Migrating to S/4HANA? Look Out For These Gotchas
TAKE NOTE (Insights into Emerging Technology)
This post is the first in a three-part interview series with Brian Burke, global SAP solutions executive with IBM SAP Alliance.
Thoughts on Cloud (ToC): While SAP ERP users have until 2025 to migrate to S/4HANA, many businesses are already in the process of migrating to the platform. As customers prepare their move to S/4HANA, what are the first steps you suggest?
Brian Burke, global SAP solutions executive, IBM SAP Alliance: Moving to S/4HANA is a major shift for a lot of businesses. If you’ve been an SAP customer for years, moving to S/4HANA might seem very complicated. You may have to learn new ways of managing your enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and handling your SAP infrastructure, but once you do, I bet you will be thrilled.
SAP data and applications are mission-critical assets that reach across the entire business. SAP administrators already know this, of course, because all the line-of-business leaders call them if something goes down. Because these applications impact every aspect of your business, the considerations to have to make, especially as it relates to the infrastructure, are of huge importance.
For example, I’m hearing stories from clients using SAP S/4HANA for quarter-close financials. Activities that used to take three weeks can now be completed in as little as three hours. Also, utilizing a quick, easy-to-use infrastructure like cloud enables SAP customers to have one less worry.
ToC: If clients are currently running SAP on premises but want to transition to cloud, are they migrating to both S/4HANA and a cloud infrastructure at the same time?
BB: Not necessarily. Many SAP clients are moving their SAP applications to a cloud infrastructure first, then migrating to S/4HANA. This two-step approach can make the migration process a little easier for businesses currently using neither S/4HANA nor cloud.
However, several companies that are being spun off into their own entities or that are going through mergers or acquisitions are jumping straight to S/4HANA on cloud. For those businesses, designing a new infrastructure from scratch is a good opportunity to migrate to the new platform and a cloud infrastructure at once.
UNDER DEVELOPMENT (Information for Developers)
An In Depth Look At Qlik Sense Desktop – Part #1
Building your first Qlik Sense App
In this 2 part Blog series we will take a deep dive into QLIK Desktop. In Part #1, we will go thru all the steps you need to understand when creating a new QLIK Desktop App for guided analytics. In Part #2 of the Blog we will cover data sheets and stories to customize the interaction of your app. This is where the power and flexibility of Qlik become evident. All the data objects are drag and drop allowing the user to create visualizations by selecting data objects, then drilling down to examine associations.
Let’s take an in-depth look at creating a new app on Qlik Sense Desktop. If you haven’t already, you will need to download the free edition of Qlik Sense Desktop from the Qlik website. Click on the screenshot below…
In this blog, we will primarily focus on the desktop version. After downloading and installing Qlik Sense Desktop, you can open it from an icon on your start bar or an icon on your home screen. It will open to a screen inviting you to create a new application. If you have worked in Qlik before, the welcome screen will give you the option to open a previous application.
Once you click on create a new app, you will be asked to give the app a name. We will call this one “My New App”.
Holiday Message (From CEO & President)
It is nice at this time of year for all of us to reflect on what we have learned throughout the year, and what we hope to achieve in the year to come. When we think about 2017, the overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude.
We feel gratitude that we have been able to grow IT Partners, in spite of all the bumps and challenges that this journey inevitably brings. We feel gratitude that hopefully our hard work has made at least a little difference to the lives (and wallets!) of all of you, our valued partners and friends.Gratitude in the trust and loyalty you all have shown us. Gratitude in knowing that our teams take enormous pride in really trying hard to do a great job, every day, and that most of the time, we succeed.
And looking at the year ahead, my overwhelming feeling is one of excitement. We have so many new opportunities and partnerships ahead. It’s going to be a fun 2018, and I’m honored to be able to work with such outstanding people and partners.
So thank you, from the bottom of all our hearts, for your support, friendship and your business. We wish you all a fantastic holiday season, full of cheer, family, fun and warmth.
Thank you again, and Happy Holidays from all of us at IT Partners!
Christine Cecchini – CEO
Anthony Cecchini – President
Anthony Cecchini – President