In this blog post I’d like to outline the innovations for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302 in the area of Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management. These are the topics that are covered:
Watch my video to get a glimpse of the new features:
Ever since the shipment of our business process „Project Control – Resourcing and Procurement“ (4RF), we have worked on the integration between enterprise projects and procurement in order to help you plan and monitor procurement of materials, services as well as resources. For this release, we have worked on an additional demand type called „project stock, preliminary procurement“. This new demand type allows you to plan and trigger early on procurement for long lead items resulting in planned independent requirements. These requirements are picked up by MRP run and could be fulfilled by production or purchase orders. As the procurement itself results in project stock, this new preliminary procurement demand is currently available for projects with the profile „investment projects“ and „projects with revenue“.
Next to the fact that independent requirements can be planned ahead – smoothening your procurement process – you also have more control logistically as well as financially.
Figure 1: The new demand type „project stock, preliminary procurement” is now available for projects with the profile „investment projects“ and „projects with revenue“.
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In the area of the Engineer-to-Order process, we have made some nice progress when it comes to the production order related costs which used to reflect in the project only after the delivery to the customer. With Prior to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302, you can now display production order costs in the project cost report. With this, project financial controllers get insights into real time costs recorded against the production order. As part of the ‘Project Cost Report’ application, production orders are displayed in the project hierarchy along with planned costs and actual costs. The aggregated view gives an overall statistical view of the total costs incurred against the project at any given point in time. At line-item level even more details can be consumed, or ultimately you can navigate from the ‘Project Cost Report’ application directly to the ‘Production Order’ application.
More information can also be found in Ulrich Hauke’s Finance blog post.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_9wwq8kml
Figure 2: This demo shows the creation of a preliminary procurement demand along with the display of production order costs in the project cost report.
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This feature is especially helpful if you want to track your costs. As part of the ‘Project Budget Report’ application, the available budget now also takes into consideration the commitments and actual costs of assigned maintenance orders. The maintenance orders are displayed in the project hierarchy together with the WBS elements they are assigned to. Project financial controllers can get insights here into the planned ongoing costs, actual costs and commitments and get an overall view of the available budget. These real-time insights into available budget are now possible even before maintenance order costs are settled to projects, which makes it a lot easier to stay on top of costs.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_c8lpho93
Figure 3: In the ‘Project Budget Report’ application you can now adjust the filter to include the maintenance orders.
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The ability to pass down settlement rules can be a big time-saver for investment projects. In case of a project where a certain WBS element as well as all its lower level WBS elements are supposed to settle with exactly the same rule, this pass-down option can be used. Once you have set up the project as required, you can simply make use of the ‘Generate Settlement Rule’ application to pass down the rules. This is a very efficient way how to maintain your projects.
What’s important to know is that the pass-down option needs to be enabled before the investment project is released. Once the project is released, you won’t be able to change the settlement rule maintenance. Once you have opted for the pass-down option, you can enable this functionality with several WBS elements and rules, even at project header level. When copying a WBS element the setting of the settlement flag will not be copied. You can use this pass-down feature also when you move WBS elements in the project hierarchy at a later point in time.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_qme1lt6u
Figure 4: The ability to pass down settlement rules can save a lot of time as a certain WBS element as well as all its lower level WBS elements can be settled with exactly the same rule.
(back to top)
Already with the last major release, you could use the business process „Project Control – Resourcing and Procurement” (4RF) and the „Project Demand – Direct Procurement” in order to create a purchase requisition for project stock. To further increase the capabilities in this area, you now have the option to create a reservation along with this demand. During the creation process of the demand, you can simply choose to create a reservation. The reservation item will only be created once you have submitted the demand request.
Once the demand, e.g. material, is available in the project stock, the warehouse clerk can use this reservation to issue the material to the project. Posting this goods issue against a reservation is much easier for the warehouse clerk because all necessary parameters are automatically pre-filled. Another benefit here is that the entire procurement cycle is improved due to the better balance between supply and demand.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_sd218h6a
Figure 5: When creating a project demand you can now also create a reservation along with it.
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With the integration of enterprise projects and organizational change, you can easily maintain organizational change during a project lifecycle. By using the ‘Manage Organizational Changes’ application, you can easily change the profit center of enterprise projects.
