How Schluchseewerk AG transferred its authorizations to SAP S/4HANA

The implementation of SAP S/4HANA requires adjustments to the roles and authorizations for users. The careful execution of these adjustments plays a decisive role in ensuring functioning business processes and smooth operations, as users cannot access the required functionalities of SAP S/4HANA without the appropriate roles and authorizations. In addition, a functioning authorization concept is also a relevant security factor. As part of the implementation of SAP S/4HANA at Schluchseewerk AG, one of the largest operators of pumped storage power plants in Germany, IBsolution also carried out the redesign of the authorizations in its role as implementation partner and expert for SAP security.

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Adapting existing authorization structures

As far as the role concept and authorization structures were concerned, Schluchseewerk AG was well organized in SAP ECC. The job descriptions were plausible and the composite roles matched the existing jobs. Only the fact that no default values were used caused a comparatively higher effort during upgrades.

Due to the solid initial situation, the aim was to adopt as much of the existing concept as possible. When introducing SAP S/4HANA, it is inevitable that the roles will be revised in the context of the Simplification List in order to map the changes associated with the new ERP generation on the authorization side. An expansion of the scope made additional developments necessary during the course of the project.

Conversion to SAP Fiori interfaces

Schluchseewerk AG extensively uses SAP Fiori as its front-end technology. Accordingly, the SAP S/4HANA project involved controlling user access to the interfaces via Fiori roles. Initially, SAP Fiori and the existing SAP GUI interfaces will be operated in parallel. In the future, more and more legacy roles in SAP GUI will be replaced by SAP Fiori, so that perspectively only the modern and intuitive interface technology will be used. The native SAP Fiori apps often combine several transactions in a process-oriented manner and enable a simplified user experience. SAP Fiori is also crucial in terms of future viability, as innovations in SAP S/4HANA are implemented exclusively in SAP Fiori.

Groups or Spaces?

There are two basic concepts for organizing and structuring the user interfaces in SAP Fiori: Groups and Spaces. Groups are collections of tiles that are displayed on the SAP Fiori Launchpad. Each tile represents an application or a report.

Spaces are a relatively new approach in SAP Fiori, designed to further improve and personalize the user experience. As a container-like structure within SAP Fiori, a Space consists of different pages. Spaces allow the Fiori Launchpad to be structured according to specific roles or processes and provide clear, intuitive navigation by organizing relevant content for different user groups.

Schluchseewerk AG initially opted for groups as the organizational concept for the user interfaces in SAP Fiori. It now plans to switch to Spaces in order to benefit from the greater flexibility of this approach. This is because new features, such as the new start page in SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS01, are now only available for Spaces. This means that Schluchseewerk AG will be better able to adapt the interfaces to changing business requirements in future.

Intensive communication, trusting collaboration

Due to the outstanding importance of roles and authorizations for the smooth functioning of SAP S/4HANA, the experts from IBsolution relied on a close exchange with the project participants and the affected divisions of Schluchseewerk AG. Every change and adjustment in the project has an impact on authorizations and must be taken into account. Consequently, communication with those responsible and the users is extremely important in order to set up the roles and authorizations stringently.

Overall, the collaboration between Schluchseewerk AG and IBsolution was characterized by short paths, a constructive exchange and satisfaction on both sides. Not least thanks to this partnership of equals, it was possible to implement the requirements with regard to roles and authorizations appropriately. The successful collaboration will continue even after the go-live of SAP S/4HANA: As part of a Customer Success agreement, the experts from IBsolution will take care of the upcoming rework in terms of the authorization structure and the gradual conversion to SAP Fiori interfaces.

Photo: Schluchseewerk AG