Introduction
As Customers and Partners in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, we often come across situations where provisioning and onboarding of the systems can be a bit challenging to understand. Questions like below can sometimes be causing confusions and this blogpost is intended to help with providing ease of understanding around some of those questions.
Questions usually asked:
- Who provisions SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems for the customers?
- What's the sequence of provisioning of the systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition?
- Who receives the accesses to the systems?
- How to onboard additional users in the system?
- Is the initial email recipient also an administrator of the systems?
- What to do if we don't receive the initial emails about the systems?
- How to change the recipient of the initial emails?
- And much much more.....
Let's get Started
First and foremost, it's important to understand the landscape and without understanding the overall landscape we cannot get the full extent of how SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems work and at the same time how they are linked with the SAP Activate which is the fundamentals path while implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. It is highly recommended that you follow the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer judiciously to have an streamlined and optimized result in your SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.
As of today (whilst this blog in written), the landscape of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition consist of 3 system landscape - namely Development, Test and Production. But that's not it. We also have other systems during the complete implementation timeline which serve the major building blocks of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems. Those are the SAP for Me, SAP Central Business Configuration, SAP Cloud Identity Services (which consists of both SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Provisioning and SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication), Starter Systems and SAP Cloud ALM. I have found not another better figure to illustrate the landscape than the below which is available in the product documentation here - Initial System Access to SAP S/4HANA Cloud in Your 3-System Landscape.
1. System Landscape
2. Provisioning Sequence
From the above illustrations it can be understood what are the overall systems which will be requested, received, setup and then worked upon.
The 1st illustration - System Landscape depicts the different applications/systems which are going to be in the overall SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition landscape and the 2nd illustration - Provisioning Sequence depicts the provisioning sequence of the various systems timeline mapped with the SAP Activate phases/ If you notice both illustrations, the SAP Cloud Identity Services is not required to be requested separately and as a part of the SAP Cloud Services and included in the Full Usage Equivalent (FUE) calculations. For more information please check the Service Use Description . Hence the SAP Cloud Identity Services are provisioned automatically and by default by SAP. In certain situations, if customers/partners already has a SAP Cloud Services contracted by SAP, the previously provisioned SAP Cloud Identity Services are identified and reused even for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition systems. From the 1st illustration - System Landscape, it's clear that during the overall provisioning sequence of the complete landscape, customers/partners will have two SAP Cloud Identity Services - one for Non-production landscape, depicted as Test landscape (includes the SAP Central Business Configuration, Starter System, Development System and the Test System) whereas the other SAP Cloud Identity Services alone for Productive Landscape (includes only SAP Cloud ALM and Production System).
Hence the overall landscape can be split as below:
| Systems\Landscapes | Customer Test Landscape | Customer Productive Landscape |
| SAP for Me | 1 SAP for Me accessed during the Prepare phase | Same SAP for Me accessed from Prepare phase |
| SAP Cloud Identity Services | 1 Non productive SAP Cloud Identity Authentication Services | Productive SAP Cloud Identity Authentication Services |
| 1 Non productive SAP Cloud Identity Provisioning Services | Productive SAP Cloud Identity Provisioning Services | |
| SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition Systems | 1 SAP S/4HANA Cloud Starter System (Only available till 30 days of Production System delivery) | 1 SAP S/4HANA Cloud Production System |
| 1 SAP S/4HANA Cloud Development System | ||
| 1 SAP S/4HANA Cloud Test System | ||
| SAP Central Business Configuration | 1 SAP Central Business Configuration deployed to both Starter System (via Evaluation projects) and Development System (via Implementation projects) | Not Applied (As the same SAP Central Business Configuration deployed to the Development System is eventually connected via transport routes from Development >> Test >> Production) |
| SAP Cloud ALM | Not Applied (The same SAP Cloud ALM which is setup in the Productive Landscape is used across the landscape throughout all the SAP Activate phases from the beginning since the Prepare Phase) | 1 SAP Cloud ALM |
For what's included in the Partner Demonstration Landscape, this blogpost by alessandro.sabidussi already covers the landscape and what's covered in it - Step-by-Step Guide to Onboarding and Activating the Partner Cloud Test, Demo, and Development for S/....
Now assuming that we have a slightly better understanding of the system landscape and the provisioning sequence, without further ado, let's look how we can tackle the doubts during the the initial provisioning & onboarding of these systems. We will take it one by one and I will try to provide guidance, naturally referring to the SAP Activate roadmap and other assets available through SAP standard support channels.
