ERP, SAP and ASAP Methodology

SAP - Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing.

• SAP is an ERP Package.

What is ERP ?

• ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
• It Specifies the planning in all the departments in an organization. So the success of an organization will depends up on the planning in all the departments of particular organization(sales, finance, production, HR, etc) and that will be specified in SAP-ERP package.
• ERP specifies planning in 4 M's which are

1. Money
2. Materials
3. Machinery
4. Manpower

• The other ERP packages that are available in the market are:

1. JD EDWARDS
2. PEOPLE SOFT
3. BAAN
4. SEIBEL
5. ORACLE
6. MICROSOFT etc  

       The all legacy (non SAP) ERP packages are belongs to a particular department of an organization.

Advantages of SAP:

1. SAP will have solution for all the departments in an organization.
2. SAP is tightly Integrated product i.e., if you do Transactions in one department it automatically updates that particular information in other departments where it is required.

Future of SAP:

• At present SAP Package hold 75% share in the market rest of the 25% will be shared by all other ERP Packages.
• There is no other package is available in the market as SAP. So if Some 'X' start implementing a competitor for SAP it will take around 10 years to finish. By then the will occupy above 80% of the market share. So, there will be no doubt on future of SAP to be the number one in the world.
• SAP is implemented in Germany in 1972 and there are 4 people involved in implementation of SAP.
• SAP is number one in world ERP processes.

Version in SAP: There are different versions are available in SAP.

From 3.0 -- ......--4.6 -- 4.6C -- 4.7 -- 5.0 -- 6.0 -- 7.0(Present)

• The difference between version to version is up-gradation of product.
• Based on the New requirement of clients SAP is coming out with new versions.
• SAP has stopped giving support up to 4.7 version. So the clients who are using those are version they need to upgrade their system to version 6.0.
• All the clients who are using SAP software will have to have life time support from implementation partner to solve their Tickets.
• In 6.0 version SAP is further released Enhancement package for the new requirements of clients.

 

                                                 EHP -- Enhancement Package.

Modules in SAP: There are two types of modules in SAP.

1. Functional Modules (SD, FI, CO, MM, PP, QM etc)
2. Technical Modules  (BASIS, ABAP, NETWEAVER, etc)

ASAP METHODOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Architecture of SAP:

The architecture of SAP is R/3 i.e. Real Time 3 Tire architecture .The 3 layers are

1. Presentation Layer

2. Application Layer.

3. Database Layer.

 ---- The system where user is working is called as presentation layer

----Any request generated from presentation layer will be sent to application layer.

---- The request will be sent to the database layer where the information is searched and gives it back to the presentation layer.

Landscape:

 Landscape is the arrangement of server and SAP suggest going for three (3) servers’ i.e. any client who wants to implement SAP they need to purchase these 3 servers.

The 3 servers are:

1. Development Server

2. Quality Server.

3. Production Server (Live Server).

--- Development server will be used for configuring clients business process into SAP i.e. consultants will do the configurations

--- Development server will be used by consultants

--- Quality server will be used for testing the scenarios

--- Quality server will used by consultants and core users (they are employee of clients and well experienced person, has expose to the client’s business process).

--- Production server will be used for entering day-to-day transactions in SAP.

--- Production server will be used by end users. Consultants i.e. we don’t have access to production server.

Roles and Responsibilities of Consultant:

As a consultant we will be either placed into implementation project or support project.

Implementation: Configuring or mapping the client’s business process newly into SAP, who is using some legacy system (legacy means Non-SAP).

Support: Any issues raised by client will be solved by the consultant.

Roles and Responsibilities of Consultant in Implementation Project:

Whenever we want to implement SAP to any client we follow the methodology called ASAP methodology where A means Accelerated SAP i.e. standard every company has to follow ASAP Methodology.

ASAP methodology consists of the guidelines to implement SAP i.e. step-by-step process to implement SAP.

ASAP methodology consists of 5 Phases.

