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2016-04-04T00:28:00.000-07:00

SAP (Common to all Modules)

SAP HR/HCM

SAP FI CO

Beginner
Interview
Discuss @ group
Configuration PDF's
Configuration steps

SAP SD

Beginner
Interview
Discuss @ group
Configuration PDF's
Configuration steps

SAP MM

Beginner
Interview
Discuss @ group
Configuration PDF's
Configuration steps

SAP PM

Beginner
Interview
Discuss @ group
Configuration PDF's
Configuration steps

SAP PP

Beginner
Interview
Discuss @ group
Configuration PDF's
Configuration steps

SAP CRM

SAP Basis

SAP AM

Want to Help - (provide real-time scenarios/solutions, provide articles for blogs, Mention corrections/suggestions to improve to blog) mail to sappy.expert@gmail.com)

Program not executing - real time production issue

2010-09-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

There have been instances where some programs were working in the quality server but not on the production server.
The most likely solution can be done by any BASIS experts who can reduce the load parameter on it.

What is SAP Business One?

2010-03-16T17:39:00.001-07:00

SAP Business One is the low-cost, easy-to-implement business management solution from SAP for small and medium Enterprises (SME). Unlike the standard ERP software, this solution enables managers with access to real-time information through one single system containing financial, customer relationship management, manufacturing, and management control functionalities. The solution empowers managers to make better and quicker business decisions. Bundled with a user-friendly interface, SAP Business One serves as the client’s central ERP hub with standard interfaces (internal and external data sources), handheld computers, CRM applications, among others.

SAP Business One is based on the Microsoft Windows platform making it easier to install and maintain. The application comes with a demo company, which can be used by the client to become familiar with it and use it for testing and ramp up sessions.
The modules of SAP Business One include:

· Administration

· Financials

· Sales Opportunities

· Sales – A/R

· Purchasing – A/P

· Business Partners

· Banking

· Inventory

· Production

· MRP

· Service

· Human Resources

· Reporting

What is the SAP Document Builder?

2010-03-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

SAP Document Builder’ (CA-GTF-DOB) is a content-driven and cross-application solution for building and delivering complex documents. It can be deployed within international organizations and large corporations to generate contract and bid invitation documents, banking-related documents, auto insurance policies, real estate contracts, and corporate employment policies.

It is possible to deploy SAP Document Builder as a standalone application or integrate it with other SAP or non-SAP components.

The SAP Document Builder supports companies by:

Automating and streamlining the document-creation process.

Enforcing best practices.

Building documents that reflect company-specific styles and formats from one or more regulation sets.

Determining inclusion or exclusion of clauses based on legal regulations by means of rules.

What is Duet?

2010-02-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

Duet is a product result of a partnership between SAP and Microsoft. It enables users to easily and quickly interact with SAP business processes and data via their familiar Microsoft Office environment. It is the first joint product created by these two industry leaders and is designed to revolutionize how IT workers interact with enterprise applications.

Duet aims to enable:

Budget Monitoring: Schedule time-critical alerts and notifications to monitor cost centers or internal orders, which are delivered directly to Microsoft Outlook.

Demand Planning: Create and use planning sheets, as well as analyze and manage demand planning data from the SAP System using Microsoft Excel.

Duet Reporting: Schedule reports to be delivered regularly to Microsoft Outlook, receive individual reports on an as-needed basis, and view reports in Microsoft Excel.

Leave Management: Add leave requests as Microsoft Outlook calendar items that integrate approval guidelines in the SAP System and enterprise-defined processes.

Sales Management: Manage CRM accounts and contacts, create business activities, and access sales analytics information using Microsoft Outlook.

Team Management: Access up-to-date information about yourself and employees, open positions, and organizational structures that are integrated from the SAP System into the Microsoft Outlook contacts area.

Time Management: Record time in the Microsoft Outlook calendar, streamlining time entry while ensuring time-reporting compliance in the SAP System.

Travel Management: Create a travel request and a travel expense report in the SAP System using Microsoft Outlook.

Even though there was a great buzz over this new and apparently revolutionary framework, Duet didn’t have the success that was announced. Instead, earlier in 2009 SAP announced a new partnership with IBM

What are the SAP xApps Components?

2010-02-25T09:20:00.000-08:00

Duet

SAP Document Builder

SAP Global Trade Services

SAP xApp Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence

SAP xApp Resource and Portfolio Management

SAP xApp Product Definition

SAP xApp Cost and Quotation Management

SAP xApp Integrated Exploration and Production

SAP xApp Sales and Operations Planning

What are SAP xApps?

2010-02-24T14:43:00.001-08:00

The SAP xApps family of composite applications enable business innovation and provides flexibility to respond quickly to business changes. xApps allow clients to extend the value of their core business investments and maximize the return on strategic assets: employees, knowledge, products, business relationships, and IT.

SAP and SAP certified partners deliver these composite applications pre-bundled. They clients drive their specific business processes and focus on the needs of a variety of industries.

All these applications combine Web services and data coming from multiple systems in an application design made possible by the SAP Composite Application Framework (CAF) within the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. This framework includes the methodology, tools, and run-time environment to develop composite applications.

What Industry Solutions (IS) are Available from SAP?

2010-02-24T14:42:00.001-08:00

There are several Industry Solutions available from SAP in several forms:

· SAP for Aerospace and Defense

· SAP for Automotive

· SAP for Banking

· SAP for Consumer Products

· SAP Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable

· SAP for Defense and Security

· SAP for Engineering, Construction and Operations

· SAP for Financial Service Providers

· SAP for Healthcare

· SAP for Higher Education and Research

· SAP for High Tech

· SAP for Insurance

· SAP for Media

· SAP for Mill Products

· SAP for Mining

· SAP for Oil and Gas

· SAP for Professional Services

· SAP for Public Sectors

· SAP for Retail

· SAP for Telecommunications

· SAP for Utilities

· SAP for Wholesale Distribution

What are the SAP Business Suite Components?

2010-02-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

SAP Supply Chain Management (SCM)

SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

SAP Catalog Content Management (SRM-MDM)

SAP Product Life Cycle Management

SAP Environment, Health, and Safety

SAP PLM Recipe Management

Audit Management

SAP Compliance Management for SOA

Management of Internal controls

SAP Learning Solution

SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM)

What are the NetWeaver Components?

2010-02-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

By enabling a seamless integration and allowing the integration of the Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), SAP NetWeaver unifies business processes across different systems, integrating applications for employees as needed, and accessing information easily in a structured manner.

The SAP NetWeaver components are the following:

Security

People Integration

Multi-channel Access

Portal

Collaboration

Information Integration

Business Intelligence (BI)

BI (Business Intelligence) Content

Knowledge Management (KM)

Master Data Management (MDM)

Process Integration (PI, former XI)

Integration Broker

Business Process Management (BPM)

Application Platform

Java

ABAP

Business Services

Connectivity

DB and OS Abstraction

SAP Knowledge Warehouse

Life Cycle Management

Customizing

Software Change Management

System Management

What is SAP Solution Manager?

2010-02-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

SAP Solution Manager provides a central access to tools, methods, and pre-configured content, throughout the life cycle of solutions—from Business Blueprint to Configuration to Support.

Solution Manager includes:

• Implementation/Upgrade of SAP Solutions

o Central access to Project Tools

o Central management of Project Information (Roadmap, System Landscape, Documentation, etc.)

o Enables comparing/synchronizing customizing in several SAP components

• Solution Monitoring

o Central System Administration

o System Landscape Analysis with System Level Reporting

o Real-time System Monitoring

o Business Process Monitoring

• Services and Support

o Access to programs/services for monitoring and optimizing system performance and availability to minimize risks.

• Service Desk

o Solution Support through Work Flow to create and manage Process/Problem Messages.

• Change Management

o Trace and audit system changes and transports through Change Request Management.

What is the SAP NetWeaver Platform?

2010-02-23T04:44:00.003-08:00

The SAP NetWeaver platform enables organizations to build new business solutions and processes rapidly, while taking off added business value from existing IT investments. SAP NetWeaver is a technology framework which bridges the several SAP components. It supports new cross-functional business processes and helps to lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by reducing the need for custom integration. It offers a complete life cycle management for all of the Client’s applications. It is also the foundation for Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) and helps orchestrate people, information, and business processes across the organization.

What are the main components of the SAP ERP Solution?

2010-02-23T04:44:00.001-08:00

SAP ERP Central Component (ECC 6.0)

SAP SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management) (SEM 6.0)

SAP cProject Suite (Project and Portfolio Management 4.0)

SAP SRM for ERP (SRM 5.0)

SAP Catalog Content Management (CCM 2.0 for ERP 2004)

SAP Internet Sales for ERP

Which Solutions are included in the SAP Portfolio?

2010-02-23T04:43:00.003-08:00

Currently, SAP Solutions include the following:

SAP ERP

SAP Business Suite

SAP R/3 and R/3 Enterprise (v. 4.6 and 4.7)

SAP for Industries

SAP xApps

SAP Solution Manager

The History of SAP

2010-02-23T04:43:00.001-08:00

SAP GmbH was founded in 1972 (Germany) by five former IBM employees. Their challenge was to develop a standard business application software, with the goal of processing business information in real-time.

During 1973, the company released its first financial accounting software, “R1″ (the letter “R” stands for “Real-Time Processing”).

In the late 70s, SAP “R/2″ was released with IBM’s database and a dialogue-oriented business application.

R/2 was stabilized during the early 80s and the company came out with a version capable of processing business transactions in several languages and currencies, to meet the needs of their already growing international clients.

In 1988, SAP GmbH became SAP AG. The “new” company then established subsidiaries in countries such as the United States, Sweden, Denmark, and Italy.

The early 90s saw the introduction of SAP “R/3″, introducing the client-server architecture and GUI, which ran on almost any database, and on most operating systems. SAP R/3 brought a new concept, moving from a “main frame” to a 3-tier architecture (Data layer > Application Layer > Interface layer).

