2563519 - SAP S/4HANA Cloud - How to create the perfect case

You want to create a support case for an issue arising in your SAP S/4HANA Cloud tenant and you want to know what information you need to provide SAP Support for an efficient handling of the case.

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud All versions

1. Before Creating the case:

1. Access the SAP Cloud Community. There you can find extensive information which will help you to understand and resolve issues. Questions and Answers expert forum, SAP Help documentation, hot fixes and KBAs, extension guides, common issues, how to guides and much more. Please do this task first since a large number of issues can be solved by existing documentation, especially if it is a consulting query or a common issue.   
   
   
2. Access the SAP Help Portal this portal contains useful links to functional information of all application areas. 
   
   
3. When creating an case from the SAP for Me, you are given the option to search the knowledge base. Please always perform this task since a large number of issues can be solved by already existing notes or knowledgebase articles (KBA). SAP has released a new case wizard driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the case Solution Matching function. This functionality will automatically display potential solutions as you move through the case creation process in the SAP for Me.
   
   
4. Please always take your time to read and answer the Component Specific Questions section during case creation.

Option of Creating an case Without Leaving the Product

All SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems now offer SAP’s Built-In Support. Accessed from within the product by clicking on its icon in the top bar of the application, users can perform common support tasks, including searching knowledge content, raising an case or starting Expert Chat, and using a Chatbot enabled digital support assistant.

Built-In Support knows the context the user is working in and provides proactive assistance. As a result, it can deliver faster resolution times and guides the user step by step through the case creation process, pre-populating critical information such as application component, cloud business user information, and relevant backend service and system data. File upload and screen captures are seamlessly integrated within Built-In Support. Further details and attachments are provided in SAP Notes 3000949, 3038177 and 3052441.

Note: If your request concerns missing functionality or a functional enhancement request to the standard software, you should NOT open an case. The correct forum for these requests is the SAP Influence forum. It is also possible to create a feature request through Built-In Support.

2. Creating the Perfect case

1. You have to open the case against the system where the issue occurs, this is necessary for the SAP Support team to be able to logon to your system (Security requirement). 
   
   
2. Provide SAP support with a customer user ID (customer business user with prefix CB or customer communication user with prefix CC). Check KBA 3094222 to maintain the CB user into the case. SAP support can take over the authorizations of that customer user to reproduce reported problems. You can find the user ID for customer business users in the Fiori app 'Maintain Business Users' and the user ID for customer communication users in the Fiori app 'Maintain Communication Users'. 
   
   
3. System landscape: Please state clearly where the issue you are reporting occurs, i.e. in Quality, Production and/or Development. 

   The best environment for SAP Support to work is the Quality environment, where possible please provide and example in Quality.
   In the majority of cases access to the Quality system will be the only access required.

   If you open your case under the quality system and subsequently, SAP Support are required to access your Production system 
   to analyze an issue, you MUST open a new case for the Production access (Security requirement).
   If you know from the outset that SAP Support will be required to access either Development, Quality and Production to analyze an issue, you should open
   your case under the production system and provide the necessary details for each system involved, this will avoid creating multiple cases (Security requirement).

4. Steps to reproduce: create a step by step description with screenshots about your issue, mentioning all the details, user data and example data to use for reproducing the problem. Do not attach individual screenshots one by one to the case, instead use Microsoft Word or Excel to put your screens into a single file. Compressing the attached document into an archive file is not necessary, you can attach up to 4 MB for a single file.
   
   
5. Performance related issues:  In general it is prudent for the customer (business user) to capture Http watch traces as this provides SAP Support with data concerning bandwidth, latency and environmental factors specific to each customer. Performance issue related to the ABAP Stack can in general be handled by SAP Support independently when the steps to re-produce have been provided. 
   
   
6. Please make sure to select the correct component for your case. Creating the case in the wrong component can lead to increased processing times. 
   TIPS how to choose the correct component:

   Cloud Operations, issues related to the management of the system
   XX-S4C-OPR-SRV - Service requests, transport request scope items activation etc.
   XX-S4C-SRV-CON - Expert configuration.
   XX-S4C-OPR-INC - Technical, performance management.

