This blog is co-authored by colleagues from SAP AI Factory   @Samir_Rai @vasu_jindal and Aditi Anand . We have received considerable support from @HartmutStraub  from SAP AI RIG @Rahul Jain from CLM Engineering. 

1.    Introduction

SAP Joule for Consultants is a generative AI copilot built specifically for the SAP consulting community. It’s grounded in over 9 terabytes of curated SAP knowledge — including 18+ million pages of SAP documentation, 100+ SAP certifications, and implementation guides — so it gives expert-level answers based on trusted SAP content.

Activating it, however, involves several connected steps across SAP BTP, SAP Cloud Identity Services (CIS), and SAP Central Business Configuration. We have many good onboarding resources for activating Joule for consultant manually like the Discovery centre mission, community blog and it’s also covered well in help documentation. However, configuring this manually takes time usually around 1 hour for an expert BTP Administrator and as it’s a multi-step activation, there is always a chance of misses and misconfiguration.

2.    The Role of CIAS Automation.

Cloud Integration Automation service provides you a guided workflow to activate SAP cloud solutions. The guided workflow contains instructions for manual and automated tasks to enable an easy and quick integration configuration setup. The service is also used to integrate SAP Cloud solutions to on-premises solutions or other cloud solutions. It’s a free service available for the customers.

For SAP Joule for Consultants, CIAS plays a key role in simplifying activation. Instead of working across multiple tools separately — SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Cloud Identity, SAP Central Business Configuration, and SAP for Me — and having to get the sequence right yourself, CIAS provides one guided workflow that handles these tasks end-to-end, in the correct order.

Here’s the advantage it brings compared to the manual activation:

3.    Subscribing SAP Cloud Integration and Automation Service (CIAS).

If you already have CIAS activated in any of the existing BTP subaccount, you may skip this step. The service is available in the following regions.

To subscribe to a standard plan, following are the required steps:

1. Login into your global account in the cockpit.
2. Create a subaccount in the Cloud Integration Automation service supported regions
   
3. In the left-side menu, choose Services → Service Marketplace. All the resources you are entitled to consume in the  subaccount appears as tiles.
4. In the filters area, select the All-Types filter, and from the dropdown menu, select Cloud Integration Automation Service.
5. Choose the Cloud Integration Automation Service tile to see the Overview page. Here, you can find more information about the application including all the available plans.
6. Choose Create.
7. In the displayed window, select the Standard plan of type subscription and choose Create. A confirmation pop-up appears with the link to the Instances and Subscriptions page, where you can follow the status of your new subscription under the Subscriptions table.
   

    

8. Once the application is subscribed, assign yourself the CIASIntegrationAdmin role so you can run the CIAS workflow. In your subaccount, go to Security > Users and select your user (default IDP or platform user). — click Role Collections on the right, then use the … menu and select Assign Role Collection to add the CIASIntegrationAdmin role.
9. Then Go to Application link becomes available once the subscription is activated. Choose the link to launch the Cloud Integration Automation service and obtain its URL.

4.    Prerequisites for J4C Activation.

As a customer or partner, you will need to have the following license tagged to your SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Global Account:

SAP AI Unit SKU (8019164) must be purchased

If you are currently in the ordering process or have not purchased SAP AI Units, we recommend talking to your SAP Account Executive or sales rep for help with the commercial contracts.

Important: If you have multiple SAP BTP Global Accounts, we recommend picking the one Global Account that can be used for all Joule activations, e.g. for Joule for Business, Joule for Consultants, Joule for Developers, etc. Ideally you choose an account with CPEA/BTPEA licenses tagged.

Once the above SAP AI Units are purchased, you should be able to see the entitlements below in your SAP BTP Global Account:

• Joule (technical name: das-Application)
• SAP Joule for Consultants (technical name: sap-consulting-capability)

To activate the services, we will need administrative access to the following roles are required:

• BTP Global Account Administrator
• SAP Cloud Identity Services Administrator
• Cloud Administrator or Super Administrator in SAP for Me
• Access to the SAP Central Business Configuration tenant. Refer to the help documentation – basically, you need to assign “readFeatureActivationStatus” and “writeFeatureActivationStatus” groups in the SAP Cloud identity service tenant where the CBC application is deployed.
• Cloud Integration Automation Service, with the CIASIntegrationAdmin role assigned. Refer to the section 3 for details.

