Reference Business Architecture

Overview

The reference business architecture provides industry-specific guidance for building business capability maps as well as selecting appropriate tooling from SAP. It leverages knowledge from the SAP reference business architecture and SAP Reference Solution Architecture, which is maintained by SAP on a continuous basis. For more information, refer to the blog entry SAP Reference Architecture Content: An Overview on the SAP Community.

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Note

Use of SAP Reference Business Architecture and SAP Solution Architecture data is optional and not part of the business functionality of the product. SAP Reference Business Architecture and SAP Solution Architecture data is subject to change and may be changed, discontinued, or replaced by SAP at any time for any reason without notice.

To access the reference business architecture, in the administration area, navigate to the Reference Catalogs section, then go to the Reference Business Architecture tab.

Linking Business Capabilities to the Reference Business Architecture

To get meaningful suggestions on which SAP applications could support your business capabilities, link your business capability fact sheets to the reference business architecture items. Once you've linked them, recommendations of SAP applications that in combination best support specific business capabilities are suggested.

You can link business capabilities to the reference business architecture by:

• Bulk linking multiple business capability fact sheets from the inventory
• Linking individual business capability fact sheets from the fact sheet page

When you import business capabilities from the reference business architecture, this automatically links existing business capability fact sheets with the same name to relevant items in the reference business architecture.

Bulk Linking Business Capability Fact Sheets from the Inventory

Bulk linking business capabilities from the inventory is a faster way of linking multiple fact sheets to the reference business architecture, which enables you to review, link, and unlink fact sheets in one place.

To link multiple fact sheets at once, follow these steps:

1. On the right-side pane of the inventory, click Reference Business Architecture. On the page that opens, business capability fact sheets appear on the Unlinked and Linked tabs, depending on whether they're unlinked or linked to the reference business architecture items.

2. On the Unlinked tab, select a business capability fact sheet, then select a reference business architecture item that you want to link to the fact sheet and click Link. To link more fact sheets, repeat these steps.

   You can expand each row to view more details on each fact sheet and the matching reference business architecture items. To search for a specific item, use the search field.

   When you link a business capability to a reference business architecture item, you can view suggested SAP solutions for this business capability, if available. To do that, click Preview options. For more information, see Suggested SAP Solutions.

   

Changing Linked Items

You can link a business capability fact sheet to a different reference business architecture item, which may be required in the following cases:

• Another item is more appropriate for this business capability.
• The current item was linked by mistake.

You can change linked items in bulk from the Reference Business Architecture page.

To change the linked item, follow these steps:

1. On the Reference Business Architecture page, navigate to the Linked tab, then select a business capability.
2. Under Reference Business Architecture, select a suggested item to link to. If needed, use a search field to find a specific item.
3. Click Change Link.

Linking a Business Capability Fact Sheet from the Fact Sheet Page

Follow these steps:

1. On the business capability fact sheet, click Reference Business Architecture on the right-side pane. A page with relevant recommendations for this business capability opens.

2. Select an item to link to the fact sheet or search for a specific item using the search field, then click Link.

   When you link a business capability to a reference business architecture item, you can view suggested SAP solutions for this business capability, if available. For more information, see Suggested SAP Solutions.

   

Importing Business Capabilities from the Reference Business Architecture

You can import business capabilities from the reference business architecture. Before importing specific items, you can preview all business capabilities relevant for specific industries, such as automotive, chemicals, consumer products, and more.

You can view business capability hierarchies and import them into your workspace at once or in several actions. Follow these steps:

1. In the administration area, navigate to the Reference Catalogs section, then go to the Reference Business Architecture tab.

2. Select the industry maps that you need, then click Review & Import.

   

3. Select the relevant business capability hierarchies that you want to import, then click Import.

   

This imports any nonexistent business capabilities along with their full hierarchy and automatically links existing business capability fact sheets with the same name to relevant items in the reference business architecture.

Business capability fact sheets are created with a name, description, and relations (when applicable). Existing fact sheet values, if any, are overwritten.

Suggested SAP Solutions

For business capabilities linked to the reference business architecture, various combinations of applications that best support a business capability are grouped into options and offered as suggested SAP solutions.

These options refer to the Solution Capabilities of the SAP Reference Solution Architecture. Each option includes the name of the corresponding Solution Capability in the subheading for easy reference, such as during discussions with SAP architects.

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Note

Suggested SAP solutions are only available for level 3 business capabilities from the reference business architecture. On level 2 business capabilities, suggested solutions for their child level 3 business capabilities are displayed. For some business capabilities, there may be no suggested solutions.

You can view suggested SAP solutions in one of the following ways:

• Navigate to the Reference Business Architecture page from the inventory by clicking Reference Business Architecture on the right-side pane. On the page that appears, select a fact sheet, then click Preview options.

  

• To view solutions for a single business capability fact sheet, on the fact sheet page, click Reference Business Architecture on the right-side pane.

  

  For customers using SAP LeanIX Architecture and Road Map Planning, suggested SAP solutions also appear on the Transformations tab of the business capability fact sheet.

  

Suggested SAP solutions, if available, also appear when you link a fact sheet to a reference business architecture item.

Above the suggested options, you can choose solution options for a specific deployment of SAP S/4HANA from the drop-down list:

• Cloud: SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud
• Hybrid: SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud or On-Premise

Deactivating the Suggested SAP Solutions Feature

You can deactivate the proposal of suggested SAP solutions on business capability fact sheets. To do that, in the Optional Features & Early Access section of the administration area, deactivate the Suggested SAP Solutions feature.

Related Information

Planning Transformations for SAP Solutions