2027 marks the end of the support for SAP-ERP. SAP customers need to start their migration to SAP S/4HANA. In this article, we will show how low-code can help with that

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Nevertheless, SAP customers should start to contemplate as soon as possible, how they can best perform their migration towards S/4HANA (german)

This includes checking the existing processes and deciding on which of them should be considered for the migration (german).

At the moment, there is still a fair amount of hesitation in th german-speaking area. According to the Lünendonk study 2019, 52% of enterprises are still in the process of creating the business case. 30% are still creating their migration roadmap.

In this context, one central aspect for the digitalization of business processes plays an important role: The creation of applications.

Standard vs. Freestyle

Those who have in the past created applications with SAP, that do not deviate from the standard, meaning they did not have to be adjusted individually, do not face a big challenge. There are easy migration possibilities for that.

However, data migration from old ERP systems (e.g. R3) with client-server software to S/4HANA currently poses a problem for those SAP customers whose applications differ from the standard content because they have created individual freestyle applications and are therefore not compatible with S/4HANA. This is the case with UI5 apps.

Now that SAP is moving its entire technology stack to browsers and web technologies- what will these customers do with the numerous changes and adjustments, they have performed within their client-server-software in the last couple of decades.

Since Fiori is the heart of the SAP UI strategy (german), sooner or later all SAP UIs will have to be guided by or based on Fiori.

Fiori Apps

Affected SAP customers must therefore port these old, individually created applications in the form of Fiori apps. Companies that are planning to revise their applications anyway, make them mobile-capable and/or use new features that S/HANA offers and that were not available with R/3 (machine failures can be detected more quickly due to high processing and reaction speed, considerably lower total memory requirements, with Fiori the SAP system can be operated on all end devices without any problems, etc. (german)), can do this with all old applications, of course.

Fiori Apps are a modern SAP dialog that runs via the browser, is mobile-capable and has been greatly enhanced in terms of design. In the course of their S/4HANA migration, however, they often have to perform this porting hundreds or thousands of times, which of course means a massive amount of additional work – especially if, as is the case with Fiori, everything has to be programmed manually. This is made even more difficult by the high lack of resources in terms of experts for the implementation of UI5 apps at many companies that work with SAP systems.

The topic of end device independence is also important. After migration, the applications are available on the desktop. However, it must still be possible to create an application in such a way that it can be made executable for all end devices in the future and covers the corresponding functionalities. Applications on data glasses, smartwatches or the integration of new technologies such as AR/VR cannot be implemented as standard. This alone would expand the spectrum of possibilities enormously.

Low-code technology helps

Generally, the Fiori Launchpad is avery good option for the creation of Freestyle UI5 apps or the replacement of already existing apps. However, this prerequisites UI5 coding skills.

However, if the goal of S/4HANA application migration – in addition to the benefits of the Fiori advantages during creation – is to save additional time and to involve all departments with their expertise in the implementation, an alternative solution should be used: The Simplifier Low Code Platform. Why? The SAPUI5 framework is used to develop Fiori interfaces. Simplifier is the only low-code platform that works with the OpenUI5 framework and generates HTML5 applications based on UI5.

Simplifier can also be used to generate both end device and operating system independent apps.

Due to the fact that Simplifier automatically generates quality-checked source code, a considerable amount of programming effort is eliminated. Creating apps with Simplifier is very easy to learn. This in turn enables employees from the specialty departments to participate in the creation of applications even without programming knowledge. Simplifier also simplifies the integration of existing necessary SAP systems by providing ready-made standard interfaces to SAP systems such as REST, SOAP, SQL, OPC-UA or SAP RFC.

Summary

If you are faced with the question of how best to migrate to S/4HANA, you should consider using low-code technology to easily create UI5 apps.

Simplifier offers the possibility to quickly and easily replace existing R/3-based “freestyle UI5 applications” and prepare these applications for use on a variety of the latest devices.

Because Simplifier is easy to learn, employees from specialist departments who do not have any special programming skills can still participate in the creation of applications and support IT and application developers in various processes within Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). This results in a large time-saving potential and the lack of resources is counteracted in a targeted manner.

Simplifier’s agile methodical approach also helps with the timely migration of existing R/3 content to the S/4 world and also supports the simple integration of all necessary SAP systems.

However, this by no means exhausts all the possibilities for creating apps. Would you like to learn more about the advantages of using low-code technology in this context?

Click here!