In the beginning of 1996, the company had already more than 9,000 installations worldwide. On the verge of turning the 2k year, SAP had introduced the e-commerce enabled mySAP suite of products for leveraging ever-growing web technology.

SAP began the twenty-first century with the Enterprise Portal and role-based access to business information.

SAP continued to grow and innovate, bringing new technologies to business-information processing.

SAP introduced SAP NetWeaver, the underlying technology framework, which still is based on Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) with application integration across diverse platforms for providing one-stop end-to-end business processing. With NetWeaver, companies can now integrate people, information, and processes.

The future will tell the tendencies but it is a fact that SAP leads innovating initiatives is areas like Mobile, SOA, BPM and Self-Services, across several SAP Application Areas.

What is SAP?

2010-02-23T04:42:00.001-08:00

SAP stands for German “Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte der Dataenverarbeitung,” meaning “Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing”. SAP was founded in 1972 with its still existing headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. SAP is a multi billion dollar company and the global market leader in Business software. SAP employs around 50,000 employees worldwide, with more than 140,000 system installations in about 120 countries. More than 12 million people use SAP on a daily basis. And there are more than 20 industry-specific “Industry Solutions”, known commonly as “IS” (e.g. IS-Oil, IS-Retail, IS-Bank, etc.).

What is ABAP?

2009-10-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

ABAP(Advanced Business Application Programming, originally Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor, German for "general report creation processor) is a very high level programming language created by the German software company SAP. It is currently positioned, alongside the more recently introduced Java, as the language for programming SAP’s Web Application Server, part of its NetWeaver platform for building business applications. Its syntax is somewhat similar to COBOL.

ABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs) first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting.

ABAP used to be an abbreviation of Allgemeiner Berichts aufbereitungs prozessor, the German meaning of "generic report preparation processor", but was later renamed toAdvancedBusinessApplicationProgramming. ABAP was one of the first languages to include the concept of Logical Databases(LDBs), which provides a high level of abstraction from the basic database level.

The ABAP programming language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3 platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP applications -customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP programming.The language is fairly easy to learn for programmers but it is not a tool for direct use by non-programmers. Good programming skills, including knowledge of relational database design and preferably also of object-oriented concepts, are required to create ABAP programs.

ABAP remains the language for creating programs for the client-server R/3 system, which SAP first released in 1992. As computer hardware evolved through the 1990s, more and more of SAP’s applications and systems were written in ABAP. By 2001, all but the most basic functions were written in ABAP. In 1999, SAP released an object-oriented extension to ABAP called ABAP Objects, along with R/3 release 4.6.

Where does the ABAP program run?
All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. They are not stored in separate external files like Java or C++ programs. In the database all ABAP code exists in two forms: source code, which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench tools, and generated code, a binary representation somewhat comparable withJavabytecode. ABAP programs execute under the control of the runtime system, which is part of the SAP kernel. The runtime system is responsible for processing ABAP statements, controlling the flow logic of screens and responding to events (such as a user clicking on a screen button). A key component of the ABAP runtime system is the Database Interface, which turns database-independent ABAP statements ("Open SQL") into statements understood by the underlying DBMS ("Native SQL"). The database interface handles all the communication with the relational database on behalf of ABAP programs; it also contains extra features such as buffering of frequently accessed data in the local memory of the application server.

SAP has three different layers as presentation layer (GUI), application layer (programs run on this) and data base layer where all data is stored and retrieved from user driven conditions, commands given by end user programmer through presentation layer.

Types of ABAP Programs

Report programs

Online programs

Subroutine pools

Function pools

Type pools

Class pools

Interface pools

What is SAP IDES ?

2009-10-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

SAP IDES is server which is installed for training purposes. It has a lot of demo data. There are training companies which install the IDES version of the SAP R/3 which can be used for the training. Some companies also provide online access to thier IDES servers for a cost.

The system that contains several sample companies typifying relevant business processes. It is simple to use and has a variety of master and transaction data, and is used for demos, online/classroom training, and presentations. Potential customers use IDES to trial and test software via Internet.

For installing IDES 4.6C on a Laptop, you need :-

Pentium 3/Pentium 4 with any CPU
2*40 GB HDD
512 MB RAM
DVD Drive

For Installing IDES 6.0, you need:

Hardware Requirement for Central System
I. Minimum disk space
1. Database Software
1 GB (x64)
2 GB (IA64)
2. SAP system files (not including paging file)
5 GB (x64)
8 GB (IA64)
3. SAP database files (not including paging file)
76 GB
4. 4.3 GB of temporary disk space for every required installation DVD that you have to copy to a local hard disk
II. Minimum RAM 4GB
III. Paging file size 1 times RAM plus 8 GB

Hardware Requirements for a Distributed System
I. Minimum disk space
1. Database software
1 GB (x64)
2 GB (IA64)
2. Database instance (not including paging file)
76 GB
3. Central instance (not including paging file)
5 GB (x64)
8 GB (IA64)
4. In addition you require 4 GB (x64), or 8 GB (IA64) per additional platform.
5. Dialog instance (optional) (not including paging file)
2.5 GB (x64)
5 GB (IA64)
5. Temporary disk space for every required installation DVD that you have to copy to a local hard disk:
4.3GB
II. Minimum RAM 2 GB
III. Paging file size n Database instance
1.5 times RAM
Central instance:
1 times RAM plus 8 GB
Dialog instance (optional)
1 times RAM plus 8 GB

SAP IDES – the "Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System" in the R/3 System, represents a model company. It consists of an international group with subsidiaries in several countries. IDES contains application data for various business scenarios that can be run in the SAP System. The business processes in the IDES system are designed to reflect real-life business requirements, and have access to many realistic characteristics. IDES uses easy-to-follow business scenarios to show you the comprehensive functions of the R/3 System. The focal point of IDES, however, is not the functionality itself, but the business processes and their integration.

IDES not only covers the Logistics area, but also Financials, and Human Resources. It demonstrates how the R/3 System is able to support practically all types of industries, from discrete production through to process industries, from engineering-to-order to repetitive manufacturing. However, IDES is not a sector-oriented model company. The individual processes are based on practice-oriented data for sectors such as Retailing or Banking. The IDES group manufactures products as diverse as elevators, motorcycles, and paints.

IDES is managed by SAP just as any regular business enterprise. SAP regularly updates the IDES data (master data, transaction data, and customizing). IDES also carry out period-end closing and plan with different time-horizons. Transaction data are generated to ensure that the information systems in all areas have access to realistic evaluation data. IDES are constantly implementing new, interesting business scenarios to highlight the very latest functions available in the R/3 System. New functions are represented and documented by IDES scenarios.

Above all, IDES shows you the possibilities of the integrated applications in the SAP System. IDES cover all aspects of a business enterprise, including Human Resources, Financial Accounting, Product Cost Planning, Overhead Management, Profitability Analysis, Planning, Sales and Distribution, Materials Management, Production, and much, much more. IDES have also integrated document administration and third-party CAD systems within the IDES system. This means that you can call up and display external documents, or access CAD drawings.

IDES shows you how the R/3 System supports production processes, the supply chain, and the efficient usage of global resources. Or perhaps you would like to increase your understanding of just-in-time-production or the integration of the electronic KANBAN system in an MRP II environment? IDES provides the ideal way to learn about areas such as Product Cost Controlling, Activity-Based Costing, or integrated Service Management and Plant Maintenance. How to manage high inflation is just one of the ever-growing number of IDES business scenarios that you can choose from.

Non ERP products by SAP

2009-05-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

SAP's products focus on ERP, which it helped to pioneer. The company's main product is SAP R/3;the "R" stands for real time data processing and the number 3 relates to a three-tier application architecture: database, application server and client SAPgui.Other major product offerings include

(1). Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO),
(2). Business Information Warehouse(BW),
(3). Customer Relationship Management(CRM),
(4). Supplier Relationship Management(SRM),
(5). Human Resource Management Systems(HRMS),
(6). Product Lifecycle Management(PLM),
(7). Exchange Infrastructure(XI) and
(8). Knowledge Warehouse(KW).

5 Tips To Implement SAP R/3 - SAP Implementation

2009-04-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

SAP R/3? What in the world is that? Well if you are asking those particular questions presently then you are not alone. A lot of folks out there wonder the same issue as you. SAP R/3 in reality is the introductory name of the company planning software which is produced by SAP AG based in Germany. The present name of this software is now SAP ERP.

The very original version of the SAP organization software comprised of a financial Accounting type of program known as R/1. The combination of the three letters comprising of S-A-P was finally substituted with the R/2 at the close of 1970. SAP R/2 was software created for a mainframe computer system and commonly operated on systems such as the IBM S-390 Enterprise mainframe computer. This software package proved to be extremely versatile and functioned flawlessly during the 80 s and the early 90 s.

These software modules were especially pop with the larger European organizations which real time applications with various capabilities. It was not long before the successes of the basic software prompt the SAP AG Company to expand its products and hence it worked out the SAP R/3 which was fully multiple platforms capable. This new software worked on a few platforms such as Microsoft Windows and the ever popular UNIX systems. From 1992 onward SAP ruled the business application market on up to 2002.

The real beauty associated with the SAP R/3 software is that it is produced to function as several modules that in effect provided support for many of the organizational operation frequently found in today’s modern businesses. These procedures ranged from Finances and Control, Human Resources, Materials Management Branch, Sales & Distribution, as well as the Production Planning section.

For Each One module was created to deals only specific business directed tasks nevertheless all the modules were ultimately related to each other. As an instance, billing department could issue an invoice which would be directed to the accounting part and would appear in those parts accounts receivable.

Combined with the brilliant multi-powered S-390 Mainframe computer this system comprised the ultimate software for business management. It could effectively be cross platform-ed without any information loss. In some other words you could easily use the Mainframe as your central working equipment and safely import information from your individualized servers irrespective of the platform that they were using.

