EHP7 is packed with 750 business functions – about 650 accumulated from previous EHPs and 100 or so new business functions covering financial accounting, logistics, HR, QM and HANA.
The top 3 new functions are:
Here are 5 major pitfalls to avoid when upgrading to EHP7:
#1 – IT, Don’t Wait, Upgrade to EHP7 Now!
One in four companies using SAP perform an EHP upgrade due to a business driver such as supporting new business functionality, rollouts, and regulations. And this statistic is further supported when we take a look at the rate of adoption of EHP business functions.
First of all, let’s admit the truth – EHP upgrades are major projects. They are costly (time and money), risky (expect the unexpected) and disruptive in a negative way (3-7 month project duration). EHP7 introduces 1 million new ABAP programs containing 70 million (!!) lines of new code – a 50% increase in new code!
SAP also releases SUPPORT PACK STACKS on a regular basis. A SPS contains about 20,000 Notes. This means that if you are jumping a number of SPS’s, that is tens of thousands of notes to introduce at the same time. And our experience shows that typically only 2-4% of these notes will be relevant to you, but they will impact about 10-20% of your implementation. The million dollar question is – which are these notes, and what impact will they have on your system? Determining which of these changes will impact your system, and what the impact will be are two major challenges that you have to deal with.
#3 Like a Driver in the Rain, You Have Low Visibility
You have little visibility into what will break prior to upgrade. The challenge is to gain visibility into exactly what functionality will break ahead of the project. Don’t assume that because this is a technical upgrade that your Standard Transactions won’t be impacted by the EHP upgrade. Remember that there are thousands of notes released, many of which alter the behavior of standard transactions.
#4 Those @#^*! Satellite Systems
When upgrading to SAP EHP, one of the most painful pitfalls is forgetting to consider your impacted satellite systems. Assess the impact of the upgrade on all of the interfaces to your SAP. Chances are that you have many dozens, if not hundreds of integration points to your ERP. Are you familiar with them all? Did you consider which may break? You better.
#5 Involve Your Business Key Users
The easiest pitfall when upgrading to SAP EHP7 is not involving your business key users. You absolutely need their commitment to this massive project. Get them on-board as early as possible – especially in the test planning and test execution stages. Without cooperation and collaboration with the business, your project risks multiply.
The top 3 new functions are:
- • SAP Fiori productivity apps
- • High-speed MRP
- • Real-time access to ERP data
Here are 5 major pitfalls to avoid when upgrading to EHP7:
#1 – IT, Don’t Wait, Upgrade to EHP7 Now!
One in four companies using SAP perform an EHP upgrade due to a business driver such as supporting new business functionality, rollouts, and regulations. And this statistic is further supported when we take a look at the rate of adoption of EHP business functions.
Why upgrade to EHP7? In numbers:
- • 35% – To stay current
- • 33% – As part of ECC 6.0 upgrade
- • 25% – Business driven
- • 6% – Other
- • 1% – Don’t know
First of all, let’s admit the truth – EHP upgrades are major projects. They are costly (time and money), risky (expect the unexpected) and disruptive in a negative way (3-7 month project duration). EHP7 introduces 1 million new ABAP programs containing 70 million (!!) lines of new code – a 50% increase in new code!
SAP also releases SUPPORT PACK STACKS on a regular basis. A SPS contains about 20,000 Notes. This means that if you are jumping a number of SPS’s, that is tens of thousands of notes to introduce at the same time. And our experience shows that typically only 2-4% of these notes will be relevant to you, but they will impact about 10-20% of your implementation. The million dollar question is – which are these notes, and what impact will they have on your system? Determining which of these changes will impact your system, and what the impact will be are two major challenges that you have to deal with.
#3 Like a Driver in the Rain, You Have Low Visibility
You have little visibility into what will break prior to upgrade. The challenge is to gain visibility into exactly what functionality will break ahead of the project. Don’t assume that because this is a technical upgrade that your Standard Transactions won’t be impacted by the EHP upgrade. Remember that there are thousands of notes released, many of which alter the behavior of standard transactions.
#4 Those @#^*! Satellite Systems
When upgrading to SAP EHP, one of the most painful pitfalls is forgetting to consider your impacted satellite systems. Assess the impact of the upgrade on all of the interfaces to your SAP. Chances are that you have many dozens, if not hundreds of integration points to your ERP. Are you familiar with them all? Did you consider which may break? You better.
#5 Involve Your Business Key Users
The easiest pitfall when upgrading to SAP EHP7 is not involving your business key users. You absolutely need their commitment to this massive project. Get them on-board as early as possible – especially in the test planning and test execution stages. Without cooperation and collaboration with the business, your project risks multiply.