   Process related issues 
   Go to the SAP Best Practices Explorer 
   - Select Accelerators
   - Open: Availability and dependencies of scope items

   Fiori APP / webgui tile related issues
   Open SAP Note 2489730 
   Follow section 1: In a Fiori App

   SSCUI / Customising related issues
   Follow the instructions in SAP Note 2563041 
   
   

7. Respecting case priorities,
   

   There are generally 5 scenario's which categorize all cases.

   • System availability?
   • Business process?
   • Regulatory impact?
   • Key staff access?
   • Test environment?

   SAP handle cases based on Priority and Business Impact, the flow chart below can be used as a guide to setting the correct priority: 
   
   

   Based on the above flow chart, case priorities should be classified as per below -

   P1 : Very High:  An case should be categorized with the priority "Very High" if the issue has very serious consequences for normal business processes or IT processes related to core business processes. Urgent work cannot be performed.

   P2 : High:  An case should be categorized with the priority "High" if normal business processes are seriously affected. Necessary tasks cannot be performed. This is caused by incorrect or inoperable functions in the SAP system that are required immediately. The case is to be processed as quickly as possible because a continuing malfunction can seriously disrupt the entire productive business flow.

   P3 : Medium:  An case should be categorized with the priority "Medium" if normal business processes are affected. The problem is caused by incorrect or inoperable functions in the SAP system.

   P4. : Low:  An case should be categorized with the priority "Low" if the problem has little or no effect on normal business processes. The problem is caused by incorrect or inoperable functions in the SAP system that are not required daily, or are rarely used.

   Please make sure your issue fulfills the requirements for the selected priority, especially in case of Very High priority. In case a Very Priority is justified please make sure you provide contact details for a 24x7 contact person, a direct telephone number and an e-mail address this is mandatory. 
   
   

3. Business Impact 

A Business Impact Statement is used as a tool to communicate the criticality of a customer’s case across all levels of the SAP Organisation including Engineering, Operations and Management. When Engineering are prioritizing tickets or Mission Control Centre evaluating an escalation request, the Business Impact Statement is the focal point. Therefore, it is imperative that it contains all the relevant information that allows SAP to fully understand and manage the criticality.

Answering the questions below help support to better understand the criticality of your case:

1. “What activities have stopped for your business?”
2. “How many people are impacted?”
3. "Is this impacting mission-critical processes for your business or users?”
4. "Is a workaround currently in place?"
5. “Is this workaround feasible until we get a long term solution?”
6. "If not, please provide reasons why it is not feasible."
7. “Are project deadlines affected by this issue?”

4. System connections

SAP manage the system, SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer's have no role in providing system access or system connections.

1. Depending on the issue that has to be checked by SAP Support, it is almost certain that the support engineer will need a relevant business user ID to be able to re-produce the issue. SAP support will copy the authorisations of this user so that they have the necessary access to the relevant business APPs, so when the case is submitted please provide the Business User ID of the affected user for this purpose.   

5. ALSO IMPORTANT

• If you are reopening an case previously closed in all cases please mention the case number of the closed case for reference. Do not insert the complete text content of the closed case into the new one, rather include a summary and only reattach any files or documents to the new case that were present in the old one.
• If you have tried to find a solution for the problem prior to send the case to SAP, list the steps you have made, analysis you have carried out and any other relevant information that may add value to the support analysis.
• If the issue is only reproducible in a production environment, add the line "We herewith provide the SAP support consultant with the permission to analyze the issue on our production system." as described in KBA 1576685. 

• SAP Note 50048 - Several queries in an case
• SAP Note 16018 - More information required on reported message
• SAP Note 1281633 - Speed Up Processing of a Customer case
• SAP Note 560499 -  Global Support Customer Interaction: Telephone/e-mail
• SAP Note 67739 - Priority of problem cases
• KBA 3000949 - How to create a support case – Built-In Support
• KBA 3038177 - How to log in Built-In Support and activate services
• KBA 3052441 - What is SAP's Built-In Support?
• KBA 1576685 - Remote analysis of errors in production system

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SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition all versions ; SAP S/4HANA Cloud all versions