The different SAP specialize modules are programmed for coordination within dependable business sections such as retail or utility functions.

Unluckily in order to apply all of these stunning features one would have to pay dearly for the affiliated license fees. The goal of SAP when it comes to their software growth is that they want to supply a good deal more capable product for the organization than would be possible for them to actual attempt to create on their own.

The structure of the SAP R/3 has been programmed by applying the copyrighted language ordinarily noted as Advanced Business Applications Programming or merely ABAP. This is a 4th generation programming language which allows a powerful subset of programs capable of catering complete parts for management and analyzes. Although all the modules were constructed to perform united each and every one can function solo.

Much could be written on this software package still because of the several Custom configurations that could be established it would take many pages to provide a mere scratching of the surface. To easier visualize this package you should sit down with a representative and tell them what your organization genuinely wants in the way of corporation answers.

Advantages of SAP R/3 - Part 1

2009-04-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Functionality: The R/3 System offers you a software solution that covers all commercial processes and transactions commonly occurring in a company or group of companies.

Integration: All work processes within a company or group of companies are linked through data and functions using the R/3 System.

User Friendliness: The R/3 System has a uniform graphical user interface for all application areas.

Individual Solutions: System-controlled customizing procedures allow you to create solutions from a wide variety of prepared application variants to satisfy individual requirements.

Flexible Structure: Whether in a departmental organization or on the warehouse or factory floor, change is the only facet of your business that will not vary. Adaptability must be universal, and the R/3 System’s flexible structure and extensive integration helps make that easier.

Enterprise-Wide Integration: SAP’s enterprise-wide R/3 System solutions meet the needs of constantly changing, continually evolving businesses. The R/3 System’s application components are fully integrated. Transaction-related process chains trigger the next activity as needed from engineering to materials management, to production planning, to sales and distribution. The R/3 System’s full integration pulls your enterprise together, promoting data access, flexibility, and productivity. No other product or suite of products provides the R/3 System’s functional links between processes that multiply the power of each person’s work.

Real-Time Information: The R/3 System’s ability to “drill down” to whatever level of detail you need is legendary. More than any other product, the R/3 System provides up-to-the-minute, real-time information wherever and whenever you need it.

Mission-Critical Business Processes: SAP has more than 20 years of experience designing sophisticated application software for backbone and mission critical business processes. Nine of the top ten Fortune 500 companies use SAP software. SAP developed most of the R/3 System’s functionality in close cooperation with these customers. Consequently, it has integrated the best business practices of the world’s most successful companies into the R/3 System. The R/3 System’s business processes are flexible, pragmatic and well documented. Today they form a widely acknowledged standard for Business Process Reengineering (BPR).

Best of Breed: Users want standard software as well as standard business processes and guidance on how to implement them successfully. With the R/3 System you get the “best of breed” for all common business processes. You do not need to compromise on flexibility. If you need or want to fine tune or tailor your R/3 System, the capability is there.

Enterprise-wide three-tiered architecture: The R/3 System remains the only enterprise-wide, three-tiered architecture. The R/3 System’s three-tiered client/server architecture separates the system into areas devoted to database, application functionality, and desktop presentation. This structure promotes maximum flexibility, freedom of application component choice and the ability to change and add to the system as your organization grows. The development of the Internet, including the World-Wide Web, promises to make dramatic changes in communications between businesses and customers. SAP is working with several partners to develop enhanced Internet extensions for the R/3 System.

Concurrent engineering: Concurrent engineering cuts time-to-market by stacking up business processes whenever functions can take place concurrently rather than consecutively. The R/3 System’s flexibility and integration help you form the real-time workflow application links required for concurrent engineering.

Lean Implementation: The R/3 System promotes lean implementation through its modular structure. By selecting key portions of the R/3 System for first-time implementation, and minimizing customization, new users bring the full power of the R/3 System to address their business issues with great speed, at a reasonable cost. Once running, the R/3 System makes it easy to add more functional pieces. Tools on various system levels allow you to fine tune all R/3 System functional modules. Gradually adding functionality makes core solutions available sooner without sacrificing long-term application muscle.

Desktop Integration: Desktop integration in the R/3 System means that whenever you want data moved into a desktop PC application, it is a mouse-click away. Download or export a file to your PC’s hard drive and then open it in your favorite spreadsheet or word processor. No awkward or failure-prone communications between hardware or to hinder hinders your productivity

ASAP Roadmap

2009-04-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Phase 1: Project Preparation

Phase 2: Business Blueprint

Phase 3: Realization

Phase 4: Final Preparation

Phase 5: Go Live & Support

Available ASAP Tools For SAP R/3

2009-04-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

SAP R/3 offers many packages to implement SAP effectively and cost efficiently. Some of the packages with tools are

AcceleratedSAP (ASAP):

	The Project Estimator: Estimates required resources, costs and time frame.
	The Concept Check Tool:
	The Implementation Assistant:

1. ASAP Implementation Roadmap & Project Plan

2. Knowledge Corner

Question and Answer Database (Q&Adb): Used to assist in gathering requirements for business processes.

1. Business Process Master List (BPML)

2. Issues Database

SAP R/3 Business Engineer:

	SAP R/3 reference model: Comprehensive graphical process flows describing the SAP R/3 functionality from different point of view. It contains scenarios, processes and functions.
	Implementation Guide (IMG): Used to configure all system parameters for the business processes in SAP R/3.

Preconfigured Systems:

	Preconfigured US and Canadian clients
	Preconfigured industry system

ASAP Implementation Methodology

2009-04-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

Any enterprise application software has to cover a broad spectrum of functionality, yet to be configured enough to meet specific requirements. SAP achieves this by ASAP methodology & R/3 Business Engineer.

AcceleratedSAP (ASAP) is SAP’s standard implementation methodology. It contains the Roadmap, a step-by step guide that incorporates experience from many years of implementing SAP. Quality checks are incorporated at end of each phase to ensure quality of deliverables and monitor critical success factors.

ASAP is delivered as a PC based package, so that an implementation project can begin prior to having an SAP R/3 system installed.

	ASAP Tools
	ASAP Roadmap

ASAP and Business Engineer have compatibility with many third party modeling tools and packages like MS Excel etc

R/3 Business Engineer

It contains a set of configuration and implementation tools, which enable you or your consultants to define configuration SAP. It helps to implement SAP R/3 very fast. SAP has standardized the SAP implementation procedure, simplified the way fu8nctions are presented and reduced the technical complexity of implementation. The Business Engineer resides in SAP.

ASAP along with Business Engineer is suitable to

	Business professionals who need to discuss, prototype and design their Business Blueprint (enterprise model)
	IS departments of large enterprises who need to customize R/3 applications more effectively and more rapidly.
	Small and medium scale companies, who wish to implement SAP in cost-effective way.
	Consultants and SAP partners who are looking for efficient way of offering their services.

Some of the features of ASAP with Business Engineer are:

	Reduced implementation time.
	Intuitive understanding of wide range of functions offered by SAP R/3
	Process optimization using proven scenarios, processes and value chains.
	High quality installations through comprehensive procedural guidelines.
	Continuous, dynamic adjustment and optimization of SAP R/3 applications.
	The capability to copy configured areas.

Before starting the implementation project

2009-04-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

SAP R/3 implementation is generally a key project for any organization. It is necessary to do preparation before implementation.

Many organizations speak of "transferring technology." But what does that mean? Transfer technology involves transfer of the system which includes the

	hardware
	software
	people
	processes
	information
	organization
	structure
	synchronization
	function and
	behavior.

It becomes obvious that the transfer of any part of the system, without the rest of it, does not transfer technology. In our context, the software SAP/3 is being changed. In most of the cases the hardware needs to be changed. The people need training to operate SAP system. But unfortunately, many organizations fail to understand that they need to change their processes. SAP is a package & it contains many best practices suitable to almost each industry. The designer (configuring the system) must design the system keeping the objective of the business objective in mind. The user should be prepared to change it’s processes and ensure that the objective of the processes is met. This should be done without or minimum distortion of the processes designed by SAP. This is a big challenge to the designer as well as user. It should noted that the user representative involved in the system design should be empowered for low level BPR decisions.

Also the information stored in the system will be in different form than the legacy system. The user must be prepared & trained for the changed.

The major challenge is behavioral change. Implementation of SAP R/3 system changes relationship of different persons, it gives/denies access to information which was not available/available to the person, it changes processes and control functions. This all gives behavioral issues. To get best out of SAP, these issues must be addressed before implementation.

SAP R/3 re-engineers many processes and the fear of downsizing and loosing job hinders free acceptance of SAP in many organizations. This fear hinders free communication between the end-users and SAP system designer. The communication is a vital element in successful implementation of SAP R/3. This issue of 'Fear Of Downsizing' must be addressed before starting implementation project.

Discover More About SAP Modules

2009-04-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

In this age of globalization business processes are getting more and more complicated with several interconnected factors and parameters. It is noted that all business has it’s individual chances and challenges. But say you delve deep into several business you will find out that the primary underlying procedure is rather alike for every of them. This initiated development of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages that could change the mode businesses applied to be executed decades ago. SAP is 1 such ERP packages, which has not solely helped numerous firms to transform but also aided them to accomplish operational excellence.

The primary job of a SAP consultant is to accomplish Best Practices in corporations from several verticals and sum up value to the bottom line of their respective businesses. The prime and most severe element for learning how prosperous you will be as a SAP consultant is your interpreting of business operation. It is primary for you to handle the business procedure in particular, and how each procedure is linked and coordinated with another.

There are 2 cases of advisors required in whatsoever SAP implementation namely Functional and Technical Consultants. The functional advisors interact closely with the clients to study and interpret the business process, find out the criticality of the business, and collate demands from the customers. They map all aspects of business as one and do Gap Analysis and prepare As Is To Be model to suit the business demands.

