Using the graph engine in SAP HANA for Master Data Substitution

What is Master Data Substitution?

Master Data Substitution is a process when requested master data entity can be substituted by another one. Master Data substitution is very generic framework which supports different master data entities and provides various features like Exclusion, Grouping, Context Objects, Validities etc.

Example: Product Substitution. In Sales order, if Customer is requesting for Product A, but this product A is not available due to out of stock or for any other reason we will not be fulfilling customer demands. But Product B is available which is having the similar specifications as product A, then Product B can be substituted and fulfill customer demands. Product B can further be substituted with Product C and Product C can be substituted with Product D.

S/4HANA Fashion Purchase Order and Season Determination

Introduction

The integration between the fashion industry and the season is seamless. Thus, it is far more important as the article purchasing, production or selling depends according to the demand within the respective season. Mainly, seasons such as spring, summer, fall, winter / holiday, and no season will be configured in SAP within the fashion industry. The “no season” is created to cater a particular article all throughout the year. Hence, the applicability of article is determined based on the season assigned, in which it could be assigned to a new season or carry over season (same article valid for the next upcoming season).

Read More: C_HANAIMP_16

Advanced ATP Release for Delivery in SAP S/4HANA

Introduction

This blog is for SD consultants. I used SAP S/4HANA OP2020 FPS01 version.

What is Release for Delivery

It is manual back order process.

Read More: C_TADM55a_75 Key Points

After advanced ATP BOP you can also modify the results manually just before creating delivery documents.

You have to create delivery documents through Release for delivery, if you modify confirmed quantity by using it.

The SAP HANA Cockpit Dump File Viewer

Overview:

The SAP HANA cockpit Dump File Viewer is a new application introduced in SAP HANA cockpit SP 13. It can be utilized for displaying critical state information and simplifying the analysis of database performance issues. When there is an error situation in SAP HANA and a dump file is created, the Dump File Viewer can help users to easily view, analyze, and navigate within the dump file contents to determine the cause of the problem. There are different types of dump files available to analyze:

More Info: C_HANATEC_12 Key Points

◉ RTE – A runtime environment dump that is manually created by running the “runtimedump dump” command in the hdbcons command-line tool.

◉ OOM – An out of memory dump that is created when the system runs into an out of memory situation.

◉ Crash – A crash dump that is written when SAP HANA runs into a situation that causes the operating system (OS) process to crash.

Access Salesforce custom objects from HANA Cloud via SDI

I’m going to explain how to connect in the following sections.

1. Install DP Agent and configure SAP HANA Cloud connection

2. Deploy and register the adapter for Salesforce

3. Add remote source to SAP HANA Cloud

Prerequisites

Prepare following environments in advance.

1. Salesforce

2. SAP HANA Cloud

3. An operating system which DP Agent will be installed (Linux / Windows)

Using SAP HANA Graph to map relationships between different SAP products

In this blog post I cover how you can use the power of SAP HANA Graph to map/keep track of the relationships between different SAP products.

In our jobs as developers/consultants/architects, it is expected from us to know how different SAP products relate with each other or how they integrate with 3rd party products. This can be especially challenging given the number of products/components/services that SAP provides. In my attempt to keep track of this I have notes, diagrams, links, documentation that help me understand how they relate to each other. Unfortunately, that data is not that well organized.

Product Availability Check in STO based on issuing storage location in S/4Hana Cloud

Introduction

This blog post has been written to address common customer query on PAC in STO. When an intercompany purchase order (PO) is raised by one plant to procure stock in another plant, customer need to be able to specify a supplying/issuing storage location as well as the supplying plant.

When the issuing storage location is not editable then when the outbound delivery needs to be created at the supplying plant, it is necessary to first move the stock required on the purchase order to the default supplying storage location . After this generate the outbound delivery. This is an unnecessary extra step that complicates and makes the process less efficient

Using the SUM Prerequisite Check Extended to Prepare Your Conversion to SAP S/4HANA

There are many tools to help you prepare for a system conversion to S/4HANA. From to the Prepare Phase with the SAP Readiness Check and Maintenance Planner to the Explore Phase, using the SUM itself as a Prerequisite Check tool prior to your Sandbox cycle. This is every helpful for the technical team early in the project to discover some of the errors reported by SUM tool on the source system. Or they are waiting on the functional team to resolve the many simplification items errors, which is usually trigger a hard stop (e.g. RUN_S4H_SIF_CHECK_EXEC steps in SUM), or simply waiting on infrastructure or HANA DB procurement for those who are on a classical database.

Use Geospatial Methods and Predicates feature in SAP HANA

Business Example:

There is a requirement from a client where the client wants to calculate the distances between their customers and their stores. Typically, locations or addresses in a database are stored in text fields, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact geographical locations.

