SAP has released the first “Feature Pack Stack” (FPS), SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01 for the 2021 release, on February 23, 2022. This is the first in a sequence of FPS’s that will be delivered twice a year and introduce new optional capabilities. And once again, it comes up with a new set of capabilities bringing simplification, innovation, automation, analytics, and user experience to customers. In total, we delivered more than 75 innovations and enhancements in this FPS01!
In this blog, I will give you an expert view, from product experts to product experts, of some selected highlights of SAP’s first shipment of this year for SAP S/4HANA 2021, and its highlights across near all lines of business and industries. All these innovations will also be available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.
The blog is built as a series of 2 parts and present the key highlights for:
• Part 1: Lines of business
• Part 2: Industries (coming soon)
Finance
Corporate close:
Tighter accounting integration with group reporting preparation ledgers
Integrating General Ledger accounting and group reporting data directly, without first fetching the data from General Ledger accounting, has the following benefits:
• You have early access to financial data with a high level of detail.
• You have access to the most recent data at any time, including the latest predictions based on logistics documents.
• You have the option to release only modified data (delta release) and thus, avoid full mode data releases, which slow performance.
• You can release data to special periods, which prevents data from special periods from being added to the last period.
With this integration, specific field data is no longer sent from General Ledger accounting to group reporting and back again. Instead, the data from these fields are available in General Ledger accounting for group reporting activities and can be used from there. Therefore, the integration of General Ledger accounting data allows for more efficient and faster use of the data.
The benefit here for the customer is very clear: Improved transparency and compliance, the establishment of a single closing experience for both local and group closing.
Contract and Lease Management: SAP Intelligent Real Estate: centralized, simplified real-estate master-data management
With the SAP S/4HANA 2021 FPS01, we leverage SAP Intelligent Real Estate, the next generation of the SAP Real Estate Management application by adding new features.
Key highlights here are:
Enable Real Estate Objects for Use and Contract Management
To support lease-in scenarios, location management must be enabled for use before real estate objects can be assigned to a lease-in contract. Real estate objects here, refer to buildings, lands, or groups of spaces created within SAP Cloud for Real Estate.
When a real estate object is enabled for use, it (single or grouped objects) is synchronized with SAP S/4HANA and is simultaneously assigned to a company code, a cost object, and usage type. You can optionally assign other attributes (such as fixed assets assigned to the location) to the enabled group.
Once enabled for use, objects are available for assignment to a lease-in contract.
With the SAP Fiori app “Manage Occupancy of Real Estate Object“, you can manage and maintain your occupancy groups.
This app provides the following key features:
- A new approach to display time-dependent data. The individual sections now feature an identifier to highlight whether or not the selected entry has been active in the past, is currently active or will become relevant in the future.
- Intent-based navigation to quickly access other apps with direct navigation to the relevant entry build-in.
- Adapt the user interface to customize fields, field labeling, and layout.
- Create your own app variants and make them accessible for end-users.
- Enabled variant management to define your own variants for tables.
- Embedded charts and graphs for data visualization.
- Enabled draft feature.