What is SAP Client?

Introduction:

A client is a separate entity within an SAP system that contains its own master data, transactional data and user profiles.

Master data or business data: Data that is required by the business to perform business operations. E.g. Information about customers, employees, products, etc.

Transactional data: Data that is created and changed on a day-to-day basis due to business operations is known as transactional data. E.g. purchase orders, sales orders, service requests, etc.

User master data: User data of a particular user in an SAP system. E.g. Name, E-mail, Language as well as parameters, authorisation and user groups

All these data are client-specific, meaning the data within a particular client can be read or written only by the assigned client and is protected from other clients.

But there are also client-independent or cross-client changes possible. For E.g. If the source code of the SAP system is changed or a new report is created, that will be client independent which means those changes will affect all clients in that particular SAP system.

Number ranges of SAP clients:

SAP client number ranges from 000 to 999. So, technically you can create up to 1000 clients in any SAP system.

Default clients:

When an SAP system is installed, clients 000 and 001 are automatically created as part of the installation process. Client 000 is known as the golden client or master client. Client 001 is a copy of the golden client 000. Customers usually use client 001 to make further copies to satisfy their requirements. For E.g. A copy of client 001 is made and a new client can be called 100 which can act as a development client where configuration and workbench changes are made.

Multiple clients can be created based on technical and business requirements. For E.g. Development client (to create and test new developments and customizations), the Testing client (to perform testing), the Training client (to offer training to end users), etc.

Change management:

Changes that are created in one client can be transported to another client within the same SAP system or to another client in a different SAP system. A change can be either a configuration change (client-dependent) or a workbench change (cross-client).

Changes are transported using a virtual container called “Transports”. It is one of the most commonly used terms in the SAP ecosystem.

Depending on the project, requirements, size and complexity of the organisation, hundreds or even thousands of transports are moved between clients and SAP systems daily. A system called Change & Transport System (CTS) is used to manage transports

I will write another blog to explain the SAP change management process in detail.

Client copy:

Cloning a client to create a new one is called client copy. A client copy copies user master data, application data (also called master data) and client-specific customizing data across to the new client. There are three ways to perform a client copy.

1. local client copy – copy a client inside the same SAP system
2. Remote client copy – copy a client to a different SAP system
3. Client export/import – This is also to copy a client to a different SAP system. The difference between this and remote client copy is that in the remote client copy method, RFC (Remote Function Call) is used to perform the client copy from the source to the target system. Whereas in the client export/import method, the source client is first exported using a transport and the transport is imported into the target SAP system.

SAP Transactions used for client administration:

SCC1 – Client copy using a transport request

SCC3 – Transaction code SCC3 can be used to monitor the process of client copy that is running in the background or check the log of the front-end process.

SCC4 – Transaction that is used to either allow or disallow modifications to happen in a client

SCC5 – This transaction is used to delete a client

SCC7 – Used to perform post-processing after a new client has been imported into the target system

SCC8 – Used to perform client export

SCC9 – Used for a remote client copy

SCCL – Used for a local client copy

Thank you for reading my blog. Hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, please leave a comment on my YouTube video and I will get back to you.

P.S. Check out my course on Udemy – “Introduction to SAP – The Complete Package for Beginners“