Once these steps are over and the customer approves the newly projected model, it is passed on to the technical consultants for development and customization of modules to meet the clients demands. This process is known as wisdom shift, and through this procedure functional advisors help the technical consultant to design the roadmap for development. The operational consultant customizes the package to fit the clients business demands while the technical advisor takes care of the coding, programing, and info migration procedures in the backend.

There are numerous modules in SAP like Sales & Distribution, Material Management, Purchase, Finance & Control, Customer Relationship Management, Human resource, which take care of each different function and domain of whatsoever business. Some Other advisors operate in different modules in tandem with each other to find out smooth integration of the process.

SAP consultancy is thus a great career option having immense potential for development. The market increment is simply phenomenal and poised to produce further in years to come since many corporations are finding it tough to keep their leadership in this ferociously competitive age without having a unique ERP system in place.

Apart from the business process knowledge, it is imperative to recognize the package for becoming a SAP advisor. SAP is a very versatile merchandise and has well-tried it’s credential in almost every businesses over the period of time. SAP development wing has come up with many IS (Industry Specific) solutions like SAP-IS Retail, SAP-IS Oil & Gas, etc., to handle uniqueness of these verticals.

As you become a senior SAP adviser you would require to counsel the enterprise on growing requirement and shift in business practices taking place at the clients end and assist the corporation to develop result that is up-to-date and applicable. If you ever come across a business process or a business instance that may not be treated with instant features of SAP you may suggest the organisation on acquiring add-on products accordingly to resolve those subjects.

Although SAP consulting market looks rosy and promising, at times one may find entering this field quite challenging. There are many authorized training partners who impart training and offer certification on SAP. After successful completion of the course you became a Certified SAP Consultant. At One Time you get the first break and gather hands on experience of few end-to-end implementations, there is zero looking back. A note of appreciation from the customers with whom you have operated may process marvels for your future enterprises.

ERP - What it is?

2009-04-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

ERP is the acronym of 'Enterprise Resource Planning'.

'Enterprise' is the first word in ERP. That means it will consider the enterprise overall interest first. It gives an integrated approach to resource planning all over the enterprise.

That is building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. Each of those departments typically had its own computer system, each optimized for the particular ways that the department does its work. But ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other.

ERP automates tasks that performs business, thereby reducing delay, manpower & hence cost of the business.

ERP can

· Automate Purchase Order generation process by considering stock, order position & consumption pattern

· help sales team in giving real time position on stock, pending orders & production plan.

· help customers in getting status of their orders

· help warehouse personnel in providing exact stock & it's location

· help production persons in planning production orders, tracking them & plan materials for the same.

· help finance in updating ledgers, tracking any entry

· Materials manager in reducing stock, minimize stock outs & control on thefts etc.

· Top management in getting real time picture of their business, tracing any problem up to transaction level on their own.

As all the personnel in the organization are looking at the same data real time, the communication among various departments is better

How To Implement SAP with SAP Training Modules

2009-04-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

One of the fastest software in the technology market is SAP. What is SAP and why is it so popular. Lets take a look.

About SAP

SAP is the acronym for Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing. It was developed in 1972 by 5 German Engineers in 1972 and now nine out of 10 Fortune 500 companies make use of SAP.

SAP is comprised of various modules. All module stands for a business process and in all there are nineteen such modules which go to display SAP high applicability. There are many SAP organizations who offer specialized SAP Classes. These courses offer a complete understanding of SAP, how it works and its extensive functionalities. People wanting to break into SAP, definitely need to undertake SAP Training.

Why SAP?

The reason why SAP is so popular today is because of its open architecture. Organizations using it , can work on it to create any software to meet their business requirements. It has been created using the best process practices and you can carry out business processes with a high level of efficiency and accuracy using SAP.

SAP applications are assembled in such a way that all departments in an organization, not only carry out activities through it they are also integrated by it, in a seamless fashion. Such is the effective functionality of SAP software that major software companies such as Microsoft and IBM use SAP’s products to carry out their business activities. As of today, SAP is the leading provider of business software, in the world.

SAP Training

Since SAP is have an extensive functionality, software professional need to undergo SAP training so that they are quipped to deal with SAP in their work environment.

You can learn SAP through SAP courses. Such courses are available online, or you can attend regular classes. Here is a look at some important SAP training centers in the United States:

CCI This is a leading SAP solutions firm. It offers comprehensive SAP training course which teaching the best methodologies.

Michael Management Corporation This is a premier SAP firm and it offers in-depth training in three SAP modules. These are Investment Management (IM)), Asset Accounting (AA), and Project System (PS).

RWD This Company offers eLearning for SAP and is beneficial for those who want to get into SAP through this mode of learning.

Ytek Solutions, Inc. This organization offers the best SAP training through e-learning technology. Students interact with teachers through a Virtual Learning Center (VLC) and information is exchanged using tools such as web conferencing, software, instant messenger, white boards. The environment simulates the atmosphere seen in regular class room and is very effective in teaching and for SAP training.

Benefits of SAP learning:

SAP is a vast arena and taking up SAP training will break the ice on how this software functions and what you can do with it. Here is a look at the benefits you gain by taking up SAP courses:

Become part of the SAP environment which gives you a hands-on experience on how to handle and work with such software

Learn from the best professionals in the industry and in doing do absorb the best methodologies and practices in SAP

You career gets a jump-start because SAP training makes equips you well to handle SAP software on the job. Unlike other you will not have to be specially trained on the job for using the software

How to Master SAP Components and Modules

2009-04-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Every organization has many segments, and it is important to integrate every last of these sections to operate uniformly. SAP software integrates all interior procedures by means of several modules. The advance SAP technology enables R/3 to deal with business management procedures throughout all the sections of the organization. Any change in the organizational structure can be easy mirrored by the SAP technology, and it offers space for the expansion. Both decentralization and centralization of processes can be done efficiently if the company has put in SAP software. Regardless of the size of the business, SAP assists the company to prepare all its business activities.

Components of SAP

As with whatsoever software system, SAP has a primary system addressed as the kernel. This is the engine of the whole R/3 system accountable for taking out each functionalities. The screen interpreter checks user input and displays error messages. This takes the input fed to the system and transfers the input to the ABAP/4 interpreter. This interpreter executes the instructions written in ABAP/4 programming language which was used to develop SAP. The SAP system also has a data dictionary for storing all types of definitions used in various modules. Flow control is handled by as a separate component which maintains perfect data flow inside the system. Interfaces connect the software with the outside environment enabling communication between the user and the system.

Modules of SAP

For any business, logistics, accounting, and human resources are the three essential departments carrying out the entire business process. SAP has separate modules for each of these departments and these modules help the organization to execute the business management tasks. SAP enables customization, making the software suitable for any organizing doing any type of business.

Logistic modules

The business processes like sales and distribution handling (SD), material management (MM), production planning (PP), plant maintenance (PM), and quality management (QM) are taken care of by logistic modules. Any organization will require most of these modules if not all. Materials used for production are handled by the MM module. PP and PM modules ensure that the production process works as required. QM module is used to handle quality assurance of the product. The ultimate aim of any organization is to sell its products and hence, SD module is an important module in the SAP system.

Accounting modules

Accounting is important for an organization and the SAP accounting modules automate the accounts department. The FI module handles all accountings like ledgers, balance sheets, and profit and loss statements. Asset management is also carried out by the FI module. The controlling functionality is carried out by the CO module which controls not only the costs but also the objectives of the company. Enterprise controlling (EC) module takes care of integration of company information and external markets to devise efficient marketing strategy.

Human resources modules

Among the various departments, the HR department is crucial for an organization. The personal administration (PA) module of the SAP system takes care of maintaining the records of all the staff. Any department can get access to these data and this module makes the updated data available throughout the system. The personnel planning and development (PD) module incorporates all that is essential for managing the man power of the organization.

Learn How To Apply SAP Modules Into Your Business Process

2009-04-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

An ERP system is a real-time business supporting system that provides to the data demands of the whole organisation using a single repository of informations (a database) and a very sophisticated set of highly-customizable software modules which, together, ease decision-making and the activities based on these decisions. This invariably results in extremely effective operations and a resultant competitive reward. SAP, originated by SAP AG, settled in Walldorf, Germany, is one such proprietary ERP system.

The SAP system is organised into some sets of ’solutions’ (essentially, modules) that comprehend the info wants of limited areas of any corporation’s processes. Sitting on top of these already-integrated individual modules is the Cross-Application layer, components of which farther ensure that these various solution ‘talk’ to each other in a cohesive style.

There is a saying, “If you fail to plan, you are actually planning to fail”. Hence, a right starting point for interpreting SAP is it’s Project System which deals each activity within the organization as part of several project. Settled on occurrent orders (or perceived demand), this module is practiced specify projects that will accomplish these orders and begin chasing after them from then on. A normal project would take on a combination of different manufacturing activities as well as whatever linked procurement (raw materials as well as bought-out items). Tracking each of such project right from inception, through to it’s completion and beyond (post-project analysis) is ably dealt by this module.

For project actions that refer to manufacturing, the Production Planning module handles the particulars of capability planning, production scheduling down to the individual chores on the store floor. This takes on handling data on the accessibility and deployment of human resources, machinery, tools and fixtures, consumables and energy requirements to list a few.

With streamlined production gets Plant Maintenance which treats preventive maintenance, breakdown maintenance along with the associated down-time of tools and lost hours of the work-force as well as the time, material and labor involved for such maintenance.

The Materials Management module interfaces with Production Planning and Plant Maintenance to see a) Timely delivery of materials and b) Reduced price of inventory. It’s range starts with material requisitions (based on Bills of Material emanating from production programs as well as for unintentional purchases) and tracks them from placing orders to receipt of goods, their receiving inspection (quality control), their being taken into stock and being subsequently published for production. This module also treats finished-goods inventory.

