Extensibility Guide for RISE with SAP
This is a customer-facing document intended to provide a simple introduction to the options for extending apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. Some customers are concerned about how to maintain their customizations when they move to the cloud. This provides options and guidance for moving an on-premise ERP system to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, balancing clean core principles with the realties of suiting the unique demands of their business. Download the DocumentCUSTOMERS AND PARTNERS
Extensibility Guide for RISE with SAP
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and
SAP Business Technology Platform
Table of contents
Introduction - The value of RISE with SAP ............................................................................................................ 2
Clean core as the foundation for digital transformation and agility .......................................................... 2
Your journey toward a clean core ............................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 1: Delete.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 2: Renovate ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 3: Create.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition ................................................................................................. 4
Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users .......................................................... 5
Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users ....................................... 5
Create custom applications for your unique use cases ............................................................................................. 6
Create custom applications on-stack in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition .............................................. 6
Create custom applications side-by-side on SAP Business Technology Platform ..................................... 6
Integrate multiple systems and data ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Automate processes and tasks .................................................................................................................................................. 6
Summary and next steps .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Extensibility Guide for RISE with SAP
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and
SAP Business Technology Platform
Table of contents
Introduction - The value of RISE with SAP ............................................................................................................ 2
Clean core as the foundation for digital transformation and agility .......................................................... 2
Your journey toward a clean core ............................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 1: Delete.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 2: Renovate ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 3: Create.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition ................................................................................................. 4
Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users .......................................................... 5
Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users ....................................... 5
Create custom applications for your unique use cases ............................................................................................. 6
Create custom applications on-stack in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition .............................................. 6
Create custom applications side-by-side on SAP Business Technology Platform ..................................... 6
Integrate multiple systems and data ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Automate processes and tasks .................................................................................................................................................. 6
Summary and next steps .............................................................................................................................................. 7
© 2025 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. Version 1.1, March 2025 2 / 7
Introduction - The value of RISE with SAP
SAP’s ERP solutions have always provided broad out-of-the-box capabilities while allowing you to customize
almost anything. Until recently, the most important thing for most businesses was the ability to tailor your ERP
system to meet your unique business needs. But this makes upgrades more difficult since your changes to the
back end might conflict with SAP’s enhancements.
Now, the pace of business is faster than ever before, so you need greater agility to respond to changes in
markets, supply chains, and business trends. Today, ERP systems must allow enterprises to pivot quickly, using
their own custom extensions and apps, or innovations developed by partners. Companies that want to be
innovative, agile, and competitive need to incorporate cloud architecture and cloud service delivery as the basis
of their enterprise. Operating your ERP as a cloud-delivered service is not optional; it’s a required future state.
What’s optional is the pace and sequence of your transition.
RISE with SAP is an offering that helps you transform your on-premise SAP ERP systems, modernize business
processes, and become more agile by running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. SAP’s cloud ERP gives you
the ability to adapt quickly and turn challenges into opportunities. To unlock cloud agility and enjoy access to the
latest SAP innovations in the cloud, it’s imperative to follow SAP’s clean core extensibility concept and future-
proof your system by building new extensions that are decoupled from the SAP core. The next-generation
innovations that SAP delivers to the market generally require you to run the most recent version of the core ERP
system.
Running a true cloud ERP, as opposed to simply ERP in the cloud lets you:
- Transform your business processes - Organizations that have invested significantly in customizing
their SAP systems still want to tailor their ERP system to their needs. SAP recommends customizing the
standard apps only to create key differentiation, so the SAP core is easier to upgrade to the latest
version.
- Drive continuous innovation – Updating to the latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition version
ensures you have access to the newest SAP innovations such as AI, machine learning, and UX
enhancements so you can run in a persistent innovative state.
- Unlock cloud agility - Running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition makes you more agile as you can
make your own extensions while keeping the SAP core clean.
Clean core as the foundation for digital transformation and agility
Clean core is a concept for an innovative, flexible, and up-to-date cloud ERP system that enables greater agility
by reducing the manual effort required to upgrade your core system and test your customizations.
By decoupling your extensions from the SAP core, you can update SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition without
affecting your extensions or vice-versa. The fewer classic ABAP extensions you run directly in the core of SAP
S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, the easier and faster it becomes to implement SAP upgrades.
