SAP Best Practices Explorer - service will end June 30th 2023

[HolgerSteffens]

Update on 2023/06/28: It's only a few days to go with SAP Best Practices Explorer. I just want to inform you that as of July 7th all incoming request to SAP Best Practices Explorer will automatically be redirected to SAP Signavio Process Navigator.

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Update on 2023/04/19: Today we've launched Process Navigator by SAP, kindly have a look at Process Navigator by SAP released today! | SAP Blogs

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Delivering detailed implementation information for SAP Best Practices always was the mantra of SAP Best Practices Explorer. The service, initially launched in 2015 and well enhanced over the next years has shown tremendous interest from prospects, customers and partners around the globe.

Some statistics

• > 7 million accesses to the tool last year


• > 140 package versions have been made available over time


• > 1.5 million assets have been published since 2015


• > 4 million offline downloads (downloads of the offline documentation library)

Simply speaking, information provided on SAP Best Practices Explorer is relevant.

Obviously, business has massively changed during the 7 years of service of SAP Best Practices Explorer. The needs of the cloud transformation, requirements of the intelligent enterprise suite, the simplification of integrations and the growing demand for providing broader country specific scope are only 4 out of many important trends.

Additionally, the acquisition of SAP Signavio and the evolution of Business Process-as-a-Service provide new business opportunities.

SAP Best Practices Explorer can't support these trends and needs sufficiently anymore. Yesterday we've started to inform all users about the planned deprecation on June 30th, 2023.

While there won't be a successor of SAP Best Practices Explorer, we're currently working on a redesign to reflect current business trends but still deliver similar convenience for prospects, customers and partners when it comes to successful, accelerated and efficient implementation projects.

With this blog we'd also like to provide answers to questions we're receiving since yesterday:

 

Q: Will there be a successor product for SAP Best Practices Explorer

A: No, there won't be any successor. SAP will release an entirely different application that will also cover SAP Best Practices solutions. However, features and functions will differ based on the new design of the new service. The first release is planned before the deprecation of SAP Best Practices Explorer. Detailed timelines will be communicated at a later point in time.

 

Q: How do I get information about SAP Best Practices after June 30, 2023?

A: We'll announce the availability of the new service close to its release date to avoid any business disruption for prospects, customers and partners.

 

Q: Will the scope of the new service replace the SAP Best Practices Explorer?

A: No. The planned new service will cover some parts of the existing SAP Best Practices Explorer scope. But many features of the current service are considered to be not relevant anymore. Due to its new data model the planned new service can't be considered and is not developed as a successor of SAP Best Practices Explorer.

 

Q: Will we in future have the same access options?

A: No. In future anonymous access will no longer be supported. Details regarding access levels will follow soon.

 

 

[Irmi_Kuntze]

Hey holger.steffens

1. in the blog and all your comments, you "only" refer to S/4HANA
   
   I assume the same apply for the non-S/4HANA solutions such as IBP?
   
   Here I often have the situation that my customer use the BP content for training and self-study, but the business users do NOT have an S-user which is often provided to IT personnel only.
   
   So is the new concept then that some IT user needs to download the content and provide the documentation to the business users somehow on their own?


2. In addition, customers that "only" use IBP but no other SAP cloud solutions do not all use SAP Cloud ALM (yet). Is the Process Navigator independent of ALM, or is ALM a prerequisite?

Thanks

Irmi

[HolgerSteffens]

Dear Irmhild,

absolutely. Our scope as before on Best Practices Explorer will cover ALL best practices content, including not only S/4HANA, but also SAP IBP, SAP Ariba, SAP SuccessFactors and more.

Regarding access options: In the past on SAP Best Practices Explorer we allowed access to general data without any authentication. But this was leading to complaints as well as access to test scripts, process diagrams and more was restricted.

I have to admit I'm not much in the details on the policy how S-Users are shared within your teams. If your business users do not have an own S-User I would agree with you, that they have to sync with your IT teams. But typically our customer's business users also have their individual S-User IDs. This obviously entirely depends on your company policy.

