using solution manager features for an implementation

7/27/2019 Using Solution Manager Features for an Implementation

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Using Solution Manager Features for anImplementation

Introduction Solution Manager provides various features that can be used during an end to endimplementation project. Many of these features are easy to use, and this document brings outsome of the main features that should be part of any implementation project, and explains in thesimplest way how these features can be used.

It explains in detail how to use Solution Manager for some of the frequently used projectactivities such as project documentation and project status reports. It also explains how to useSolution Manager as single workspace for all your project documentation needs.

Template for Global implementationWhen you use a Solution Manager for a new implementation project, the first task will be tocreate and define a new project in SOLAR_PROJECT_ADMIN.

Solutions Manager provides standard templates for different projects such as Implementationtemplate for a specific implementation or a Global Template that can have its features carriedforward for use in future roll outs. Note that you should create a Global Template if you intend touse it for future implementations. It can so happen that during the implementation you created

only a standard Implementation Template and not a Global Template since future roll outs wasunclear at that stage.

Lets take an example of an implementation being done in America region where the standardImplementation Template was created. But in the next phase where you have to do a similar implementation for th e Europe region for the Companys subsidiary. In such a case where youhave clarity of various roll outs in Europe, you will have to create a new Global Template to beused for subsequent Europe roll outs. Since the original features in the America Template cannot

be carried over, you will need to re-create them when you define the Europe Template.

For a Global company, you can create similar Master Template specific to each region to be used

for subsequent roll outs for each region, rather than referring to the original America or EuropeTemplate.

Project Planning


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Project planning details specific to project dates and resource planning can be incorporated after you have defined the scope of business processes in SOLAR01 transaction.

For each of the business process that has been finalized and visible in the left window inSOLAR01, You can maintain the Planned and Actual data in terms of dates, number of resources

and team members for each activity in the Administration tab on the right side. The resour ce planning can be entered in the field Person Days. Some ways of maintaining these data arelisted below-

1. Planned and Actual data can be used either at higher level activity, or at each task level. If your project has team members planned for the overall project rather than any specific phase wise planning, then it will make more sense to enter these data at the higher level. You can also break it down to any of the higher level node where your plan data is fitting in. For instance if you haveone resource for Customer master and Material master each, then you can enter 2 resources in

the higher node for Master Data instead of individual sub nodes under it, since it will give thesame picture as entering at sub nodes.

2. If the resource planning is based on skill sets, for instance specific skills like MM/EP/CRMexpertise is required at specific phase, then enter these data at activity levels since it will give aclearer reflection of the resource planning done during the project. Another example is if youhave one resource for Customer master and two resources for Material master, then you can enter 3 resources in the higher node for Master Data, and maintain it in sub nodes under it by enteringvalue 1 under Customer Master and 2 under Material master. This will give a reflection that two

resources were utilized for material master business requirement gathering whereas only one wasutilized for Customer master requirements.

3. You can use Solution Manager to get details of your resource planning and its actual utilization.Take a scenario of overstaffing where the planned resources are more than the actual resourcesutilized. In such a case the remaining difference is shown in the Remaining field. For exampleout of 4 resources planned for Master Data, only 3 were utilized, then the difference of 1 will beshown highlighting the fact that one resource remained un-utilized.

Note that you will not be able to use this feature to find details for understaffing scenarios. So for instance when the actual resource value is more than planned. In such case, the Planned value is by default filled with the Actual value meaning 100% resource utilization.

4. Assignment of Project Team members for various activities is a useful feature of SolutionManager which enables reports to be pulled out to track member wise tasks and status. Also in


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the case mentioned in point 3 above, team member names will enable to point out the commonresources working in multiple areas.

Technical objects

After you have completed the business process selection, in SOLAR01 you can see the final listof the processes that will be used in the project on the left hand window. Now against each business process/Master Data on the left node, you will be entering the technical object detailssuch as program names and transactions. After the RFC connectivity of the various testingclients of the landscape has been setup to the Solution Manager, it is now possible to go directlyto the desired testing system right from the technical objects you entered. For instance when youdouble click the particular program or t.code in SOLAR01, it should take you to the sandboxenvironment for concept testing or initial development.

Apart from the customized programs or t.codes that you will be developing for the project andenter it in the Technical objects under the respective nodes,it will be useful to enter standard

transactions as well since you will be using many of them during the course of the initialdevelopment phase. Some useful ones are listed below

SE11/SE16

SE38

SE37

SE80

CMOD

SMOD

BADI

SWO1/SWO2


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BAPI

WE02

RBDAPP01

This will help avoid opening a separate login session to the Sandbox/Development client for example whenever you have to test execute a program or find details in a standard table. This isalso useful for projects that involve BADI/EDI and IDOCs interface since you will be repeatedlyexecuting such transactions.

Reports

You can generate a wide variety of reports in solution manager in the Project Analysis section.These reports can be downloaded in either excel or HTML format, though the later format ismore useful and presentable to the management. Some of the important and useful reports are

listed below that can be used in any implementation project.

Business Blueprint General analysis report

This report will give the Status, Planned/Actual Date and Resource for each of the node that youwould have defined in SOLAR01. You can filter the report output for only the main nodes(excluding sub-nodes), since the status and Date/Resource plan would have been done at thehigher node level. This will give a better view which is brief and clear.

Note that the Status field need to be filled in the Administration tab in SOLAR01 for this reportto be generated.


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Project Documents

One of the most important task for any project is to ensure required documents are uploaded inthe solution manager. You will be required to select all the nodes and sub-nodes beforegenerating this report, since all documents assigned to any sub node should also be pulled. This

report gives a compresensive list and view of all documents that are assigned by project team atall nodes.

The advantage of this report is that many documents get assigned to a particular node that maynot be visible or aware to other members. In such a scenari o, this report will give a birds view of where and what type of document is attached to each node. This can act as a checklist of documents that are completed before formally completing the project.

Additionally this report also gives the particular tab in which the document is assigned to thenode. Note that documents can be assigned in any of these tabs Gen Documentation, ProjDocumentation, Configuration, Development. So it becomes important to know which particular

tab has the document assigned so th at it give a general idea of the documents relevance, as wellas saving precious time to search all the tabs. For example documents attached to theDevelopment tab is relevant more from technical perspective whereas documents under the ProjDocumentation is relevant for all project members from the project perspective.

Realization Testing Status

This report will give you a good picture of the status of each of the various nodes during therealization phase. For example you can update the status field of the nodes ,say Master Data or Business Process according to unit testing being completed or not. Remember that you will haveto keep the status updated against each node in transaction SOLAR02 for such a meaningfulreport interpretation.

Transaction List

One of the most useful reports is the list of all the transaction codes that are in scope for the project. This list can be pulled out during the blueprint phase to get a comprehensive list of standard SAP t.codes in scope, as well as during the realization phase to include any customizedtransactions. This list will also be useful for preparing the BPML.

Test Case Status

This report will give you a picture of what kind of test cases are assigned against each node thatis relevant for testing. So you will know which business process will have manual testing and


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which ones are automated ones like eCATT (in case you are using such tools). It also gives youthe current status if testing not yet commenced for that business process.

Other technical detail such as the logical component (representing the SAP environment) inwhich the testing is to be done, and the results of successful testing run and number of errors in

case of failures are also shown.

Test Script Status

This report should be pulled after you have created and assigned all test scripts in the relevant business process nodes, in the Test Case tab. This list gives you a very useful informationregarding type of test case (either Manual or Automated) and shows the transactions involved inthe testing run, as also the logical system name, though this report will not give any statisticaldata of successful or failure runs.

Test Plan Status

Once you complete the test script assignment and Test Plan is successfully created, you will needto assign it to the business users responsible for executing each of those test sets. This report willgive a complete list of the test plans available for testing and the persons name against each testset. This report can be sent out to the relevant persons to formally indicate their expected tasksfor User Testing Phase.

Since this report also gives you a statistic figure of successful runs and failures, periodicgeneration of such report will give indication of the progress of the Testing Phase.

Roadmap

For an end to end implementation project, the roadmap plays a vital part on how you go aboutvis a vis the different activities in each phases. It is imperative to create a roadmap that suits andconforms to the project scope. You can use one of the standard roadmaps available in solutionmanager for your project. But it is good practice to rename it to your project relevant title andmodify the phases and activities therein in line with the scope of project.


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You can modify/create a new roadmap in transaction RMDEF. Solution Manager has greatflexibility to customize a roadmap by features. For instance you can add a node or modify or drag a node to a different location.

Since each node represents an activity for the project team, you can ensure to rename it

appropriately. Additionally it is good practice to include only relevant activities as a sub nodeunder it. This will ensure that the project team adheres to all relevant tasks and activities, as wellas give a correct view of project scope. Hence you can remove nodes or sub nodes from theoriginal standard roadmap that you have copied, that is not included within the scope of your

project.

Since Solution Manager itself includes a list of tasks to be completed, you will find it useful toinclude a new node for this purpose and use it to track the activities done in the SolutionManager as the project phase progresses. For example you can add a new node called SolutionManager and include Solution Manager relevant activities under this node. This node can b eadded in each of the implementation phases and you can mark it as complete as and when the

project tasks are done, just as you do with the other nodes. The activities under this node shouldhave Solution Manager relevant tasks like Creating project, System Landscape creation etc. Sucha approach will give a prominent view of Solution Manager tasks to be performed by the projectteam whenever a report or snapshot of project progress was taken (by going to transactionRMMAIN).

A Snapshot of a Roadmap


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Accelerators

SAP provides a range of help documents in the form of accelerators which is available in all

relevant nodes. It can be a guideline or whitepaper on the relevant activity (which is representedin the form of node) in the roadmap. You can additionally add your own helpful documents suchas company specific project guidelines, methodologies and other commonly used templates andlogos that becomes vital as project progresses. You can add these at the top node of the roadmapto make it easier to search.

Single Workspace in Solution Manager One of the useful features of Solution manager is the flexibility to add web links. These linksopens up within the solution manager and are accessible just as you would have open a separatewindow by typing the web URL.

If the client have centralized document repository on a different internal site like SharePoint, theURL link of this site can be added among the list of documents uploaded in Solution Manager Projects Documentation tab. Since this will be a central repository, it can be added among the

documents at the highest node in the transaction SOLAR01 and SOLAR02. Thus when you click on the document link that represent the SharePoint link (as shown in a sample screen below), aweb browser window opens up in the same tab. This avoids opening a separate login window for such links during project execution and makes Solution Manager the single workspace for all

project related activities.