It is possible to change the profit center during created, partially released, released and technically completed status of a project. After enabling this functionality for customer projects as well as internal projects in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition handling organizational changes is now supported for enterprise projects with project profile „Project with Revenue”, „Overhead Project” and „Statistical Project”.
More information can also be found in Ulrich Hauke’s Finance blog post.
Figure 6: Enabling enterprise projects with new profit center assignment during different stages of project lifecycle.
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Already with former releases you could make use of determination and validation BAdI for projects which helps you increase efficiency and speed up project structuring activities. If you want to execute a change on a WBS element, the system can run a validation in the background and check whether the change which you want to execute is valid or not.
With this release, we’re adding two new fields:
These two fields are added in the BAdI and can be influenced by customer specific logic. In case the „Project Manager” field is the same for all projects, it can always be automatically updated from BAdI and there is no need for manual maintenance. Similarly, validation can be performed when the Project Manager field is changed by someone.
Figure 7: Additional fields for „Project Manager” and „Multiple Sales Order Items” helps users to maintain the fields during determination and validation phase.
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With the „Project Demand” Business Object for Developer Extensibility you can create, read, update, and delete project demands of enterprise projects as well as professional services projects. This means, you can develop tightly coupled ABAP extensions running directly on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition technology stack.
The following demand categories and types are supported:
Figure 8: Enhancing SAP processes and building custom applications based on project demand data.
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Last but not least, I’d like to come back to the project cost report. As mentioned above, production order costs can now be displayed in the project cost report. On top of that, we also allow for the display of assigned work order commitment costs in this report. You can view aggregated maintenance order commitments for assigned orders and on top even navigate to line-item level details to gain further insights of commitments posted against maintenance orders.
These commitments are an early indicator of the costs that will get posted against maintenance orders and eventually WBS elements, helping you to get a more accurate view of future costs of a project.
Figure 9: Get insights at line-item level for commitments posted against maintenance orders.
(back to top)
In mid-2021, we have established the SAP Customer Influence Program for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management...
Join this program if you’d like to submit improvement request, vote on requests, and if you’d like to take part in regular online sessions which are taking place every 4-6 weeks. During those sessions, the submitted requests as well as possible solutions will be discussed. Moreover, you will get insights into planned functionalities.
Don’t miss this chance to provide your feedback and influence the product.
Feel free to reach out to Nadia Razzaq (nadia.razzaq@sap.com) or Heike Wulf (heike.wulf@sap.com) if you’re interested to participate.
Please note that this program is dedicated to our cloud development. If you have any requests for our on-premise solution, please provide them via our customer connection project by following this link.
Figure 10: Join the SAP Customer Influence Program for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management, public edition to influence the product.
(back to top)
We’ve hosted a series of compelling live sessions from the heart of the SAP S/4HANA Engineering organization. Missed the live sessions? Watch our replays on demand!
Among the replays, you can find a 30-minute replay, a presentation, and demos for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management as part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302 release as well as 19 other sessions on diverse topics like manufacturing, finance, professional services, two-tier ERP, SAP User Experience, and many more. For more information on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Early Release Series and how to sign up for it, see this link.
(back to top)
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @CorinaReise and LinkedIn
- Preliminary Procurement Using Project Demand Functionality (4RF)
- Display of Production Order Costs in the Project Cost Report (1NT)
- Inclusion of Assigned Order Costs in the Project Budget Availability Report (1NT, 35F)
- Ability to Pass Down Settlement Rules in Investment Projects (1NT, 1YF)
- Create Reservations with Direct Procurement Against Project Stock (4RF)
- Integrate Enterprise Project into Organizational Change (1NT, 1YF)
- Determination and Validation BAdI for Projects (1NT, 1YF)
- “Project Demand” Business Object for Developer Extensibility (1A8, 4RF, J11, PRF)
- Display of Assigned Work Order Commitment Costs in the Project Cost Report (1NT)
Watch my video to get a glimpse of the new features:
Preliminary Procurement Using Project Demand Functionality
Ever since the shipment of our business process „Project Control – Resourcing and Procurement“ (4RF), we have worked on the integration between enterprise projects and procurement in order to help you plan and monitor procurement of materials, services as well as resources. For this release, we have worked on an additional demand type called „project stock, preliminary procurement“. This new demand type allows you to plan and trigger early on procurement for long lead items resulting in planned independent requirements. These requirements are picked up by MRP run and could be fulfilled by production or purchase orders. As the procurement itself results in project stock, this new preliminary procurement demand is currently available for projects with the profile „investment projects“ and „projects with revenue“.