Regarding your second question: Yes, the new Process Navigator will be running independently from CALM but both tools will share the same data. Meaning when a prospect is becoming a customer, he will benefit from the same process data in the larger context of CALM (including project and task management and all other rich CALM features).

Best regards

Holger

[Tobias_Mache1]

Hello Holger,

we are now in the middle of march and unfortunately there is no new Information about the service, the access or something else.

I hope you can spread some new informations about the release and where we can find some more informations.

 

BR Tobias

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Mohammmed,

when we introduced this feature on SAP Best Practices Explorer this was at a time when not everybody was online most time of the day and thus we wanted to provide an option to work offline, e.g. when travelling. In the last 7 years this has changed, we're almost online 7 x 24.

Thus we currently have no intention to provide similar ''offline'' functionality in the new service Process Navigator.

I also do appreciate that you like SAP Signavio Process Explorer, it's a great new asset in SAP's solution portfolio.

Best regards

Holger

[Steve_Holland]

Hi holger.steffens

If I follow the various comments correctly then I understand that the Best Practices will be available via "Process Navigator through SAP for Me".

I also understood that Process Navigator is enabled via the Signavio product suite.

On the Signavio Video page there is a really useful video called An introduction to One Process Acceleration Layer - which looks a lot like it is the same thing, as it is all about utlising SAP best practice processes as far as I can tell.

Is it the same, or something different?

Thanks

Steve

 

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Steve,

as I've tried to answer in another reply, this is technically different products for slightly different target audiences.

One Process Acceleration Layer (OPAL) has a very broad scope which is nicely explained on our SAP Signavio information pages at https://www.signavio.com/.

Process Navigator is focusing on implementation aspects along the project implementation lifecycle. In particular process navigator is providing all information around preconfigured processes delivered by SAP, including integration and localization information.

Best regards

Holger

[BjornHarzer]

Hello Holger,

 

Thank you for this update, that clarifies a bit what to expect. Hope to hear and see it soon

 

thank you

Bjorn

 

[S0022323026]

Hi Holger

Thank you for a very informative blog.

We have already downloaded and using the Best Practises in Solution Manager. All the scope items are linking to elements at SAP with  "Document (Best Practise)" elements. with Deep links

I hope that these elements will remain active. I we can continue on our journey.

Regards Jeppe

[simonpolovina1]

Hi Holger,

To clarify from some of the discussions above, can I state that "SAP Cloud ALM is planned to be the successor of SAP Best Practices Explorer"?

Thanks,

Simon

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Simon,

not  really, now. Please stay tuned for this weeks announcement where I'll provide more information.

Best regards

Holger

[Private_Member_688984]

Your post say "SAP Best Practice Explorer planned deprecation on June 30th, 2023.

While there won’t be a successor of SAP Best Practices Explorer, we’re currently working on a redesign".

No offence.

But if it is not a replacement,  then "a new enhanced design" may be more appropriate  instead of saying depreciated. You can see from the response many are confused.

 

 

[wwi]

As it is now end of June, could you please add a link to the announcement mentioned?

Kind regards

W Wizgall

[AN_TO_GO]

Hi W Wizgall - Please refer to these blogs where there is additional information.

https://blogs.sap.com/2023/04/19/process-navigator-by-sap-released-today/

https://blogs.sap.com/2023/05/05/winning-together-sap-signavio-process-explorer-and-sap-signavio-pro...

The Business Process Explorer has become the SAP Process Navigator. Thanks!

[josef_minde_spv]

Are best practice processe models for S/4HANA 2023 available for upload to Solution Manager solution documentation?

When I search on https://me.sap.com/softwarecenter with search term "bp_op_entpr_", only the packages up to 2022 are displayed, but not for 2023.

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Josef,

the release of best practices is now branded as SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA private cloud, release 2023. This release is equally relevant and can be used by customers in on-premise deployments, as the solutions share the same technology stack.

In the discussion with our colleagues from Solution Manager it was decided to stop the production of the import format for Solution Manager. In case of further questions I would need to bring you in contact with my colleagues. In this case please share your contact details.