1. Project Preparation
2. Business Blue Print
3. Realization
4. Final Preparation
5. Go-Live and Support.

Project Preparation: Whenever we receive order from client to implement SAP, then we start project preparation phase in the project preparation phase the management from implementation partner (ex IBM), the management from client (ex ALKEM) will involve.

Activities in Project preparation:

1. User Licenses
2. Landscape
3. Infrastructure.

Any client wants to implement SAP they need to purchase user licenses from SAP and based on the end-users the client will come to know how many user licenses to be purchased from SAP 

End User:  End user is the employee of client who will do day-to-day transactions in SAP and there is no sharing of licenses between users.

Each user licenses costs 80000 Rs.

Landscape: It is an arrangement of server and SAP suggests going for 3 server’s .In this configuration of server i.e. storage capacity must be taken care.

Infrastructure:

1.      How many new pc’s i.e. systems to be purchased

2.      Server environment i.e. temp requirement, separate room, security

Servers will always kept at clients plant i.e. mostly at any one of the manufacturing plant

If the head office and manufacturing plant are at different places then through VPN (Virtual Private Network) the data will be accessed.

The implementation partner will list out all the consultants who are going to involve in the project.

The clients will list out all the core users who are going to involve in the project.

For Unknown client the implementation team size will be 15 members (domestic client), and if unknown foreign clients the team size will be 40.

Throughout the implementation project the single point of contact for the consultant is core user

Consultants Facilities:

1. Accommodation     2. Food Expenses

3. Local Travelling     4. Work Environment

5. Laptops

Go-Live Date:

Go-Live is handling over SAP to client i.e. from that day onwards client will start entering day-to-day live transactions in SAP

The management people will fix the Go-Live date

After completion of project preparation phase the implementation partner management will come back to office and conduct Kick-Off meeting (starting off) in the Kick-off meeting they will invite all the consultants who are involved in the project.

In the Kick-Off meeting the following will be discussed

1. Introduction to client

2. Rules and Regulations of clients

3. Roles and Responsibilities of consultants

4. Shares core user’s information

5. Go-Live Date

6. When to start the project i.e. Starting Date

Business Blue Print:

When all the consultants move to clients place then we start business blue print phase.

On the first day of clients visit, first half we will have introduction,2^nd half they will take for site visit

Activities:

We gather the client’s requirements from core user’s .Based on the questioner provided by the implementation partner we gather the requirements from core users .Every day we go to core users place and ask the questions in sequence, note down whatever the core user is explaining .Every day after completion of requirements gathering we come back to our place and prepare As-Is document.

As-Is document consists of the present business process of the clients i.e. whatever core users explains.

The tenure for requirements gathering is 2 months

After completion of requirement gathering we prepare business blue print document.

Business blue print document consists of AS-IS and To-Be

To-Be is how it is going to be in SAP. While preparing To-Be process we may find some gaps.

Gap: The present business process of the client for which there is no solution in SAP.

Whenever we find gap we prepare Gap Analysis Document which consists of

1. Description of client’s business process

2. Alternate solution

3. Effort (how many days, functional man days, technical man days).

After preparing business blue print .We will send this document to care users for Sign-Off i.e. for conformation. Core user has to go through the document if everything is fine he will give you sign-off

After getting sign-off from core user we need to move to the next phase of ASAP methodology i.e. Realization.

BBP document preparation and sign off will take 1 ½ month and total BBP phase will take 3 ½ months.

Throughout the implementation project the most critical phase is BBP because the success of the project is totally depended on how accurate we gather the requirements from core user.

After gathering the BBP conformation mail from core user we will prepare one more document called BBP sign-Off document .The reason of Sign-Off is if core user is saying/asking some other requirements at the time of Go-Live then we will show this Sign-Off form.

After Sign-Off we will move to the next phase of ASAP methodology.

Realization: Configuring the client’s business process in SAP or mapping the process in SAP.  Mapping To-Be process in SAP. In this phase we enter into development server to configure the client’s business process.

We have 2 types of configurations

1. Base Line Configuration

2. Final Configuration.

Base Line Configuration is the configuration for which no need to depend on other module consultants. (It is a configuration which is specific to one module)

Final configuration is the configuration for which we need to depend on other module consultants.

Whatever we configure while saving system will ask for request number. We need to save the configuration in a particular number. Request number will help to transport the configuration from one server to another server.

After completion of base line configuration and final configuration we transport the entire request from development server to quality server.

Consultants Role in Transporting Request:

We need to release all the request each request consists of parent and child  first release the child request and the release the parent request then list out all the request numbers in excel file along with description and sequence  and send the excel file to basics consultant.

Basics consultant will actually transport the request from one server to another server.

Transporting request is of 2 types

1.      Customizing request

2.      Work bench request

Customizing request: Whatever functional consultant will do that will be saved in customizing request.

Work bench request: Whatever technical consultant will do i.e. ABAPER that will be stored in work bench request

After completion of configuration we transport the entire request from development server to quality server .After transporting the request we will do testing in quality server.

Testing is of two types    --Unit testing

                                 --Integration testing.

1. Unit Testing: It is the testing for which we need not depend on other module consultant

2. Integration Testing: It is the testing for which you need to depend on other module consultant.

Before testing we need to prepare a test case document which includes

•   What to test
•   How to test
•   Expected result
•   Actual result
•   Status
•    Tested documents no

During final configuration we prepare functional specification document i.e. whenever we require the help of ABAPERS we will prepare functional specification document.

After testing we will prepare

1. User Manuals Document

2. Configuration Document

User Manuals Document: This will have step-by-step process of creating Master Data and Transaction Data along with the screen shots.

This document will help the end-user

Configuration Document:  Whatever we configure we will put in a document along with the screen shots .Configuration document will help for K.T purpose i.e. (Knowledge Transfer).

After preparing the entire document we move to next phase of ASAP methodology i.e. Final Preparation.

Final Preparation:

Activities

1. Training to core users

2. After training we will ask for users to test the scenarios .e core users will test all the scenarios and if everything is fine the core users will give UAT sign off (User Acceptance Test).

3. After getting UAT sign off we transport all the request from quality server to production server.

4. After transporting the request to production server we do” Cut-Over Activities”

Cut over activities is the uploading of master data and open transaction data from legacy to SAP.

Consultants Role in Cut over Activities:

Consultants will do recording and simultaneously prepare excel file and sends the recording to ABAPER excel file to core user.

Based on recording ABAPER will develop BDC Batch Data Communication program and gives it to consultant.

Core User will fill the data in excel file and gives it to consultant.

After we do mock run in quality server and if everything is fine we upload the data in production server.

Any transaction if it is invoice to customer we don’t upload that transactions.

After transaction i.e. uploading the data from legacy to SAP we move to the next phase of ASAP methodology i.e. Go Live and Support”.

Go –Live: It is the date from which client will start entering day-to-day transaction in SAP.

Any implementation after go-live we will give 3 months of post production support. 

Support Project: Solving the issues raised by the client who already implemented SAP.

Whenever any new support project comes there is an agreement between both the parties i.e. SLA (Service Level Agreement). As a consultant we should know some information from SLA.

1. Priority of Issues or Ticket:

Generally the tickets will be classified into 3 levels

1. High Priority.

2. Medium Priority

3. Low Priority.

 High Priority: Any Issue raised by the client and if it is stopping the client’s business process then we treat it as high priority issue.

Any issues in deliveries and invoice will be treated as high priority issues because it will stop the client’s business process.

High priority issues should be solved within 4 hours, M.P.I in 24 hours, L.P.I in 48 hours.

2. Change Request: Anything client is asking for which there is no present configuration then we treat it as change request .Change request will not be considered as priority of issues, we need to prepare change request document which includes --- issue description 

                           --- expected solutions

                           --- Estimated effort

After preparing the document we will send this to our superior for review then we will send the document to core user for approval. After approval we need to start working on the issue. Whenever we get new support project they will conduct kick – off meeting and they will invite all the consultants who are going to involve in the project, the normal team size for unknown client support project is 12.

Kick off means starting off, after kick off meeting all the consultants will move to the clients place for K.T purpose.

K.T Process: Core users will hand over configuration documents to the consultants .consultants has to go through the configuration document and simultaneously do the system study .After the system study consultant has to prepare understanding document and then consultant has to give reverse K.T to the coursers .After reverse K.T the consultants will come back and start supporting the client.

Ticket Cycle: 

First end-user will get the error while doing transactions in SAP, once end-user gets the error he will send mail to help desk .In help desk we will find coursers will try first to solve the issue, if it is not in his hand then he will place the ticket in ticketing tool.

The ticketing tool available in the market is remedy, peridran, citric, solution manager. While placing the ticket in the ticketing tool core user will mention the priority of the ticket.

After placing the ticket in, a mail will be sent to support partner’s coordinator. Coordinator will open the ticketing tool and allocate it to the relevant consultant.

 After allocating the ticket mail will be sent to the consultant, consultant will open the ticketing tool.

The basic responsibility of the consultant once we receive the ticket we need to send an acknowledgement to users within 10 minutes. We need to send the acknowledgement to both core users and end users and cc to coordinators.

Status of the Ticket:

1. Open.

2. Work in progress.

3. Waiting for information

4. Waiting for conformation

5. Testing.

If the status is work in progress then only the clock starts, other than that the clock will stop.

After analyzing the ticket raised by core user we go to the preproduction server and try to do the same what end-user is doing in production server .Because production server is mirror image of production server, we will also get error in preproduction server, then we will analyze the error and go to development server and do the necessary configurations and send the request number to quality server and ask the core user to test it and conform.

After getting conformation we will transport the request from quality to production, change the status of issue to close.

Manually we need to maintain issues in an excel file. Whenever we solve any ticket we need to prepare a document called issue resolution document.

Issue resolution document consists of

1. Ticket number

2. Date.

3. Description.

4. Solutions.

5. Consultants Name.

This document will help for future enhancement.

 Levels in Support:

If the support team size is more than 60 then only we will have levels in support team

They are normally classified into three levels:

1. Level-1(works on high priority issue)

2. Level-2(configuration (medium\low))

 3. Level-3(Change request).

In support any ticket if there is no solution in from configuration side the we post the ticket to SAP.

Product or production error comes only when we update the system from one version to another.

Consultants Role in Weekly Meeting:

We need to prepare excel with the list of issues which is having the status begin or open i.e. not yet closed and we carry this excel file to weekly meeting and we discuss the issues one by one with the project manager or project lead.

When we enter into SAP the default screen is SAP Easy access.

End user will work on easy access screen, end user is the employee if clients who will do day to day transactions in Sap.

Consultants will work on IMG screen (implementation guide)

Enter SPRO tcode in tcode bar and click on SAP Reference IMG.

If you are in other screen than easy access then we need to put either /n or o before tcode.

/n means it overwrites the present screen

/o means it opens a new session.

1 Company Code:  A company code is an organizational unit which is responsible for all external financial transactions which happens in the company (external financial transactions are balance sheet, profit and loss statements.

A company code is an organizational unit which is registered under company’s act `1956.

FI consultants are responsible to define company code in SAP.

Every organization units will be defined in SAP as code. Company code is a four (4) digit code. A company code is a physical entity.

2. Sales Organization:  It is an organizational unit which is responsible for all sales and services happens in the company. It is an organizational unit where strategic decisions related to sales will be taken. It is a organizational unit where you find director sales and vice president sales.

SD consultant is responsible to define sales organization in SAP.

Sales organization is a 4 digit code. Sales .It is a physical entity i.e. which will have address.

In what scenarios client will have multiple organizations

1. Multiple company codes

2. Bifurcation of sales responsibilities based on geographical locations

3. Domestic and exports

In our project we have 2 sales organizations

1. Domestic    2. Export

3. Distribution Channel: It is the way of selling the goods to customers or it is the way of distributing the good to the customers

In our project we have 4 Distribution channels

1. Dealers       2. Distributors

3. Direct         4. Institution

The combination of sales organization and distribution channel is called sales line.

SD consultant is responsible to define distribution channel in SAP. The distribution channel is 2 digit codes.

4. Division: Division is the range of products or product line. Grouping of materials which are similar in nature.

 example

1. Gynecology        2. Pediatric

3. Insulin                4. Cardiology

5. Orthopedic         6. Antibiotic

A division is a two digit code .SD consultant is responsible to define division in SAP.

The combination of sales organization, distribution channel and division is called as sales area.

In SAP-SD sales area plays a vital role. Whatever transaction we do in sales it should be related through particular sales area.

Distribution channel and division is logical unit because they don’t have address.

5. Sales Office:

It is a physical location where group of people will work together to perform sales .The length of sales office is 4 digit.SD consultant is responsible to define sales office in SAP.

6. Sales Group: Sales group is a group of people working in a sales office and working for different activities. In our project we have 2 groups

1. Insulin      2. Antibiotic

The length of sales group is 3 digit code.SD consultants is responsible to define sales group.

7. Plant: It is a physical location where we do the process of manufacturing finished goods.

8. Depo: Depo is a place where we store finished goods fort easy distribution of goods to customers.

Carry and Forward:

If the depo is owned by the company we call it as depo.

If the depo is owned by third party person then we call it as CNF.

MM consultant is responsible to define plant in SAP. A plant is a 4 digit code.

In our project we have 2 manufacturing plants, 27 depos.

9. Storage Location: It is a physical location where we store the goods within a plant.

Each plant will have 5 storage locations

1. Raw material.

2. Semi finished goods.

3. Finished Goods1.

4. Finished Goods2.

5. Returns

MM consultant is responsible to define storage location in SAP. Storage location is a 4 digit code.

10. Shipping Point: It is a physical location where we do the process of loading the goods into trucks, for dispatching it to customers.

In our project each plant we have 2 shipping points

1. Manual shipping point.

2. Automatic shipping point.

SD consultant is responsible to define shipping point .Shipping point is a 4 digit code.

COMPANY: Company is an organizational unit which will group several company codes into one.

FI consultant is responsible for company.

BUSINESS AREA: It is an organizational unit which will help to generate internal balance sheet plant wise. FI consultant is responsible for business area.

CREDIT CONTROL AREA: It is an organizational unit which specifies group of people responsible for credit activities .FI consultant is responsible for this activity.

CONROLLING AREA: It specifies the group of people responsible for product costing activities.CO consultant is responsible to define controlling area.

Defining Company Code in SAP:

A company is a 4 digit code

Path:

Enter SPRO tcode in code bar

Enterprise structure → Definition →Financial accounting → edit, copy, delete, check company code and click on IMG activity double click on edit company code data.

Select the standard company code 1000 and click on copy as symbol after copy change the code.

After entering the details click on copy then save it.

When we will save the system will ask the request number.

And click on continue.

Defining Sales Organization:

SD consultant is responsible to define sales organization.

Path:

spro → enterprise structure  → definition→sales and distribution  →define copy delete sales organization ,double click on define sales organization.

Select standard sales organization 1000 and click on copy as.

Define Distribution channel in SAP:

Spro → enterprise structure → definition → sales and distribution → define copy delete check distribution channel, double click on define distribution channel new entries, create distribution channel.

Define Division:

Path:

Spro → enterprise structure → definition→logistic general →define copy check delete division.

Double click on define division

New entries

Define Sales Office:

Path:

Spro → enterprise structure → definition → sales and distribution → maintain sales office.