SAP

Organizations across the world over are either planning or have already rolled out Internet Explorer 8 for use as an Internet Browser. If the company is also having an SAP System as an ERP solution for the business than it may be worth while to check the compatibility between IE8 and SAP ERP Applications. This is important because SAP Applications  e.g. SRM, APO, SAP ERP, Enterprise Portal uses the Internet Browser to perform certain business transactions. The blog explores options to analyse and how to achieve compatibility between SAP Aplications and IE8.

Recently I had the chance to come across a case wherein a business user tried to connect to SAP Portal Application in his company from an internet cafe. He could not access the SAP Portal Application from Internet cafe  while from his official computer he could access without any problem. The analysis revealed that Internet Explorer version is different in both the cases. The IE version in Internet cafe was IE8 whereas in the official laptop it was a lower version. On further analysis it turned out that IE8 is not compatible  with SAP Application version that was being accessed. The result was Enhancement Pack upgrade project for the SAP Application. Thereafter, SAP Application was compatible with IE8. Since IE8 is one of the latest offering from Microsoft and companies have plans to roll this out all across organization.
 
The SAP support organizations within the company should make a compatibility check between various SAP Applications and the Internet browser being used wthin the company. This check should be made part of the support process to be checked periodically to avoid any surprises.

Posted by Deepak Kumar at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the part-1 blog, the main topics in a business transformation were covered at high level.
In current Part-2 blog, the global process will be discussed.
A global process-oriented approach requires generally accepted (standardized) and comparable descriptions of work processes. Therefore, the key purpose of global SAP Roles is to have a uniform basis with global principles.

A global SAP Role is defined from a set of related tasks, which result in specific output. It is an explanation of how a business process is performed. A global SAP Role can be applied to several jobs and several employees can have the same role.
A global SAP role is the basis for further activities:
 Explaining how employees jobs will change in relation to new responsibilities and way of working
 Performance measurement
 Training requirements
 Assignment of system authorization
The SAP role definition takes place through the following steps:
• Definition of all relevant roles in scope for SAP XXX Project.
• Mapping of SAP Business, management and reporting tasks to the according SAP Role
• Detailed description of SAP Roles in a uniform template. The description of role is divided into two parts:
Part I:  Global Description
Part II:  Detailed Information for Local Implementation
To build a security framework, the following design objectives shall be reviewed with the security team, business process owners, and role owners.

• Integrate security development into the standard development process
• Benefits
- create a framework that is both flexible and easily maintainable
- maintain consistency across all functional areas
- minimize or eliminate redundancy
• Design an approach/ framework for ECC Security using a three-tier approach
• Create a security team (security organization chart) that works very closely with the functional/ process, HR, and training and various other project teams to gather authorization, personnel and training requirements
• Adhere to Security Design Practices/ Principles
• Incorporate a best-practice security naming standards
• Monitor sensitive transactions and authorization objects
• Discuss and/or implement SOX compliance (Risk Analysis) tool for SOD checks.
• Implement project team security including- basis, security, developer, configuration for each system/ client
• Test the approach/ framework using a structured testing process
• Implement an security change control process for auditing tracking; utilize Solution Manager integrated with xxxxxx
• Discuss and/or implement Identity Management tool for central user administration
• Discuss and/or implement LDAP integration with Portals for authentication
• Discuss and/or implement Single Sign-On (SSO) for federated portal network
• Discuss and/or implement indirect role assignment using HR-ORG
• Discuss and/or implement various security table settings

Posted by Raghu Duggirala at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

I am back with the next blog on profitability analysis and activity based costing (ABC). For the benefit of new readers, I blog on profitability analysis and ABC and you can click here to view the previous blogs on related topics.

First of all, my sincere thanks for your comments on my previous blog - How can IT help in implementing Activity Based Costing? It's really good to get the views from practitioners. One common view in these comments is that the output of ABC system should be relevant and must assist in future decisions. I completely agree to this. It makes all the more important for the business to perform due diligence in identifying the right purpose and the right software for their ABC system. The other view is ABC hasn't translated from concept to practice for large number of companies. I believe this will change over time as the ABC software evolves further to deliver more value in terms of relevant and insightful information it provides at a lesser TCO.

This blog is to evaluate the ABC software. Being an SAP consultant let me start with SAP's offerings in this area. SAP Controlling or SAP CO is SAP's flagship module with a comprehensive offering. It provides almost everything that is needed for costing and profitability analysis. SAP CO-ABC is the sub-module dedicated for activity based costing and SAP CO-PA for profitability analysis.

The other SAP offering in this area is SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management or SAP PCM. Unlike SAP CO, SAP PCM is a new addition to SAP's kitty. It inherited PCM when it acquired BusinessObjects in 2007. Historically, PCM was the flagship product of ALG software.

SAP CO is one of the core modules of SAP R/3 and is suited where ABC system is needed to be part of transactional system. The benefits it offers are seamless integration with ERP system as well as single system fulfilling all the costing requirements. This saves on additional license cost as well as overhead of maintaining an additional system. At the same time, it takes significant efforts by SAP consultants to configure SAP CO-ABC. This makes it more suitable for a requirement where the ABC rules are almost static and doesn't need frequent changes. The SAP CO-ABC output can be analyzed in SAP CO-PA or in SAP BW.

In Contrast, SAP PCM is an add-on tool and is suited where ABC system is needed to be part of analytical system. It is suitable where there are multiple SAP instances or disparate source systems - be it SAP or non-SAP. In fact it is source system agnostic and can work with any source system. Modeling of ABC engine in PCM is easier than that in SAP CO-ABC and can be modified by business users to keep pace with the changing business rules. PCM provides number of predefined functions which can be used for quick and meaningful analysis. The ABC output can be reported in books created in PCM itself or using the preferred reporting tool of the organization. The added benefit is the what-if analysis features provided by PCM.

This gives a snapshot of the SAP's offering in the ABC area. In the subsequent blogs, we will focus more on the analytical ABC software. In the mean time, please let me know your views.

Posted by Vivek Madhav at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )