The pre-2018 named-user-for-indirect-access commercial construct, the Diageo and Anheuser-Busch case lineage, the 2017 board-driven reset, and the 2018 launch of the Digital Access document-counting model. The Admodum read on the lineage that explains the present.
The pre-2018 SAP indirect-access commercial construct read against the named-user metric. A user of a third-party system that accessed the SAP estate (read, write, or both) consumed an SAP indirect named user. The named-user category applied at the user-equivalent of the third-party system: a Professional-level user of the third-party system consumed a Professional SAP named-user licence; a Self-Service-level user consumed a Self-Service SAP named-user licence.
The construct was the principal source of audit exposure for the buyer with a heavy third-party integration estate. The audit measurement read each connected system's user count and tested the count against the buyer's existing indirect-named-user inventory. The gap was the audit-finding position. The wider Digital Access explained spoke reads the model that replaced this construct.
The SAP UK Limited and SAP Ireland Limited v. Diageo Great Britain Limited dispute reached the English High Court in 2017. The case considered the Diageo Salesforce front-end (the buyer-built Salesforce application accessed by Diageo customer service representatives) that integrated with the Diageo SAP back-end. The judgment read the Salesforce-front-end users as triggering the contractual indirect-named-user position against the SAP estate, on the principle that the Salesforce user's interaction with the SAP estate (through the Salesforce-to-SAP integration) constituted indirect use of the SAP estate.
The reading was that the integration architecture (the Salesforce as front-end, SAP as back-end) did not insulate the buyer from the indirect-named-user count. The case sat alongside the parallel Anheuser-Busch dispute and the public discussion drove the audit-exposure visibility across the SAP installed base. The SAP audit defence read positions the audit-exposure mechanic in the present-day.
The audit-exposure visibility through 2017 drove the SAP board-level response. The board sponsored a commercial-model reset: replace the indirect-named-user metric with a measure that did not penalise the integration architecture as such. The replacement was the Digital Access document-counting metric, focused on the documents created by the indirect integration rather than on the users of the indirect system.
The reset was launched in April 2018 alongside the Digital Access Adoption Programme. The programme provided the commercial container around the transition: the exchange pathway (existing indirect named users exchange for document-count entitlement), the new-document pathway (programme-specific Digital Access price), the overage-credit pathway (existing licence value as credit). The DAAP conversion spoke reads the programme mechanic in detail.
The Digital Access measure reads against nine document types: Sales (the sales-order document), Invoice (the customer invoice), Purchase (the purchase order), Service and Maintenance (the service-order document), Manufacturing (the production-order document), Quality Management (the QM document), Time Management (the time-sheet entry), Financial (the journal entry), and Material Movement (the goods-movement document).
The principal commercial weight in the standard price-list sits on Sales, Invoice and Purchase. The lighter document types weigh less in the per-document price. The measurement protocol reads the Passport report (the SAP-published measurement script run against the system) for the document counts per type across the measurement window. The SAP system measurement spoke reads the Passport mechanic.
The transition across the SAP installed base is incomplete. A buyer that did not enter the Digital Access Adoption Programme at the 2018 launch still carries the pre-2018 indirect-named-user position under the original contract. A buyer that entered the programme partway through the programme window has a mixed position (some indirect activity under the document-count model, other indirect activity under the legacy named-user model).
The buyer-side artefact at the present-day audit moment is the contract lineage: the original purchase date, the indirect-access language in the original master agreement, the amendments through the 2010s, the DAAP entry (if any), the current conversion language. The lineage reads the present-day audit position against the contract-state-as-it-stands. The SAP audit defence read documents the contract-lineage move.
The present-day negotiation surface for the indirect-access discussion has five axes: the contract lineage (the legacy position the buyer holds, the DAAP entry, the current conversion language); the document-volume forecast (the present-day count, by type); the DAAP pathway choice (exchange, new-document, overage-credit); the SAP-user-via-API classification trap (the document created through an integration platform that authenticates as a licensed SAP user); and the integration-architecture remediation (where rebuilding the integration removes the document-count weight).
The wider engagement sits in the SAP practice; the aggregated reading list sits in the SAP knowledge hub; active audit moments route to Audit Defence; active renewal moments route to Renewal Programme.
The document-counting model that replaced the indirect-named-user construct.
The route-comparison that frames the present-day commercial discussion.
A senior Admodum SAP advisor will read your contract lineage, your DAAP entry status and your document-volume forecast against the present-day audit surface on a private call. Active audit moments route to Audit Defence.