Why would you spend time keeping records of what you already have in your system?

Save time by becoming independent from technical support

Fiori launchpad content (applications, catalogs, roles) documentation will save you a lot more time in the long term. Without documentation, all project members must rely on the technical team. As a result, each Fiori content-related task requires configuration investigations and takes much longer. Your documentation serves as an interface between the technical and functional areas. The technical team can use documentation as a requirement specification for configuring the system. The functional team can use it to describe the user’s access to applications. The shared understanding brings both teams closer and reduces the room for errors. Fewer errors mean faster setup delivery and happier business. The greater the scope and scale of the project, the bigger the savings.

Documentation also serves as a great way to control the project scope and identify applications in all the project stages.

Scope control

Applications listed in your documentation define the project’s scope. Adding a new application to your project has a cost impact and thus should be governed. It is crucial for custom applications that affect future costs the most. In addition, when you are listing an application before its implementation, you get the accuracy of your records.

Identification

A clear definition of the application is crucial during the implementation and support of end-users. Team members need a handle (identifier) to tell the correct application when communicating with each other. If the team can reference the application in a support request, it is clear what parts of the system need fixing. Documentation details like application type or technology help match the request with capable support team members or plan the upgrade tasks.

More benefits vary across the different project stages:

Before the implementation

Documentation is a space to agree and record decisions on what apps you plan to implement.

During the implementation

Applications documentation joined with status tracking gives all project members clarity on:

• what applications are ready in your system
• which applications have been tested

After the implementation

Documentation is a vital part of the system handover after the go-live. It should be handed from implementation to a support team to assure support readiness. Documentation is essential in both cases: when handing over to the customer or an external service supplier.

Documentation for catalogs and roles tells you what will be the impact of the planned changes and lets you take full advantage of the current settings.

Summary

Even a simple list of the applications in scope and their identifiers saves the implementation and support teams tens of working days. It has saved weeks of work on our projects and allowed us to focus on development and technical issues instead of spending the time on repeated meetings and lengthy communication. Therefore, I encourage everyone in the Fiori space to keep documentation and make S/4HANA implantations faster and less costly.

See a blog post on Why do you need a tool for Fiori launchpad documentation?