How to Run and Read SAP Readiness Check for S/4HANA

To run SAP Readiness Check for an ECC to S/4HANA conversion, start with SAP Note 2913617. Implement the data collector notes it lists in your production system, then run report RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA with your target S/4HANA release selected. Download the ZIP file and upload it to SAP for Me (or SAP Cloud ALM). Collecting the data is the easier half. The harder half is reading the dashboard: each analysis points to a workstream, and each finding should become a line in your test scope with a named person who signs it off.

This guide covers both halves. It sits under our end-to-end ECC to S/4HANA migration guide, where the Readiness Check is the first sign-off artifact in the journey: "Readiness findings accepted."

What SAP Readiness Check is, and what it is not

SAP Readiness Check is a free analysis of your source system. A third-party review of SAP's documentation notes that it is available to every customer with an active maintenance agreement at me.sap.com/readinesscheck, and also in SAP Cloud ALM for customers who have a tenant. The same review counts sixteen analyses in the conversion scenario, based on SAP's Key Feature Overview. SAP keeps adding checks. In the H1 2026 product expert training, SAP showed a new SAP Business AI Capabilities tile, which shows which AI capabilities you can use on your target.

The tool is for planning. It does not approve the conversion. SAP's own S/4HANA upgrade guide calls the Readiness Check "mainly a planning tool" and says the Simplification Item Check is required as well. In a conversion, the SI-Check runs again inside Software Update Manager. A clean dashboard in the spring does not guarantee a clean SUM run in the fall.

The analysis also has a built-in limit. For simplification items, it works primarily from table contents and used transactions. It sees what your system records, not how your business actually runs. That limit matters when you scope tests.

Before you run it: prerequisites and the note set

Run the check in the productive client, because the usage-based results depend on real workload data. SAP's step-by-step blog says you need 6–8 weeks of ST03 transaction history. With less, the results can be inaccurate or incomplete. Check ST03N retention before you schedule anything.

Note 2913617 is the master list. It changes often, so always open the current version instead of relying on a blog's screenshot. These are the notes you will meet most often:

SAP Note	What it enables	Watch out
2758146	The Readiness Check data collection framework (RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA)	MIME object "not unique" errors during implementation are covered in KBA 2968380
2185390	Custom Code Analyzer (program SYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO)	Has manual steps. Add your customer namespaces to the selection
2781766	Exports ABAP Test Cockpit results for the Readiness Check (the alternative to SYCM)	Implemented in the central ATC system, not in ECC
2399707, 2502552	Simplification Item Check and the S4TC check classes	Run them against the same target release you select in the collector
2972792	Financial Data Quality (FDQ) collectors	ERP 6.0 sources only. Activate any objects SNOTE flags in yellow
2721530	FAQ for Data Volume Management collection	FAQ note only. You cannot implement it in SNOTE

For the sizing tile, Note 2913617 lists minimum ST-PI levels. SAP's blog cites ST-PI 740 SP07 or 700/710 SP17. If you are below that, clear the HANA sizing checkbox and run /SDF/HDB_SIZING separately. Implement the notes with SNOTE in development and move them through your normal transport path to production. Treat them like any other change, with a smoke test in QA.

Running it step by step

1. Implement notesNote set from 2913617, transported DEV → QA → PRD
2. Extract custom codeSYCM_DOWNLOAD_REPOSITORY_INFO or remote ATC export
3. Schedule collectorsRC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA, target release, productive client
4. Monitor jobsCheck each job log; a cancelled job blocks the download
5. Download ZIPRerun the report and choose Download Analysis Data
6. Upload and enrichNew analysis at SAP for Me; add ATC results with Update Analysis

1. Pick the right target. In RC_COLLECT_ANALYSIS_DATA, select the S/4HANA release you actually plan to land on. RISE customers can select SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition releases. If those releases are missing from the list, SAP says to update the local replica of the simplification item catalog first.
2. Schedule the analysis. Choose Schedule Analysis, then Immediate. The report starts several background jobs: SI relevance, sizing, FDQ, DVM and others, depending on the scope you selected.
3. Watch the long runners. On large systems, FDQ is usually the slowest job. In September 2026, SAP added new parallelization for the FDQ general ledger collection. Before this, a single high-volume fiscal year could keep one job running for days. You get the improvement by implementing the latest version of Note 2972792.
4. Download and upload. When all jobs have finished, run the report again and download the ZIP. Upload it as a new analysis. If you used remote ATC, export the results to a file for SAP Readiness Check and add them to the same analysis.
5. Generate the document. The dashboard's Generate Document function produces a Word report plus Excel extracts per tile. The Excel files are what you will work from.

Read the dashboard in the right order

Every tile on the dashboard looks equally urgent. They are not. Read them in three passes.

• Pass 1, blockers: simplification items, compatibility scope analysis, active business functions and add-on compatibility. These decide whether you can start a conversion at all. An uncertified add-on or a business function that is not supported on your target is a decision for the steering committee, not a task for a developer.
• Pass 2, effort: custom code analysis, integration, app availability and recommended Fiori apps. These set the size of your build and your test backlog.
• Pass 3, data: FDQ, Customer Vendor Integration (CVI) and sizing. These findings turn into cleansing work, and that work has deadlines that come before the first mock conversion.

Our free SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA course goes through each tile with worked examples.

Turn each analysis into test scope

This step is where most programs drop the ball. The report goes to Basis and the SI owners. The test lead sees it three months later, when SIT is already planned. Instead, map every tile to test scope and a sign-off owner during the assessment itself:

Analysis	What it tells you	What to test	Who signs off
Simplification items	Relevant items and consistency status for your target	Changed processes, e.g. credit management, material ledger valuation, output. One test per relevant item	Process owner per item
Custom code analysis	Objects affected by simplifications	Retest each remediated object with the business process that calls it	Development lead, then the process owner in SIT
Integration	IDocs, RFCs, web services and other interfaces in use	End-to-end interface tests with each partner system	Integration lead
Recommended Fiori apps	Apps that match transactions you actually use	Launchpad roles, catalogs and the authorizations behind each tile	Security lead and key users
Financial Data Quality	Inconsistencies by company code and fiscal year	Pre- and post-conversion reconciliation of the GL, AA and ML	Controller
Customer Vendor Integration	CVI preparation status and BP conversion blockers	BP creation, number ranges, partner functions in O2C and P2P	Master data owner
Planned downtime	An estimate based on data volumes	Timed mock conversions against the business downtime window	Cutover manager

Load the simplification item Excel into our Simplification Item Test Impact Tracker, and load the custom code extract into the Custom Code (ATC) Remediation & Retest Tracker. For FDQ and CVI, our step-by-step guides on finance reconciliation and CVI Business Partner conversion take each finding further.

What the report will not tell you

The Readiness Check does not cover authorizations. The SNOK review points out that none of the analyses deals with roles, authorizations or service accounts. A conversion still means rebuilding roles for Fiori catalogs, so you need a separate security test track.

Four more gaps to plan for:

• Process variants: usage data shows which transactions ran, not which variants or exception paths matter at quarter-end. Close-related transactions may be missing if your ST03 window did not include a period end.
• Non-SAP interfaces: the integration tile sees technical interfaces in ECC. It does not see the spreadsheet upload a plant controller runs every Monday.
• Performance: sizing gives you hardware numbers. It does not prove batch windows or response times. Plan volume tests separately.
• Downtime: the downtime figure is an estimate. Only a timed mock conversion on production-sized data gives you a number you can defend.

Rerun cadence and common errors

Run the check at least three times: once at the start of the assessment, again after your cleansing and remediation sprints to show the item count going down, and a final time against the frozen target release before the first mock conversion. Each run is evidence. Keep the ZIP files and the generated documents with your quality gate records.

Most collector failures fall into a few patterns, and all of them are documented in KBA 2968380:

• FDQ missing from Scope Selection: it is only supported for SAP ERP 6.0, not for Simple Finance systems.
• FDQ dumping because the Note 2972792 configuration steps were skipped.
• The upload showing no data submitted for Asset Accounting.

For problems the KBA does not solve, open an incident on component SV-SCS-S4R.

Frequently asked questions

Is SAP Readiness Check free?

Yes. It is part of your maintenance agreement and runs through SAP for Me or SAP Cloud ALM. The real cost is Basis effort: implementing the notes, moving them to production and watching the collector jobs. Plan for a sprint, not an afternoon. On large systems, the custom code and FDQ jobs alone can run for days.

Does the Readiness Check replace the Simplification Item Check?

No. The Readiness Check is for planning. The SI-Check (/SDF/RC_START_CHECK) runs again during the SUM conversion and can still stop it. Use the Readiness Check to plan and track the work, and use the SI-Check to prove consistency right before the conversion. If you get stuck there, our guide to SI-Check return codes 7, 8 and 12 explains how to fix them.

Can I run it on a system copy instead of production?

You can, but the usage-based results will be weaker, because a copy has little or no real ST03 workload history. SAP points to production, or to whichever system holds representative workload data. If governance rules out running it in production, read Note 2913617 for SAP's guidance on bringing workload data into the system you analyze.

Who should own the Readiness Check results?

Basis owns the technical run. The program's solution architect owns the findings. Each relevant simplification item needs a process owner who signs off its test, and the test lead should map findings to test scope during the assessment itself. The phase-by-phase ECC to S/4HANA testing plan shows where that scope goes next.

Sources

1. SAP Readiness Check: Key Feature Overview, SAP SE (SAP Help Portal), 2026
2. S/4HANA Conversion – Readiness Check 2.0 step by step, SAP Community (blog by SAP), updated 2021
3. SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA now supports SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud / RISE target versions, SAP Community (blog by SAP), 2025
4. SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA: New Parallelization for Financial Data Quality General Ledger, SAP Community (blog by SAP), September 2026
5. Leveraging New Features in SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA Conversions and Upgrades – PET 2026, SAP Learning, 2026
6. KBA 2968380: SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – troubleshooting guide, SAP Support, current version
7. KBA 3440226: Readiness Check upload showing error for Financial Data Quality Asset Accounting and Material Ledger, SAP Support, current version
8. Running the Custom Code Analyzer, SAP Help Portal, SAP NetWeaver 7.50 documentation
9. Upgrade Guide for SAP S/4HANA 2025 (Document Version 3.0), SAP SE (SAP Help Portal), 2025
10. SAP Readiness Check 2.0 for SAP S/4HANA: What's New, SAP Community (blog by SAP), 2019
11. SAP S/4HANA readiness assessment: what Readiness Check leaves out, SNOK, September 2026

Notes for review before publishing:

• Search was cut off. My web search hit its usage limit partway through research. I couldn't open the 2026 Key Feature Overview PDF or SAP Note 2913617 (it requires a login). That's why the article doesn't give a fixed count of analyses in SAP's own words. Before publishing, check two things against the current note: the number of analyses ("sixteen"), which comes from SNOK's reading of the April 2026 overview, and the ST-PI minimum levels.
• Some claims rest only on SNOK, a consulting firm. These are the SAP Cloud ALM availability and the gap in authorization coverage. If the Key Feature Overview confirms them, replace those links with SAP's.
• Older sources. The ST-PI levels and the 6–8 week ST03 guidance come from an SAP blog last updated in 2021, so check them too.
• Glossary links. The T-code links (sdf-rc-start-check, snote, st03n) follow the glossary URL pattern. Confirm those three pages exist.