In September 2025, SAP launched an Early Adopter Care (EAC) program for customers implementing the Harmonized Planning Area (HPA) in SAP IBP. Over 7+ months, 15+ companies across industries joined weekly knowledge-exchange sessions with SAP Product Management, Development, and expert consultants — covering integration architecture, data model deep-dives, and go-live preparation. This blog distills those lessons for the benefit of a wider IBP user community. 

 The Participants — A diverse cross-industry group 

The program attracted 15+ companies from Automotive, Food & Beverage, Life Sciences, Chemicals, High Tech, Consumer Goods, and Agriculture — spanning EMEA and Americas, from mid-size players to global multinationals. Planning scope ranged from a single module to five deployed simultaneously. Integration strategies spanned the full spectrum: RTI-only, CI-only and hybrid. 

Why the Participants joined the initiative: 

Participants joined the HPA EAC for different reasons, but several themes emerged repeatedly: 

• Greenfield HPA: Starting fresh on IBP and choosing HPA from day one rather than implementing a legacy planning area. 

• New business unit rollout: Companies already on SAPIBP1 piloting HPA in a second business unit before broader migration. 

• APO replacement: Early access to understand gaps and plan the transition away from SAP APO. 

• Exclusive capabilities: Features like harmonized scenarios, vendor-managed inventory exist only in HPA — no alternative for companies with these requirements. 

• Product influence: A direct channel to SAP Product Management to raise requirements and shape the roadmap while HPA was still maturing.  

Integration decisions — RTI, CI, or both? 

One of the most impactful decisions every HPA customer faces is their integration strategy. The EAC revealed that there is no one-size-fits-all answer — and that most customers end up with a hybrid approach, at least initially. 

The Three Options: 

Case Study 1: The CI-Only Approach: A customer made the bold decision to use Cloud Integration exclusively — no RTI at all. Their rationale: 

• RTI does not work with public cloud deployments or non-SAP ERP systems 

• They integrate with 4+ different ERP systems globally — RTI only connects to SAP 

• Internal expertise for CI was more available than for RTI 

• CI enables trial operations before full S/4HANA migration 

Their architecture: Custom CDS views in S/4HANA handles all data transformation. CI flows are kept “dumb” — pure data transportation with no business logic. This separation of concerns makes debugging and maintenance straightforward. 

Case Study 2: The Hybrid Approach: This customer uses RTI for base master data integration (the standard objects that RTI handles well) and enriches with CIDS for additional attributes that require custom logic on the S/4HANA side. This is a pragmatic approach when you need RTI’s delta capabilities but also have custom fields that RTI bodies don’t cover. 

Key learning — CI vs. CIDS: One customer who migrated from CIDS to SAP CI was really happy with migration. They cited better flexibility, superior tracing, no data agent performance issues, and easier team collaboration since CI skills are not limited to IBP specialists. 

RTI recommendation from SAP: SAP’s integration strategy recommendation for new customers is to go RTI first. This gives customers delta integration capabilities which is not available with time-series methods. RTI also future-proofs the integration — if customer starts with time series and later adopts OBP, the RTI integration is already available. 

Value realization: 

Despite being early adopters on a maturing platform, participants reported concrete value across several dimensions: 

First Customer Live on HPA: In March 2026, a participant became one of the first customers to go live on the Harmonized Planning Area — with SOP, Inventory Optimization, and Time Series Optimizer all active simultaneously. Some of the key values realized by these early adopters are: 

• Configuration simplification: Customers discovered that with introduction of IBP_CONVERSION function, HPA eliminates the need of helper key figures and additional planning levels for UOM conversion. The system converts automatically without any helpers KFs. Pre-configured conversions cover most use cases. 

• Unified planning model: Participants who activated both time-series and order-based planning in a single HPA confirmed the core value proposition: consistent results across both planning methods, unified key figures, and no reconciliation required between separate planning areas. One participant preparing for a June 2026 go-live is running TS + OBP + Inventory Optimization + S&OP + Demand & Response Planning — all in one planning area. 

Challenges and concerns raised 

The EAC program is valuable precisely because participants surface real challenges — not just success stories. Here are the most significant concerns raised, presented honestly for the benefit of future adopters. 

Some of the key concerns raised by participants: 

• Subnetwork filtering in TS optimizer: One consumer goods company cannot limit the time-series optimizer to a specific factory — it runs across the entire global supply chain. Without subnetwork filtering (planned for 2611), planners cannot run optimization at their scope.  

• Cross-location vendor mapping: An automotive company operating in 60–70 countries discovered that RTI’s inbound mapping allows only one vendor code per source location. With multiple subsidiaries ordering from the same distribution center using different vendor codes, they cannot build their supply network.  

• Scheduling agreements as source of supply: Critical for automotive planning but not available in HPA until 2608. 

 How SAP supported EAC participants:  

One of the defining characteristics of the EAC format is that customer challenges are shared directly with the product managers and developers who can act on them. SAP team responded to customer concerns by updating product roadmap. Some features committed to Roadmap based on customer inputs are: 

 Migration Support announced:  SAP7F Migration EAC: A dedicated EAC program for brownfield customers migrating from SAP7F to HPA, is planned to start with the 2605 release.  If you are interested, please register with following link : Influence Opportunity Homepage – Customer Influence

Best Practice content delivered: In direct response to EAC participant requests, SAP delivered executable best practice content in IBP 2511 — including planning views, analytic stories, and planning profiles that customers could use immediately rather than building from scratch. 

Real-Time issue resolution: Pattern observed throughout the EAC: When customers raised specific technical issues (e.g., attribute naming bugs, OKF behavior questions, lot-for-lot procedure gaps), SAP development teams often investigated and responded within 1–2 sessions — far faster than the standard support ticket process. 

Looking forward — Recommendations for future adopters 

Drawing on seven months of EAC discussions, here are the distilled recommendations for customers considering HPA adoption: 

1. Start small with partial-scope copy : You do not need to adopt every HPA module at once. When copying I_SAPIBP2, select only what you need — Demand Planning and IO is a common starting point. Expand your footprint as you gain confidence. 
2. Choose your integration strategy early: The RTI vs. CI decision has cascading effects on your architecture, team skills, and timeline.  
3. Leverage coexistence for phased transition: HPA and SAP7F planning areas can run side-by-side on the same tenant using separate logical systems. This means you can validate HPA in a contained scope before decommissioning legacy areas — reducing risk significantly. 
4. Plan for the upgrade lifecycle from day one: When you copy I_SAPIBP2, keep the original sample planning area untouched as a reference for future comparison. When new releases deliver additional content, use the planning area comparison tool to identify deltas and merge selectively. 
5. Engage with SAP early: Customers in the EAC consistently received faster issue resolution, influenced the product roadmap directly, and benefited from peer learning that would have taken months to discover independently. If an EAC program exists for a capability you’re adopting, join it. 
6. Best practice content Is your accelerator: Since IBP 2511, SAP has delivered executable planning views, analytic stories, and job profiles for HPA. Use them as your starting point rather than building from scratch. EAC participants who used the pre-release content reported significant time savings in their setup. 

Summary: 

 HPA is where SAP IBP is heading, and the early adopters in this program showed the way. They validated that the model works, the integration options are viable, and the value proposition is real — leaving a clear path for those who follow.