SAP Readiness Check: Are You Ready for Migration?

Alexander Kunevich, S/4HANA Conversion PM, ACBaltica

The move to SAP S/4HANA starts even before the actual migration. It starts with checking the current state of the system and understanding the real volume of changes to be made. This is where the SAP Readiness Check comes in. It is an official SAP tool that evaluates the system's readiness for digital transformation.

This article explores what the SAP Readiness Check is, how it works, its main use cases, and the key capabilities organizations should understand before starting any SAP transformation.

What is SAP Readiness Check?

The SAP Readiness Check is an SAP analytical tool designed to assess the technical and functional readiness of existing SAP systems for digital transformation, upgrades, or migration to new SAP solutions, including S/4HANA, BW/4HANA, SAP Datasphere, etc.

The tool does the following:

• gathers technical and functional data from the current SAP system;

• performs readiness assessment for the selected transformation scenario;

• puts all the results together in one analytical dashboard.

Note: This tool does not perform system conversion or data migration. Instead, it identifies the scope of upcoming changes, potential risks, compatibility gaps, and the overall complexity of the transformation, which influences the choice of transformation strategy.

The evolution of SAP Readiness Check

The tool was originally developed to support the transition from SAP ECC to S/4HANA and to assess system compatibility prior to migration.

Today, this remains its main use. However, SAP has expanded the tool's scope of application and provides several scenario-specific versions of SAP Readiness Check, including:

1. SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA;

2. SAP Readiness Check for S/4HANA upgrades;

3. SAP Readiness Check for SAP BW/4HANA upgrade;

4. SAP Readiness Check for SAP ERP usage and data profiling;

5. SAP Readiness Check for SAP Customer Experience solutions;

6. SAP Readiness Check for SAP SuccessFactors solutions;

7. SAP Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM;

8. SAP Readiness Check for SAP Datasphere, SAP BW bridge.

Therefore, we see that SAP Readiness Check approach is becoming the SAP standard for preparing for major changes. However, despite this growth, the most common and popular use cases of SAP Readiness Check remain:

• SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA;

• SAP Readiness Check for S/4HANA upgrades;

• SAP Readiness Check for SAP BW/4HANA;

• SAP Readiness Check for SAP Datasphere.

These scenarios need the most detailed technical and architectural assessment before transformation.

How SAP Readiness Check works

Architecturally, SAP Readiness Check is a hybrid assessment framework that combines on-system data collection with SAP-managed cloud-based analytical services.

The process typically consists of three stages:

1. Data collection: In the source system, SAP extraction programs collect system metadata, information about installed components, custom code statistics, usage data, and data volume metrics. At this stage, business transactional data is not exported;

2. Upload to SAP-managed backend: The collected assessment data is securely uploaded to SAP-managed backend services, where SAP performs aggregation of results, correlation between multiple readiness indicators, compatibility evaluations, and preparation of the analytical results dashboard;

3. Dashboard: The results are presented in the web-based SAP Readiness Check dashboard, which consolidates technical, functional, operational, and compatibility findings into a single analytical interface.

Key analytical features of SAP Readiness Check

For the assessment, SAP Readiness Check runs a round of analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of the current landscape. Let’s explore the process, using the example of S/4HANA migration:

1. Compatibility analysis: SAP Readiness Check ensures your current SAP system version is compatible with the target S/4HANA version and analyzes installed add-ons and extensions to verify their compatibility with SAP S/4HANA.

2. Custom code impact analysis: The tool assesses custom ABAP code for any potential compatibility issues with the S/4HANA environment and identifies obsolete functions that need replacement in the S/4HANA landscape.

3. Sizing and performance recommendations: SAP Readiness Check provides insights into hardware and system performance requirements to support S/4HANA and suggests optimal resource allocation to ensure system efficiency and performance.

4. Business process analysis: The tool evaluates existing business processes and their compatibility with S/4HANA functionality, and identifies opportunities for process improvement and optimization within S/4HANA.

5. Fiori apps recommendations: SAP Readiness Check overview includes recommendations with relevant SAP Fiori applications that can replace traditional SAP GUI-based transactions, enhancing the user experience.

6. SAP Note Analyzer Input File: SAP Readiness Check aggregates all relevant SAP Notes required for the readiness check, ensuring that the system is up-to-date with necessary patches and updates.

What businesses gain from SAP Readiness Check

The main output of the SAP Readiness Check is a centralised analytical dashboard that combines the results of multiple readiness analyses into one assessment overview.

The framework helps organizations:

• understand the overall scope of the transformation;

• identify technical incompatibilities and remediation areas;

• evaluate functional impacts related to simplification items and business usage;

• prioritise required adaptation activities;

• analyse custom code and add-on conversion effort;

• assess transformation complexity and risk areas;

• support roadmap planning and remediation preparation;

• provide analytical input for high-level effort estimation and project planning.

The dashboard is not exclusively designed for SAP Basis or technical teams. The analytical results support a broader audience involved in transformation, including CIOs, IT leadership teams, enterprise architects, SAP program and project managers, transformation governance teams, SAP operations and platform teams, and business and functional stakeholders.

Key benefits of SAP Readiness Check

One of the main advantages of SAP Readiness Check is the consolidation of multiple transformation analyses into a centralized assessment framework, which provides:

• centralized visibility across transformation domains;

• early identification of compatibility and remediation risks;

• accurate and data-informed planning for conversion initiatives;

• proven support for architectural and migration strategy decisions;

• proper prioritization of transformation activities;

• improved alignment between technical and business stakeholders.

As a result, SAP Readiness Check serves as a strong foundational assessment layer for SAP transformation planning and governance.

Conclusion

A prerequisite for the successful transformation of SAP landscapes is a clear understanding of the organisation's current landscape, which is essential for determining the next step. SAP Readiness Check is designed to address precisely such issues.

The SAP Readiness Check is a centralised transformation assessment platform that helps organisations analyse system complexity, identify compatibility gaps, estimate the scope of work required to resolve issues, and understand the true scale of transformation initiatives before implementation begins.

By consolidating multiple readiness assessments into a single analytical environment, the platform enables companies to make more informed architectural, operational, and strategic decisions at the early stages of digital transformation. SAP Readiness Check provides structured data about the current SAP system for transformation projects. For organisations planning an SAP modernisation project, the SAP Readiness Check is an essential starting point for successful planning.

You can further explore the topic of SAP S/4HANA conversion via this link. 

About the author

Alexander Kunevich

SAP FICO consultant, S/4HANA migration Project Manager at ACBaltica. Over 10 years of experience with SAP products, inluding conversions to S/4HANA (Brownfield approach) in different industries.

LinkedIn