sap project system a ready reference part 1

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sheetal.deshmukh: SAP Project System - Aready Reference ( Part 1 )

Posted by Sheetal Deshmukh May 9, 2008

Being a beginner in SAP PS is a challenge. As a techie, When I started my ABAP Program

in PS Module, I found a lot of scattered information but there is no article or blog with

consolidated information even on basic terminologies of SAP PS. This blog is my attempt

to provide an insight of basic techno-functional aspects and terminologies of SAP PS to a

novice.

In my first blog you will find the important terms of the PS module. I have tried to explain

them with the help of an example. Following this is the next blog SAP Project System - A

ready Reference ( Part 2 ) where the technicalities of the same are covered.

The Project System (PS) module of SAP is specifically designed to provide comprehensive

and fully integrated project management functionality for SAP customers. A Project is a

complex undertaking, bringing with it huge data of different type.

At the beginning of each project, whether it involves developing a new product, make-to-

order engineering or internal organization, you need to define and set up the structures

necessary to manage your project and incorporate them into your existing organizations and

processes. Before you can run a project in its entirety, you must first describe the project

goals precisely and create a structure for the project activities to be carried out. A clear

project structure provides a basis for successful project planning, monitoring and control.

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sheetal.deshmukh: SAP Project System - A ready Reference ( Part 1 )


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Organizational Structures in Project System:

"

You create and manage your project structure in SAP R/3 Project System, by means of work breakdown structures

and networks.The WBS describes individual phases and functions of a project. Network contains the individual

project tasks and the dependencies between them in the form of activities and relationships

Some important terms:

Project Definition

Project Definition is general description of the project that you want to manage. It is a framework laid down for all the

objects created within a project. It contains organizational data that is binding for the entire project.

http://scn.sap.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-46367-54004/dia1.JPG





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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS is a hierarchical model of the tasks to be performed in the project. It provides overview of the project and forms

basis for the project organization and coordination.It shows work, time and money spent on the project. You can use

it to plan dates & costs and allocate budget. The Work Breakdown Structure can be displayed according to:

• Phase• Function

• Object

Individual tasks required to carry out the project is called WBS elements.

Network

The network describes project processing. Thus the Network contains instructions on how to carry out activities

in a specific way, in a specific order and in a specific time period.Main elements of network are activities andrelationships. It forms the basis for planning, analyzing and monitoring time schedules, costs, & resources.






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Activities

Activities are used to plan project staffing, capacity, material, PRTs, and service requirements. When

activities are assigned to WBS elements, detailed view of costs, dates, and capacities at WBS element

could be obtained. It’s a task in a network which has a defined start and finish. An activity can be

broken down into activity elements.Three categories of activities in the Project System:·

• Internal Activities

• External Activities

• General Cost Activities

Activity element

Activity element is an activity which is subordinate to another activity. Activity elements contain the same information

as activities.Three categories of activity elements in the Project System:

• Work elements

• External Elements• General Cost Elements

Activity Type

It’s a physical measure of activity output of a cost center .e.g. hours, number of units produced,

machine times, production times.







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Milestones

Milestones are the events in the project to which particular importance is attached Or which trigger predefined

functions. In general they indicate transition between different departments or phases. Milestones are assigned to

activities and WBS elements:In PS milestones are used to:

• Trigger predefined functions in network activities.• Carry out earned value analysis.

• Determine dates in billing plan for sales orders.

Relationships

You use relationships to depict chronological and technical dependencies between activities. The relationship

determines the nature of the link between the individual activities. :

• FS Relationship : An activity does not start until the preceding activity is completed.

• SS Relationship : An activity can not start unless another activity has started.

• FF Relationship : An activity can not be completed until another activity has been completed.

• SF Relationship : An activity can not be completed until another succeeding activity has stared.

Confirmations

It is a part of network control. It documents the state of processing for the network activities and activity elements.

There are two types of confirmations Partial & Final.Confirmations are used to record:

• The work center where the activity was carried out.

• The person who carried out this activity.

• The yield and scrap produced in an activity.