5.     Use CIAS to Set Up Joule for Consultants.

5.1.         Launch CIAS and Plan Integration Scenario

In the subaccount, go to Instances and Subscriptions and open the Cloud Integration Automation tool using the default identity provider. This launches the CIAS instance. Select Plan Integration Scenarios.

In Plan Integration Scenarios, search for “Joule for Consultants” and click the arrow on the right of the result.

This opens the scenario details. Click Start to begin the guided workflow.

5.2.         Select the Systems.

Select the BTP Global account and SAP Cloud Identity services tenant where you want to activate Joule for Consultant. Please note that, based on your specific customer ID, all the available tenants will be available in the dropdown to select from.

Note: Ensure that you select the BTP Global account where your AI Unit SKU is assigned. You may check by checking in the entitlement of the global account (if SAP Consulting capability entitlement is available). Usually, the productive Cloud identity services tenant is used for authentication of SAP Joule for Consultant.

5.3.         Subaccount Selection.

In the previous screen, you have the option to either create a new subaccount or re-use an existing subaccount. Since SAP Joule for Consultants is a standalone instance of Joule, it shouldn’t be clubbed with any other Joule (For example, Joule for business) and a separate subaccount for it is recommended.

Also, note that if using existing subaccount, ensure that the region of the subaccount is supported by Joule for consultants. Refer to the help document for knowing supported regions.

In the following example, we will show activation by creating a new subaccount.

5.4.         Add Task Parameters.

If selected create subaccount, enter the details like subaccount region (The option here is limited to only the available regions), subaccount display name, Email id and password (Ensure the email id and password is of the BTP Global account admin).

Keep the default plans for both Joule as foundation and Joule for consultants as standard-ga.

In the next section, In Create IAS Group with Members, please add the users you want to assign SAP_JOULE_CONSULTANTS – Standard (Created by Joule booster) or End user (Created by the automation which allows the users to access Joule as URL application). These authorization groups allow you to assign the users the required authorizations to use SAP Joule for consultant as end users. You can use multiple users separated by comma.

In the Add members to the policy SAP_JOULE_CONSULTANTS – Admin with access to all console features (including e.g. settings and usage metrics). This has to be assigned to the admins.

5.5.         Review

Once all your Parameters are added click on Next Step button. Tick box the Disclaimer and click on Finish.

After the Finish button a new wizard opens an Integration Overview tab, open Monitor Integration Scenarios

5.6.         Monitor Joule for Consultants Activation workflow.

You can also open Monitor Integration Scenarios > Integration Scenarios and track the progress. At the completion of the entire workflow download the pdf which can be used for later reference.

During the CIAS automation, most of the BTP, IAS steps are automated. However, it involves a few manual steps like launching Joule booster, SAP for Me package activation and CBC feature activations ( which are automations themselves).  

5.7.         Manual Step – Joule Booster.

Open the manual task in ready to be executed status.

Once you click on the tab, a new wizard opens click View Integration Tasks to see the steps that you must perform further.

Click on BTP Global Account > Boosters and it will redirect you to the booster tab. You will also find the details needed to run the booster as well.

Please Note – The information is curated as per your details please refer this section and add the inputs while running the Booster.

Click on Start corresponding to the Joule Booster , please enter the details from the Launch Joule Booster task as mentioned above and wait until the Booster has completed successfully.

Launch/ start the Joule Booster, you will see a wizard opened , wait until everything is marked as done and turns green. Once done click on Next.

Select the BTP subaccount, you can see the details of it in the Launch Joule Booster task of CIAS.

From the drop-down list, please select the product SAP Consulting Capability. Ensure you choose only this product.

In this screen, you will have an option to select Production or Testing. We recommend selecting Production as you will need only one setup for your organization, and J4C does not offer any customization in the current release.

Please select Production and click on Next.

To support the improvement of Joule, the customer, as the data controller, retains full access to their data and may request its retrieval or deletion at any time. This is optional and has no impact on activation.

Select the SAP Consulting Capability System from the drop Down, and then click on Next Step.

Validate your selections and click on Finish.

The Joule booster will start the automation, and you can see the progress here. The process may take around 5–8 minutes.

Once the process is completed, you should be able to see a success message as shown below

Go back to CIAS automation and Mark the task as Complete to continue with the next tasks and setup.

It will redirect back to CIAS automation workflow and click on Continue to finish the remaining tasks.

5.8.     Manual Step – SAP for Me Package activation and Joule for Consultants Feature activation in CBC

Wait for the automation to continue till the next Manual Execution step i.e. Feature activation in SAP For ME.

Click on the Task and then AI activation Dashboard which will redirect to Business AI dashboard in SAP4ME.

Activate the SAP Joule for consultant package by clicking on Ready for Activation.

Assign the number of Users for which You want to Activate Joule for consultant and activate. Make sure to a maintain the count with the number of unique email addresses added in the groups of your Cloud Identity Service Tenant.

Once you have activated the package the next step is activating the features. To do so, you must know which Cloud Identity tenant your SAP Central Business Configuration tenant is located in. To identify that, click on 1 tenant > Configure.

The moment you click on the link it will navigate you to the Cloud Identity Service tenant which has the SAP Central Business Configuration tenant. Note the URL as shown in the screenshot. If it logs you in directly, make sure to open the 1 Tenant> Configure as shown above link in an incognito window to get the Cloud Identity Service tenant.

Once the Cloud identity Service tenant is Identified log into the Cloud Identity Service tenant with Admin access (Append an /admin at the end of the URL, e.g. -https://<abcd>.ondemand.com/admin ). Once logged in, click on Application and Resources > Application and Search for CBC Controlling Application.

Click on the CBC Controlling Application > Authorization Policies > Add users in readFeatureActivationStatus and  writeFeatureActivationStatus

Once you assign the users in the groups mentioned above, the user can access the SAP Central Business Configuration tenant

Now go to your SAP for Me and after activating the Package, the 1 Tenant buttons are clickable. Click on the 1 tenant button as shown in the screenshot below. As you can see the status says inactive.

Now, when you click on the Configure Button this opens your SAP Central Business Configuration tenant as shown in the screenshot below. If you have not assigned to the roles readFeatureActivationStatus and  writeFeatureActivationStatus, it will show a black page with no features. Hence make sure to assign the roles and the loggin the CBC Application.

Click on Activate and do Refresh status, with this you have activated the features as well.

For further information, see Activating Business AI and Assigning Users.

Go back to CIAS automation and mark the task as complete.

5.9.      Launch SAP Joule for Consultant

Ones you complete all the tasks. Congratulations! Your Joule for Consultant is configured successfully. Click on the link and start having conversations with Joule for consultants.

Once completed, you can export the log of all activities performed by the automation as PDF.

Thankyou !

 This blog is co-authored by colleagues from SAP AI Factory   @Samir_Rai @vasu_jindal and Aditi Anand . We have received considerable support from @HartmutStraub  from SAP AI RIG @Rahul Jain from CLM Engineering. 1.    IntroductionSAP Joule for Consultants is a generative AI copilot built specifically for the SAP consulting community. It’s grounded in over 9 terabytes of curated SAP knowledge — including 18+ million pages of SAP documentation, 100+ SAP certifications, and implementation guides — so it gives expert-level answers based on trusted SAP content.Activating it, however, involves several connected steps across SAP BTP, SAP Cloud Identity Services (CIS), and SAP Central Business Configuration. We have many good onboarding resources for activating Joule for consultant manually like the Discovery centre mission, community blog and it’s also covered well in help documentation. However, configuring this manually takes time usually around 1 hour for an expert BTP Administrator and as it’s a multi-step activation, there is always a chance of misses and misconfiguration.2.    The Role of CIAS Automation.Cloud Integration Automation service provides you a guided workflow to activate SAP cloud solutions. The guided workflow contains instructions for manual and automated tasks to enable an easy and quick integration configuration setup. The service is also used to integrate SAP Cloud solutions to on-premises solutions or other cloud solutions. It’s a free service available for the customers.For SAP Joule for Consultants, CIAS plays a key role in simplifying activation. Instead of working across multiple tools separately — SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Cloud Identity, SAP Central Business Configuration, and SAP for Me — and having to get the sequence right yourself, CIAS provides one guided workflow that handles these tasks end-to-end, in the correct order.Here’s the advantage it brings compared to the manual activation: 3.    Subscribing SAP Cloud Integration and Automation Service (CIAS).If you already have CIAS activated in any of the existing BTP subaccount, you may skip this step. The service is available in the following regions.Service PlatformRegionAmazon Web Service (AWS)Europe (Frankfurt) EU10Europe (Frankfurt) EU Access EU11US East (VA) US10Australia (Sydney) AP10Japan (Tokyo) JP10Canada (Montreal) CA10Microsoft AzureEurope (Netherlands) EU20China (North 3) CN20Alibaba CloudChina (Shanghai) CN40To subscribe to a standard plan, following are the required steps:Login into your global account in the cockpit.Create a subaccount in the Cloud Integration Automation service supported regionsIn the left-side menu, choose Services → Service Marketplace. All the resources you are entitled to consume in the  subaccount appears as tiles.In the filters area, select the All-Types filter, and from the dropdown menu, select Cloud Integration Automation Service.Choose the Cloud Integration Automation Service tile to see the Overview page. Here, you can find more information about the application including all the available plans.Choose Create.In the displayed window, select the Standard plan of type subscription and choose Create. A confirmation pop-up appears with the link to the Instances and Subscriptions page, where you can follow the status of your new subscription under the Subscriptions table. Once the application is subscribed, assign yourself the CIASIntegrationAdmin role so you can run the CIAS workflow. In your subaccount, go to Security > Users and select your user (default IDP or platform user). — click Role Collections on the right, then use the … menu and select Assign Role Collection to add the CIASIntegrationAdmin role.Then Go to Application link becomes available once the subscription is activated. Choose the link to launch the Cloud Integration Automation service and obtain its URL.4.    Prerequisites for J4C Activation.As a customer or partner, you will need to have the following license tagged to your SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Global Account:SAP AI Unit SKU (8019164) must be purchasedIf you are currently in the ordering process or have not purchased SAP AI Units, we recommend talking to your SAP Account Executive or sales rep for help with the commercial contracts.Important: If you have multiple SAP BTP Global Accounts, we recommend picking the one Global Account that can be used for all Joule activations, e.g. for Joule for Business, Joule for Consultants, Joule for Developers, etc. Ideally you choose an account with CPEA/BTPEA licenses tagged.Once the above SAP AI Units are purchased, you should be able to see the entitlements below in your SAP BTP Global Account:Joule (technical name: das-Application)SAP Joule for Consultants (technical name: sap-consulting-capability)To activate the services, we will need administrative access to the following roles are required:BTP Global Account AdministratorSAP Cloud Identity Services AdministratorCloud Administrator or Super Administrator in SAP for MeAccess to the SAP Central Business Configuration tenant. Refer to the help documentation – basically, you need to assign “readFeatureActivationStatus” and “writeFeatureActivationStatus” groups in the SAP Cloud identity service tenant where the CBC application is deployed.Cloud Integration Automation Service, with the CIASIntegrationAdmin role assigned. Refer to the section 3 for details.5.     Use CIAS to Set Up Joule for Consultants.5.1.         Launch CIAS and Plan Integration ScenarioIn the subaccount, go to Instances and Subscriptions and open the Cloud Integration Automation tool using the default identity provider. This launches the CIAS instance. Select Plan Integration Scenarios.In Plan Integration Scenarios, search for “Joule for Consultants” and click the arrow on the right of the result.This opens the scenario details. Click Start to begin the guided workflow.5.2.         Select the Systems.Select the BTP Global account and SAP Cloud Identity services tenant where you want to activate Joule for Consultant. Please note that, based on your specific customer ID, all the available tenants will be available in the dropdown to select from.Note: Ensure that you select the BTP Global account where your AI Unit SKU is assigned. You may check by checking in the entitlement of the global account (if SAP Consulting capability entitlement is available). Usually, the productive Cloud identity services tenant is used for authentication of SAP Joule for Consultant.5.3.         Subaccount Selection.In the previous screen, you have the option to either create a new subaccount or re-use an existing subaccount. Since SAP Joule for Consultants is a standalone instance of Joule, it shouldn’t be clubbed with any other Joule (For example, Joule for business) and a separate subaccount for it is recommended.Also, note that if using existing subaccount, ensure that the region of the subaccount is supported by Joule for consultants. Refer to the help document for knowing supported regions.In the following example, we will show activation by creating a new subaccount.5.4.         