Clean master data for S/4

Furthermore, it can also make sense in the greenfield approach to convert to the business partner in advance in ECC 6.0. In the Adesso projects for Business Partner conversion and the discussions held with our SAP customers in this regard, two central questions repeatedly arise that need to be clarified in order to assess the scope of the project: How good is the data quality of the accounts receivable, accounts payable, contact persons and employees? And, is the master data maintained according to the requirements of SAP S/4 Hana?

Data Cleansing

These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily without prior evaluation of the master data. However, the correct answers to these questions influence the effort required by the business departments for master data cleansing and the uninterrupted progress of the overall project plan for the -business partner changeover in ECC.

If you are cleaning up the master data, the next question is whether there are duplicate problems in the master data. You can convert to S/4 with duplicates. However, this would take the data junk into the new system. Taking data junk into the new S/4 world does not make sense. The promise of SAP S/4 Hana: The complete digitization of business processes is only possible with clean master data. For us at Adesso, the solution to this problem is obvious: The master data must be raised to an appropriate quality level before the conversion. With this in mind, we developed the master data evaluation tool, CVI Q-Check-Tool (CVI, Customer Vendor Integration), which is used successfully in our projects and is fully integrated into our Active Transformation process model for business partner conversion. The CVI Q-Check tool provides support on three levels: Identification of non-S/4-compliant master data fields; duplicate checking (sharp and fuzzy as well as with different phonetic search methods if desired); and evaluation of the where-used list.

The tool is transferred to the customer's ECC system via a transport request and delivers easy-to-use Excel worklists, which can be processed in the departments in the same way as the checklists and cleaned up in ECC 6.0 (data cleansing). Another advantage is that no notes have to be imported into the ECC system, as is the case with SAP's standard tools.

In some projects, the CVI Q-Check tool also uncovered other issues, such as custom number ranges, etc., that were once incorporated into the ERP system years ago but were never actually used or will not be used in the future.

The CVI Q-Check tool is built on a powerful framework (Q-Check). In addition to the analysis methods contained in CVI Q-Check, other methods can be implemented and used, for example for checking duplicates in the material master or other master data objects.

Furthermore, methods of the Q-Check framework can be integrated into operational processes or workflows, for example, to check their rules when creating master data and to protect the user from creating unclean master data. This ensures that master data is kept clean in the long term.

Business Partner Conversion

Our process model for the business partner changeover integrates the evaluation of master data right into the first phase of our process model "Project Preparation and Analysis". Based on the findings, the business partner changeover project can be planned without further risks and the workload of the specialist departments for data cleansing can be determined at an early stage. After the departments have completed the master data cleanup, the business partner conversion continues with the other project phases in accordance with the Adesso procedure model. 

The process model, which includes all activities for the business partner changeover, offers the advantage that at the beginning it can be agreed together with the customer at the level of the activities to be carried out who is responsible for which activities and who carries them out. This allows the customer to be involved in the changeover and provides maximum transparency regarding the activities to be carried out. 

If data cleansing of the relevant master data is intended, the use of the CVI Q-Check tool significantly increases project efficiency and transparency for the customer. This ensures that the digitization of business processes can be successfully carried out with clean master data.

The combination of the Adesso Active Transformation process model for the business partner conversion and the CVI Q-Check tool provides all the content needed to optimally prepare an ECC system for the S/4 conversion with clean master data and the necessary activities.

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