Whether technical or functional, a SAP upgrade updates or renovates your existing SAP system, to reach market demands, and also to deliver profuse operations to those who need your business services. 

Moreover, to keep up with the pace of the dynamic market in this fast-paced world, it is essential for you as a business or an enterprise owner to enhance your services to the maximum potential, offer the best of the best and novel solutions or applications and also construct a competitive business model. Furthermore, consumers must embrace modern and smarter functionalities within the existing SAP software to run an extraordinary business in the making. This blog talks about the different steps involved in the process of a SAP upgrade.

The steps involved in a SAP upgrade:

A SAP upgrade requires a series of steps. These are highlighted below;

1. Initial Planning

Initial planning of doing a SAP upgrade involves emplacing a good representative software system that is not only productive but can provide you data regarding in-depth planning, and also regarding approximations on pricing and efforts in addition to the analysis on its influence or effect. Test upgradation needs to be conducted next for every software system and this is done by creating a “project system” from the software copy. Note that engaging with a project system would act as a test drive for a greater number of project tasks that involve unit testing, system adjustments; before the upgrade process of a real-time project landscape. 

2. Software construction and upgradation of Stack Level Patch

This step is seen by the base team and needs the installation of a few support packages. Moving on, for SAP ERP upgrades, you might require swapping or switching your operating system, hardware, or database platform. In addition, you would require conducting a Unicode conversion, especially if the consumer or user utilizes multiple-processing, multiple-display, MDMP software system, or blended code pages for languages display.  

3. Framing and groundwork

This step involves a team of SAP professionals or experts to analyze the adaptions to the changes made and return to SAP standard at any moment. One needs to assemble the modifications or changes to reapply object changes, thereby generating transports that one can utilize to the next or following upgrades in the future. An operational test of the upgrade should be conducted by a team of SAP professionals or experts, followed by an SAP upgrade sign-off. This is to authenticate the functional ability or potentiality of all the business applications. 

4. System upgradation

SAP offers all redelivered modified objects in the upgrade adjustment of SPAU and SPDD transactions. These would assist users to discover the modified objects. Post an SAP upgrade run, it is very essential to maintain the modified objects manually as per the traditional system, for which SPDD and SPAU transactions can be utilized.

5. Customized Upgradation 

Generally, post a SAP upgrade, there is hardly any requirement for existing businesses to modify the settings of customization but certain modifications might be needed to be made to make certain there is the smooth functioning of the business functions using the standard SAP system. 

6. Testing 

This step is very important and crucial in the SAP upgrade process to reduce business risk. SAP not only provides planning and execution test tools but also assists in organizing test cases. SAP provides lucidity or clarity on automated or manual test cases that can be utilized for unit tests and test plans definition for regression and integration testing. 

The motivation behind functional and technical upgrades

The business need for an upgrade is frequently driven by innovations, new features, and upgrades that help generate company value by proving return on investment. As a consequence, this type of upgrade leads to significant functional rework as well as the restructuring of business processes (technical upgrade). Customers can use intelligent technologies like predictive analytics, AI, machine learning, and RPA to take advantage of the latest advances. This is what comprises a functional upgrade. Understanding the primary driving reasons for both types of upgrades will help you plan your upgrade.

The major driving forces for the IT department include keeping up with corrections and security updates, as well as staying on a supported version as dictated by the SAP S/4HANA maintenance plan. This method of technological updating will contribute to performance improvement and design simplification.

Upgrading also improves the SAP S/4HANA User Experience in the following areas:

  • SAP Fiori is now available in more nations (new apps, new features in existing apps)
  • In numerous SAP Fiori elements apps, new functionality such as new Launchpad options, new automatic features in floor plans, and export to spreadsheet has been implemented.
  • When SAP Fiori is published, new conventional UI features will be accessible.
  • Strategies that work with both SAP Fiori and traditional user interface technology.

It is important that the number of interactions to be inspected must be determined. Now that the major deployment stage for past SAP S/4HANA versions has concluded and new releases and feature packages are being given regularly, clients should plan and build an upgrade strategy to transition to a newer release of SAP S/4HANA. Rather than being considered as a setback, SAP upgrades should be viewed as a chance to move closer to being an intelligent company. Since the lifespan of SAP software lasts about seven major releases, it becomes necessary to upgrade your installed SAP system to a newer release when this lifespan is over. Why not contact Lineris Solutions for the same? Lineris Solutions would be more than happy to help your business!