Conversion sign-off

At go/no-go 2, Sunday 14:00 of the go-live weekend, Grace's decision group decides whether Contoso runs on SAP S/4HANA on Monday or falls back to ECC. That decision is only as good as the criteria agreed in advance and the evidence collected during the weekend. Design both long before; rehearse both in the dress rehearsal.

Go/no-go criteria

Criteria must be specific, measurable during the weekend and owned. "Finance is OK" is not a criterion; "trial balance, AR, AP, assets and inventory comparisons for 1710 and 1810 at zero difference or explained, signed by Dan" is.

Area	Criterion	Signed by
Technical	SUM finished; no open errors; follow-on activities complete; technical smoke checks passed	Sam (Basis lead)
Finance	Agreed reconciliations within tolerance; accepted migration errors documented	Dan (finance process owner)
Logistics and sales	Stock per plant and open orders reconcile; critical order-to-cash checks pass	The sales process owner (with Maria, the O2C key user) and the logistics owner
Custom code and interfaces	Critical interfaces connected and verified; critical custom functions pass smoke tests	Kenji and the integration lead
Timeline	Validation done with buffer to Monday 06:00; rollback still possible if needed	Luis (cutover manager)
Defects	No open critical defect without an accepted workaround	Priya (test lead)

Contoso's go/no-go criteria. Each one has a named owner who signs during the weekend.

Over the go-live weekend, Grace's decision group takes two go/no-go decisions on evidence signed by the area owners before the Monday 06:00 point of no return.

The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-tst-404

Area checksEach owner verifies their criteria with evidence
Test lead summaryPriya consolidates results, defects and risks
Cutover managerLuis confirms timeline and rollback position
Go/no-go meetingGrace chairs the decision group; process owners and IT leads confirm their criteria
Decision recordedThe decision group decides go, go with conditions or rollback; executives are informed

The sign-off chain for Contoso's production conversion weekend.

The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-tst-404

Rollback is part of the plan

A go/no-go decision is only real if "no-go" is executable. The rollback plan says how Contoso returns to ECC, up to which point in time it is possible, how long it takes, and what happens to anything done in the meantime. Technically, SUM's database migration option keeps the source database unchanged and offers a reset function until a point in the procedure; your plan must say what applies to your actual procedure and environment, confirmed with SAP and Sam. The latest go/no-go time is the last moment when rollback still fits before Monday 06:00.

Are all go/no-go criteria met?Yes → go · No → next question
Is every unmet criterion covered by an accepted workaround and owner?Yes → go with conditions, recorded · No → next question
Is there still time to fix and revalidate before the latest decision point?Yes → fix, revalidate, reconvene · No → no-go: execute rollback

The go/no-go decision path, rehearsed in the dress rehearsal.

The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-tst-404

After go, sign-off continues. Agree a short list of hypercare checks for the first business days (first billing run, first payment run, first MRP run, first period-end tasks), with owners and expected results. The conversion is accepted when those pass and the obsolete data cleanup has been approved by finance, not when the system comes back on Monday morning.

The conversion is accepted only after the first business cycles pass in hypercare and finance approves the obsolete data cleanup.

The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-tst-404

What would you do?

At go/no-go 2 on Sunday 14:00, everything is green except one interface to the logistics provider, which fails. A manual workaround (uploading delivery files twice a day) exists and the logistics owner accepts it for one week. Rollback time has not passed. What should the meeting decide?

Hands-on lab · ACCELQ

Run the smoke suite and keep its Test Report for go/no-go 2

At go/no-go 2, "core smoke tests passed" is a criterion, and a criterion needs evidence someone can open. Here you build a smoke Test Suite, run it as part of validation, and read its Test Report and Perspectives the way the decision group would.

Practice on SAPUI5 Shopping Cart demo app (public, no login)

If you haven't set up ACCELQ yet, do the setup lab first.
Ask a Project Admin (or, if you are one, open Project Administration > Custom Fields) for a List field named Priority with High, Medium and Low, assigned to Scenario. Set your critical Shopping Cart Scenarios, such as add to cart and the checkout form, to High and the rest to Medium.
Tag the Scenarios that belong in the smoke check with smoke. A smoke suite is short on purpose: in a real weekend it has to finish well before 14:00.
Click "+" > Test Suite, choose Dynamic, and filter on the smoke tag, so any Scenario tagged later joins the suite automatically.
Click Run. Write a Purpose such as "Go/no-go 2 smoke, converted system", pick the App Environment you use for the converted system, choose your Local Agent, set screenshots to Optimal, and add your own address under Notify To for test completion.
Open the Test Report. Check the information sidebar (purpose, environment, agent, browser), then open Perspectives by Priority. A failed High Scenario is an unmet criterion.
Apply the lesson's decision questions to the result: all met means go; an unmet criterion with an accepted workaround and owner means go with conditions; anything else means fix and revalidate, or no-go.
From Results, export the run and write a two-line evidence note: the criterion, the result and the Test Report link.

Done when The smoke suite ran with a clear Purpose, every High failure has an owner and a decision, and the evidence note links to the Test Report. Keep the report link and the export with your decision record.

Learn more in ACCELQ’s docs: Overview of Test Report · Perspectives in Test Reports · Test Suites in ACCELQ

Start the free ACCELQ trial Matt Angerer, who runs The Sign-Off Table, works at ACCELQ. Disclosure

Key points

Agree specific, measurable, owned go/no-go criteria before the dress rehearsal, and rehearse them.
Run a clear sign-off chain from area owners to the test lead, cutover manager and Grace's go/no-go decision group.
Rollback must be executable, with a known latest decision point.
Record conditions and continue sign-off through hypercare and the first business cycles.

Go/no-go criteria

Rollback is part of the plan

Lesson check