ASAP (Accelerated SAP)

ASAP well known as Accelerated SAP. This rapidly used in sap implement project  

The roadmap is composed of five well-known consecutive phases:-

1.     Phase 1 - Project Preparation

2.     Phase 2 - Business Blueprint

3.     Phase 3 – Realization

4.     Phase 4 - Final Preparation

Phase 1 - Project Preparation

Basically one kick off meeting has been schedule with senior management & stakeholder.

Based on the MOM

·         Identifying clear project objectives.

·         Architecting an efficient decision-making process.

·         Creating an environment suitable for change and re-engineering.

·         Building a qualified and capable project team.

Project implementation team basically consistent of Below Member

·         Project Manager (Leader)

·         Executive Steering Committee

·         SAP

·         Professionals

·         Support

·         SAP Alliance

·         Partners

·         Functional Team Leaders

·         Functional Analysts

·         Technical Team Leaders

·         Technical Analysts

·         System Administrators

 Phase 2 - Business Blueprint:

To extract pertinent information about your company that is necessary for the implementation. These blueprints are in the form of questionnaires that are designed to probe for information that uncovers how your company does business. As such, they also serve to document the implementation.

There are several way to collect information about current project blocker, challenges,

Legacy system archicture, current user base & their role in business operation

There are two type of technique used for identify client requirement as below

Question and Answer Database: Q & A a simple tool designed to facilitate the creation and maintenance of your business blueprint.

Issues Database: Another tool used in the blueprinting phase to track all the issues in the current project.

3. Phase 3 - Realization:

Functional experts are now ready to begin configuring SAP. The realization phase is broken into two parts:

·         SAP consulting team helps you configure your baseline system, called the Baseline Configuration.

·         Implementation project team fine-tunes that system to meet all your business and process requirements as part of the Fine Tuning Configuration (around 20%).

Configuration Testing: With the help of SAP consulting team, Segregate business processes into cycles of related business flows. The cycles serve as independent units that enable you to test specific parts of the business process.

During this process, it becomes necessary to send key users to level 3 SAP training/ operational training

Knowledge Transfer: As configuration phase comes to close, it becomes necessary for the project team to be self-sufficient in their knowledge of the configuration of SAP support system. They will takes care in all issue after hyper care phase

4.Phase 4 - Final Preparation:

As phase 3 merges into phase 4, you should find yourselves not only in the midst of SAP training, but also in the midst of rigorous functional and stress testing.

·         Phase 4 also concentrates on the fine-tuning of your configuration before Go-live and more importantly, the migration of data from your old system or systems to SAP.

·         At the conclusion of phase 4, take time to plan and document a Go-live strategy. Preparing for Go-live means preparing for your end users questions as they start actively working on the new SAP system.

5.Phase 5 - Go-Live and Bubble Support:

In this phase, SAP successfully implemented, if any additional issue come up during day to day operation, support team will there to help you out .This can be 3 month /6 month, Based on the agreement

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Billing Plan

We have often come cross the term like Periodic & Milestone billing .This is nothing but a Billing Plan

A Billing Plan is a plan for the Billing dates for each line in a Sales order. It can also be setup at the Sales order header level, in which case it would be applicable for all the items then. SAP provides two Billing plan options – Periodic Billing and Milestone Billing. Depending on your Business process flows, these Billing plans could be setup and carried out.

For example, in a Construction project type of business Milestone Billing would be more applicable.  In case of a Service industry, the Periodic Billing plan would be more feasible.

Periodic Billing Plan implies that the total Billing amount (mostly fixed) is paid in full for each individual date in the Billing plan. For example, if you are creating a rental contract, the system can propose a schedule of monthly rental payments, according to the length and conditions of the contract.

On the other hand, in Milestone Billing the Total amount to be billed is distributed across multiple Billing dates with a set criterion to be completed upfront for each Billing date. For example, you can use a billing plan for billing a make-to-order item that is assigned to a project in the SAP Project System. When you enter the project-related make-to-order item in the sales order (or assembly order), the system proposes a billing plan based on milestones defined for networks in the project. As each milestone is successfully reached, the customer is billed either a percentage of the entire project cost or simply a pre-defined amount.

The few advantages of using a Billing Plan is that

• It automatically creates the Billing plan dates
• Puts Billing block by default
• Creates Billing documents with reference
• Updates Billing index

Billing plans are setup in Customizing for Sales using few of the below-mentioned important attributes

• Billing Plan Type
• Date Description
• Date Category
• Proposed Date Category
• Proposed Date
• Assigning billing plan types to sales document items

Pre requisites integration point –SD & FI

1. Enterprise structure for SD is Setup
2. Integration is setup between FI and SD
3. Billing type configured and process flow setup from Sales order to Billing

What is BAM & BPM

Business Activity Monitoring or BAM, is the the automated monitoring of business process activity affecting an enterprise. BAM is generally implemented as a module of ERP, BI, EAI or BPM products. BAM requires a business to identify its Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and create a system that allows monitoring and responding to changes, preferably real time.

Virtually for everyone in a organization can benefit from BAM.  Business Activity Monitoring enables a company to respond faster to new opportunities and threats.  BAM is not just about technology, but about recognizing a business' KPIs and implementing the right technology in place to monitor them. 

• BAM provides Real-Time, Graphical Key Performance Indicators & Analysis
• BAM enables control and manage ongoing business operations using closed-loop visibility.
• BAM will enable you to respond quickly to change based on business events as they occur.
• BAM enables zoom in on cross-process metrics with real-time analysis to determine which processes are creating bottlenecks or which customer is most profitable.

Business Process Management or BPM makes it easy for companies to program their current processes, automate their execution, monitor their current performance and make on-the-fly changes to improve the current processes.

• The process managed enterprise is the company of the future.
• A BPM software enables you to automate those tasks that are currently being performed manually. Many of these tasks require some type of application process, approval or rejection process, notifications and status reports. A BPM solution can make these processes automatic.
• Handling exceptions is an area where BPM really shines. Organizations have few problems when its process run smoothly ninety nine percent of the time. However, it's the one percent that are exceptions that dominate the majority of the company's time and resources.
• BPM is excellent for processes that extend beyond the boundaries of an enterprise and communicate with processes of the partners, customers, suppliers and vendors.
• BPM Gives businesses the agility to stay competitive
• BPM reduces the time elapsed in a business process
• Increases the productivity per person
• Business process consists of many steps. A typical BPM initiative reduces the number of steps by 50%.
• A Business Process needs many people and resources. A good BPM should reduce the number of resources needed for the same process.
• BPM helps improve coordination across departments and geographic locations of a company