To be able to calculate distances accurately, you have decided to store the geographical locations of the customers and stores, using the SAP HANA geospatial model and its related functions.

Scheduling Python code on Cloud Foundry

This blog starts with a very simple example to schedule a Python file on Cloud Foundry, just to introduce the most important steps. That concept is then extended to schedule a Python file, which applies a trained Machine Learning model in SAP HANA.

Run Python file locally

We would like to schedule a Python file, not a Jupyter Notebook. Hence use your preferred local Python IDE or editor to run this simple file, helloworld.py.

Piecewise Linear Trend with Automated Time Series Forecasting (APL)

If you are a user of APL time series, you probably have seen models fitting a linear trend or a quadratic trend to your data. With version 2113 the Automated Predictive Library introduces an additional method called Piecewise Linear that can detect breakpoints in your series. You don’t have to do anything new to take advantage of this functionality, the trend is detected automatically as shown in the example below.

For SAP Analytics Cloud users, note that Piecewise Linear Trend is coming with  the 2021.Q3 QRC (August release).

Using SDI FileAdapter to write to Azure file share

In this blog we will create an Azure file share and use it as a destination for SAP SDI FileAdapter.

Prerequisites

1. Azure Account

2. SAP HANA Data Provisioning Agent server enabled

3. SAP HANA Data Provisioning Agent installed

Let’s start by creating the Azure file share. Login to the Azure portal and create a premium storage account  as depicted in the below screenshot

SAP HANA XS Advanced Administration, Deployment and Operations

1. Deployment Options

There are various ways of deploying the XS Advanced runtime. Before deploying the XSA many scenarios need to considered that will have impact on your landscape maintenance activity .For example the system refresh scenarios where you will need to refresh only a certain tenants instead of complete system this deployment plays a key role . I will go through the limitations in detail in backup restore section. In general, The following additional services run where XSA is deployed:

◉ xscontroller: Central management component of XSA. It has a view on all deployed and/or running applications, and persists configuration and status information in the database

SAP on AZURE/ SAP on AWS : Cost Optimized DR Solutions for HANA : Lean/Skinny DR

Running SAP on the HANA database is not only having multiple advantages, but also few cons as well. The hardware cost to run the HANA database is one of them. Since HANA is an in-memory database, customers must provision higher-size RAM and CPU to run their SAP on HANA. Even in hyper scaler environments like AZURE/AWS, HANA VM (M-Series) cost is huge comparatively and concern for most of the customers.

Keeping this in mind, designing a disaster recovery solution for HANA is a very challenging one.&To address this design challenge, we can consider multiple cost-optimized options like

The DMEEX Trace Tool

With the release of SAP S/4HANA 2020 Feature Pack 1 (onPremise), DMEEX receives one of the biggest updates in its lifetime. We implemented a tool that opens and clarifies DMEEX Engine processing. In this tool, you can see and analyze how the DMEEX tree was processed in detail, without the need to debug its code. We call this tool the DMEEX Trace Tool.

How to Setup SAP HANA Multi-Target System Replication

SAP HANA System Replication is a reliable high availability and disaster recovery solution that provides continuous synchronization of a HANA database to a secondary location either in the same data center or remote site as a disaster recovery site.

More Info: SAP HANA Certification

In this article fI have tried to keep it simple on how to setup a system replication when you want to replicate single primary to multiple target which may be in same data center or at remote site.

For better understanding let us assume below.

Solution Order Management in SAP S/4 HANA Cloud 2105

In the 2008 release, SAP S/4 HANA Cloud introduced Solution Order Management in response to market demand for a hybrid solution in which sales and service functions merge seamlessly. Solution Order Management helps customers grow their margins by transitioning away from selling individual products and services to providing bundled business solutions consisting of products, one-time services, and recurring service subscriptions. With the 2105 SAP S/4 HANA Cloud release, we have broadened the scope of Solution Order Management, and in this blog, I’ll take you through a few of the key updates.  

Update on Basic Shipping for SAP S/4HANA 2020

SAP’s strategy for Transportation Solutions in SAP S/4HANA

Since the introduction of SAP S/4HANA® some of the previous modules/solutions available in SAP ECC became available through something called “Compatibility Packs”. A Compatibility Pack (CP) is a version of a standard SAP Business Suite software product that is compatible with SAP S/4HANA.

Compatibility packs:

◉ Cover functionality from SAP ERP core or line-of-business (LoB) or industry solutions

◉ Comprise the complete or partial scope of the related SAP Business Suite product

◉ Will be phased out in favor of other strategic solutions that may have similar functionality to that within the CP software and may have a separate license.