Add Task Parameters.If selected create subaccount, enter the details like subaccount region (The option here is limited to only the available regions), subaccount display name, Email id and password (Ensure the email id and password is of the BTP Global account admin).Keep the default plans for both Joule as foundation and Joule for consultants as standard-ga.In the next section, In Create IAS Group with Members, please add the users you want to assign SAP_JOULE_CONSULTANTS – Standard (Created by Joule booster) or End user (Created by the automation which allows the users to access Joule as URL application). These authorization groups allow you to assign the users the required authorizations to use SAP Joule for consultant as end users. You can use multiple users separated by comma.In the Add members to the policy SAP_JOULE_CONSULTANTS – Admin with access to all console features (including e.g. settings and usage metrics). This has to be assigned to the admins.5.5.         ReviewOnce all your Parameters are added click on Next Step button. Tick box the Disclaimer and click on Finish.After the Finish button a new wizard opens an Integration Overview tab, open Monitor Integration Scenarios5.6.         Monitor Joule for Consultants Activation workflow.You can also open Monitor Integration Scenarios > Integration Scenarios and track the progress. At the completion of the entire workflow download the pdf which can be used for later reference. During the CIAS automation, most of the BTP, IAS steps are automated. However, it involves a few manual steps like launching Joule booster, SAP for Me package activation and CBC feature activations ( which are automations themselves).  5.7.         Manual Step – Joule Booster.Open the manual task in ready to be executed status.Once you click on the tab, a new wizard opens click View Integration Tasks to see the steps that you must perform further.Click on BTP Global Account > Boosters and it will redirect you to the booster tab. You will also find the details needed to run the booster as well.Please Note – The information is curated as per your details please refer this section and add the inputs while running the Booster.Click on Start corresponding to the Joule Booster , please enter the details from the Launch Joule Booster task as mentioned above and wait until the Booster has completed successfully.Launch/ start the Joule Booster, you will see a wizard opened , wait until everything is marked as done and turns green. Once done click on Next.Select the BTP subaccount, you can see the details of it in the Launch Joule Booster task of CIAS.From the drop-down list, please select the product SAP Consulting Capability. Ensure you choose only this product.In this screen, you will have an option to select Production or Testing. We recommend selecting Production as you will need only one setup for your organization, and J4C does not offer any customization in the current release.Please select Production and click on Next.To support the improvement of Joule, the customer, as the data controller, retains full access to their data and may request its retrieval or deletion at any time. This is optional and has no impact on activation.Select the SAP Consulting Capability System from the drop Down, and then click on Next Step.Validate your selections and click on Finish.The Joule booster will start the automation, and you can see the progress here. The process may take around 5–8 minutes.Once the process is completed, you should be able to see a success message as shown belowGo back to CIAS automation and Mark the task as Complete to continue with the next tasks and setup.It will redirect back to CIAS automation workflow and click on Continue to finish the remaining tasks.5.8.     Manual Step – SAP for Me Package activation and Joule for Consultants Feature activation in CBCWait for the automation to continue till the next Manual Execution step i.e. Feature activation in SAP For ME.Click on the Task and then AI activation Dashboard which will redirect to Business AI dashboard in SAP4ME.Activate the SAP Joule for consultant package by clicking on Ready for Activation.Assign the number of Users for which You want to Activate Joule for consultant and activate. Make sure to a maintain the count with the number of unique email addresses added in the groups of your Cloud Identity Service Tenant.Once you have activated the package the next step is activating the features. To do so, you must know which Cloud Identity tenant your SAP Central Business Configuration tenant is located in. To identify that, click on 1 tenant > Configure.The moment you click on the link it will navigate you to the Cloud Identity Service tenant which has the SAP Central Business Configuration tenant. Note the URL as shown in the screenshot. If it logs you in directly, make sure to open the 1 Tenant> Configure as shown above link in an incognito window to get the Cloud Identity Service tenant.Once the Cloud identity Service tenant is Identified log into the Cloud Identity Service tenant with Admin access (Append an /admin at the end of the URL, e.g. -https://<abcd>.ondemand.com/admin ). Once logged in, click on Application and Resources > Application and Search for CBC Controlling Application.Click on the CBC Controlling Application > Authorization Policies > Add users in readFeatureActivationStatus and  writeFeatureActivationStatusOnce you assign the users in the groups mentioned above, the user can access the SAP Central Business Configuration tenantNow go to your SAP for Me and after activating the Package, the 1 Tenant buttons are clickable. Click on the 1 tenant button as shown in the screenshot below. As you can see the status says inactive.Now, when you click on the Configure Button this opens your SAP Central Business Configuration tenant as shown in the screenshot below. If you have not assigned to the roles readFeatureActivationStatus and  writeFeatureActivationStatus, it will show a black page with no features. Hence make sure to assign the roles and the loggin the CBC Application.Click on Activate and do Refresh status, with this you have activated the features as well.For further information, see Activating Business AI and Assigning Users.Go back to CIAS automation and mark the task as complete.5.9.      Launch SAP Joule for ConsultantOnes you complete all the tasks. Congratulations! Your Joule for Consultant is configured successfully. Click on the link and start having conversations with Joule for consultants.Once completed, you can export the log of all activities performed by the automation as PDF.Thankyou ! Read More Technology Blog Posts by SAP articles 

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