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Customer Onboarding Resource Center:
To better understand the onboarding in details from our experts, I highly encourage our viewers to register for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition Onboarding sessions here - Onboarding Resource Center on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition Onboarding Webinars.
Also our expert colleague daniel.de.souza has created a blogpost which can be referred for the same - RISE with SAP S/4HANA Onboarding | New to SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
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So here we go by posing a situation and then trying to provide guidance for that situation.
***In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition - what is the sequence of system provisioning?***
Depending on who you are (Customer or Partner), the sequence of the overall landscape is depicted in the below illustration. This is just a bit more elaborative depiction mixing both 1st illustration - System Landscape and 2nd illustration - Provisioning Sequence with the personas who are looking for the required landscape options in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.
Now in the below illustration, the Discover phase is also an important phase for SAP Partners who are exploring the Test, Demo and Development (TDD) system a.k.a Partner Demo system. More details can be found here on the Partner Demonstration Landscape (Partner). Hence in the below illustration, I have focused on the sequence as well as the landscape which the Partner can obtain and setup in the Discover phase. Needless to say, if any SAP Partner is wanting to request the TDD system separately without being associated to any implementation project for any customer, they can still explore and order the Partner Demonstration Landscape and still the sequence and the steps remain the same.
Speaking about the Customer landscape, depending on who does the implementation - either the Customers themselves or the SAP Partners can look into the sequencing and the flow for the landscape. Hence in the below illustration, from the Prepare to Run phase we have considered the Customer landscape including the SAP for Me and all the other systems we spoke earlier about.
3. Sequencing of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Landscape
***What is SAP for Me in the context of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and who is responsible for requesting the systems***
Though the aim of this blogpost is not to explain the purpose of every individual system/application, still lets quickly brush up the concepts to better understand the landscape in the context of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. It is always the Customers and/or the Partners who will be responsible for requesting the system provisioning via the SAP for Me.
In SAP for Me, customers and partners gain transparency and receive important alerts, metrics, and insights about their SAP product portfolio in one place. SAP for Me is a digital companion that helps customers and partners interact easily with SAP and get immediate guidance. It is this companion which is going to be your single entry point for requesting and provisioning the systems as well as support related concerns which are going to be worked upon as the landscape. Please remember that without SAP for Me, you cannot request or provision any system. Hence it is utmost important to have the SAP for Me aligned in order to get started with your implementation for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. All about SAP for Me can be found here - SAP for Me Online Help. In order to access SAP for Me, you need to have two things as prerequisites - firstly the SAP support user (S-user) and the SAP universal ID. Existing customer can use the already assigned S-User. This is required for you to access the SAP for Me. Depending on whether you are a Partner or Customer, you will have accesses to the SAP for Me linked to your S-user ID with which you are logging into the SAP for Me. This is also important from the implementation point of view as this will be the deciding factor about who will be requesting the provisioning of the systems eventually.
The responsibility of the system requests can depend on the contract and agreement between the Customer and the Partner. It is found that those projects have better success ratios in which there is clear demarcation around the roles and responsibilities on this administrative tasks and needs to be mandatorily aligned with the complete project plan, dates and the milestones during the project implementation. Below assets/KBAs can be helpful for Customers to provide access to the Partner colleagues:
- SAP for Me First Access (Public)
- SAP Note 2518600 - How to grant support authorization to a partner S-user using the Service
Partner ... - SAP Note 2518736 - Service Partners: How to get authorizations for your S-user to create support inc...
- SAP Partner user requesting authorizations for an end customer account - SAP for Me
- SAP for Me Initial Access Video | Customer Onboarding
- SAP Note 1511008 - How to add or change S-user ID authorizations -SAP for Me
***Who signs the contract and how do we know about the access?***
The IT Contact Person (from the Customer or Partner) is the main contact with respect to the contract being signed with SAP. This is the person who receives the Order confirmation email within the 24 hours of signing the contract. This is the main account contact from the contract who is the recipient for this email. This order confirmation email consist of the Customer ID number, Purchase Order Number and the Next Steps. Hence it is utmost important to have a valid email ID for the IT Contact Person and the person with this email should be someone who is proactive with the emails, or else you can lose up precious time in locating the order confirmation emails and acting on them in a timely manner.
