Explaining the Explore Phase (2024)

In the explore phase, the project team reviews the solution scenarios. The review is to verify that business requirements can be met within the scope of the solution and project.

Play the following video to learn about the explore phase.

Depending on implementation scope and overall strategy for the digital experience, there can be content already activated from the previous phase. This can be either HXM content for SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone, as well as content federation enabling access to various apps seamlessly.

Let's examine some of the tasks to consider when focusing on the SAP Build Work Zone.

The Customer Execution of Standard Processes task helps ensure that the customer's team is aware about predelivered content and core functionality.

The New Scope Item Activation task is used to enable additional predelivered content either in the form of Content Packages or content federation. For example, the implementation scope of SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone can be extended to include some SAP S/4HANA scenarios (by using content federation). The exposure of business content from SAP S/4HANA to SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone can be considered as a new scope item. This work is typically done by an application expert (with focus on the SAP Build Work Zone).

As outlined previously, ideally, it’s necessary to have some predelivered content activated and organized in SAP Build Work Zone or SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone. This includes setting up some home pages and workspaces. It’s used as a foundation for the Fit-to-Standard Analysis task.

Use Case for SAP Build Work Zone: Sales

While SAP Build Work Zone offers many built-in capabilities, there can be requirements that are only implemented in the form of extensions. Here are some examples of such requirements:

• Show an interactive list of sales orders from SAP S/4HANA in the form of a widget (UI Integration Card).
• Show a link to change the user password in the user menu (launchpad plugin).
• Show tickets from a third party IT Service Management solution, such as, ServiceNow (UI Integration Card).
• Show corporate news (UI Integration Card).
• Show real time stock price (UI Integration Card).

In contrast to the implementation of SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and other core business solutions, no business scenario documents (BSD) and process diagrams for SAP Build Work Zone or SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone are available. SAP Build Work Zone or SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone are considered to be digital experience solutions that provide access to business processes and information available in back end systems.

Let's examine a use case example of the SAP Build Work Zone.

While SAP Build Work Zone is a truly powerful platform to build and run enterprise grade digital experience, there’s a small set of functional and technical limitations. These limitations must be considered during design and implementation of the SAP Build Work Zone, and published at the SAP Help Portal. The list of restrictions is relevant for both the SAP Build Work Zone and the SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone.

Depending on the scope, several roles typically cover the Fit-to-Standard Analysis: an application expert (with a focus on SAP Build Work Zone), a UX/UI expert (with focus on SAP Fiori UX), and functional consultants (with knowledge of business processes, for example Order-to-Cash, Recruit-to-Retire, and so on).

The design of these extensions is done in the Extension Planning and Design task. For instance, UI Integration Cards can be developed with either bare minimum or complex business logic (which requires the involvement of JavaScript developers). Depending on the scope, this work is typically covered by an application expert (with focus on SAP Build Work Zone) and a software developer (with knowledge of JavaScript, SAPUI5, and where complex business logic is required).

SAP Build Work Zone plays a role of a window to the world of all business apps. As a result, the integration plays an important role in the implementation project. It’s relevant for both standard integrations (available and supported out-of-the-box) and custom ones. For instance, will SAP API Management or SAP Cloud Integration be used with UI Integration Cards? Will it be necessary to set up High Availability for SAP Cloud Connector for a production environment (due to an increased volume of traffic and criticality of this component)? All these questions are answered in the Integration Planning and Design task. Depending on the scope, this work is typically covered by an application expert (with focus on SAP Build Work Zone) and an integration expert (with focus on SAP Integration Suite and similar solutions).

SAP Build Work Zone is heavily using (and relying on) SAP Cloud Identity Services. Identity Authentication service (IAS) can be used as a standalone solution or as a proxy to the Corporate Identity Provider (IDP). It depends on the overall corporate security architecture. It isn't limited to the implementation of SAP Build Work Zone. SAP Build Work Zone requires user records (profiles). As a result, they’re provisioned from some source. This system is properly identified and enabled to consume required information. Besides SAP Cloud Identity Services, SAP Build Work Zone has its own application, specific security concepts (for example, access to administrative areas, workpages and workspaces, and different types of administrators). Finally, there’s access to business content in back end systems. All these topics are addressed and covered in the User Access and Security Planning and Design tasks. Depending on the scope, this work is typically covered by an application expert (with focus on SAP Build Work Zone) and a security expert (with focus on SAP BTP and SAP Cloud Identity Services).

It’s obvious that the project should be delivered with sufficient quality. It involves defining scope and purpose of testing, test types, test environments, test tools, reporting, and communication. It’s addressed by the so-called Test Strategy document and defined within the Test Planning task.

To explain further what a test strategy typically contains, we briefly cover the most common building blocks:

• Objectives: What do we want to achieve?
• Scope: What are the test items? Which features are to be tested and which are to not be tested?
• A Test Strategy also describes the test stages. The test stages commonly follow a bottom up approach: early test stages, such as a unit test, focus on smaller building blocks with a higher degree of code coverage; later stages, such as an integration test, focus on end-to-end processes.
• A Test Strategy also includes a high level timeline, indicating when a test stage should be conducted and how it fits to the schedule of the whole project.
• Entry and exit criteria specify the prerequisites that must be in place to enter a test stage (such as test cases and test data being available) and the conditions to be met for exiting it.
• We also specify the test environment (test system or landscape, to rooms reserved for an integration test).
• Another crucial part of a test strategy is the defect management process. It describes the defect lifecycle, starting with how a tester documents an error found during testing, how it gets prioritized, and is routed to a developer fixing the defect after the tester conducts a retest and hopefully closes the defect.
• Another key topic is the test organization. This includes the different roles, such as tester and developer, their responsibilities, and how they interact.
• Communication and status reporting: We cover communication, status reporting, and escalation path. Status reports are typically based on key performance indicators (KPIs). These are agreed upon figures that enable us to judge the amount of progress. Common examples are test progress or the number of open defects by priority over time.
• Tools. A test strategy also describes which tools to use for storing test cases, calculating KPIs, status reporting or documenting test results, and defect resolution.

Typically, we recommend using the SAP Solution Manager because it covers all the previously-mentioned tool aspects.

For additional (and SAP Build Work Zone independent) information about tasks and accelerators for the explore phase, refer to the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer.