ASAP- Second Phase- Business Blueprint

Business Blueprint
SAP has defined a business blueprint phase to help extract pertinent information about your company that is necessary for 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. Each business blueprint document essentially outlines your future business processes and business requirements. The kinds of questions asked are germane to the particular business function, as seen in the following sample questions:
1) What information do you capture on a purchase order?
2) What information is required to complete a purchase order?
Accelerated SAP question and answer database:
The question and answer database (QADB) is a simple although aging tool designed to facilitate the creation and maintenance of your business blueprint. This database stores the questions and the answers and serves as the heart of your blue print. Customers are provided with a customer input template for each application that collects the data. The question and answer format is standard across applications to facilitate easier use by the project team.

Issues database:
Another tool used in the blueprinting phase is the issues database. This database stores any open concerns and pending issues that relate to the implementation. Centrally storing this information assists in gathering and then managing issues to resolution, so that important matters do not fall through the cracks. You can then track the issues in database, assign them to team members, and update the database accordingly.

We will see phase 3 Realization tomorrow.

ASAP- Accelerated SAP

What is ASAP?
ASAP stands for Accelerated SAP. Its purpose is to help design SAP implementation in the most efficient manner possible. Its goal is to effectively optimize time, people, quality and other resources, using a proven methodology to implementation.
ASAP focuses on tools and training, wrapped up in a five-phase process oriented roadmap for guiding implementation.
The road map is composed of five well-known consecutive phases:

• Phase 1 Project Preparation
• Phase 2 Business Blueprint
• Phase 3 Realization
• Phase 4 Final Preparation
• Phase 5 Go-Live and support

In today's post we will discuss the first phase.

Phase 1 : Project Preparation

Phase 1 initiates with a retrieval of information and resources. It is an important time to assemble the necessary components for the implementation.Some important milestones that need to be accomplished for phase 1 include

• Obtaining senior-level management/stakeholder support
• 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.

senior level management support:

one of the most important milestones with phase 1 of ASAP is the full agreement and cooperation of the important company decision-makers - key stakeholders and others.Their backing and support is crucial for a successful implementation.

Clear project objectives:

be concise in defining what your objectives and expectations are for this venture.vague or unclear notions of what you hope to obtain with SAP will handicap the implementation process.Also make sure that your expectations are reasonable considering your company's resources. It is essential to have clearly defined ideas, goals and project plans devised before moving forward.

an efficient decision making process:

one ostacle that often stalls implementation is a poorly constructed decision-making process. before embarking on this venture, individuals need to be clearlt identified. decide now who is responsible for different decisions along the way.From day one, the implementation decision makers and project leaders from each area must be aware of the onus placed on them to return good decisions quickly.

environment suitable for change and re engineering:

your team must be willing to accept that , along with new SAP software, things are going to change, the business will change, and information technology enabling the business will change as well. By implementing SAP, you will essentially redesign your current practices to model more efficient or predefined best business practises as espoused by SAP. Resistance to this change will impede the progress of your implementation.

Building a qualified project team:

probably the most important milestone early in assembling a project team for the implementation. If you are implementing the materials manegement and plant maintenance modules , you need to include people from both of these departments.The team should also represent mangement as well as non management or "functional" personnel.Sometimes management is less aware of the day-to-day functions of an orgnization, including how implementing SAP will tactically influence those functions.

Note: Explanations for remaining phases will be posted in coming posts.

Openings in Wipro, Kolkata

We have an opening at present SAP BW, SD, ABAP
Please find Job Description mentioned below for the same. SAP BW, SD, ABAP Consultant –
Job Description •
1 Implementation experience is a must.
• SAP relevant exp should be more than 2 yrs.
Skills: Qualifications: B.E/B.Tech/MCA/ME/MTech/M.Sc. Experience: 2 to 4 years Working Location :Kolkata
Contact Person: Guru Prasad
Contact Number: 30298683
Please send in your updated profile & contact no to guruprasad.durgaraj1@wipro.com
You can also refer a friend or colleague for the same requirement; We have Positions for all levels; Based on your experience and the projects you will given the role, designation and there upon the salary would be decided. We look forward to a positive response from you Please ignore this mail if you are already in the process of WIPRO or employed ! with WIPRO or applied in 6 months.

Authorization Checks

Authorization Check:
In the earlier post, we came to know the importance of authorization check in real time environment. We know how to check authorization for table maintenance. (Please refer earlier post).
Now we will see how to check authorization for Reports, Transactions, RFC function modules.

The following actions are subject to authorization checks that are performed before the start of a program or table maintenance and which the SAP applications cannot avoid:
 Starting SAP transactions (authorization object S_TCODE)
 starting reports (authorization object S_PROGRAM)
 Calling RFC function modules (authorization object S_RFC)
 Table maintenance with generic tools (S_TABU_DIS)

The authorization objects S_TCODE, S_PROGRAM, S_RFC, and S_TABU_DIS are standard SAP provided.
Creating a new authorization object is not in the scope of ABAP developer. It will be taken care by SAP BASIS team.

To add authorization check to your program, you need to add the following code in your report.
Imagine that you have created a transaction code for your report, then you should use the authorization object S_TCODE to check the authorization.
You can place the code in initialization event.

*Initialization
INITIALIZATION.
AUTHORITY-CHECK OBJECT 'S_TCODE'
ID 'TCD' FIELD 'ZEXAMPLE'.

IF sy-subrc <> 0. "Not Authorized
MESSAGE e003(ZZ) WITH 'TCD' 'ZEXAMPLE'.
ENDIF.

Here zexample is the transaction code created for the report.

Table Maintenance Generator- One step and two step - difference

Table Maintenance generator: Difference between one step and two steps.
While creating table maintenance generator, we find below options:
1) When we choose one step, we have to give the screen number in Overview Screen field.
2) When we choose two step, we have to give both overview screen number and single screen number.
You can give any number for screen. Don’t give 1000 screen number. As this number is reserved for selection screen.

When we choose two step, two screens will be created for table maintenance. For single step only one screen will be created.
When we choose two step, table maintenance will work as follows
Go to SM30, give the table name for which you have created table maintenance-
Overview screen will be displayed. To create entries, when you click on ‘new entries’. Another screen will be displayed, where you give input and save. You can enter one record at a time.
When we choose single step, table maintenance will work as follows:
Go to SM30; give table name for which you have created table maintenance-
Overview screen will be displayed; To create entries click on ‘new entries’, you can enter the records on the same screen. You can enter multiple records at a time.

We use single step generally, as it is user friendly.
To completely understand the difference and above points please do exercise by creating table maintenance generator in both ways (using single step and two step).

Authorization Checks

What is the use of Authorization Checks?
To ensure that a user has the appropriate authorizations when he or she performs an action, users are subject to authorization checks.
The following actions are subject to authorization checks that are performed before the start of a program or table maintenance and which the SAP applications cannot avoid:
· Starting SAP transactions (authorization object S_TCODE)
· starting reports (authorization object S_PROGRAM)
· Calling RFC function modules (authorization object S_RFC)
· Table maintenance with generic tools (S_TABU_DIS)

In coming posts, we will see how to add authorization checks for Reports and transactions.
Today we will discuss about table authorization checks.

Purpose of assigning authorization groups for tables:
You can assign authorization groups to tables to avoid users accessing tables using general access tools (such as transaction SE16). A user requires not only authorization to execute the tool, but must also have authorization to be permitted to access tables with the relevant group assignments. For this case, we deliver tables with predefined assignments to authorization groups. The assignments are defined in table TDDAT; the checked authorization object is S_TABU_DIS.

Now we will see how to assign/create authorization group for a table:
Go to SE54, Give the table name and choose authorization group and then click on create/change. You can create an authorization group.
Example:
You can assign a table to authorization group Z001. (Use transaction SM30 for table TDDAT) A user that wants to access this table must have authorization object S_TABU_DIS in his or her profile with the value Z001 in the field DICBERCLS (authorization group for ABAP Dictionary objects).

Table Maintenance Generator

Hi,
Today i will try to answer the below question?
Why we have to go for Table maintenance generator, when we can edit the table by SE16 or SE11, utilities->create entries?
Answer.
In the production system, end-users will not be having access to transaction codes like SE11 and
SE16. Developers will not be having access to many transaction codes including the above two.
To view the contents of the database table, we will use SE16n in Production system. Please find out the difference between SE16 and SE16n.
All these authorizations will be maintained by BASIS team, by creating access profiles.
So in order to edit or create the contents of a database table, we should go for table maintenance generator. In real time, authorizations will be maintained in production system. (even in development and Test systems to some extent). There is an audit like Sarbanes-Oxley Act for American clients, where every thing will be audited by government agency. To know more about SOX, use the links on the right hand side of this page.


The second reason is, we can edit or create multiple entries at a time, using table maintenance generator. Apart from that we have options like 'Enter conditions' in table maintenance screen SM30. Please try to find out the use of those, by creating an example.

I will try to answer remaining questions asked by Mohan.
Please write your comments and begin a discussion. so that we can share knowldege. I request all of you to make use of the ads listed on the right side of this web page, which will help the author to maintain this site.
Thanks.