Benefits of a clean core include:
- Faster access to innovation
- Simpler upgrades
- Lower total cost of ownership
Introduction - The value of RISE with SAP
SAP’s ERP solutions have always provided broad out-of-the-box capabilities while allowing you to customize
almost anything. Until recently, the most important thing for most businesses was the ability to tailor your ERP
system to meet your unique business needs. But this makes upgrades more difficult since your changes to the
back end might conflict with SAP’s enhancements.
Now, the pace of business is faster than ever before, so you need greater agility to respond to changes in
markets, supply chains, and business trends. Today, ERP systems must allow enterprises to pivot quickly, using
their own custom extensions and apps, or innovations developed by partners. Companies that want to be
innovative, agile, and competitive need to incorporate cloud architecture and cloud service delivery as the basis
of their enterprise. Operating your ERP as a cloud-delivered service is not optional; it’s a required future state.
What’s optional is the pace and sequence of your transition.
RISE with SAP is an offering that helps you transform your on-premise SAP ERP systems, modernize business
processes, and become more agile by running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. SAP’s cloud ERP gives you
the ability to adapt quickly and turn challenges into opportunities. To unlock cloud agility and enjoy access to the
latest SAP innovations in the cloud, it’s imperative to follow SAP’s clean core extensibility concept and future-
proof your system by building new extensions that are decoupled from the SAP core. The next-generation
innovations that SAP delivers to the market generally require you to run the most recent version of the core ERP
system.
Running a true cloud ERP, as opposed to simply ERP in the cloud lets you:
- Transform your business processes - Organizations that have invested significantly in customizing
their SAP systems still want to tailor their ERP system to their needs. SAP recommends customizing the
standard apps only to create key differentiation, so the SAP core is easier to upgrade to the latest
version.
- Drive continuous innovation – Updating to the latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition version
ensures you have access to the newest SAP innovations such as AI, machine learning, and UX
enhancements so you can run in a persistent innovative state.
- Unlock cloud agility - Running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition makes you more agile as you can
make your own extensions while keeping the SAP core clean.
Clean core as the foundation for digital transformation and agility
Clean core is a concept for an innovative, flexible, and up-to-date cloud ERP system that enables greater agility
by reducing the manual effort required to upgrade your core system and test your customizations.
By decoupling your extensions from the SAP core, you can update SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition without
affecting your extensions or vice-versa. The fewer classic ABAP extensions you run directly in the core of SAP
S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, the easier and faster it becomes to implement SAP upgrades.
Benefits of a clean core include:
- Faster access to innovation
- Simpler upgrades
- Lower total cost of ownership
© 2025 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. Version 1.1, March 2025 3 / 7
Your journey toward a clean core
If your organization has invested significantly in customizing your on-premise ERP software, RISE with SAP can
help you prepare to migrate important legacy customizations to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. SAP
recommends that you migrate only those customizations that will serve your business as part of its digital
transformation in the cloud. All legacy customizations are considered technical debt in the cloud because they
can slow your business, make the SAP core harder to upgrade, and cost more to run.
Following SAP’s recommendations, you define the scope and pace of your company’s digital transformation in
the cloud. Your individual business requirements will determine whether to migrate and run classic extensions in
the cloud and when and how to reduce technical debt by renovating them.
SAP recommends three steps to help reduce technical debt and unlock cloud agility:
Step 1: Delete
Reduce your technical debt
While classic extensions that run directly in the core of your system add important differentiating value, they
come at a high cost to maintain. The more technical debt you introduce to the core of SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Private Edition, the harder it becomes to innovate, the more expensive it becomes to run and upgrade, and the
riskier it becomes to operate. When planning your digital transformation journey, check which extensions are no
longer used and delete them. Some customers have found that 70% of their custom objects are no longer
needed. Ensure that all extensions you plan to migrate to the cloud are well documented.
