What is the SAP Digital Access Adoption Program?
Background
The Digital Access licensing model stems from indirect access/use and is intended to solve the challenges surrounding licensing 3rd party applications from a Named User perspective. Indirect access became a concern for many customers and was on SAP auditors’ radar starting in the early 2010s. These concerns culminated into court disputes with both Diageo in February of 2017 and AB InBev in May of the same year. Both disputes were a result of SAP’s licensing claims for indirect access. It was clear from these disputes that SAP needed to change in order to make licensing indirect access more predictable and manageable.
Shortly after these disputes became public in 2017, then CEO Bill McDermott announced changes to certain aspects of the indirect access licensing puzzle: Order-to-cash and procure-to-pay business processes were licensed via orders. But what about the other business processes that involve indirect access with customers, business partners, suppliers, distributors, financial institutions, etc.?
In April 2018 SAP published a new licensing model for customers, “Digital Access.” SAP Digital Access was created to help navigate and simplify the licensing of indirect access. With this announcement, SAP allowed customers to move to digital access using one of three separate options:
- Do nothing and continue licensing indirect access primarily via Named User licenses.
- Exchange indirect access licenses (Named Users or engines) for credit and apply the credit toward the purchase of digital access.
- Turn in all existing SAP products for credit and convert completely to the latest model of SAP license – which includes Digital Access. Many customers took advantage of this opportunity.
In May 2019, SAP announced the Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP). They would allow customers to “adopt” digital access by either purchasing 100 percent of the estimated digital access document licenses at a 90 percent discount, OR by purchasing 115 percent (accounting for growth) of the needed digital access document licenses and only paying for the 15 percent growth. This program was set to expire in December 2021. Until recently.
Great News! SAP has extended the SAP Digital Access Adoption Program which will now expire on December 31, 2022.
SAP Digital Access Adoption Program: Should we adopt it?
The SAP Digital Access licensing model will gradually make the indirect model obsolete, requiring almost all customers to migrate at some point. So, the question for organizations is not if you’re going to shift to digital access, but when. The DAAP encourages SAP customers to contact SAP to participate in the program where SAP will assess and calculate licensing needs for indirect and digital access.
The program aims to help current customers seamlessly transition from the legacy licensing model to the new Digital Access model. DAAP is available for all SAP customers who have not yet moved to Digital Access licensing model and our recommendation is to take advantage of heavy discounts while they are still available.
SAP Digital Access Adoption Program: How do we move forward?
If you are considering taking part in the DAAP, seek an independent assessment of your indirect access and digital access counts before engaging with SAP directly. The way in which SAP ‘estimates’ the digital access documents is very complex and requires an unbiased and well-trained eye to confirm that the figures are correct.
Give Anglepoint a call today, and we would be happy to answer any questions you might have or provide a quote for a thorough digital access measurement.
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