SAP S/4HANA - Government of Canada Finance and Materiel Management Solution

Title of the PIA

SAP S/4HANA - Government of Canada Finance and Materiel Management Solution

Government institution

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)

Head of DFO or delegate for section 10 of the Privacy Act

Director, Access to Information and Privacy Secretariat

Senior official or executive for the new or substantially modified program or activity

Director General, Financial Operations

Name and description of the program or activity of the government institution

SAP is a financial management system used by program areas within DFO’s Internal Services to manage the department’s budget and finances. In particular, SAP is managed by DFO’s Financial and Materiel Management Operations (“FMMO”). Within DFO, FMMO’s responsibilities include Acquisition Services, Financial Management Services, and Materiel Services.

Legal authority

• Canada Labour Code
• Canada Pension Plan 
• Employment Insurance Act
• Financial Administration Act
• Fisheries Act
• Income Tax Act
• Public Service Employment Act

Short description of the project, initiative or change

DFO aspired to modernize and transform its financial management systems and processes, which are used to manage the department’s budget and finances—historically averaging $2.7B annually. DFO replaced its Enterprise Resource Planning solution, Oracle Financials, with the GC standard, SAP.

DFO’s previous financial management system, ABACUS, was implemented in December 2013 and ran on a version of Oracle Financials which was nearing the end of its lifecycle. Accordingly, vendor support for this version was set to end in December 2021. The implementation of SAP mitigated the risk of an unsupported version of Oracle Financials and ensured compatibility with upgrades to the department’s database system, operating system, hardware configuration, and IT security requirements.

TBS’s Office of the Comptroller General (“OCG”) developed an SAP solution known as GCfm under the Financial Management Transformation program. The current GCfm solution Digital Core is known as the “A” template (“GCfm-A”). DFO leveraged the design artefacts completed for GCfm-A and introduced additional capabilities to support DFO requirements.

DFO partnered with TBS and IBM Canada to implement a solution which will bring benefits such as: streamlined and automated business processes, strengthened controls, enhanced multi-year financial planning and analysis, and real time forecasting and reporting. The SAP system is hosted by TBS in their GCapproved Protected B, medium integrity, and medium availability (“PBMM”) cloud environment. DFO leveraged OCG’s existing PBMM cloud provider for SAP. DFO’s new financial and materiel management solution was fully deployed on April 1st, 2021.

Risk area identification and categorization

The following section contains risks identified in the PIA for the new or modified program. The numbered risk scale is presented in an ascending order: the first level (1) represents the lowest level of potential risk for the risk area; the fourth level (4) represents the highest level of potential risk for the given risk area.

Type of program or activity

Low risk to privacy.

Type of personal information involved and context

Medium risk to privacy.

Program or activity partners and private sector involvement

High risk to privacy.

Duration of the program or activity

High risk to privacy.

Program Population

Medium risk to privacy.

Technology & Privacy

Medium risk to privacy.

Personal Information Transmission

Low risk to privacy.

Risk Impact to the Individual or Employee in the Event of a Privacy Breach

Medium risk to privacy.

Risk Impact to the Institution in the Event of a Privacy Breach

Medium risk to privacy.