• The actual values for the duration and dates.

SettlementAs a rule, projects are used to collect and monitor costs, but are not usually the final cost object. For this reason the

costs in atypical project will be settled at the end of the period.To this end, you store settlement rules in the activity /

WBS element requiring settlement. They contain information on settlement receivers, cost apportionment and control

data. Settlement receivers could be cost centers, G/L accounts. Etc.

Budget

The budget is the approved cost structure for an action or project in a particular period.Budgeting differs from cost

plan in that it is binding. In the approval phase you prescribe your project funds in the form of budget. It is possible to

allocate overall and annual budget in parallel.

Work CentersWork center represents the resources responsible for executing an activity. In a work center, you can enter the

available capacity and an operating time. You can arrange the work centers in a hierarchy for capacity evaluation

purposes. Internal activities are assigned to work centers (resources) to be completed.A work center is a physical

unit within a company where an activity is performed.





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Profit Center

It is subdivision of business organization which is set up for internal management control purposes. Profit centers

divide business up on a management basis. The basic aim of profit center accounting is to present areas of the

business as entities operating independently in the market.

Lots of jargons ….let me site an instance of the construction project of a building..

Let say there is a construction company that is going to construct a Multi-Storey building.

The first thing that needs to be created in the system is Project Definition . The entire

activity plan for this project will come under this project definition. Overall budget needs

to be estimated, assigned and get approved for the project. Project timeline needs to be

decided. Project could be then subdivided into separate parts which are actually WBS

elements lets say in this e.g. we have 4 main WBS elements:

1. Land Acquisition

2. Procurement 3. Construction

4. General

To every above WBS, budget and time line need to estimated.

Now to take an example we will drill down two WBS elements namely Land Acquisition

and Construction.

- Land Acquisition could be sub divided into activities as in

• Generation of request document for the land.• Soil testing

• Approval for construction

• Preparation of purchase order of the land

Above 4 activities should be done in sequence. As in second activity will start only after

request document for the land is completed and so on. Hence these activities have FS

Relationship between them.

- Now take WBS element Construction.

It could be sub divided in to floor wise tasks. Let say, we have four story building and eachfloor has 4 flats. So under WBS element ‘Construction ’ we may create separate sub WBS

element for each floor. Each sub WBS element of floor may be divided further into last level

of WBS elements one for each flat on the floor. This way we will have hierarchy of the

WBS elements .Finally last level of WBS elements i.e. WBS elements of the flats will have

activities like

1. Plumbing





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2. Electrical work

3. Flooring

4. Painting

5. Furniture

These activities form the Network.

Let say Plumbing and Electricity work are the external activities as they are given

to a outside contractor. While the other activities are done by company labor

so they are internal activities . Plumbing and Electrical work could be started

simultaneously.While flooring needs be done once the plumbing and Electrical

work is complete. Hence they have FS relationship and so on…. Now if we talk

about milestones :

1. First milestone could be purchasing the land

2. Second could construct the base of the building.

3. Third could be construct the floors

4. Fourth could be completion of plumbing and electrical work for all the flats. And so on….

As I have said that Work center represents the resources responsible for executing an

activity For the above activities, work centers could be the company labor required for the

construction, labor provided by the external service center for plumbing and Electricity work.

while Profit Centers could be the finally constructed flats.





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Sr NO Project Elements Examples

1 Project Def Constructing the Buiding

2 WBS • Generation of request

document for the land

• Soil testing

• Approval for

construction

• Preparation of purchase

order of the land

3 Activities (Under 3rd WBS) • Plumbing( external

Activities)

• Electricity work( external

Activities)

• Flooring (internal

activities)

• Painting (internal

activities)

• Furniture

4 Relationship Flooring needs be done after the

plumbing and Electricity work.

Hence they have FS relationship

5 Milestones • First milestone could be

purchasing the land

• Second could construct

the base of the building.T• hird could be construct

the floors

• Fourth could be

completion of plumbing

and electricity work for all

the flats

6 Network Plumbing and Electricity installation

are to be one contractor each.









