SAP is updating the S/4HANA Cloud, making advances in machine learning, user experience, extensibility, and more.
As announced in September at SAP TechEd, this latest release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud also includes the launch of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud software development kit (SDK), which provides a simple end-to-end development experience that enables SAP customers, partners, and independent software vendors (ISVs) to easily develop custom applications, extending the capabilities of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
The update introduces soft close and prediction and with this feature, all the costs that are expected but that are not yet reflected in a users’ financial accounts — for instance, open purchase orders — are automatically recorded in the system. Providing a basis for predictive accounting and monitoring of the remaining budget, this new function will help enormously with financial planning.
To ease strategic procurement activities, the update now allows SAP to offer the ability to classify purchasing spend using A, B, and C categories along with quality management which gives users the ability to record and display defects.
Digital assistant SAP CoPilot is introduced to help collaborate efficiently to record and handle defects to optimize processes while improving quality.
The goal here is to accelerate customer-centric solution innovation and implementation in the SAP ecosystem with an open, flexible, and extendable business platform.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers a digital core of standard business processes, which can be extended and interfaced with other SAP and non-SAP solutions. For further extensions or integration with third-party or customer-made applications, APIs are available. These updates include:
- EDI: Businesses have been conducting business electronically via EDI standards for several decades. New web services can be used to connect suppliers via EDI in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This is a big step ahead. As an example, best practices can be using scope item integration of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Procurement with suppliers.
- SAP SuccessFactors: With the 1711 release, it is also simpler to integrate SAP S/4HANA Cloud with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll, so you can integrate payroll-related expenses for the financial operation. This is working thanks to cost center replication.
- SAP Fieldglass: This is relevant to run processes with SAP Fieldglass and will increase the level of automation in the entire E2E scenarios. With this update, additional master data replication services from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Fieldglass such as company codes and G/L Accounts.
For more information about these enhancements, visit www.sap.com.