SAP BW/4HANA Readiness Dashboard – help is at hand.

As highlighted in previous BW/4HANA migration blogs, the path from a BW system to a BW/4HANA system is a complex, time consuming and from a budget perspective is substantially more costly compared to a 7.3, 7.4 or 7.5 upgrade.

Just a few weeks back I was invited by UK & Ireland SAP user group to present my insights around BW/4HANA migration challenges, options as well as tools available to several SAP BW clients. Through our discussions I discovered that a common issue is how these BI lead are going to articulate (to their stakeholders / decision makers) that the migration to BW/4HANA was something never seen before in effort, scale and budget in the SAP BW arena.

One of the comments from a BI lead was that the potential feedback from his stakeholder would be “Surely this is part of your day job!!”.

Quite a few BI leads have contacted me in the past 6-8 weeks as this conversation picks up pace. My initial guidance is to point them towards a SAP-provided ‘Readiness Dashboard for SAP BW/4HANA’ (free) – this will help you articulate the challenge facing you on the BW/4HANA migration in a very effective way.

The SAP Readiness Dashboard will display the following aspects of your SAP BW system:

Relevant simplification items
SAP BW/4HANA sizing
Compatibility of BW objects with SAP BW/4HANA
Compatibility of installed Add-Ons with SAP BW/4HANAs

This dashboard is a document in OSS note 2575059 (2575059 - SAP Readiness Check for SAP BW/4HANA). Note: This OSS note includes some manual activities at the start that can be ignored and are not clear – I’ve provided this feedback to SAP BW/4HANA migration development team and they’re currently updating the OSS note.

The following are a list of steps that you need to execute (from this OSS note):

Logon to the BW system in which you want to run the analyses (SAP recommend that to use the production system).
If you want to include sizing data, run program /SDF/HANA_BW_SIZING in background with default selection and option "Target SAP BW/4HANA" turn on, and wait for its completion (for details, see SAP Note 2296290).
If you want to include an analysis of installed add-ons, synchronize the system with maintenance planner (for details, see SAP Note 2408911).
Execute report TMW_BW_RC_DOWNLOAD_ANALYS_DATA in transaction SA38 and select the desired BW/4HANA version you would like to migrate to. Note that this report must only be run in dialog mode (it's fast). I would suggest that you don’t uncheck any of the following items as each item is relevant on the dashboard and then execute the report:

Uncheck "Simplification Item Relevance" if you do not want to perform this analysis.
Uncheck "Object Compatibility" if you do not want to determine the compatibility of your BW objects with SAP BW/4HANA
Uncheck "HANA Sizing" if you do not want to perform analysis for SAP BW/4HANA sizing (or didn't run the sizing program in step 2).

5. Upload the ZIP file in the SAP Readiness Check application: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#readiness via the "Import Analysis" button in the "Analyses" list header bar.

The following is an example Dashboard generated based on the zip file uploaded.

If the programs highlighted above are available in the BW system, the generation of the zip file and uploading it to the SAP support portal can be completed in 10 to 15 mins.

In summary, this dashboard provided by SAP is an excellent tool to articulate the challenge facing your migration to BW/4HANA for stakeholders / decision makers (high level analysis). I would add that additional detailed analysis of the system would be required to determine the ideal migration option along with providing a deployment plan for the migration option chosen.

I (and, I’m sure, many others in our community) would love your thoughts, opinions and insights – how are you feeling right now about, and managing, the BW/4HANA migration?

Dónal Geraghty operates SeaPark Consultancy to offer bespoke SAP BW/4HANA migration support and solutions. SeaPark works with your existing on-site team & external vendors to optimise BI operating processes and ensure the highest levels of ROI.

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