Preparing for Your SAP Upgrade - A New Study from Panaya Reveals Common Issues and Best Practices

In the 2009 SAP Upgrade Survey conducted by Panaya Ltd., 157 SAP ERP systems were analyzed to discover some remarkable under-the-hood upgrade insights. This first-of-its-kind study reveals the top five application issues you can expect when upgrading, their causes, and various approaches for dealing with them. The study included companies from a wide range of industries, countries, and ERP system configurations (for more information on the companies used for the study, see Annex A).

Using the latest in supercomputer simulation technology, every line of custom code ever written for each of the ERP systems was analyzed. SAP system managers and upgrade project managers will find this study's findings helpful in preparing for their own upgrade projects by knowing what to expect and how best to prepare. In this article, you can learn about the lessons learned from Panaya's study and the SAP upgrade tips we learned from our survey participants.

Top 3 SAP Upgrade Challenges Every Manager Must Address

If you are planning an upgrade, it is crucial to address the key challenges if you want to mitigate the risk of errors.

In the Panaya 2009 SAP Upgrade Survey, 157 European and North American SAP customers and system integrators were asked to rank the various challenges involved in their upgrade.

According to the respondents, the top three challenges were:

1. Cost and effort estimation;
2. Cost justification;
3. Impact analysis.

For completeness, we are including the full list and ranking below:

How to Upgrade SAP Notes

What are SAP Notes?
Notes are SAP provided code corrections for its own objects, (objects residing in the SAP namespace). They are regularly released and are made available via the SAP service marketplace.

How to Upgrade SAP Cloned Programs

What are SAP Cloned Programs?
Cloned programs are "backdoor" enhancements or changes to the SAP standard code. SAP advises its customers not to make modifications to SAP Standard code. Developers often copy standard programs and modifiey the copies in order to adapt SAP functionality to their specific processes and needs. For example, a developer might copy VA01 into ZVA01 and modfiy the code of ZVA01. Cloned programs are also known as "ZCOPY"

How to Upgrade your SAP Batch Input

What is an SAP Batch Input??
Batch Input is a legacy technique which has been available and widely used by SAP customers since its early release. It allows customer to safely import master data and documents into the system by feeding the interactive transaction screens, thus ensuring that data completeness is maintained and all due validity checks are performed. Batch input is a method of transferring large amounts of data between SAP systems.

The 2009 SAP Upgrade Survey Results

Last month, 152 European and North-American SAP customers and system integrators shared their upgrade plans with the community. The 2009 SAP Upgrade Survey contains the important benchmark metrics from the participants.

This FREE report reveals the latest answers to question such as:

• How long should an ERP 6.0 upgrade take?
• What are the biggest challenges and most time consuming tasks?
• To what degree should partners be used?
• Who are the most commonly used partners?

With 15 pages of factual information, more than 20 charts, and over 100 metrics, this report is a must-have resource for any company that is using SAP solutions.

Download an excerpt of the 2009 SAP Upgrade Survery Results