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Therefore, there exist a network

within on the activities of it under

different WBSs.

( Referencee : The book : Functions in Detail : R/3 System - Project Management in

Engineering & Construction )

1084 Views

May 11, 2008 9:33 PM Aditya Varrier

Hi Sheetal,

a good blog to understand the terminologies in PS.

Waiting for Part 2.

Great work.

Regards,Aditya

May 11, 2008 10:08 PM Sharayu Kumatkar

Sheetak the Blog is really nice n very useful.

May 11, 2008 10:11 PM Sharayu Kumatkar

Sheetal very good Blog.

and indeed it is very useful.

May 11, 2008 11:08 PM Arpil Gupta

Nice and concise information on PS. Gr8.

Regards

Arpil

May 11, 2008 11:48 PM Sheetal Deshmukh

Hi ! Sheetal,

Appreciate ur efforts put in, towards making

PS-Module,simplified,informative & presentable

covering conceptual knowledge.

Hope to see bog no2 as early as possible.

All the Best in future endeavours also.

Warm Regards,

Sudhir

12.05.08





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May 12, 2008 12:05 AM simranpreet sandhu

Very well written for the consolidated information on SAP PS.

May 12, 2008 5:52 AM Chetan Ahuja

A good one . Will really help beginners to understand the concepts of SAP PS.

May 13, 2008 7:57 PM Beena Thekdi

Hi

Good job.

Both the parts are very much descriptive and can be used as reference for techies.

Starting point for beginners.

Thanks.

May 20, 2008 1:58 AM Nayan Kurup

Hi Sheetal,

This is a very useful blog for all the techis...Very simple language and a lot of useful content...

Keep it up.

Thanks

Nayan

Jun 12, 2008 9:55 AM Sastry Gunturi

hi sheetal i am working on a report in PS and need to pull the last posting date with amount spend on the project....

where can i those.... thank you.

Jan 5, 2009 10:15 PM Amaresh Makal

Sheetal,

Wonderful job. Any beginner can understand the concept, terminology, and whole picture of PS.

Amaresh

Feb 4, 2009 5:55 AM Tejaswini Chafekar

Hi Sheetal,

Very helpful blog!

I am very new to PS, and as per our requirement, i need to send a mail to completion of one step. So i need to link a

workflow to the PS.

Can you help me on this?





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Thanks,

Runal

Jun 28, 2010 12:24 AM Kiran Kumar

Its Very easy to understand the basic flow of the PS module

Good attempt

Regards

Kiran

Jul 2, 2010 7:50 PM Muthuraman Govindasamy

Hello Sheetal

Very nicely presented the Project system

Muthu

Aug 23, 2010 5:17 AM mahesh A

Hi shital,

its very gr8 documentation for PS freash consultant.Hope if you have more documentation ,you will forwards to sdn

forum.

Regards,

Mahesh Amale

Aug 10, 2011 11:11 PM subhash sharma mahesh A in response to

The documents created are excellent and very useful to any PS module user.

Can you throw some ligt on how to import network activites from excel sheet. Similarily can i import Confirmation

from a excel sheet.

Regards

SCSharma

GM_Manufactuing systems (using SAP)

Jun 15, 2012 10:53 AM Pranav Trivid

Hi Sheetal,

You have a done a great job!!!





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Regards,

Pranav

Jun 25, 2012 12:36 PM mahesh A

Nice Material.......Thanks sheetal

Jun 26, 2012 7:02 PM srikanth ch

Hi Sheetal'

Thank you for giving such a valuable information for easy understanding of PS

basics.

Regards'

srikanth.

Jun 29, 2012 12:33 PM Sheetal Deshmukh

Thanks all for appreciating my work !

Jul 3, 2012 8:29 AM B P singh

Its really a great thing.Such an effort to make the jargons and business flow comprehensible

is really commendable!!

Thanks and Regards





Jul 31, 2012 11:52 AM dhayanandha nandha

Nice Stuff for a beginner.

Great job!

Thanks & Regards

Nandha

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