SAP EP – Netweaver Portal

Symptom
Your organization plans to use ESS/MSS products in an EHP landscape.
You may require assistance in choosing a suitable SP or product landscape for ESS/MSS
Other terms
EHP,MSS,ESS,UPGRADE
Reason and Prerequisites
There are some dependancies and considerations when enhancing the ERP 6.0 solution from an ESS and MSS perspective.
Solution
* The Enhancement Pack (EHP) concept *
EHP packages are provided to deliver new functionality without having the fully upgrade the entire application and technology platform. These are extensions and enhancements of ERP 6.0 – the previous ERP 6.0 core application and technology platform remains in place.
This new concept relies on the SP stack strategy available at www.service.sap.com/sp-stacks
If you plan to upgrade to EHP and also use ESS or MSS there are a number of considerations
The first consideration before upgrading is to ensure your landscape has the minimum required ERP6.0 stack to move to an EHP environment
For minimum SP stack requirements for ERP 6.0 when implementing EHP3 please see the following note
1095233 Enhancement Package 3 for SAP ERP 6.0: required Support Package
There are also equivalent notes for EHP1 and EHP2 as well

* Which BP/XSS package(s) to use? *
The next consideration is whether you or your organization intend to use the next XSS version and Business Package or indeed whether there is an EHP version available for that EHP level (1,2,3). This can be checked at www.service.sap.com/swdc or within the stacks themselves at www.service.sap.com/sp-stacks.
Best practice would be to test the new EHP release in an EHP test environment first and make your comparisons in terms of available functionality and customization between the old BP/XSS and the new BP/XSS. It should be mentioned that EHP Business Packages may contain previous WD JAVA based Business Package roles as well therefore integration or re-use should be possible, this however is a separate topic area not covered by this note.
You may be also able to transport or manually re-implement customizing from the source environment in the target environment however you should also ensure you have a list of all customization and modifications in order to deliver your target environment as required.
* Mixed Landscapes *
Mixed landscapes are when you use ESS or MSS software components from different product families
In previous releases customers who wished to operate mixed environments would be referred to note 1007341. Note 1007341 is primarily for ERP2004 and ERP 6.0 mixed landscapes. For customers proposing to operate a mixed landscape for ERP 6.0 and EHP1,2,3 here are some considerations when running this landscape –>
* The purpose of upgrading to EHP is to avail of new functionality, this may not be fully realized if you retain previous ESS/MSS versions
** EA_HR EHP extension sets, BPs, XSS and Business functions may bring in new functionality and change IMG customizing or offer further upgrades or compatibility opportunities, if activated or realized these could change the expected environment for older ESS versions
*** We would not recommend running new EHP ESS/MSS versions with the previous ERP 6.0 EA_HR 600 version
* Applying SPs to the new EHP environment *
We recommend where possible you follow the SP stacks recommendations at www.service.sap.com/sp-stacks for apply SPs to an ESS/MSS environment
There are 2 stacks to consider
1) ERP 6.0 stack
2) EHP (1,2,3) stack
The following note shows which ERP 6.0 and EHP stacks are equvialent
1064635 SAP ERP Enhancement Packages: SP Stacks Release Info
In each stack there are many software components – some have strong ESS/MSS inter-dependancies others components have weaker interdependancies – in previous releases these dependancies are
explored in the following notes
761266 – XSS Self Service Patch Dependancies ERP2004
908569 – XSS Dependancies ERP2005

The same dependancies exist in EHP landscape but the relevant software components are separated across 2 different stacks therefore you need to check note 1064635 to find out which EHP and ERP 6.0 stack should be run together then –> check www.service.sap.com/sp-stacks to view and implement the ERP 6.0 stack contents and check note 1130534 to find out how to view and implement the EHP3 stack contents.
The core dependancies are
SAP_HR
EA_HR
SAP_ESS
SAP_MSS
PCUI_GP
BP_ERPESS
BP_ERPMSS
These components depend on each other but customers should be aware that these dependancies also have their own individual dependancies with other software components in the stack
*Additional note on applying XSS SPs and CLC*
If you have customizing or modifications in the XSS environment you are also advised to view note 872892 when applying SPs
If you use the HR payroll system for one (or more countries) you may find SAP_HR is often patched in advance depending on different requirements
The most frequent reason for requiring the application of an SP in the SAP HR environment is that a new legal change is required. In order to assist customers in this regard SAP have released the CLC strategy which will allow customers to apply legal changes independantly of having to apply an entire HRSP see http://service.sap.com/HRLegalChanges for futher details.
Please be aware that
* CLC does not currently replace the standard HRSP delivery it enhances it
** There maybe occaisons where ESS and MSS also need to reflect a new legal change, in such cases the corresponing EA_HR CLC may be needed or the full stack
Also there maybe SNOTE corrections available which may reduce the need for a full HRSP
In summary this note should provide some additional assistance when moving ESS and MSS to an EHP landscape