The Costing module interfaces with every entity that has a money value affiliated with it. It takes into consideration the various cost-centers and all the related costs : equipment, material, labor and services. The comparable holds true for the profit centers. This costing module has a provision for product-based costing (which could fail to manage particular fixed prices accurately ) as well as activity-based costing which is thought more scientific and supplies for cross-functional dealing of each of the drivers of these costs.

The Sales and Distribution module tracks all transactions from queries, requests for proposals/ quotations and pricing to interfacing with the finished-goods stock (in factory and warehouses) to picking, packing, shipping and delivery.

The Financial Accounting module logs financial transactions in the electronic equivalent of primary books of accounts, keeps the General Ledger and every last defined sub-ledgers, consolidates all this into the ultimate books of accounts (essentially, Profit & Loss account and the Balance Sheet), deals tax-related transactions/adjustments and interfaces with book closure. Accidentally, most of this is of a statutory nature and gets applied with the country-specific choices of SAP.

Asset Management is practiced for chasing after assets from the time they are purchased, right through their lifetime with regard to their depreciation (and, thus their latest valuation) to the point they are either sold or wrote off.

The Quality Management module, along with the Project System, really overlaps all other procedures and interfaces with every 1 of them throughout the lifetime of the organization. Quality, they say is never by chance; it is always by innovation. That is why this module is applied to facilitate all activities that construct quality into the organization’s products/services (preventing defects/errors taking place in the 1st place). This is done by planning (essentially, incorporating preventive steps in the organization’s work-flow), performing these quality programs and dealing periodic inspections to detect deviations, if several. Important to the company’s icon and credibility in the outside universe, are actions that result to the several applicable certifications getting which is likewise handled effectively by this module

This was a simplistic point of a very general application called SAP.

Advantages of SAP R/3 - Part 2

2009-04-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

Online Integrated Graphics: Online integrated graphics in the R/3 System save you time and effort, while making your information more meaningful. From most locations in the R/3 System, you can instantly create full-color 2-D or 3-D graphics from your data. If you change any data, you can instantly see it affect the graphics you have selected. You can also use your mouse to change graphics manually.

Functionality: The R/3 System offers you a software solution that covers all commercial processes and transactions commonly occurring in a company or group of companies.

Integration: All work processes within a company or group of companies are linked through data and functions using the R/3 System.

User Friendlyness: The R/3 System has a uniform graphical user interface for all application areas.

Individual Solutions: System-controlled customizing procedures allow you to create solutions from a wide variety of prepared application variants to satisfy individual requirements.

Flexible Structure: Whether in a departmental organization or on the warehouse or factory floor, change is the only facet of your business that will not vary. Adaptability must be universal, and the R/3 System’s flexible structure and extensive integration helps make that easier.

Enterprise-Wide Integration: SAP’s enterprise-wide R/3 System solutions meet the needs of constantly changing, continually evolving businesses. The R/3 System’s application components are fully integrated. Transaction-related process chains trigger the next activity as needed from engineering to materials management, to production planning, to sales and distribution. The R/3 System’s full integration pulls your enterprise together, promoting data access, flexibility, and productivity. No other product or suite of products provides the R/3 System’s functional links between processes that multiply the power of each person’s work.

Real-Time Information: The R/3 System’s ability to “drill down” to whatever level of detail you need is legendary. More than any other product, the R/3 System provides up-to-the-minute, real-time information wherever and whenever you need it.

Mission-Critical Business Processes: SAP has more than 20 years of experience designing sophisticated application software for backbone and mission critical business processes. Nine of the top ten Fortune 500 companies use SAP software. SAP developed most of the R/3 System’s functionality in close cooperation with these customers. Consequently, it has integrated the best business practices of the world’s most successful companies into the R/3 System. The R/3 System’s business processes are flexible, pragmatic and well documented. Today they form a widely acknowledged standard for Business Process Reengineering (BPR).

Concurrent engineering: Concurrent engineering cuts time-to-market by stacking up business processes whenever functions can take place concurrently rather than consecutively. The R/3 System’s flexibility and integration help you form the realtime workflow application links required for concurrent engineering.

Desktop Integration: Desktop integration in the R/3 System means that whenever you want data moved into a desktop PC application, it is a mouse-click away. Download or export a file to your PC’s hard drive and then open it in your favorite spreadsheet or word processor. No awkward or failure-prone communications between hardware or to hinder hinders your productivity

Learn How To Get A High Paying Job With SAP

2009-04-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well before pondering upon that question let’s have a quick recap of what we are verbalizing about. When we talk about SAP, we are verbalizing about a world-wide industry leader in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software. In fact SAP is the 3rd largest software organization of the globe, with over12000 enterprises using SAP, having or so 80,000 installations and over 12,000,000 people making use of it. And Then rest assured whatever you are planning to do with SAP, you are dealing with some thing big and proved over the years.

Essential name organisations look towards SAP when they think of revamping their IT infrastructures or to acquire competitive reward by enabling business operation change. SAP guarantees a consistent integration of operations and applications across the board.

At Once the enquiry comes, why you want to read SAP? When we talk about SAP developing it can be interpreted from several angles. You can take up SAP courses to act as a project managing director for your organisation who desires to implement SAP. Or you desire to became part of a consulting firm that helps some other organisations in SAP implementations. A variant of latter could be that you want to become an independent SAP consultant and be the master of your personalized career and focus. SAP consultants are never short of work, get to travel lots and charge from 1000$ a day (or more).

Let’s take a look at depth and breadth of SAP so that you can analyze where you stand and what should be your class of activity. SAP courses can be understood from 3 primary prospects which are:

Core Business Processes
SAP Vertical Components
SAP Technical Courses

By training for SAP Business Processes you will come across SAP modules example,

FICO (Financial Accounting and Controlling)
PCA (Profit Center Accounting)
SD (Sales and Distribution)
SD COM (Customer Order Management)
HR (Human Resources)
MM (Material Management)
PM (Plant Maintenance)

SAP Verticals include

SAP APO (Advanced Planning Optimizer)
SAP BW (Business Intelligence)
SAP CRM (Customer Relation Management)
SAP SRM (Supplier Relation Management)

In Conclusion SAP Technical classes will uncover you to technical platforms like

SAP Netweaver Xi
SAP Enterprise Portals
SAP ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming)
SAP BASIS (Business Application Software Integrated Solution)

Also you can also add flavors of SAP according to various industry verticals taking on financial sector, manufacturing and services, to name the broader categories.

Now that we have sufficient jargon and terminology about SAP at our hands let’s try to figure out what is better for you. There cant be a silver bullet formula for everyone to pick and choose his or her modules. Your start point pretty much reckons on your own primary circumstances and destinations. Your experience, aim in the organisation and incoming aspirations will play a vital role in your selection of finding SAP preparations.

For good example you have experience in HR for many years. You have a good knowledge of operations involved in HR and troubles therein. You feel the knack for analysing organisational problems and can visualise their process directed results through technology, then likely you should start with a SAP course in HR(HCM) module. Then over again you will have to decide a introductory point within HCM from sub-modules like Personnel Administration (PA), Personnel Development (PD) etc. Have your pick of module(s) and start your endeavors in becoming a SAP consultant or Project Manager as the example may be.

Separated from picking out modules you may too have to spend time on picking out an appropriate training institute. SAP itself offers facility for that and also there is a massive amount of training/consulting firms that impart trainings for SAP. You require to look for methodology, depth of training and emphasis on your unique fields of interest. Besides above, price can also be an primary settling element.

If you prepare a correct option of modules and set your class correctly SAP educations can add value for you in terms of becoming a valued organizational asset whether you are performing for a SAP consultancy or an enterprise using (or planning to use) SAP.

Post Implementation Success

2009-04-11T08:44:00.001-07:00

It is observed that many organizations pay a lot of attention to implementing SAP R/3 solution, but are ignorant on using SAP R/3 as a 'Business Driving Tool'.

Normal SAP R/3 implementation has 25 years of life span. The 'go-live' stage of an SAP R/3 implementation is just 'the end of the beginning'.

The implementation partner naturally concentrates on acceleration of the implementation activity, knowledge transfer and minimum changes to SAP provided standard customization. In this process, the business units undergo a lot of changes. But the IT department seldom changes. SAP R/3 is treated like traditional IT once go-live occurs.

The organization should view SAP as an instrument for continuous improvement. The vision of SAP R/3 implementation should be evolutionary and not static. IT implementation should be viewed as a great opportunity to incorporate make synergy in IT and Business units. One should understand that traditional IT approach can not drive business, it can just give support to the business. The traditional approach of IT staff is to ignore business needs and the traditional Business people approach to stay away from IT. Senior management must drive IT for business purpose.

Business people should take ownership to run IT for their business needs. That does not means to order for new reports or new codes, but to understand SAP given processes, the rational behind them and to tailor the same to get more value for their business. SAP R/3 should become an engine for benefit and not a cost center.

To achieve this benefit, the 'As is-To be' analysis should be continuously done. It is not one time activity to be done while implementation.

Post implementation success can be achieved by going through the Five steps roadmap.

Five Steps for post-implementation success

1. Realign Business & IT

2. Implement post go-live Analysis

3. Enduring Technical Infrastructure

4. Continuous Training

5. Setting-up your COE

The Different Types Of SAP Consultants In The Market

2009-04-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

In this age of globalization business procedures are becoming more and more intricate with several interlinked components and parameters. It is marked that all business has it’s personal chances and challenges. But if you delve deep into some business you will see that the elementary underlying operation is rather alike for every of them. This initiated development of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages that could alter the path businesses utilised to be performed decades ago. SAP is 1 such ERP packages, which has not solely helped some organisations to transform but likewise helped them to reach functional excellency.

The fundamental job of a SAP consultant is to accomplish Best Practices in firms from various verticals and add value to the bottom line of their individual businesses. The prime and most critical component for learning how thriving you will be as a SAP consultant is your interpreting of business operation. It is primary for you to comprehend the business process in particular, and how every last function is associated and integrated with another.

