Summary

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Meeting Date
2026-03-19
Meeting Type
Call
Note Type
Summary
Attendees

1. Meeting Summary

I attended a kickoff presentation for the SAP R/3 update program covering the US and Canada. Andre Holthusen and Tobias Maurer walked through the purpose, scope, timeline, testing expectations, and project governance for the update.

The main message was that this is a maintenance and risk-reduction effort, not a functional enhancement project. The update is required to keep the legacy SAP R/3 P10 environment in a supported state, reduce operational and legal risk, avoid disruption to the broader S/4 transformation, and prevent higher support costs if SAP support were lost. The team was clear that no new features are being introduced. The focus is on preserving current functionality, applying support package and security updates, and ensuring the system remains stable for the remaining years it will be in use.

From an operating model standpoint, normal business use of P10 will continue throughout the project except for the go-live weekend. The main restriction is on technical system changes between March 30 and June 21, with emergency-only exceptions. That restriction applies to customizing and development activity, not daily operational transactions such as order entry, warehousing, billing, or standard processing.

A key dependency is business participation in integration testing. The team needs each area to identify its most important business processes, convert those into test cases, execute them in C10 during the integration test window, and log any defects for remediation and retest. Barbara raised a useful question about overnight and background-run processes, specifically invoicing, and Tobias clarified those jobs are not mirrored automatically in the test environment but can be simulated manually as part of testing.

The project team also reviewed module-level ownership and asked for confirmation of named business contacts by function and country. They specifically noted a gap for Canada Sales and then confirmed Pascal should fill that role. They will circulate meeting invites, training sessions, and access details for the Teams channel and test tooling. One point of confusion was around US holiday assumptions on June 19, which Barbara corrected. The team said they would revisit the go-live communications and scheduling details accordingly.

Overall, this was a straightforward kickoff. The work required from the business is centered on process identification, test case preparation, test execution, and issue reporting. The timeline is compressed, but the project team appears organized and emphasized that they want to keep the testing approach as simple as possible, including limiting users to a single test tool where feasible.

2. Attendee List

  • Andre Holthusen
  • Tobias Maurer
  • Barbara Bement

3. Action Items

  • [Andre Holthusen] Send the presentation link by email after the meeting.
  • [Andre Holthusen] Send Teams access details and ensure participants can access the project channel and file structure.
  • [Andre Holthusen] Update the project responsibility matrix based on feedback, including adding Pascal for Canada Sales.
  • [Andre Holthusen] Send meeting invitations for upcoming trainings and status meetings by the end of the week.
  • [Andre Holthusen] Reassess the go-live procedure and communications after learning that June 19 is not a US holiday.
  • [Andre Holthusen] Confirm there are no meeting conflicts with the international Festool meeting on June 18.
  • [Andre Holthusen / Project Team] Download legacy test cases from the old R/3 test tool and share them to help users identify relevant processes and expected test case detail.
  • [Andre Holthusen / Project Team] Simplify the user testing experience so participants only need to use one test tool where possible.
  • [Tobias Maurer] Support technical questions related to SAP Basis, authorizations, login access, and test environment behavior.
  • [Tobias Maurer / Project Team] Support manual simulation of relevant background jobs in the test system where needed.
  • [Barbara Bement / Business Leads] Identify critical business processes that must be tested, including overnight or background-dependent processes such as invoicing.
  • [Business Leads] Prepare test cases for identified business processes.
  • [Business Leads / Test Users] Execute integration testing in C10 during the test window.
  • [Business Leads / Test Users] Log defects found during testing for IT remediation and perform retesting after fixes.
  • [All Participants] Review the named functional owners and notify Andre of any corrections.

4. Relevant Timelines

  • March 30 to June 21 - Technical system change freeze in effect, except for emergency changes only.
  • March 31 - Training on test case creation.
  • Next 1.5 to 2 weeks - Business teams to identify the most relevant business processes for testing.
  • Through May 1 - Test case preparation to be completed.
  • May 5 - TTS tool training for test users.
  • May 18 - Integration test kickoff.
  • May 18 to June 12 - Integration testing window in C10.
  • Fridays during integration testing - Weekly update meetings.
  • June 12 - Integration test summary meeting.
  • June 18 - International Festool meeting noted as a potential scheduling conflict to avoid.
  • June 20 - Planned P10 go-live weekend.
  • June 22, 2026 - Business resumes on updated SAP P10 environment.

5. Additional Notes

  • The update is a support package stack update, not an enhancement package upgrade. The practical outcome is bug fixes, security updates, and legal/compliance supportability, without new functionality.
  • The project team emphasized that current production functionality should remain intact after the update. Testing should focus on validating what exists today, especially business-critical transactions, reports, and custom Y transactions.
  • There are no operational restrictions during the project other than the go-live downtime window. This should help reduce business disruption, but it also means testing discipline will be important to catch issues before cutover.
  • Background jobs are not fully replicated in the test system, so areas that rely on overnight automation need to call those out explicitly for manual simulation during testing.
  • Tobias clarified that the recent P10 outage was unrelated to this project and is not expected to affect the project timeline.
  • The project team appears sensitive to business workload and intentionally allowed additional time for test preparation due to normal operations and holiday calendars.
  • The main unresolved items coming out of the session are confirmation of functional owners, finalization of go-live communications, and ensuring test users have a simple, consistent toolset.