Issue

Many business process steps involve the handling of documents by an enterprise system, be it via the generation of output documents, the ingestion of documents from business partners or other sources, or by using externally-maintained documents in transactions. Documents are typically seen as unstructured or semi-structured information and consume significantly more storage than transactional data inside the ERP system's database. Both of these characteristics make management inside the ERP database an unwise choice, especially when running on HANA which is relatively expensive on a per-gigabyte basis. It is thus advisable to use a document management system that is separate to the database of the ERP system. Due to the different use patterns involved, a single solution or system will likely be insufficient to support all. Hence this document will recommend a document management solution for each based on a qualitative analysis of the most feasible options in the market. 

Recommendation

The overarching recommendation is to use the native SAP BTP-based Forms Service for document generation, and the OpenText suite of products for document management. Different OpenText products are recommended for different document management patterns: 

For document generation, the BTP Forms Service is the sole future-proof solution offered by SAP following the planned obsolescence of NetWeaver ADS (Adobe Document Services) in 2027. Several technically viable options exist for each of the other use patterns, including some native SAP offerings, but no single solution is able to address all of them well. Recommending the OpenText suite of products thus minimises overall complexity by limiting the number of vendors involved, and reducing technical complexity via reuse and integration of some technical components common to multiple OpenText products. As SAP's preferred partner in the document management space, OpenText is not only on SAP's price list, but also operationally integrated into RISE, with SAP able to support the required connectors and add-ons within the scope of RISE technical managed services. 

Background & Context

Explain the context in which the decision is being made.

Assumptions

Clearly describe the underlying assumptions which informed or limited the choices available, or impacted the decision: cost, schedule, regulatory requirements, business drivers, country footprint, technology, etc. Include links as necessary. This section is important because a future change in circumstances might invalidate some key assumptions, which then prompts a decision to be revisited. 

• Storage of static PDF documents inside the HANA database must be avoided whenever possible due to the high cost of HANA storage. 

Constraints

Capture any constraints or limitations inherent to the recommended option. This could be aspects which, if changed or removed in future, could cause the decision to be revisited or invalidated. For example, a constraint might be that a new product has significant gaps in important functionality, which caused an older alternative to be recommended. If those gaps are closed in future, this might cause the decision to be invalidated.

• This document does not consider in its scope data archiving, i.e. the reduction of the size of database tables by removing records from them and storing them as files in the file system, in a format which can later be re-imported into the database in case of an audit request. Although this is important in order to control database growth after go-live, native SAP archiving programs (transaction SARA) is basically the only option for this as the execution of archiving requires detailed knowledge of the underlying data model to ensure referential integrity is not violated. 

Impacts

Describe the impact of the decision on other aspects such as other processes, infrastructure, other SAP modules or systems, data cleansing and migration, developments, automations, interfaces, in-flight projects, etc.

Business Rules

The decision may translate into business rules which enforce the decision and will require configuration. List these business rules here. For example, "An Outline Agreement cannot be created via the RFQ process. An awarded RFQ can only result in a Purchase Order". 

Options considered

This section considers each pattern separately, as different products target each of the different use cases. 

Pattern 1: Generation of output documents

This pattern covers the generation of output documents, in the format of a PDF file, from data inside the database of S/4HANA. This pattern covers both printing to document or label printers (e.g. delivery documents, invoices, shipping labels), as well as generation of PDF for digital distribution (e.g. to send purchase orders to suppliers via email, or to attach PDF documents to electronic invoices lodged with relevant government authorities). 

Option 1A: SAP NetWeaver Adobe Document Services (ADS)

SAP NetWeaver Adobe Document Services (ADS) is the on-premises form-processing engine embedded into SAP NetWeaver Java. It enables the design and rendering of both interactive and static PDF forms directly from ABAP-based applications, and providing its output to the SAP spool system or as a PDF file. Generation of static PDFs does not attract any additional licensing fees. As of 2025, this technology is in productive use at Syensqo, however its reliance on the NetWeaver Java stack, which is due to exit mainstream maintenance in December 2027, limits its usefulness for the greenfield SyWay program. 

Option 1B: SAP BTP Forms Service by Adobe

SAP BTP Forms Service by Adobe is the cloud-hosted counterpart to NetWeaver ADS, running on SAP Business Technology Platform. Templates for both static and interactive forms are created using the same LifeCycle Designer tool also used for ADS, but are uploaded into a BTP service hosted by SAP. SAP S/4HANA or other systems then interact with APIs provided by the BTP service to invoke a rendering service that turns data, provided in the API call, into rendered PDF documents without the need to maintain any additional servers. Generation of documents attracts usage fees on a per-document basis however these costs are minimal (€9.80 per 1000 invocations). RISE also includes 200,000 invocations per month at no additional charge. 

Pattern 2: Archival storage of output documents

This pattern covers documents that are generated by a process inside an SAP system (as per Pattern 1), and which thus are associated with a business transaction inside an SAP system, may need to be stored for some time to meet regulatory or audit requirements. Due to their size and static nature, storage inside the HANA database must be avoided. As a result only options which store the document outside of the HANA database are considered here. 

Option 2A: SAP BTP Document Management Service

The BTP Document Management Service is SAP's first-party, cloud-native document repository supporting versioning, metadata tagging, and access control, and storing documents in SAP-managed infrastructure. BTP DMS is a primarily "headless" application with only a rudimentary user interface; the application is primarily designed to be used via APIs from custom-developed applications. BTP DMS uses the CMIS protocol for integration; like its predecessor ArchiveLink, this provides for durable links between transactions and database records inside an S/4HANA system, and the associated documents stored in BTP DMS. Documents stored in BTP DMS can technically be accessed directly, provided that the document ID is known. However BTP DMS does not provide fine-grained authorisation controls and instead primarily relies on the authorisations of the S/4HANA system: The system design assumes that only users authorised to access a particular record in S/4HANA (e.g. a specific purchase order) are able to retrieve the document IDs associated to that record, and thus are able to retrieve the documents from BTP DMS. 

Option 2B: SAP Archiving and Document Access by OpenText

SAP Archiving and Document Access by OpenText ("SAP ADA") is a hybrid solution composed of an add-on inside S/4HANA and a cloud component hosted by OpenText. It builds on the ArchiveLink interface to create durable links between transactions and records inside an S/4HANA system, and the associated documents stored in the OpenText cloud. ArchiveLink has been in place for decades and thus provides more than 200 integration points into core SAP functionality and transactions, meaning that a broad range of application functions can access this service to store and retrieve documents in a manner that is transparent to the user. The storage system supports automated lifecycle policies, and full-text indexing for fast search. Traditional ArchiveLink products (e.g. OpenText Archive Server) are "headless" and thus offer no mechanism for users to securely access documents without first opening the SAP object (such as a delivery) that generated the document. SAP ADA provides its own user interface inside S/4HANA which allows users to centrally access documents they are authorised to see, without first having to find and open the record which generated the document.

Option 2C: Arcana Cloud Archive

Arcana provides a cloud-native document storage and archiving service compatible with both SAP ArchiveLink and SAP's new CMIS protocol, and is tightly integrated into Azure. Arcana's solution is deployed using a serverless architecture directly into the customer's Azure Subscription and thus allows documents to be stored inside the customer's in-cloud security boundary, using customer-controlled encryption keys. It is designed for highly-regulated environments which place a premium on data residency and control of encryption, and ensures that only the customer can decrypt documents stored using its solution. Arcana is a "headless" application which does not provide a user interface. The design of the integration assumes that only users authorised to access a particular record in S/4HANA (e.g. a specific purchase order) are able to retrieve the document IDs associated to that record, and thus are able to retrieve the documents via the CMIS API from Arcana. 

Options not considered in detail

SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is SAP's tool for the central governance of data retention, archival, and secure deletion of documents for highly regulated companies. It can enforce legally compliant retention rules, automate disposition processes, and record detailed audit logs on access, modification, and deletion. Based on NetWeaver, it will exit mainstream maintenance in December 2027 and is thus not a suitable option for SyWay. 

SAP Content Server is an on-premises repository server which stores files in a file system rather than a database. It is tightly integrated with the SAP ArchiveLink API which allows the SAP S/4HANA application to maintain a tight link between a transactional record in the SAP database tables, and associated documents stored in Content Server. As of 2025, this is pre-existing technology at Syensqo, however the product is somewhat dated and has not been actively developed by SAP for some time. When associated with S/4HANA, Content Server is theoretically supported until 2040, but Syensqo IT plan to deprecate it in 2026 due to its age. 

Pattern 3: Ingestion and processing of external documents

This pattern covers scenarios where documents are generated externally by business partners of Syensqo in a format that not under the control of Syensqo, and are received as an input into a process being executed inside an SAP product. These documents may need to have information extracted from them, e.g. OCR performed on an invoice which is received as an arbitrary PDF or image. Regardless of processing, they must be stored as immutable attachments to the transaction inside the SAP system (e.g. attached to an AP invoice). 