There are two cases of consultants needed in several SAP implementation that is to say Functional and Technical Consultants. The functional advisers interact closely with the clients to read and visualize the business process, find out the criticality of the business, and collate requirements from the customers. They map full aspects of business together and do Gap Analysis and prepare As Is To Be model to accommodate the business requirements.

Once these measures are over and the client approves the newly designed model, it is passed to the technical consultants for development and customization of modules to meet the clients necessities. This operation is known as wisdom shift, and through this procedure functional advisers aid the technical consultant to design the road map for growth. The functional adviser custom-make the software to fit the clients business demands while the technical consultant takes care of the coding, programing, and information migration procedures in the backend.

There are some modules in SAP like Sales & Distribution, Material Management, Purchase, Finance & Control, Customer Relationship Management, Human resource, which take care of every last different procedure and domain of whatsoever business. Several adviser operate in various modules in tandem with each other to ensure simple integration of the process.

SAP consultancy is consequently a primary career selection having immense possible for growth. The market growth is just extraordinary and poised to produce further in yr to come since many corporations are finding it tricky to hold their leadership in this ferociously competitive age without having a proper ERP system in place.

Aside from the business process wisdom, it is imperative to know the software for becoming a SAP adviser. SAP is a very versatile product and has proven it’s credential in almost every businesses over the period of time. SAP development wing has come up with many IS (Industry Specific) solutions like SAP-IS Retail, SAP-IS Oil & Gas, etc., to deal uniqueness of these verticals.

As you become a higher-ranking SAP adviser you would need to counsel the firm on developing requirement and change in business exercises taking place at the customers end and serve the enterprise to get solution that is up-to-date and applicable. If you ever come across a business procedure or a business case that may not be cared with present features of SAP you may suggest the firm on developing add-on products accordingly to settle those issues.

Although SAP consulting market looks rosy and promising, at times one may find entering this field quite tough. There are numerous authorized training partners who impart training and offer certification on SAP. After successful completion of the course you become a Certified SAP Advisor. Once you get the beginning break and gather hands on experience of few end-to-end implementations, there is no looking back. A note of appreciation from the customers with whom you have worked may process marvels for your incoming endeavors.

What can SAP do?

2009-04-08T02:02:00.001-07:00

SAP will change everything. That’s the gospel according to everyone who knows anything about this integrated software system. What exactly is the beast? And why does the thought of it throw people into a dither?

SAP ( Systems Applications and Products ) is basically an ERP.* :

Ask an information-technology specialist, and you’ll get something like: "SAP is a completely integrated, enterprisewide information system that replaces legacy systems with a series of software modules that communicate with each other seamlessly, replacing current business processes with best practices."

In layperson’s terms, SAP software is a total information system that weaves together all the data from manufacturing with all the data from inventory with all the data from purchasing with all the data from accounting with all the data from sales......ad infinitum. If your company makes jars of glop, SAP allows you to find out how much glop you’ve made, how much you’ve got on hand, who bought it, when they are picking it up, when they intend to pay for it, how much more glop they may buy in the future and so on... until you run out of questions about glop.

Yes, you might be able to find the answers to all those questions using your company’s current information system, but chances are you’d be hunting in a crazy quilt of databases. With SAP, all that data is integrated. That’s why "integration" is the buzz in SAP circles. Everything is interconnected by a series of relational databases: What Frank in accounting enters into the system directly affects what Dave in purchasing sees on his materials management reports and what Sarah in inventory planning uses to make decisions.

What does that mean to Joe Blow on the production floor? Probably that Joe’s job will be analyzed, dissected, reassembled and reconfigured so that it follows processes prescribed by SAP software. These prescriptions have been developed by SAP based on "best practices" in companies that have already implemented SAP. So if SAP forces you to reshape a function or process, it’s often because a lot of companies have discovered that’s the best way to reengineer that function. This software affects so many departments - from accounting to inventory to production to human resources - that a lot of people will be force-fed into the system and spat out with new jobs, new titles, and even new departments.

The integrated nature of SAP forces employees to understand how other functions in the company operate. For example, employees who take customer orders will have to understand the sales cycle because the information they enter into the system can directly affect decisions the sales people will make. If, for example, a sales rep looks at the database and finds out his client placed an order yesterday, he knows he doesn’t have to visit that customer today; instead, he can send a thank-you note.

Prior to SAP, a production worker decided where to put a finished product in the warehouse. After SAP, that decision shifted to the person in-charge of the warehouse, who now has access to information about what orders are due, which customers are coming to pick up which products, which customers need to see accounting about paying bills, and which customers have priority.

It may be perfectly logical that the warehouse person should make those decisions. Trouble is, a lot of your existing business processes may not stand up to the logical scrutiny that SAP imposes on your company. A lot of clients, says Miller, questioned about why they do things a certain way, only shrug and confess, "That’s the way we’ve always done it."

Now, where something gets put in the warehouse may not seem like a big deal, but SAP software is changing who makes decisions about what in hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tasks. And those decisions are being made by people with access to more information about how the company works than they’ve ever had before.

With this software, information is entered into the system once: No entering and re-entering or checking and double-checking. Once the information is in, it becomes part of the entire organization’s central nervous system. That capability makes for enormous efficiencies, of course, but it also has its downside. That is, every action you take has a consequence.

You have to realize that every change you make to the system is immediately available, and used and treated as gospel by perhaps a hundred other people. So you don’t muck around. The information entered into SAP’s system, gets used by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other people in ways that the person entering the data can’t possibly imagine.

SAP R/3 has taken the software industry by storm, selling its rather pricey software to 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

How pricey exactly? Depending on how many employees you have, the cost ranges from $1.5 million to $5 million. And after buying the software, most companies then shell out anywhere from $10 million to $100 million on consulting fees to get the system up and running.

And if the direct costs aren’t intimidating enough, there’s the time it takes to implement SAP software. Most projects are measured in years, not months. "Converting to SAP is a long, arduous process. One company calls it Project Infinity," says Bill Stetar, president of Performance Technology Group Inc.

SAP’s R/3 software isn’t the only player in the game, but it took an early lead and is the predominant package on the market. Other software companies that compete with SAP include Oracle, PeopleSoft and Baan. They all sell software touted as total information systems, and the consequences of implementing them are similar.

If you think you’ll escape all the hubbub because you work for a midsized company (between $50 million and $200 million in revenues), think again. SAP is coming out with a version called Certified Business Solutions for the middle market, so you’ll likely run into one of these systems sooner or later.

SAP software is paradoxical: It changes your business processes dramatically, but it’s also infinitely customizable. In other words, you can force the software to mimic your current practices - though it takes a lot of force - or you can adopt the SAP way of doing things. If you customize it extensively, most experts agree, you lose some of the money-saving, time-saving advantages of the software. Nevertheless, you can’t just take SAP out of the box and install it on your network server. It must be customized somewhat to work at all.

Nancy Bancroft, author of Implementing SAP R/3 and president of Bancroft, Brite and Associates, a consulting firm in Denver, cites another paradox: "The value of SAP is that it is totally integrated; and the downside of SAP is that it’s totally integrated." Every bit and byte and factoid pumped into this collection of software modules creates ripples throughout the organisation. If the information is right the first time, the need for paper-shuffling dramatically decreases. If it’s wrong, however, decisions based on misinformation can directly affect the bottom line.

By eliminating the existing, isolated information systems in individual departments, this software mashes everyone together, forcing them to deal with people they barely knew before and to make decisions that affect other departments. Sometimes this forced interaction is beneficial, says Jennifer Jackson, a principal with Elliot Jackson Communications, a SAP consulting firm in Calgary, Alberta. "But sometimes it can be rather explosive."

Ideally, of course, your company is already integrated and cross-functional. If not, SAP will force those issues in ways that TQM, teamwork and reengineering never did.

"TQM or even some of the ISO 9000 work or any of that kind of stuff won’t shut your business down," says David Amborski, senior manager for education services for Deloitte Touche Consulting Group / ICS in Atlanta. " You’ve bet the farm once you’ve got this thing, so it’s a scary proposition."

What You Need To Know To Become a SAP Consultant

2009-04-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

In this age of globalisation business operations are getting more and more compound with different interlinked components and parameters. It is obvious that all business has its personalized chances and challenges. But say you dig deep into some business you will find that the original underlying process is rather alike for all of them. This initiated development of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages that could change the path businesses practiced to be performed decades ago. SAP is 1 such ERP packages, which has not solely served numerous enterprises to transform but as well aided them to accomplish functional excellence.

The basic job of a SAP consultant is to execute Best Practices in enterprises from various verticals and sum up value to the bottom line of their individual businesses. The prime and most crucial factor for specifying how successful you will be as a SAP consultant is your understanding of business procedure. It is fundamental for you to handle the business procedure in particular, and how each procedure is connected and integrated with another.

There are 2 cases of advisors required in several SAP implementation namely Functional and Technical Consultants. The functional consultants interact closely with the customers to learn and visualise the business procedure, find out the criticality of the business, and collate demands from the clients. They map every aspects of business unitedly and do Gap Analysis and set up As Is To Be model to accommodate the business demands.

Once these measures are over and the client approves the newly designed model, it is passed on to the technical consultants for growth and customization of modules to meet the clients demands. This operation is known as wisdom shift, and through this procedure operational consultants help the technical consultant to design the roadmap for development. The functional adviser customises the software to suit the clients business demands while the technical consultant takes care of the coding, programming, and information migration functions in the backend.

There are many modules in SAP like Sales & Distribution, Material Management, Purchase, Finance & Control, Customer Relationship Management, Human resource, which take care of every last different function and domain of whatsoever business. Various advisers function in various modules in tandem with each other to check simple integration of the operation.

