Welcome back to my Business Partner @ SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition series. We’re still in the Explore phase of the SAP Activate methodology—moving from workshop insights to concrete preparation for what comes next.
Next stop is Data Migration Preparation. Data migration is the process of taking existing data from a legacy system and preparing it for use in new SAP system
For more detailed guidance, head to SAP Activate in the Road Map Viewer – SAP for Me.
Navigation: Content > Explore > Data Load Preparation
This step is relevant not only for Public Cloud implementations but also for:
- Lift & Shift / Shell Conversion
- Greenfield approaches
Recommended migration approach
Given the complexity of Business Partner, Customer, and Vendor master data structures, consider using Direct Transfer to pull data directly from the ECC source. This requires the DMIS add‑on. More details are available in SAP Note 3640423 – Release strategy and maintenance information for the ABAP add‑on DMIS 2025.
Data quality first
Before your initial migration cycles, run a consistency check and resolve issues in ECC. Execute transaction CVI_PRECHK (part of the CVI Cockpit; can be run standalone) to spot and clean up master data inconsistencies. For a practical walkthrough, see Soundar’s blog: CVI Cockpit – Master Data Consistency Check.
You’ll find end‑to‑end information on migration in the SAP Help Portal.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and On-Prem
In both migration scenarios (ECC without CVI and ECC with completed CVI), you can review the full list of supported objects in SAP Help Portal by navigating to ‘Available Migration Objects'.
A welcome enhancement: starting with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (CE2602) and SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (OP2025 FPS1), Direct Transfer supports Staging Tables as an intermediate storage layer. This lets you stage, validate, and control data loads more flexibly. For a practical walkthrough, see the SAP Community blog SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit – Migrate Data Directly from SAP System – Using Staging Tables.
In this section, I’ll outline two common migration paths from an SAP ECC source system and how they influence the migration objects you’ll need.
- ECC without active CVI: The system contains only customer and vendor master data with no linked Business Partners. Think of this as a “raw” starting point without transformation prep.
- ECC with active CVI: The CVI conversion has already been completed as a pre‑project, so customers and vendors are synchronized with Business Partners.
ECC without active CVI
At this scenarion you did no changes to you master data in respect to customer and vendor. Meaning there are no Business Partners in the system. At following URLs you might adjust your target system release at help page.
Relevant Migration Objects are Customer and Vendor including Contact Persons for
On-Premise and Private Cloud.
Cloud Public Edition
With this scenario Business Partners are created automatically during migration in the target system.
ECC with active CVI
If your ECC source system has CVI active (CVI conversion completed), the supported approach is Direct Transfer using the Business Partner migration object. This single object covers Business Partners together with their linked customers, suppliers, and contact persons—aligning with the Cloud Public Edition principle that the Business Partner is the leading object and BP-to-customer/supplier counts align 1:1.
Migration with Staging Tables only
If you must run a staging-tables-only scenario, you should view the SAP S/4HANA Cloud data structures by downloading the template files and associating the structures with the data from the legacy system(s).
This approach is relevant if your source system is a non-SAP System.
By using “Migrate Data using Staging Tables” approach, you can download the migration objects templates to view the data structure. Moreover, by filling the staging tables with the files, you need to download templates to specify data and upload it back to your project. If filling staging tables using 3rd party tools, the template files can be used as a guide to the table structures and required fields.
A practical guide is available in the following SAP Community blog series:
Merge Customer and Supplier into a single Business Partner
If you need to combine roles so one Business Partner holds both Customer and Supplier data, follow the sequence that matches your starting point. The goal is to extend an already migrated record with the missing organizational levels.
Scenario A: Customer/Business Partner exists — add Supplier data
- Step 1: Migrate Customer using the migration object “Customer.”
- Step 2: Migrate Supplier data using the migration object “Customer – extend existing record by new org levels.”
Scenario B: Supplier/Business Partner exists — add Customer data
- Step 1: Migrate Supplier using the migration object “Supplier.”
- Step 2: Migrate Customer data using the migration object “Supplier – extend existing record by new org levels.”
Important
Extending an already migrated record is only possible with Staging Tables. In the Migrate Your Data app, navigate to Available Migration Objects to find the “extend existing record” variants and use the Staging Tables path.
Contract Accounting
If you want to migrate Contract Partner (Migration Object ‘FI-CA – Contract partner‘), you have to prepare Customer Business Partners via Mass Change adding Business Partner role MKK following these steps:
- Export Business Partner – using Fiori app F3251 – Export Master Data – Business Partners (MDC File Download)
Select table BUT100 only - Download and adjust Exported excel file by filling role MKK in related column
Hint: add an ‘I' for insert at column B (ACTION_CODE) - Run mass change app using adjusted excel file – using Fiori app F1047A – Start Mass Maintenance – Business Partners (Consolidation and Mass Processing)
An example file für BUT100 rolle MKK update you can see below.
You’re set now to tackle Data Load Preparation with confidence. Whether you start from ECC without CVI or with CVI completed, choose the right path—Direct Transfer (with DMIS) and, where needed, Staging Tables—to streamline Business Partner, Customer, and Supplier migration. Clean up master data early with CVI_PRECHK and rely on Available Migration Objects plus SAP Help/Community guides to prevent surprises. From here, the focus shifts to executing your first migration cycle and validating results against your Explore-phase design.