Also this IT contact person is the main administrator for your company so this person also receives the Welcome emails (for both S/4HANA Cloud contract as well as for S-user details) which consists of onboarding instructions and guidance for the contract and links around it. Subsequently SAP considers this user as a super user and hence allocated with super administrator authorizations and can further perform administrative tasks or even add new administrators for further delegative tasks . This person will also be receiving the initial system access emails (these emails consist details around system types, activation links, activating accounts to the admin console, creating passwords, username and next steps with more information). So as you see there are multiple emails which are expected to be acted upon by the IT contact.
If the person receiving the cloud system emails (IT Contact) is incorrect or needs to be changed, enter an incident under the component XX-S4C-OPR-SRV and Title 'Request update to the Contact Person IT. Additional people can be assigned as a Communication Contact to receive general communications related to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems. These assignments can be requested via the - Cloud System Notification Subscriptions link.
I am going to reuse the slides from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-system landscape Starter System Provisioning Process (Public) in order to showcase the provisioning emails summary:
Email Summary (1/2)
Email Summary (2/2)
Similarly the other welcome emails for the Development, Test and Production systems are received by the IT Contact Person.
Please also check the below KBA -
- 1271482 - How does an administrator create or delete S-user IDs? - SAP for Me
- 2596214 - How to maintain Super, Cloud, and User Administrator S-user IDs listed in My Important Con...
- How to determine if my S-user ID is a Super Administrator, Cloud Administrator, or User Administrato...
Flow diagram for quick understanding:
Flow Chart
***What if there is a problem specifically with the Welcome emails/S-user emails?***
Step 1 -> If you have received the Order confirmation emails but awaiting other welcome emails, it can sometimes take around 4 days to the Contract Start Date
Step 2 -> We also advice to check your spam/junk of the mailbox for the Welcome emails.
Step 3 -> Also check the below KBA if it covers one of the use cases -
- 2490845 - New S-user ID did not receive a Welcome e-mail to set their password - SAP for Me
- 1808560 - How to reset an S-user ID password - SAP for Me
Step 4 -> If further to this, you haven't still received any emails it is recommended to immediately reach out to the - CIC (Customer Interaction Center) and simultaneously notify to your SAP contact (SAP Account Executive, SAP Customer Success Partners, Partner Delivery Manager or any other SAP contact associated with your SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition from SAP).
Note: Please note that the Welcome emails are related to your contract and not S/4HANA Cloud Operations teams. XX-S4C-OPR-SRV can only help with your IT contact person change or system provisioning emails and not the Welcome emails or S-user related emails. Hence in these cases CIC is the best bet to get the fastest assistance related to your contract and welcome emails.
***What to do with problems with Initial System emails or IT contact person emails***
Step 1 -> Check whether the same contact who received the Welcome emails also received the Initial System emails. Most of the times, it is the case that the IT contact person who has received the initial system access emails has either not attended to those initial system access emails or the IT contact person has changed since the signing of contract.
Step 2 -> Check the spam/junk in your mailbox. Also at certain times, the emails might have ended up into the spam/junk so it is always good to re-confirm if the emails were received or not.
Step 3 -> Confirm who is IT Contact Person with the organization, It can be Customer or Partner delegated by the Customer. Depending on the scenario as mentioned above it is advisable that the IT contact person should be someone who can be tasked with the super administration tasks. Also this user receives all the initial emails for the system access and is already created by SAP with all the administrative authorizations.
Step 4 -> Correct/Change the IT Contact person with SAP. Once again If the person receiving the cloud system emails (IT Contact) is incorrect or needs to be changed, enter an incident under the component XX-S4C-OPR-SRV and Title 'Request update to the Contact Person IT. As the process for the initial system emails reception is more or less the same, may it be SAP Central Business Configuration, SAP Cloud ALM, Starter System, Development System, Test System and Production System the actions to be taken upon issues around emails also remain almost the same.
Please also check the below assets:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-system landscape Starter System Provisioning Process (Public)
- Request SAP Central Business Configuration Tenant
- Request SAP S/4HANA Cloud Starter System – This has the steps for changing IT contact person as well as adding communication contacts
- Initial System Access to SAP S/4HANA Cloud in Your 3-System Landscape
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-System - Landscape Cloud Test, Demo, and Development for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, 1-Sy...
- From A to Z: Setup a Starter System of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition
- If nothing from above helps – Ticket – XX-S4C-OPR-SRV
I hope with the above explanations and links provided it might ease up some of the onboarding queries and help smoothen the onboarding tasks. As and when there might be a new case which would be worth illustrating, will keep this blogpost updated around onboarding issues.
Thanks,
Saumi
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