January 2021

Team,

    Welcome to 2021 SAP Utilities Community Newsletter.  It’s going to be a great year with lots going on, and hopefully by the end of the year, in person.  Wanted to share with you different items going on in our community.

Dispatch/Scheduling Discussion Meeting – SAP FSM – Working Session #3  –1/28/21 at 10:00 am PST   – If you do not see it on your calendar, let me know and I’ll add you to distribution list.

We will continue our discussion with the SAP FSM Team on developments to support Dispatch/Scheduling as a replacement for Click Schedule, see Agenda below.

Agenda:

   Intro to the SAP FSM Team

   Last Meeting Recap and Follow-up

   Utilities moving forward with FSM

   GIS Update – Review the product teams progress in ESRI Base Maps and more

   Overview of SAP Services offering to size and roadmap customers moves to FSM from Click

   FSM Updated Roadmap

Previous Meeting details here

SAP Mobile Utility Discussion Meeting  –  Early February TBD

With the recent updates on the Asset Manager Roadmap,  we wanted to make sure that all the Work Manager utilities know that SAP has also been actively working on a release schedule of SAP Work Manager 6.6, tentatively in Q1/2021, and maintenance for Work Manager on SMP (SAP Mobile Platform) will be extended with Work Manager 6.6 release. Stay tuned when official dates are published, but this gives us all more time given that both SMP 3.1 and Work Manager 6.5 have End of Mainstream Maintenance on 11/30/2022 in the PAM.   In addition, some of us might want to move to Agentry Cloud Edition to remove the SMP infrastructure on premise, with the same functionality. Per this note: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002655496   ACE Option:  https://blogs.sap.com/2019/02/01/migration-to-sap-cloud-platform-mobile-services/

S/4 Monthly Calls Continue – Sempra Architecture Discussion   –2/11/2021 at 11:00 am  PST –  If you do not see it on your calendar, let me know and I’ll add you to distribution list.

We kick off 2021 with the first of four major utilities all moving to S/4 and C/4 HANA.   Each company Duke, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edition, and Southwest Gas are moving from legacy systems to SAP’s S/4 and C/4 suite.    All of these transformations are happening in April of this year, and we will be working with each to present in this Q&A format for you to learn from the leaders.  We are pleased to have Sempra Energy (San Diego Gas & Electric) presenting their technical architecture for their project including their data analytics design in February before their go live.   Just like AES, UGI, Dominion, CLECO, Peoples Gas, Next Era – Gulf, Sydney Water and Enbridge who have presented previously, we continue our series of S/4 Utilities and their stories.   Whether you are doing on premise or in the cloud,  doing a financial ERP project or moving  your entire Meter to Cash systems (S/4 – CRM, S/4- S/4 Service, S/4 -C/4 HANA), your path may be different, but there are leaders throughout our community that you can learn from that are similar. Please join us for this first of four utilities all going live in April of this year with SAP S/4 – C/4 HANA suite.

SAP Customer Connection for SAP for Utilities On Premise 2021 – 2/17/2021 at 8:00 am PST.

We would like to bring to your attention the new SAP Customer Connection project for SAP for Utilities on Premise 2021.

The invitation to the Kickoff Call can be found in the corresponding blog post on the Customer Influence site: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/blog/2435

Agenda:

  • Project timeline and scope
  • Introduction to the SAP Customer Connection program
  • How to participate: process and tools

Last year we added many new features.  Mass Rate Simulation was one that Snohomish and 15 other utilities participated in and are looking forward to the results.

Feedback from our customers is essential for us to improve SAP solutions in productive use. We run the Customer Connection program to gather and process this feedback.

Customer Connection works in projects with a fixed product scope and timeline. In these projects, SAP customers collect improvement requests for SAP products in mainstream maintenance. The SAP team will consider requests with a minimum of 5 supporting (voting) customers, and deliver accepted requests via SAP Notes and Support Packages.

This project is a great opportunity for you to influence development at SAP, and to request functionality which you have been waiting for.

To learn more about the program and to follow the project space in order to stay up to date, please visit the SAP Customer Influence website.

Peoples Gas S/4 Webinar2/23/2021 –  10:00 – 11:30am PST

Ruth DeLost-Wylie, CIO from Peoples Gas is presenting in S/4HANA Industry Roadshow.  Peoples Gas presented to our S/4 group a year ago when first going live with S/4 and then again in November of 2020 a year after go live to talk about their success and outcomes.  Ruth will continue now to talk about their next steps in merging other acquisitions into their successful S/4 implementation.  https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2925366/BF697280FAB8215459A2287558CC4503?partnerref=awfwd

 SAP Utility 2021 Events

1/26/2021 – 7:00 am PST  – What Every Utility Company Wish They Knew Before Beginning Their SAP S/4HANA Project https://info.natuvion.com/sdt-7-webinar-registration

1/27/2021 – 7:00 am PST – Christian Klein SAP CEO is making an important announcement #RISEWithSAP. Customers can join live broadcast by adding invite here: https://www.sap.com/about/events/rise-with-sap.html

2/3/2021 – 1:00 pm PST – ASUG Next-Generation SAP EA Summit and our Community of Practice 

2/23/2021 – 2/25/2021 – Enterprise Architect Virtual conference  Next-Generation SAP Enterprise Architect Virtual Conference – Overview (cvent.com)

See Link to Schedule for all the SAP Utility events in 2021 that have been planned so far and look for our March newsletter in Spring. PDF link is here if you need to jump to sites.

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