloud ERP Product Success and Cloud Co-Innovation offer a service as versatile as our product itself. Check out the numerous offerings our team has created for you below: