Why Your SAP Modernization Project is Stuck in the Discovery Phase

Your SAP modernization project isn't failing during implementation; it’s dying in the discovery phase. While your competitors are shipping modern, cloud-native experiences, your team is likely stuck in "software archaeology"—spending months interviewing retiring subject matter experts and reverse-engineering undocumented ABAP code that hasn't been touched since the early 2000s.

TL;DR: Traditional SAP modernization stalls because manual discovery takes 18+ months and relies on non-existent documentation; Replay’s visual reverse engineering reduces discovery to weeks by extracting logic directly from user workflows into documented React components.

The Discovery Death Spiral#

The average enterprise spends 18 to 24 months just trying to understand what their legacy SAP instance actually does. This is the "Discovery Death Spiral." You hire a Big Four consultancy, they spend six months creating Visio diagrams that are obsolete the moment they are saved, and you end up with a $2 million bill before a single line of modern code is written.

The statistics are damning: 67% of legacy systems lack any meaningful documentation, and 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their timelines. When you consider the $3.6 trillion in global technical debt, it becomes clear that the "Big Bang" rewrite is no longer a viable strategy for your SAP modernization.

The problem is that SAP isn't just a database or a set of tables; it's a tangled web of business logic buried in Z-programs, user exits, and opaque RFC calls. Manual discovery attempts to untangle this web by looking at the code first. This is a mistake.

Why Manual Archaeology Fails#

In a typical SAP environment, the "Source of Truth" isn't the code—it's the workflow. When an order management specialist processes a complex return, they aren't thinking about the 15 underlying tables they are hitting. They are following a business process.

Manual reverse engineering requires a developer to:

1. •Trace the ABAP call stack.
2. •Identify custom Z-fields and their dependencies.
3. •Guess the business intent behind 20-year-old logic.
4. •Document these findings manually (taking roughly 40 hours per screen).

This process is slow, expensive, and prone to human error. Replay changes this paradigm by using video as the source of truth. By recording a real user workflow, Replay extracts the underlying architecture, API contracts, and UI components automatically.

Moving From Black Box to Documented Codebase#

To escape the discovery phase, you must stop treating your SAP instance as a black box and start treating it as a set of observable behaviors. When we talk about your SAP modernization, we are talking about moving logic from a proprietary, monolithic environment into a modern, modular architecture.

Replay's AI Automation Suite analyzes the recorded user sessions to generate a "Blueprint." This isn't just a screenshot; it’s a functional mapping of the legacy system’s intent.

💰 ROI Insight: Manual screen documentation takes an average of 40 hours per complex SAP screen. Replay reduces this to 4 hours, representing a 90% reduction in manual labor costs during the discovery phase.

Step 1: Record the Workflow#

Instead of reading code, record the expert. When a user navigates a complex Fiori or SAP GUI transaction, Replay captures the DOM changes, network requests, and state transitions. This creates a high-fidelity record of the business logic in action.

Step 2: Extract the Logic#

Replay’s engine parses the recording to identify patterns. It separates the "noise" (standard SAP overhead) from the "signal" (your unique business logic). It then generates a Technical Debt Audit, highlighting which parts of the legacy screen are actually used and which are redundant.

Step 3: Generate Modern Components#

Once the logic is understood, Replay generates documented React components and API contracts. This isn't "spaghetti code" generated by a basic transpiler. It’s clean, modular code that follows your organization’s design system.

typescript
// Example: Generated React component from an SAP Sales Order workflow
// This component preserves the business logic extracted via Replay
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { Button, TextField, DataGrid } from '@your-org/design-system';
import { sapSalesOrderService } from '../services/sapIntegration';

export const SalesOrderModernized = ({ orderId }: { orderId: string }) => {
  const [orderData, setOrderData] = useState<any>(null);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true);

  // Replay extracted the specific RFC parameters required for this call
  useEffect(() => {
    async function fetchOrder() {
      const data = await sapSalesOrderService.getDetails(orderId);
      setOrderData(data);
      setLoading(false);
    }
    fetchOrder();
  }, [orderId]);

  if (loading) return <Spinner />;

  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-white rounded-lg shadow-md">
      <h2 className="text-xl font-bold mb-4">Order: {orderData.vbeln}</h2>
      <div className="grid grid-cols-2 gap-4">
        <TextField 
          label="Customer" 
          value={orderData.kunnr} 
          readOnly 
        />
        <TextField 
          label="Net Value" 
          value={`${orderData.netwr} ${orderData.waerk}`} 
          readOnly 
        />
      </div>
      {/* Logic for line items preserved from legacy Z-table interactions */}
      <DataGrid rows={orderData.lineItems} columns={COLUMNS_CONFIG} />
      <Button variant="primary" onClick={() => handleApproval(orderId)}>
        Approve Order
      </Button>
    </div>
  );
};

The "Strangler Fig" Strategy, Accelerated#

The most successful SAP modernizations follow the Strangler Fig pattern: gradually replacing legacy functionality with new services until the old system is "strangled." However, the bottleneck is always the extraction of logic for each new service.

Replay accelerates this by providing the "Blueprints" for each micro-frontend or microservice.

💡 Pro Tip: Don't try to modernize the whole SAP core at once. Use Replay to extract the "Edge" workflows—the ones your users interact with most—and wrap them in modern React interfaces while keeping the SAP core as the system of record.

Automated API Contract Generation#

One of the biggest pain points in your SAP modernization is defining the interface between the new cloud frontend and the legacy backend. Replay automatically generates these contracts based on the actual data flowing through the system during recording.

json
{
  "contractName": "SAP_SalesOrder_Update",
  "source": "VA02_Transaction_Recording",
  "fields": [
    {
      "sapField": "VBELN",
      "modernName": "orderId",
      "type": "string",
      "validation": "required"
    },
    {
      "sapField": "KETDAT",
      "modernName": "requestedDeliveryDate",
      "type": "date",
      "transform": "ISO8601"
    }
  ],
  "e2eTestGenerated": true
}

Built for Regulated Environments#

We understand that SAP environments often sit at the heart of Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government agencies. Modernization cannot come at the expense of security or compliance.

• •SOC2 & HIPAA Ready: Replay is built with enterprise-grade security from the ground up.
• •On-Premise Availability: For highly sensitive environments where data cannot leave the network, Replay offers an on-premise deployment model.
• •PII Redaction: Our AI Automation Suite automatically detects and masks sensitive PII/PHI during the recording and extraction process.

⚠️ Warning: Proceeding with a manual rewrite without a visual source of truth often leads to "Feature Parity Debt"—where the new system is missing 20% of the critical edge-case logic that was never documented but existed in the legacy code.

The Future Isn't Rewriting—It's Understanding#

The "Big Bang" rewrite is a relic of the 2010s. The future of enterprise architecture is visual reverse engineering. By capturing the reality of how your systems are used today, you can build the systems of tomorrow in a fraction of the time.

With Replay, you aren't just guessing what's inside the black box. You are opening it up, documenting it, and transforming it into a modern React-based ecosystem. You save 70% of the time usually wasted on manual discovery and archaeology.

Steps to Start Your SAP Modernization with Replay:#

1. •Identify the Friction: Select a high-value, high-pain SAP workflow (e.g., Inventory Management or Sales Order Processing).
2. •Record the Session: Have a power user perform the task while Replay records the interaction.
3. •Audit the Debt: Use the Replay Technical Debt Audit to see which legacy components are actually necessary.
4. •Extract the Blueprint: Generate the React components and API contracts.
5. •Deploy the Modern Screen: Wrap the legacy logic in a modern UI and deploy it to your users in days, not months.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How long does legacy extraction take with Replay?#

While a manual discovery phase for a single SAP module can take 3-6 months, Replay can extract the functional blueprints and initial React components in 2-8 weeks, depending on the complexity of the workflows.

What about business logic preservation?#

This is Replay's core strength. Because we record the execution of the logic, we capture how the system actually behaves, including all those "hidden" Z-table updates and custom validations that manual documentation often misses.

Does Replay require access to our SAP source code?#

No. Replay performs visual reverse engineering. It observes the system's behavior, network traffic, and UI state. This allows you to document and modernize even if you don't have the original source code or the original developers are long gone.

Can Replay generate E2E tests?#

Yes. Every recording can be automatically converted into an E2E test suite (Playwright/Cypress). This ensures that your modernized version maintains 100% functional parity with the legacy SAP screen.

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Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay - see your legacy screen extracted live during the call.