Step 2: Renovate
Prioritize modernizing classic extensions
Based on the requirements of your business, evaluate your options for renovating classic extensions by
decoupling them from the core. Decouple classic extensions from the core using public SAP APIs available on
SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
Technical debt slows innovation
Technical debt refers to custom code migrated from a legacy SAP ERP system. These are custom
objects that might have outlived their usefulness. Technical debt accrues over time, increasing
maintenance costs, testing time, system complexity, and risk during upgrades.
To reduce technical debt now, businesses should retire custom objects they no longer need, refactor
legacy code they want to keep, and decouple extensions from the core using APIs.
To avoid technical debt in the future, organizations must prioritize a clean core approach, document
and review code continually, and leverage stable, upgrade-safe APIs for new development.
Your journey toward a clean core
If your organization has invested significantly in customizing your on-premise ERP software, RISE with SAP can
help you prepare to migrate important legacy customizations to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. SAP
recommends that you migrate only those customizations that will serve your business as part of its digital
transformation in the cloud. All legacy customizations are considered technical debt in the cloud because they
can slow your business, make the SAP core harder to upgrade, and cost more to run.
Following SAP’s recommendations, you define the scope and pace of your company’s digital transformation in
the cloud. Your individual business requirements will determine whether to migrate and run classic extensions in
the cloud and when and how to reduce technical debt by renovating them.
SAP recommends three steps to help reduce technical debt and unlock cloud agility:
Step 1: Delete
Reduce your technical debt
While classic extensions that run directly in the core of your system add important differentiating value, they
come at a high cost to maintain. The more technical debt you introduce to the core of SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Private Edition, the harder it becomes to innovate, the more expensive it becomes to run and upgrade, and the
riskier it becomes to operate. When planning your digital transformation journey, check which extensions are no
longer used and delete them. Some customers have found that 70% of their custom objects are no longer
needed. Ensure that all extensions you plan to migrate to the cloud are well documented.
Step 2: Renovate
Prioritize modernizing classic extensions
Based on the requirements of your business, evaluate your options for renovating classic extensions by
decoupling them from the core. Decouple classic extensions from the core using public SAP APIs available on
SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
Technical debt slows innovation
Technical debt refers to custom code migrated from a legacy SAP ERP system. These are custom
objects that might have outlived their usefulness. Technical debt accrues over time, increasing
maintenance costs, testing time, system complexity, and risk during upgrades.
To reduce technical debt now, businesses should retire custom objects they no longer need, refactor
legacy code they want to keep, and decouple extensions from the core using APIs.
To avoid technical debt in the future, organizations must prioritize a clean core approach, document
and review code continually, and leverage stable, upgrade-safe APIs for new development.
© 2025 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. Version 1.1, March 2025 4 / 7
For classic extensions that cannot be decoupled from the core, ensure software quality and upgrade stability by
following best practices to adapt your code. For more information, see Extend SAP S/4HANA in the cloud and on
premise with ABAP based extensions.
Step 3: Create
Identify new opportunities to innovate
Create new extensions in the cloud following the clean core approach using SAP’s flexible low-code and pro-
code options. Depending on your use case, create extensions that run on-stack in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private
Edition and/or side-by-side on SAP BTP.
Use public SAP APIs available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub to decouple your new extensions from the core.
Extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
As a tailored-to-fit cloud ERP solution, it’s easy to extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to provide optimal
support to your organization in every stage of its digital transformation journey so you can consistently drive
business productivity.
Extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition whenever you need to:
- Respond quickly to new market opportunities
- Create differentiated capabilities through innovation
- Accelerate and enrich processes with AI
- Close a gap in SAP’s offerings for specific industries
Using public SAP APIs makes your system upgrade-safe
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow applications to communicate with each other. Following SAP’s
clean core extensibility concept, decouple all new custom extensions from the SAP core using public SAP APIs
to ensure your extensions remain upgrade safe.
For on-stack extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, use local public SAP APIs available on SAP
Business Accelerator Hub
https://api.sap.com/products/SAPS4HANACloudPrivateEdition/overview
To request additional local public SAP APIs, use SAP’s customer influence site.
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3516
For side-by-side extensibility on SAP Business Technology Platform, use remote public SAP APIs and events
available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
https://api.sap.com/products/SAPS4HANACloudPrivateEdition/overview
To request additional remote public SAP APIs and events, use SAP’s customer influence site.
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3516
For classic extensions that cannot be decoupled from the core, ensure software quality and upgrade stability by
following best practices to adapt your code. For more information, see Extend SAP S/4HANA in the cloud and on
premise with ABAP based extensions.
Step 3: Create
Identify new opportunities to innovate
Create new extensions in the cloud following the clean core approach using SAP’s flexible low-code and pro-
code options. Depending on your use case, create extensions that run on-stack in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private
Edition and/or side-by-side on SAP BTP.
Use public SAP APIs available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub to decouple your new extensions from the core.
Extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
As a tailored-to-fit cloud ERP solution, it’s easy to extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to provide optimal
support to your organization in every stage of its digital transformation journey so you can consistently drive
business productivity.
Extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition whenever you need to:
- Respond quickly to new market opportunities
- Create differentiated capabilities through innovation
- Accelerate and enrich processes with AI
- Close a gap in SAP’s offerings for specific industries
Using public SAP APIs makes your system upgrade-safe
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow applications to communicate with each other. Following SAP’s
clean core extensibility concept, decouple all new custom extensions from the SAP core using public SAP APIs
to ensure your extensions remain upgrade safe.
For on-stack extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, use local public SAP APIs available on SAP
Business Accelerator Hub
https://api.sap.com/products/SAPS4HANACloudPrivateEdition/overview
To request additional local public SAP APIs, use SAP’s customer influence site.
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3516
For side-by-side extensibility on SAP Business Technology Platform, use remote public SAP APIs and events
available on SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
https://api.sap.com/products/SAPS4HANACloudPrivateEdition/overview
To request additional remote public SAP APIs and events, use SAP’s customer influence site.
https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3516
© 2025 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. Version 1.1, March 2025 5 / 7
- Build new capabilities to drive operational excellence
You can:
1. Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users
2. Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users
3. Create custom applications for your unique use cases
4. Integrate multiple systems and data
5. Automate processes and tasks
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition allows you to build new extensions that are decoupled from the SAP
software core. This “clean core” approach ensures you can maintain a persistent state of innovation, where you
can easily install updates from SAP with the latest innovations, including built-in AI, machine learning, robotic
process automation, and analytics, all without interfering with your home-grown extensions. Clean core applies to
both the on-stack and side-by-side extensibility options outlined in this guide.
Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users
Individual business users can personalize their own user experience. Having the same role and tasks doesn’t
mean you have the same preferences for how information appears in an SAP Fiori application.
- Select the specific columns to be displayed in a table [how to]
- Choose which fields appear in the filter bar [how to]
- Save specific table columns and predefined filters [how to]
Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users
To optimize the user experience for specific business users, you can easily adapt and extend the user interface
(UI) of both SAP Fiori and classic applications in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
- Add/hide/rename/rearrange standard UI elements in the application itself with Key User Adaptation for
SAP Fiori apps or classic apps. These changes do not modify the core SAP system, so they align with
clean core. principles
- Build new capabilities to drive operational excellence
You can:
1. Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users
2. Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users
3. Create custom applications for your unique use cases
4. Integrate multiple systems and data
5. Automate processes and tasks
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition allows you to build new extensions that are decoupled from the SAP
software core. This “clean core” approach ensures you can maintain a persistent state of innovation, where you
can easily install updates from SAP with the latest innovations, including built-in AI, machine learning, robotic
process automation, and analytics, all without interfering with your home-grown extensions. Clean core applies to
both the on-stack and side-by-side extensibility options outlined in this guide.
Personalize standard SAP applications for individual business users
Individual business users can personalize their own user experience. Having the same role and tasks doesn’t
mean you have the same preferences for how information appears in an SAP Fiori application.
- Select the specific columns to be displayed in a table [how to]
- Choose which fields appear in the filter bar [how to]
- Save specific table columns and predefined filters [how to]
Adapt and extend standard SAP applications for all or some business users
To optimize the user experience for specific business users, you can easily adapt and extend the user interface
(UI) of both SAP Fiori and classic applications in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
- Add/hide/rename/rearrange standard UI elements in the application itself with Key User Adaptation for
SAP Fiori apps or classic apps. These changes do not modify the core SAP system, so they align with
clean core. principles