Best regards

Holger

 

[manfredklomp]

Hi Holger,

Previously I would download the configuration guides from the best practice explorer. Where can we find this now? Because when searching on me.sap.com I can't find the detaild instructions for instance to implement the Ariba integration scope item 42k for S4 Hana 2023.

Thanks.

Kr,

Manfred

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Manfred,

we've stopped shipping separate configuration documents already 3 years ago because of the error-prone process to manually document the configuration.

Within a S/4HANA Private Cloud or on-premise SAP Best Practices installation you can follow this guidance to view the configuration of the system:

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/4cef93946a0b48ec89533b3c34443b85/c44dfe084d244c1abb2...

Best regards

Holger

 

[KamilPL]

Hi Holger,

Is there something similar for s4 public cloud?

Regards

Kamil

[Jocelyn_Dart]

Hi Manfred, Ok so go to the link https://me.sap.com/processnavigator

From there you can search directly for your scope item 42K for SAP S/4HANA 2023.

Direct link is here: https://me.sap.com/processnavigator/SolS/EARL_SolS-055/2023/SolP/42K?region=DE

You will find the configuration guides and test scripts in the Accelerators tab.

 

 

[Jocelyn_Dart]

Hi Kamil, Process Navigator contains scope items for both SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition. There are also many scope items for other SAP Cloud solutions such as Ariba, SuccessFactors, and so on.. You can find a list of all available solutions in the solution scenarios.

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Kamil,

the report is equally working in SAP S/4HANA Public Edition tenants, where SAP Best Practices are deployed as standard. However, as a customer/partner you don't have access to the backend in the public cloud so you won't be able to get the results unless SAP Cloud Operations is able to provide them on your request (there's also no standard service to SAP Cloud Operations to deliver the report results as far as I know at least).

Best regards

Holger

[HolgerSteffens]

Jocelyn, this is not the case, no.

[Jocelyn_Dart]

Ok thanks Holger for the clarification. I take it this is a specific type of accelerator and the configuration scripts are now separate as you describe.

The remaining accelerators such as test scripts can be found as per my answer above.

[MILAN_80]

Dear Holger, dear Josef,

did you find a way to import SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA private cloud, release 2023 into

SAP Solution Manager? One of my customers also needs to have the content in his SolMan system.

Any assistance is very much appreciated.

Thanks & regards,

Mirco

 

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Mirco,

I think I've mentioned this in this thread somewhere already. We're not supporting any Solution Manager specific import formats from within SAP Signavio Process Navigator. Any efforts into this direction would need to be discussed with my colleagues in Cloud ALM and the Solution Manager team.

Best regards

Holger

[joerg_theobald1]

Hello Holger,

Afther the shutdown of the Best Practice Explorer I can access the Best Practices (e.g. the flow charts and test scripts)

1. via Process Explorer "https://editor.signavio.com/p/hub/home" as well as


2. via the Process Navigator "https://me.sap.com/processnavigator/HomePage" as well as via


3. via Website "https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/BP_OP_ENTPR/BP_OP_ENTPR_S4HANA1909_06_Content_Library_EN_DE.htm" (my personal favourite, please never delete)

Which one is the right tool to reach the current versions?

Why three places with similar / same content?

Greetings

Jörg

[HolgerSteffens]

Hi Jörg,

firstly it's important to understand that content on Process Explorer and Process Navigator is coming from the same source. So no difference.

Process Explorer holds way more content regarding the Business Transformation to S/4HANA and other SAP solutions. Thus Process Explorer does not include all details of SAP Best Practices and rather focuses on the localizations of Germany/USA.

Process Navigator is filling is with implementation details for all country/regional specific configurations but does not provide content for the Business Transformation. Thus we recommend to use both tools depending on the use case you're looking at.

Your 3rd reference is the old SAP Best Practices content link which we still deliver through Process Navigator for the time being as SAP S/4HANA 1909 is obviously still in maintenance. Physically they are available through the SAP Support Portal, but are linked to Process Navigator.

I hope this is explaining it.

Best regards

Holger