How to achieve drama-free SAP go-live

“We went live, inventory is in place… but Maintenance can’t create a Notification!” That’s what the maintenance planner told me right after go-live. Why? Because SAP PM Cutover Activities were missed. Here’s a real-time breakdown of what must happen before you can truly start SAP PM activities after go-live: ⸻ When do SAP PM activities start? Only after these are done: 1. Org Structure Set – Plant, maintenance plant, planner groups 2. Master Data Ready – Equipment, Functional Locations, Task Lists, BOMs 3. Inventory Loaded – Spare parts in place, Stock uploaded (561 Mvt type) 4. FI/CO Integration Checked – Cost centers, orders, settlement profiles Now, let’s talk SAP PM Cutover Activities: ⸻ Top SAP PM Cutover Tasks – From My Project Experience 1. Number Ranges Activation • Internal/External number ranges for Notifications, Orders, Measurement documents must be activated in Production client. • Miss this, and you get “number range not maintained” errors. 2. Scheduling Batch Jobs • Maintenance plans don’t generate calls unless background jobs like IP30 (Plan Scheduling) or IP10 are scheduled. • We always scheduled IP30 daily, post-midnight, to automate call generation. 3. Initializing Maintenance Plans • All Time-based and Performance-based plans need to be manually initiated (IP10 or via BDC/BAPI). • Without this, no Preventive Orders are created—even if your plans exist! 4. Open Notifications/Orders Migration (Optional) • For critical equipment, we migrated high-priority open Notifications/Orders from legacy system using IW21/IW31 upload. 5. Technical Object Hierarchy Recheck • Verify that Functional Location > Equipment > BOM structure is intact after transport/migration. 6. Master Data Validation • Ensure Work Centers, Measuring Points, Task Lists are active and complete. 7. Authorizations and Roles • Make sure maintenance planners, technicians, and supervisors have the correct SAP roles to execute IW21/IW31/IP10 etc. ⸻ Real lesson? In one go-live, Maintenance Plans were created—but not initialized. No calls, no orders, no PM activities. Business thought the system was broken. It wasn’t. We just missed a small cutover task. Small things make a big difference in SAP. ⸻ Have you faced any surprises during SAP PM go-lives? Let’s share and learn from each other’s experiences. #SAPPM #GoLive #CutoverActivities #SAPImplementation #SAPMaintenance #SAPConsulting #RealTimeExperience #KantKonnect #SAPCommunity

How Clean Core Saved My Go-Live (and My Sanity) Five months before our S/4HANA go-live, business heads were nervous. Really nervous. The kind of nervous where they start secretly googling “How to Undo SAP HANA upgrade ?” Why? ☠️ 6,800 custom objects 👻 312 user exits 💣 Enhancements nested inside enhancements... like ERP Inception. It was not a system. It was an archaeological site, raw and lurking with hidden dangers! So, we launched a mission codenamed “Operation Baggage Checkroom” with the sole objective to detox before we detonate. ·        Step 1: Use SAP Custom Code Analyzer + UPL to find the dead code. (Spoiler: 42% had been ghosting us since 2011.) ·        Step 2: Chase business users like friendly bounty hunters with one question:  “When was the last time you actually used this Z-report?” Silence. Nervous laughter. Convenient amnesia. Repeat n times ......until they surrender. ·        Step 3: Rebuild only what is mission-critical, irreplaceable, and not easily replicated. Everything else? Archived with full military honours. An exemplary example was a legendary Z-inventory report from 2010 with 12 filters. 7 joins. 4-minute runtime. We rebuilt it using standard CDS + Fiori + Embedded Analytics. Now it loads in 5 seconds. No prayers required. 🎯 Results of Operation Baggage Checkroom? ✅ 42% custom code reduction ✅ BTP = innovation playground ✅ Go-live = zero escalations, zero zombies ✅ And yes, we went from “those tech villains” to “digital heroes” in record time. So, what changed? Mindset. The moment businesses realized they could get what they needed without hijacking the core, they were all in. Because Clean Core is not “No.” It is “Yes but smarter.” So next time someone says: “We’ve always done it this way,” Just smile and ask: “But has it ever worked cleanly?” Clean Core does not just fix your ERP. It detoxes your thinking first and foremost. #CleanCore #S4HANA #RISEwithSAP #SAPBTP #DigitalTransformation #WittyERP #SAPLeadership

"𝟔𝟓% 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐀𝐏 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝟓𝟒% 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬. 💵 𝑻𝒉𝒆 #1 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑰 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝑺𝑨𝑷 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒓: 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒌 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒖𝒅𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒔? 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 20+ 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝑨𝑷 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒎𝒆..." 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞: Every SAP project faces the 𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 - 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞, 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭. But here's the reality: effective risk management isn't an obstacle to this balance, it's the key to achieving it. 𝐌𝐲 𝟓-𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝟏. 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞) • Build 𝟏𝟓-𝟐𝟎% 𝐛𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 zones beyond vendor estimates • Conduct risk workshops before locking budgets • Map risks to specific project phases using 𝖲̲𝖠̲𝖯̲ ̲𝖠̲𝖼̲𝗍̲𝗂̲𝗏̲𝖺̲𝗍̲𝖾̲ ̲𝗆̲𝖾̲𝗍̲𝗁̲𝗈̲𝖽̲𝗈̲𝗅̲𝗈̲𝗀̲𝗒̲ 𝟐. 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 • 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐬: System integration, data migration complexities • 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐬: Scope creep, resource allocation issues • 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐬: Change resistance, stakeholder alignment. Weekly risk reviews (not monthly) - SAP projects move too fast • Set specific warning triggers: "𝐼𝑓 85% 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛'𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘 16, 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 𝑔𝑜-𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒" • Use SAP's Risk Management tools for continuous tracking 𝟒. 𝐁𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭-𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 • Prioritize fit-to-standard approaches - reduces timeline risks by 40% • Allocate 2-3x expected effort for data migration (consistently underestimated) • Create scope reduction options without compromising core requirements 𝟓. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 • Executive sponsorship prevents "analysis paralysis" • Cross-functional teams finish 30% faster than part-time participants • Quality gates with clear decision authority 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞: Risk management isn't about avoiding all risks - it's about making informed decisions with quantified impacts. Every risk needs an owner, a cost, and a mitigation plan. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑺𝑨𝑷 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒌 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒆? 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 - 𝒍𝒆𝒕'𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔.

Nailing Your SAP Project Rollout: Do These 5 Things Leading major SAP implementations requires sweating the details. After managing dozens of rollouts, I’ve distilled the keys to flawless delivery into 5 make-or-break tactics. 1. Invest heavily upfront in planning and scoping. Don't rush the blueprint. 2. Plan for continuity risks like staff turnover. Don't assume the team will remain intact. 3. Rehearse go-live with realistic test data. Don't wing critical transition activities. 4. Overinvest in change management and adoption. Don't focus purely on technical rollout. 5. Assemble support SWAT teams for post-launch issues. Expect fires will need fighting after go-live! What other must-do’s or common pitfalls have you navigated on complex SAP deliveries? What truths resonate most from your experiences? #SAP #Project #Rollout