SAP consultancy is so a important career alternative having immense potential for increment. The market development is merely phenomenal and poised to develop further in yr to come since many enterprises are finding it difficult to hold their leadership in this fiercely competitive age without having a proper ERP system in place.

Aside from the business operation knowledge, it is imperative to recognise the package for becoming a SAP advisor. SAP is a very versatile product and has verified it’s credential in almost all businesses over the period of time. SAP development wing has come up with many IS (Industry Specific) results like SAP-IS Retail, SAP-IS Oil & Gas, etc., to address uniqueness of these verticals.

As you become a higher-ranking SAP consultant you would need to suggest the corporation on developing requirement and shift in business practices taking place at the clients end and serve the organization to develop solution that is up-to-date and relevant. If you ever come across a business procedure or a business subject that may not be addressed with existing features of SAP you may advise the firm on acquiring add-on products consequently to resolve those matters.

Although SAP consulting market looks rosy and promising, at times one may find entering this field quite tough. There are some authorized training partners who impart training and offer certification on SAP. After successful completion of the class you became a Certified SAP Adviser. At One Time you get the first break and gather hands on experience of few end-to-end implementations, there is no looking back. A note of appreciation from the clients with whom you have operated may work wonders for your incoming enterprises.

Why Do ERP implementations fail?

2009-04-08T01:59:00.001-07:00

Many of the ERP implementations fail & management not able to understand the reasons. The same ERPs give very high ROI in one company, but it may fail to reproduce the results in another in the same industry. What can be the reason?

A study was conducted in India on failure of ERP implementations. The three main reasons spotted in the study are

· Client unable to perceive potentials of an ERP package: The clients perceive ERP as just another software development tool. They try to change ERP as per their current practice, instead of a readymade management tool with best practices incorporated.

· Perceiving ERP as cost & not as 'Investment'. As ERP is regarded as cost, the clients try to minimize the implementation cost by choosing Implementation partner having lowest quotation. There are many small players in India, employing fresh consultants. A team with almost all fresh consultants can not deliver expected results.

· Clients fail to perceive ERP as on-going activity. The clients (specially in India) is growing very fast every year, but implemented ERP system is the same, giving mismatch between the added needs and capability of implemented system. The client should modify the system continuously as per the changing needs of the business.

Why Learn SAP?

2009-04-07T01:33:00.001-07:00

Well before pondering upon that doubt let's have a prompt review of what we are verbalizing about. When we verbalize about SAP, we are verbalizing about a worldwide industry leader in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software. In fact SAP is the 3rd broadest software company of the world, with over12000 enterprises using SAP, having close to 80,000 installations and over 12,000,000 people making use of it. Therefore rest assured whatsoever you are planning to do with SAP, you are handling with something serious and proved over the years.

Big name companies look towards SAP when they think of revamping their IT infrastructures or to gain competitive reward by enabling business process change. SAP guarantees a seamless integration of procedures and applications across the board.

At Present the doubt comes, why you want to read SAP? When we talk about SAP training it can be seen from varied angles. You can take up SAP classes to act as a project managing director for your corporation who desires to implement SAP. Or you wish to become part of a consulting firm that aids a number of companies/ corporations in SAP implementations. Other reasons could be that you want to become an independent SAP consultant and be the master of your individual career and management. SAP consultants are never short of work, get to travel a good deal and charge from 1000$ a day (or more).

Let's take a look at depth and breadth of SAP so that you can analyze where you stand and what should be your class of activity. SAP courses can be understood from 3 primary prospects which are:

Core Business Processes
SAP Vertical Components
SAP Technical Courses

By training for SAP Business Processes you will come across SAP modules like,

FICO (Financial Accounting and Controlling)
PCA (Profit Center Accounting)
SD (Sales and Distribution)
SD COM (Customer Order Management)
HR (Human Resources)
MM (Material Management)
PM (Plant Maintenance)

SAP Verticals include

SAP APO (Advanced Planning Optimizer)
SAP BW (Business Intelligence)
SAP CRM (Customer Relation Management)
SAP SRM (Supplier Relation Management)

Lastly SAP Technical classes will uncover you to technical platforms like

SAP Netweaver Xi
SAP Enterprise Portals
SAP ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming)
SAP BASIS (Business Application Software Integrated Solution)

Also you can also add flavors of SAP according to various industry verticals taking on financial sector, manufacturing and services, to name the broader categories.

Now that we have sufficient jargon and terminology about SAP at our hands let's try to figure out what is better for you. There can't be a silver bullet formula for everyone to pick and choose his or her modules. Your start point pretty much reckons on your own primary circumstances and destinations. Your experience, aim in the organization and incoming aspirations will play a vital role in your selection of finding SAP preparations.

For example you have experience in HR for various years. You have a good wisdom of processes involved in HR and troubles therein. You feel the knack for studying organizational problems and can visualize their operation directed answers through technology, and then in all probability you should start with a SAP course in HR (HCM) module. And Then again you will have to decide a starting point within HCM from sub-modules like Personnel Administration (PA), Personnel Development (PD) etc. Have your pick of module(s) and begin your efforts in becoming a SAP consultant or Project Manager as the example may be.

Separated from picking out modules you may too have to spend time on picking out an appropriate training institute. SAP itself offers facility for that and also there is a massive amount of training/consulting firms that impart trainings for SAP. You require looking for methodology, depth of training and emphasis on your unique fields of interest. Besides above, price can also be a primary settling element.

If you prepare a accurate option of modules and set your class correctly SAP trainings can add value for you in terms of becoming a valuable organizational asset whether you are operating for a SAP consultancy or an organization applying (or planning to use) SAP.

SAP Transactions

2009-02-15T09:10:00.001-08:00

The word transaction describes a single business activity that is conducted with SAP R/3. Some examples of end user transactions are

Creating a purchase requisition
Generating a budget report for a company department
Scheduling the shipment of a material to a plant
Recording the activities of a maintenance job
Entering employees' weekly work hours
Displaying the yearly sales for a product

Every transaction progresses through a four-step workflow of actions, commands, and events.

The typical workflow begins when the end user logs on the SAP system (Step 1). This action calls up the SAP Easy Access screen, which is the default "home page" for the software. The end user works with the elements on this screen to call up or navigate to the initial screen of a transaction (Step 2), where they instruct the software on its specific objectives and then execute it (Step 3). A few seconds later, the output of the transaction appears (Step 4) in one of two forms:

A confirmation that some business process, such as the creation of a requisition or the entry of an employee's work hours into the database, was accomplished. This message appears by default at the bottom of the initial screen.
A display of data from the database. This usually appears on its own output screen.

A good bit of the communication between the SAP R/3 software and the end user is accomplished during Steps 3 and 4 of this SAP workflow via technical object codes.

A technical object is anything that is monitored and tracked by SAP R/3. This includes tangible objects, such as employees, consumable materials, equipment, and physical plants, and intangible ones, such as work orders, purchase requisitions, and shipping orders.

Every technical object has a unique object code, which is assigned to it when its specifications are entered in the SAP database and which is the primary shorthand means of identifying it. There are literally thousands of such codes in every SAPdatabase, but, fortunately, the software provides a way to search for them, so you do not have to memorize or record them.

What is SAP R/3

2009-02-15T03:48:00.001-08:00

SAP R/3 is a package of integrated applications called modules that record and track the activities and costs of doing business. Its roots extend back to 1972, when five system analysts, all former employees of IBM in Germany, created the software for collecting large volumes of business data in a single computer and then processing this data in real time, when the user needs it. Real-time processing was a particularly novel development at the time because the computers of the 1970s were slow, lumbering machines that required minutes, and sometimes even hours, to process large volumes of data.

Since that time, SAP has grown from a small regional company to the leading provider of business enterprise software in the world. At last count, SAP R/3 is now installed at 84,000 locations in 120 countries around the world, and it is used by more than 10 million people every day. SAP is now the world's third-largest independent software vendor, and it is still growing strong.

The great strength and utility of SAP R/3 are due to a large degree to its architecture or structure, which consists of functional modules, the SAP database, and the graphical user interface or GUI- Pronounced "gooey" We use the term system throughout this book to describe this three-part assemblage of software.

The functional modules are discrete software packages that are dedicated to specific tasks, such as accounting, payroll management, and inventory control. They are typically installed in application servers, which are computers that are capable of rapidly processing or "crunching" large volumes of data and then assembling the output of their work in a format that can be read by the user.

Table P.1. Some examples of SAP functional modules
Module Name	Abbreviation	Function
Sales and Distribution	SD	Managing and reporting product prices, orders, and delivery, and analyzing production and profit data
Project System	PS	Managing and reporting all phases of a project, including costs, design, approval, and resources
Materials Management	MM	Managing and reporting purchasing, warehousing, and inventorying of goods and materials
Plant Maintenance	PM	Managing and reporting maintenance; inspection and servicing of plants and equipment
Financial Accounting	FI	Managing and reporting corporate cost accounting and budget planning
Controlling	CO	Managing and reporting internal department costs and budgets
Personnel Management	PM	Managing and reporting employee data, recruitment, travel, benefits, and salaries
Time Management	TM	Managing and reporting employee time data and payrolls
Personnel Development	PD	Managing and reporting training courses, seminars, and business events

ABAP is the only module through which we can write the code(progamme). CRM (Customer relationship management) is not ERP (Enterprise Resource and Products).

The database is the actual collection of business data. These data are stored inside database servers, which are computers with huge amounts of storage memory and the capacity to rapidly exchange data with the application servers.

The graphical user interface or GUI appears on the desktops of the computers or clients that you use to access the software. The centerpiece of the GUI is the application window (called a session by SAP), where you enter commands and data on scenes or screens by means of your mouse and keyboard.

Note: Some users may access the SAP software through Web browsers such as MS Internet Explorer. In these cases, the SAP GUI appears inside the frame of the browser window.

There are many modules in the complete version of SAP R/3, but most business enterprises do not use all of them. Rather, they purchase and install or implement only those modules that they need to do their business. The selected modules are then integrated or linked to one another and to the database servers and clients by programmers, and the screens are customized or configured to fit the enterprise's needs. Once the modules are integrated, the boundaries between them vanish and they work with one another as a single, seamless software package. This aggregation of modules is also very flexible: The enterprise can often add more modules whenever they want so that the software grows as their business needs grow.

HISTORY OF SAP.

Founded in 1972,SAP is the recognised leader in providing collabrative business solutions for all types of industries and for every major market. Headquartered in Willdorf,Germnay,SAP is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company,and the world's third largest independent software supplier overall. SAP employs over 28,900 people in more than 50 countries SAP profesionals are dedicated to providing high-level customer support and sevices.

1972 - Five former IBM employees

(1) Dietmer Hopp
(2) Hans-Werner
(3) Hasso Plattner
(4) klaus Tschira
(5) Claus Wellenreuther

Launch a company called SAP - Systems Analysis and Program Development.later known as SAP - Systems Applications and Products.1973 - R/1 system is created

R stands for Real Time
1 stands for one tier.

ALE - Basics

2009-02-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

ALE is Application Link Enabling - An middleware tool. Data is exchanged asynchronously, except for reads which are only synchrous.

ALE is a SAP proprietary technology that enables data communication between two or more SAP R/3 and/or external systems. ALE comes with application distribution/integration scenarios as well as a set of tools, programs, data definitions, and methodologies that you can easily configure to get an interface up and running. The ALE components are inherently integrated with SAP applications and are robust, leading to a highly reliable system. ALE provides mechanisms using which clients can achieve integration as well as distribution of applications and data.

The Settings can be done in SPRO ® SAP Reference IMG ® Application Server -> IDoc Interface/ALE

To use the ALE tools choose Tools ® IDoc Interface/ALE

SAP Business Navigator

2009-01-28T23:32:00.001-08:00

SAP has streamlined business processes to take full advantage of the most efficient business and technological processes. SAP provides the Business Navigator tool to provide a graphical representation of the SAP process flows and integration across modules. The Business Navigator lists the business objects associated with processes as well as the SAP programs that respond. In addition, the Business Navigator displays the related SAP documentation for selected objects. The Business Navigator can be displayed in either the Component view or Process Flow view. The Component view shows each process and business object in relation to its functional module. The Process Flow view displays each process in relation to overall business function, regardless of system functional module ownership. This allows you to see the big picture of your business plan.

The Business Navigator can be displayed by following the SAP application menu path

Tools>Business Engineering>Business Navigator.

Transaction code SB10 takes you to the Component view

Transaction code SB09 takes you to the process Flow view

Many companies use the implementation of SAP as an opportunity to reengineer their entire business and develop the most efficient processes available. SAP has invested a great deal of time and money into delivering the most efficient business-friendly processes in the system's your company doesn't have the time or resources to undertake a full reengineering effort at the very least, you should use the implementation to change and Streamline problem processes in your business. A system implementation is the best opportunity you will ever have for change.

There are many small companies that have neither the time nor the resources to undertake a full business process reengineering project, but they are still implementing SAP. The ASAP (Accelerated SAP) methodology developed by SAP provides an excellent tool for small companies to rapidly implement SAP and take advantage of its integrated business processes. Key incentives for adopting ASAP are that you don't need any modifications to standard SAP source code and you can still take advantage of standard SAP best business processes. This type of quick implementation is proving very successful in many different industries and business segments.

Try this link for more information

Terms in SAP

2009-01-12T13:53:00.001-08:00

Term	Definition
ABAP	Advanced Business Application Programming. The programming language of SAP’s ERP software.
Basis	The underlying technology base that allows SAP's functional applications and modules to interoperate.
Blueprinting	Phase 2 of the implementation process. During this period, the project team will identify the state’s organizational structures, design new business processes, install the SAP software and begin training for the team.
Business Warehouse	SAP’s term for a data warehouse, where state data is stored.
CATS	Cross Application Time Sheet. An electronic time sheet for recording employee working times.
Configuration	The process of establishing the SAP settings to support specific business rules, validations, and default values for North Carolina.
Go Live & Support	The fifth and final phase of the implementation. This is when the system will move into actual production.
EE	Employees. This abbreviation is used for employees in the SAP software.
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning. A collection of software applications that use a common database to integrate an organization’s business processes.
ESS	Employee Self Service.
Infoset	A SAP Query element, Infosets determine to which tables, or fields within a table, a query can refer. Infosets are usually based on table joins or logical databases.
Infotype	A set of data that is grouped together according to subject matter. From the user perspective, infotypes are entry screens that support the maintenance of infotype records.
Integration	Allows data to flow freely from one business area to another without having to pass through time-consuming and trouble-prone interfaces. Integration also enables the maintenance of data from various sites.
Landscape	All the R/3 systems, which share a common transport directory.
Legacy Applications	The numerous and dated computer programs currently being used by the client. The mySAP ERP software will eventually replace those involving human resources, payroll, budget management, accounting, and tax/revenue.
MSS	Manager Self Service.
MySAP.com	The specific type of ERP software being implemented by North Carolina.
Module	The SAP software is comprised of several functions (e.g., time management, payroll, personnel administration), which together form an integrated system.
Portal	The Web interface that will be used by employees and managers to access the HR/payroll system.
Project Preparation	Phase 1 of integration, which included the organization of the project team, various team-building activities, the project kick-off, and initial planning.
Realization	Phase 3 of the implementation. During this time, the project team will configure the HR and payroll modules, and implement processes defined in the “blueprint” that was developed in Phase II.
SAP Query	Tool that allows users without knowledge of the ABAP programming language to define and execute their own reports.
SMEs	Subject Matter Experts. Client's representatives who are considered to be specialists in certain business areas (modules).
Stakeholder	A person, department or organization that has an interest in the success of a project.
Statement of Work	A document that sets forth services to be performed.
System Test	An implementation activity that tests the interfaces between sets of applications or functional areas in a new system. It verifies the ability of the system to handle data and operating requirements.
Time Recording	Time recording captures and evaluates all employee time information required for running payroll in payroll accounting. Time information includes attendance, absence, or availability data for employees.
UAT	User Acceptance Testing. The final stage of functional testing before the Go Live phase.
User Group	Every user can be assigned to specific groups based on their role in the organization.

LSMW - Step by Step

2009-01-11T06:46:00.000-08:00

Initially there will be 20 steps but after processing 1 step it will reduced to 14 for session method.

1. TCode : LSMW.
2. Enter Project name, sub project name and object name.
Execute.
3. Maintain object attributes.
Execute
select Batch Input recording
goto->Recording overview
create
recording name.
enter transaction code.
start recording
do recording as per ur choice.
save + back.
enter recording name in lsmw screen.
save + back

Now there will be 14 steps.
2. MAINTAIN SOURCE STRUCTURES.
Here you have to enter the name of internal table.
display change
create
save + back

3. MAINTAIN SOURCE FIELDS.
display change
select structure
source_fields->copy fields.
a dialogue window will come .
select -> from data file
apply source fields
enter No. of fields
length of fields
attach file
save + back

4. MAINTAIN STRUCTURE RELATIONS
display change
save + back

5. MAINTAN FIELD MAPPING & CONVERSION RULE
display change
click on source field, select exact field from structue and enter
repeat these steps for all fields.
save+back

6. MAINTAIN FIXED VALUES, TRANSACTION, USER DEFINED
execute
save + back

7. SPECIFY FILES.
display change
click on legacy data
attah flat file
give description
select tabulatore
enter
save + back

8. ASSIGN FILE
execute
display change
save + back

9. IMPORT DATA.
execute
display change
save + back

10. DISPLAY IMPORTED DATA
enter ok, it willl show records only.
back

11. CONVERT DATA
execute
display change
save + back

12. DISPLAY CONVERTED DATA
execute
display change
save + back

13. CREATE BATCH INPUT SESSION
tick keep batch input folder
F8
back

14. RUN BATCH INPUT SESSION.
sm35 will come
Object name will be shown here
select object & process

How to Start 'AS IS' Statement?

2009-01-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

How to start doing the project in 'AS IS' ?

Are you working as a functional person?

This work is of a functional consultant.It involves understanding the complete functionality of the system.

Like suppose you are implementing SAP HR module for them then in the AS-IS and TO-BE phase, you need to prepare all the documents of the process flow (you can prepare them in word). Like suppose you are implementing for PA then you need to identify how many personnel areas you need to make, how many subareas you will make, employee groups, subgroups, based on what you are classifying them? This all will come in the master data document which has to be approved from the client whoever he is. It involves detailed understanding of how the HR department is functioning because based on that only you would provide a solution to them.

Like if the current system is on mainframe or for some specific applications like for recruitment the system is on mainframes and the client wants to keep that system as well then interfaces need to be identified which will be there because you will have to upload the data to sap system using bdc.

Like this for every process there will be a document.Even for actions like:

- Hiring
- Newly Hire
- Termination
- Transfer
- Layoff etc

You will have to see what all actions your client wants, like if there is an action transfer which is run for employee what all will be the reasons you will be configuring for that action. This will be told by the client which can come out after a series of meetings and after discussions you will have to come out with the document that these will be action types. These will be the action reasons, these will be the action codes for that. This will be in the TO BE process document.

After this phase is over complete configuration can be done.

Actually AS-IS process in summary involves a :

1) Series of meeting with the client.

2) Gathering complete information about the existing system.

3) Preparation of the blue print documents describing the complete AS-IS process ,i mean the existing system.

4) Flow charts should be included in the as-is blue print process flow document describing the complete process.

5) After this is finished u have to give the TO-BE process structure that will be implemented in SAP.

6) After that there will be some things which cannot be implemented in SAP so the gaps are to be identfied.

7) These gaps are to be documented in white paper for the client.

It is a lenghty process but not so difficult only the thing is that the functionality is to be understood properly.