Next to the fact that independent requirements can be planned ahead – smoothening your procurement process – you also have more control logistically as well as financially.
Figure 1: The new demand type „project stock, preliminary procurement” is now available for projects with the profile „investment projects“ and „projects with revenue“.
(back to top)
Display of Production Order Costs in the Project Cost Report
In the area of the Engineer-to-Order process, we have made some nice progress when it comes to the production order related costs which used to reflect in the project only after the delivery to the customer. With Prior to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302, you can now display production order costs in the project cost report. With this, project financial controllers get insights into real time costs recorded against the production order. As part of the ‘Project Cost Report’ application, production orders are displayed in the project hierarchy along with planned costs and actual costs. The aggregated view gives an overall statistical view of the total costs incurred against the project at any given point in time. At line-item level even more details can be consumed, or ultimately you can navigate from the ‘Project Cost Report’ application directly to the ‘Production Order’ application.
More information can also be found in Ulrich Hauke’s Finance blog post.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_9wwq8kml
Figure 2: This demo shows the creation of a preliminary procurement demand along with the display of production order costs in the project cost report.
(back to top)
Inclusion of Assigned Order Costs in the Project Budget Availability Report
This feature is especially helpful if you want to track your costs. As part of the ‘Project Budget Report’ application, the available budget now also takes into consideration the commitments and actual costs of assigned maintenance orders. The maintenance orders are displayed in the project hierarchy together with the WBS elements they are assigned to. Project financial controllers can get insights here into the planned ongoing costs, actual costs and commitments and get an overall view of the available budget. These real-time insights into available budget are now possible even before maintenance order costs are settled to projects, which makes it a lot easier to stay on top of costs.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_c8lpho93
Figure 3: In the ‘Project Budget Report’ application you can now adjust the filter to include the maintenance orders.
(back to top)
Ability to Pass Down Settlement Rules in Investment Projects
The ability to pass down settlement rules can be a big time-saver for investment projects. In case of a project where a certain WBS element as well as all its lower level WBS elements are supposed to settle with exactly the same rule, this pass-down option can be used. Once you have set up the project as required, you can simply make use of the ‘Generate Settlement Rule’ application to pass down the rules. This is a very efficient way how to maintain your projects.
What’s important to know is that the pass-down option needs to be enabled before the investment project is released. Once the project is released, you won’t be able to change the settlement rule maintenance. Once you have opted for the pass-down option, you can enable this functionality with several WBS elements and rules, even at project header level. When copying a WBS element the setting of the settlement flag will not be copied. You can use this pass-down feature also when you move WBS elements in the project hierarchy at a later point in time.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_qme1lt6u
Figure 4: The ability to pass down settlement rules can save a lot of time as a certain WBS element as well as all its lower level WBS elements can be settled with exactly the same rule.
(back to top)
Create Reservations with Direct Procurement Against Project Stock
Already with the last major release, you could use the business process „Project Control – Resourcing and Procurement” (4RF) and the „Project Demand – Direct Procurement” in order to create a purchase requisition for project stock. To further increase the capabilities in this area, you now have the option to create a reservation along with this demand. During the creation process of the demand, you can simply choose to create a reservation. The reservation item will only be created once you have submitted the demand request.
Once the demand, e.g. material, is available in the project stock, the warehouse clerk can use this reservation to issue the material to the project. Posting this goods issue against a reservation is much easier for the warehouse clerk because all necessary parameters are automatically pre-filled. Another benefit here is that the entire procurement cycle is improved due to the better balance between supply and demand.
https://sapvideoa35699dc5.hana.ondemand.com/?entry_id=1_sd218h6a
Figure 5: When creating a project demand you can now also create a reservation along with it.
(back to top)
Integrate Enterprise Projects into Organizational Change
With the integration of enterprise projects and organizational change, you can easily maintain organizational change during a project lifecycle. By using the ‘Manage Organizational Changes’ application, you can easily change the profit center of enterprise projects.
