How do you decide which extensibility model to use for a given business requirement?

The decision typically works through a structured set of questions rather than a single rule, since the right answer depends on several interacting factors specific to the requirement at hand.

flowchart TD
    A[New requirement] --> B{Tightly coupled to core data/UI, simple logic?}
    B -->|Yes| C[In-app extensibility]
    B -->|No| D{Needs independent scaling, complex logic, or non-SAP integration?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Side-by-side on BTP]
    D -->|No| F[Re-evaluate: may still fit in-app with more design work]

Additional factors that push toward side-by-side even for moderately simple logic: a need to integrate heavily with non-SAP systems, a requirement for independent release cycles from the core, or logic genuinely reusable across multiple different SAP systems (not just one S/4HANA instance) — all cases where bundling the logic inside one specific core system's lifecycle would be architecturally limiting.

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