functional consultant and sap HANA

[RachamallaKiran]

Hai all,

I am currently working as a developer with SAP ABAP. i want to become a functional consultant . and i also in dilemma whether to proceed as an abaper , or Learn SAP Hana or go to the functional side . and one more only knowing ABAP will have life in Future ?.

Please advice your thoughts .

[Colleen]

Hi Kiran

It sounds more like you don't know exactly what your next steps should be? What are you trying to get from your SAP career? Do you enjoy and believe you have skills in being a developer? How much experience do you have?

Diversifying is always a great thing but there are benefits in choosing a primary skills area and developing complimentary skills elsewhere. For example, learning HCM so you can be better at ABAP development in HCM area. The module you diversify into might come down to where you work for and what they use the most.

Regards

Colleen

[RachamallaKiran]

Hai collen,

Thanks for the replay . but i was not able to understand what actually try to convey , can u tell in simple . and regarding your questions . yeh i am enjoying being developer , no doubt in that . i have 3+ years experience. but doubt is listening the world is going to change to HANA , so will abap there ? and learning SAP SD and moving forward to the side of functional is good ?

[Colleen]

HI Kiran

My point was pretty clear but your answer does provide more insight. It sounds like you are looking to move to a functional module as you aren't sure of the future of ABAP and are trying to stay current.

I think your need to read up again S4HANA and HANA in general. It is based on ABAP stack so there is still future in ABAP. However, if you have been keeping up to date with development then you will see that Fiori is the roadmap for S4HANA which means that SAPUI5/UI5/HTML5 is the development language for the user interface. However, the ABAP stack still exists where the core transacting/business logic

I'm not a development but from my understanding the ABAP skill is still required but more relating to API and integration for front end to call. As well as that there is a big push/encouragement for OO style programming

Some blogs/books that might be of interest to you are:

https://blogs.sap.com/2012/10/24/a-call-to-arms-for-abap-developers/

https://blogs.sap.com/2013/05/22/what-sapui5-and-fiori-tells-us-about-the-future-of-ui-development-f...

https://www.sap-press.com/abap-to-the-future_3680/author/

http://events.sap.com/teched/en/session/3349

In relation to moving to SD you might be at risk of reseting your 3 years experience back to 1 depending on where you work. At the same time, diversify and learning SD with your ABAP skill could be quite useful for medium and small size projects as you can wear multiple hats.

However, if you enjoy being a developer and still worry that ABAP has no future then consider developing SAPUI5 skills for Fiori app development. You can have a look at free introductory courses on open.sap.com

Another thing to consider - customers will take time to migrate to HANA platform and more importantly S4HANA. 2025 is the year mentioned for when ERP is no longer supported. These customers will require ABAP skills.

Regards

Colleen