Unlocking the Potential of Intelligent ERP: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 Update

The 2408 update to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition brings the latest enhancements to our intelligent ERP solution, designed to help businesses run efficiently and effectively.

As a leader in the SaaS and cloud-enabled midsize business ERP applications market, as named by IDC, we are committed to delivering continuous value to our customers. Let’s dive in and explore the exciting new enhancements of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2408 update.

Improved Productivity with AI

The latest AI innovations for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition are redefining the way businesses operate. With embedded AI capabilities, companies can now streamline operations, make data-driven decisions, and ultimately drive growth and success in today’s competitive market.

Embrace the future of business with these state-of-the-art AI innovations:

Our AI copilot Joule enables users to express their business need in natural language and supports with answers based on SAP Help Portal documentation, with fast navigation to applications and with role-based insights on business objects.

The AI-assisted easy filter and AI-assisted smart summarization features in SAP Fiori enhance the user experience for business users. These features allow for efficient natural language filtering of business data and seamless summarization capabilities, enabling users to quickly extract relevant information and jump-start subsequent collaboration. This leads to faster decision-making, improved productivity, and more effective communication across teams.*

Intelligent resource matching reduces the time to find skilled resources by providing advanced skill matching.*

Leveraging generative AI, the review booklet for cost centers enables faster analysis and understanding of cost center data, facilitating quicker insights and more informed decision-making.*

*These features are currently available in beta; sign up here

Modern and Collaborative User Experience

This update is set to transform the way users work with user experience enhancements, enabling direct access to important applications and intelligent decision-making features.

Notifications of To Dos in Microsoft Teams allow direct actions on workflow items, saving time and reducing the need to switch between applications.

With the share as authenticated adaptive card-based loop component, users can collaborate with colleagues directly from an app and share live information using Microsoft Loop components. Cards can be copied between Microsoft applications; for example, from Microsoft Teams to Microsoft Outlook.

The Microsoft Copilot Integration for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, in combination with share as authenticated card-based loop component, enables users to collaborate, share live data, and access business data directly from their daily applications and activities.*

*This feature is currently available in beta

Updates to My Home include enhanced workflow-relevant information and in-place actions for daily tasks​, an intelligent homepage experience to boost productivity​, intelligent app recommendations, and pre-delivered cards for new cloud customers​. The updates allow business users to execute their tasks in My Home with speed and precision.

SAP Mobile Start allows direct access to the most important applications on the start screen with app favorites, displaying SAP Analytics Cloud KPIs as monitoring tiles and widgets, and managing to-do attachments to support the decision-making process.

Intelligent and Sustainable Finance

Propel your business toward a more intelligent and sustainable future with the latest finance enhancements, providing tools to achieve transparency, analyze financial data, and streamline processes to improve your business performance.

The cost center review booklet provides overhead cost accountants with transparent cost-center reporting, enabling daily analysis of actuals, plan data, commitments, and statistical key figures in one report, with the ability to switch between guided views and adaptable slicing, dicing, and pivoting based on business needs.

The service profitability review booklet provides an interactive and comprehensive view of the financial KPIs related to the service profitability.

The Manage Operating G/L Accounts app streamlines processes and increases performance with a modern SAP Fiori app, providing a user-friendly interface and efficient workflows that enhance overall productivity and accuracy in managing general ledger accounts.

Powering Service-Centric Companies

The latest updates for service-centric companies support your business growth and improve your operational effectiveness.

Professional services companies can implement and automate a new business model in which they can negotiate a shared risk approach with their clients. This leads to more accurate real-time profitability and reduces the need for manual effort when a lower cost rate is negotiated for additional work.

Automating recommendations and simplifying the sales order process as part of the modern order management journey improves efficiency for internal sales representatives. This reduces administrative efforts and provides seamless support for business users in their daily work.

By leveraging advanced solution bundling in solution orders, businesses can facilitate the transition from selling products to higher-margin services and solutions, using pre-defined configurable bundle products which consist of various components in one order.

Changeable sales orders for solution orders provide flexibility in defining business roles through segregation of duties for solution order capturing and sales order fulfilment, improving business user productivity. Additionally, rate plan selection in solution orders minimizes the subscription master data required to accommodate the variations of a subscription business model.

The creation of proof of services for unplanned lean services by referencing existing contracts guides users to the right contract item during the creation of service entry sheets. This supports compliance with contract-based buying for unplanned services and offers flexibility to suppliers for selecting products and services from contracts when submitting proof of service.

Boosting Manufacturing and Product-Centric Companies

Elevate operational efficiency, streamline processes, and unlock new revenue opportunities with updates for product-centric companies.

Partial goods receipt posting enables the warehouse staff to receive the handling unit and start the put-away process immediately after unloading it, instead of checking the complete inbound delivery first. By allowing immediate action on received goods, warehouses can streamline their workflows, improve accuracy in inventory recording, and optimize resource utilization — ultimately leading to better overall productivity and reduced operational costs.

Automate the generation of packaging items based on assigned handling units to effectively track stock count and manage packaging materials. Integration with SAP Returnable Packaging Management enhances supply chain transparency and operational efficiency by facilitating accurate exchanges and account reconciliation with business partners.

Enabling return to supplier (scope item BMK) with cloud transportation management now supports advanced scenarios for efficient transportation planning for supplier returns. This enhancement optimizes logistics, ensuring timely and cost-effective return shipments, ultimately improving supply chain efficiency.

Enhancement of the dynamic third-party order processing with advanced available-to-promise functionality increases order fulfillment rates and flexibility in sourcing, based on availability information, and minimizes logistical steps and costs by directly shipping from the supplier to the customer.

Establishing a Solid SaaS Foundation

The latest SaaS foundation enhancements are designed to improve your experience and workflow efficiency:

• Localization investments have been made to ensure compliance with local regulations and cultural norms, including the introduction of new local public-sector version for Germany, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK and functional enhancements to our standard 59 local versions
• Providing a unified access to documentation about identity and access management on the SAP Help Portal ensures regulatory compliance and compliance with security standards
• The purpose assignment for business partner master data simplifies data separation of master data along with data controller and purpose attributes (legal entity) for most business processes dealing with personal data

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Arpan Shah is senior vice president of Public Cloud ERP Product Management at SAP.