It is possible to change the profit center during created, partially released, released and technically completed status of a project. After enabling this functionality for customer projects as well as internal projects in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition handling organizational changes is now supported for enterprise projects with project profile „Project with Revenue”, „Overhead Project” and „Statistical Project”.
More information can also be found in Ulrich Hauke’s Finance blog post.
Figure 6: Enabling enterprise projects with new profit center assignment during different stages of project lifecycle.
(back to top)
Determination and Validation BAdI for Projects
Already with former releases you could make use of determination and validation BAdI for projects which helps you increase efficiency and speed up project structuring activities. If you want to execute a change on a WBS element, the system can run a validation in the background and check whether the change which you want to execute is valid or not.
With this release, we’re adding two new fields:
- Project Manager
- Multiple Sales Order Items
These two fields are added in the BAdI and can be influenced by customer specific logic. In case the „Project Manager” field is the same for all projects, it can always be automatically updated from BAdI and there is no need for manual maintenance. Similarly, validation can be performed when the Project Manager field is changed by someone.
Figure 7: Additional fields for „Project Manager” and „Multiple Sales Order Items” helps users to maintain the fields during determination and validation phase.
(back to top)
„Project Demand” Business Object for Developer Extensibility
With the „Project Demand” Business Object for Developer Extensibility you can create, read, update, and delete project demands of enterprise projects as well as professional services projects. This means, you can develop tightly coupled ABAP extensions running directly on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition technology stack.
The following demand categories and types are supported:
| Demand Category | Demand Type |
| Material | Non-Stock Material, Non-Stock Material with Limit, Project Stock (Direct Purchasing) |
| Service | Service, Service with Limit |
| Resource | Direct Staffing, Team Resource, Additional Resource |
| Expense | Expense |
Figure 8: Enhancing SAP processes and building custom applications based on project demand data.
(back to top)
Display of Assigned Work Order Commitment Costs in the Project Cost Report
Last but not least, I’d like to come back to the project cost report. As mentioned above, production order costs can now be displayed in the project cost report. On top of that, we also allow for the display of assigned work order commitment costs in this report. You can view aggregated maintenance order commitments for assigned orders and on top even navigate to line-item level details to gain further insights of commitments posted against maintenance orders.
These commitments are an early indicator of the costs that will get posted against maintenance orders and eventually WBS elements, helping you to get a more accurate view of future costs of a project.
Figure 9: Get insights at line-item level for commitments posted against maintenance orders.
(back to top)
Join the SAP Customer Influence Program for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management, Public Edition
In mid-2021, we have established the SAP Customer Influence Program for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management...
Join this program if you’d like to submit improvement request, vote on requests, and if you’d like to take part in regular online sessions which are taking place every 4-6 weeks. During those sessions, the submitted requests as well as possible solutions will be discussed. Moreover, you will get insights into planned functionalities.
Don’t miss this chance to provide your feedback and influence the product.
Feel free to reach out to Nadia Razzaq (nadia.razzaq@sap.com) or Heike Wulf (heike.wulf@sap.com) if you’re interested to participate.
Please note that this program is dedicated to our cloud development. If you have any requests for our on-premise solution, please provide them via our customer connection project by following this link.
Figure 10: Join the SAP Customer Influence Program for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management, public edition to influence the product.
(back to top)
Watch the Replays of Our SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition 2302 Early Release Series!
We’ve hosted a series of compelling live sessions from the heart of the SAP S/4HANA Engineering organization. Missed the live sessions? Watch our replays on demand!
Among the replays, you can find a 30-minute replay, a presentation, and demos for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management as part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2302 release as well as 19 other sessions on diverse topics like manufacturing, finance, professional services, two-tier ERP, SAP User Experience, and many more. For more information on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Early Release Series and how to sign up for it, see this link.
(back to top)
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Release Info Here
- Bert Schulze’s Release Blog Post
- The Link Collection for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management Here
- Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management Community
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition Community: Here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition 2302 Early Release Series Here
- Latest Release Blog Posts here
- Product Videos on Our SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
- Demo Playlist of Product Release Highlights Here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast Here
- Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Here
- Feature Scope Description Here
- What’s New Here
- Help Portal Product Page Here
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @CorinaReise and LinkedIn
- SAP Managed Tags:
