6 recommendations on how to reduce your SAP user license costs

27. April 2023/Wolfgang Stratenwerth

SAP is the undisputed market leader in ERP software. Even though SAP is struggling with the transition to a cloud company and its competitors are successful in this area, SAP software generates an immense amount of costs for its customers. This is constantly growing. Since the introduction of the web-based Fiori apps, more and more employees need an SAP user license.

Here are 6 recommendations on how you can still get your SAP costs under control:

1. track down and consolidate duplicates

We see time and again with our customers that one natural person uses several SAP named user license. In SAP measurement, users can be consolidated across all systems. SAP only offers a few options as criteria. In most cases, the username is used. How can duplicates still occur?

Employees change their surname (e.g. marriage, divorce)

The surname often represents part of the username and in such cases a new user is created, but the old user is not deactivated.

Recommendation:

Track down users and set to invalid.

Sometimes employees in the same SAP system are given a second user, e.g. with special authorizations, which must then have a different user name.

Create lists with these users and attach them to the measurement result as a correction or carry out the consolidation using another unique criterion (see next point).

If user names in different SAP systems are not assigned according to standardized criteria, consolidation according to the e-mail address can be useful. This must then be stored for each user master record.

Maintain a unique criterion for each user master record, e.g. e-mail address or billing number.

2. provide emergency users with a free license type

Users from SAP Basis who only have a user in the productive system to be able to act quickly in the event of an error do not need a chargeable license type.

Recommendation:

Equip all emergency users with a customer-specific user type (ID between 71 and 89) and give it a descriptive name, e.g. “Firefighter”. This way, this assignment and its reason can be transparently demonstrated to SAP.

3. identify and deactivate inactive users

For almost all customers, we find a relevant number of fee-based user master records that have not logged in for a long time. This blocks expensive licenses that could be used by new users.

Recommendation:

Regularly create lists of users who have not logged into the system for 30/60/90 days. Then check together with specialist departments whether these users still need their SAP license. All others can be invalidated.

4. avoid incorrect licensing

Users are often assigned the wrong license type. There can be many reasons for this:

When the user master was created, you did not yet know what the user was supposed to do in the system.

Over time, the user’s tasks change, but their license is not adjusted.

SAP only describes the user types in a very rudimentary way. A higher-value license type is then assigned out of uncertainty.

Recommendation:

Checking the license types is a difficult task, especially with many users. One possibility is to store a user type in the authorization profiles. This at least ensures that authorizations and user types of matches. However, if the authorizations are defined too broadly, this will not help either. In this case, only SAP license optimization tools can help. These are available from various providers, e.g. Snow, USU, Flexera. We will be happy to help you choose the right tool for you.

5. exclude users in gateway systems

Every SAP user who uses Fiori needs a gateway system that controls communication between the app and the SAP backend system. Every user who works with Fiori apps requires a user in the gateway system. As this system is marked as a productive system, every user who has not been assigned a license type automatically receives a Professional license. Assigning each user, the license they need in the other systems is time-consuming and prone to errors when changes are made.

Recommendation:

Set the system in the SAP portal to not relevant for surveying and arrange this via your SAP account manager.

6. utilize new possibilities in S/4HANA

If you are already using S/4HANA, you should be aware of the advantages of user licensing.

Named user licenses are only required for using the Digital Core. Users who work exclusively in line-of-business applications can use the free user type “S/4HANA Technical SAP Engine User (HF)”. Only the respective engine then needs to be licenced.

Named user licenses are only required to use the Digital Core. Users who work exclusively in line-of-business applications can use the free user type “S/4HANA Technical SAP Engine User (HF)”. Only the respective engine then needs to be licensed.

For many years, SAP ECC customers have wanted a low-cost user type for read-only access. This has been available in S4/HANA since January 2022. In addition to the classic self-service functions, the most favorable user type in the S/4HANA price list also includes rudimentary rights in Supply Chain Management, Asset Management and Manufacturing and, since January 2022, general read rights and rights for approvals in the Digital Core (not only HR, but also Banfen, etc.).

Recommendation:

Check whether you can restrict the authorizations for users to engines. In most cases, a favorable productivity-use license is sufficient for the remaining access to the Digital Core. If necessary, small changes in the work processes can save a lot of money if only a few users need to use core functions.

Check how many Professional licenses you really need, especially before switching to S/4HANA, considering that read access and releases are included in the cheaper licenses. Our experience shows that up to 35% of professional licenses are no longer needed.

Some tips can be implemented quickly and easily, others require more effort and specialized knowledge. If you would like to benefit from our experience, please contact us. We are happy to help!

Contact – SAMtoa GmbH – The license experts or mail to info@samtoa.de.

The Author

Wolfgang Stratenwerth
Managing Director and License expert of SAMtoa GmbH

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License Management, License costs, Licenses, S/4HANA, SAP

6 recommendations on how to reduce your SAP user license costs

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