Option 3A: OpenText Information Capture Core

OpenText Information Capture Core is the cloud-based OCR and document-recognition service used by Vendor Invoice Management (the preferred invoice management application). However the service is not exclusive to processing invoices and can be configured to process any other kind of document by parsing it, extracting recognisable tokens which match a pre-configured pattern (e.g. a SKU), and creating machine-processable content from documents. It provides a level of machine learning to continuously refine detection and parsing rules, and avoid the creation of fixed-format parsing rules. SAP's Invoice Management solution provides a large number of pre-defined processing rules which would not otherwise be available for documents other than invoices, such as purchase orders received from customers. However using the service and some custom logic inside S/4HANA, it would be possible to build a bespoke solution that reuses components of the Invoice Management framework. 

Option 3B: SAP BTP Document Information Extraction Service

The SAP BTP Document Information Extraction Service is a first-party offering build by SAP and hosted inside BTP. It supports processing of unstructured and semi-structured documents to extract certain elements, attributes, and structured data such as rows from a table, into machine-processable formats using both template-based and AI-driven extraction processes. SAP delivers a handful of pre-trained models for common document types (invoices, delivery notes, purchase orders), though anecdotal experience suggests these are best seen as examples demonstrating product capability, than production-ready components. 

Option 3C: Azure AI Document Intelligence

Azure AI Document Intelligence is a native Azure service that applies machine learning to identify and extract structured data like text, key-value pairs, or rows in a table, from documents and forms. It offers pre-built models for common document types (invoices, receipts, etc.), and supports the creation of custom models that can be refined using provided form layouts in order to better recognise formats commonly used by important business partners of Syensqo. Information extracted from input documents is presented in a machine-processable JSON format that includes confidence scores to support exception management, such as when information can only be parsed incompletely. Rather than a complete application which can be integrated out-of-box with SAP S/4HANA, this should be regarded as a foundational building block which, together with Azure functions, Logic Apps, and other Azure components, can be assembled into a functional system using development effort. 

Options not considered in detail

Due to KDD056 - Invoice Management with S/4HANA recommending the use of SAP Invoice Management by OpenText over competitor products like ReadSoft Process Director, the evaluation here did not consider enterprise application vendors other than OpenText as viable options due to the duplication and likely commercial disadvantages. 

Hyperscalers such as Google Cloud Platform and AWS also offer document ingestion services comparable to Azure AI Document Intelligence (e.g. Amazon Textract, AWS Intelligent Document Processing, GCP Document AI), but these were excluded due to low perceived differentiating factors as compared to Azure's service, and Syensqo's overall direction towards greater use of Azure services. 

Pattern 4: Referencing external documents in transactions

Option 4A: OpenText Extended Content Management (xECM)

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Option 4B: Microsoft SharePoint

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Option 4C: RegDocs

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Evaluation

Pattern 1: Generation of output documents

Option 1B - SAP BTP Forms Service by Adobe - is the clear preference based on the analysis below. 

	Option 1A SAP NetWeaver Adobe Document Services (ADS)	Option 1B SAP BTP Forms Service by Adobe
Maturity	Mature; the solution has been in widespread use for decades	Mature; although newer, the solution has been successfully implemented for several years by customers
Functionality	Both options support the generation of static and interactive PDF documents and thus provide all of the features expected to be needed.
Future-proof solution	Depends on the NetWeaver Java runtime which exits mainstream maintenance in December 2027.	SAP's sole investment focus for products supporting the generation of PDFs.
Implementation complexity	Although not complicated to install, it does require a NetWeaver Java environment along with suitable HA/DR solution.	Simple turn-key PaaS service hosted by SAP, with built-in reliability metrics and SLAs.
Operational complexity	Requires regular updates to the operating system, NetWeaver layer, and database.	Simple to operate, and very little to configure
Cost	No license cost for generation of static output documents. Interactive PDFs do incur a licensing fee, but are not planned to be used by SyWay.	Although not free, the likely cost is minimal. A RISE subscription includes 200,000 invocations per month at no extra charge; excess is charged at less than €0.01 per document.

Pattern 2: Archival storage of output documents

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Pattern 3: Ingestion and processing of external documents

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Pattern 4: Referencing external documents in transactions

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See also

KDD056 - Invoice Management with S/4HANA

Change log