SAP

Blue Printing and Building the Business Case
   Building the business case for self-service strategy and Implementation typically involves the four steps
1) Identifying the process applicants and participants: List the processes that you want to showcase via self services and the roles that are affected in the organization.
2) Identify Potential cost savings : Determine the cost savings considering process improvements , reduction in the unwanted process enhancements , reduction in processing times and data accuracy.
3) Assess the project parameters: Project Approach, timeline, and estimated cost for software and implementation.
4) Key Decision Making : This involves determining the company's internal dynamics, matching the costs to business goals, and identify cost associated with human components and the opportunity costs of  whether to pursue or not pursuing the project.
5) Identify key Processes, applications and stakeholders  Business case needs to include the process that needs to be redesigned , the applications that you will introduce to make the processes more efficient, and the roles that are affected. The publication of policies, procedures, links to forms, and the HR checklists that provide the foundation for self-service processes and applications.
The other category of self service is the simple transactions that can be completed in their entirety, change underlying data in the source HR system, and provide the employee with immediate feedback. It also includes HR data like Remuneration Statement, Compensation and Organizational data for Managers and reports for HR Generalists. The complex transactions that require collaboration of various people to successfully complete the process via workflow. This category includes transactions like promotions, transfers, salary changes, and terminations. These are fairly complex transactions and originate with employees or managers, reviewed by HR, and can ultimately be processed by an administrator or service center.
6) Alignment of Self Service Strategy with Business :  For any  business case the key factor alignment of the self-service strategy with the corporate and the HR service strategies. The business case should attempt to link the corporate and HR service strategies. The business case should attempt to link the processes that are being enhanced or implemented.
Identify Benefits and Potential cost savings: Once it has been  identified which processes  will be enhancing and the roles that are affected, we can begin to identify the benefits and potential cost savings that will be realized by adopting and implementing or extending the self service strategy. This varies greatly in each company and must be looked at very carefully. From a Company's perspective the following steps can help us complete the Return on Investments :
• Extract the transactional data from the  current HR system and determine how many transactions that we are targeting  for self service application on a monthly basis.
• Breakdown the transactional data metrics determining the source and connecting them to a larger process.
• Attempt to determine the total cost per transaction by looking at all the manpower  involved in the process surrounding and transactions. This involves loading the hourly effort rates and dividing them by the number of transactions that are completed on the average month.
• Focus on the data accuracy and issues that result with data entry on the forms being submitted to HR or the service center. Transactions that result in input error require significantly more time to correct and will alter the total cost per transactions because it engages more people that are normally required to enter and complete transactions.
• Estimate  the workload that HR and HR service centers need to perform to support existing transactions and contrast it to reduced workload or time savings after self service is introduced.
• Focus on costs associated with software licensing, hardware , support and increase technical resources.
• Include the following summarized costs with details available - Total internal and external budget needed to complete the project like requirements, design , development etc . , Total hardware and software budget, Total training, travel, required for implementing the new technology.

System Implementation
There will be many things to give consideration including access modes, required security, application versions and system testing.Firstly handle employee locking issues that prevent payroll and other processes from running. In small organizations, where the payroll group is familiar with most employees, the payroll group has been given access to SAP transactions AL08 . These transactions normally allow payroll department to check the exact users or employees are locking records.If the payroll deptt is unable to locate the records, they will terminate the session using the transactions as mentioned. In big organizations, it is best practice to automate the transactions. The solution on a custom portal application that looks into the account the employee's payroll area and mapped it against a payroll calendar. A custom table should be configured with dates and times that indicates when the payroll processing will be performed in the organization. The portal application would be placed in front of every transaction  that could potentially lock the record for prolonged period of time and , if it is determined that payroll was about  to run or was running , it would generate a message to the user indicating that the system was not currently available due to payroll processing. This approach would enable the payroll admin to control the payroll periods to execute payroll calendar. Another positive impact from automating this"blackout period" is that it allows payroll admin to set a threshold period around the time of payroll processing that prevents users from updating personal data that could negatively impact payroll results.

Online Access to remuneration statements and controlling when they appear .It is very important to keep some grace period between the payroll run and the paystub should appear to the employees. A delay in when employees can see their paystub will enable the payroll department to ensure that they have accounted for any corrections. Exposing the SAP Portal and self service functionality over the internet will enable employees to gain access from remote locations: Many corporate normally provide some kind of kiosk access for employees who do not have access to a computer in the workspace: Many corporate portals are designed to be accessible while the employee is in the workspace or through the use of a VPN using the company used computers. This approach will limit employers that want to access their personal information and enterprise applications from home or remote locations because some donot have laptops and using any company accessed machines. Providing self service access from the internet gives employees and managers the necessary tools, transactions and content- even when they are not at work in office. With the advanced security in the latest SAP Netweaver Platform, it is feasible to deliver portions or all of the functional processes contained within portals to users over internet. SAP portals have become more viable and well adopted tool for employees and managers if it is available over the internet, because it dramatically increases the ability to deliver information and transactions to all employees, regardless of their physical location.

Enforce a Security and Data Privacy stance prior to Rolling out Self service Functionality: Many high profile companies had security breaches that have generated system down time, loss of confidential information, and eventual loss of revenue in projects. Self service applications is mandatory to design the high end security for managers and employees to gain access to key HR information that is highly sensitive and can easily be used to cause damage to the employee or the enterprise. It is advice to review again and again the security policy and compliance before we even release self service applications for the first time. They should govern length and complexity of passwords, when passwords and timelines for change, sharing of passwords. Data privacy is also the chief concern to many users. Data origin and viewing of data across borders are of principal concern, as many companies with offices in foreign country need to confirm with the regulatory laws and local laws. We should also involve the legal and compliance department if we have a Global Implementation.
Automate the Hiring Process to Include Creating a user and Assign the appropriate security roles: The security and maintenance associated for granting access to this new hire can be expedited by implementing an automated process. Once the employee is hired into the organization. After the hiring action is complete, a background process is started that creates the userID.After the userID is created, it is then linked to the employee's IT0105, Subtype 0001, SY-NAME) and based on the position that the employee is hired to, additional roles are assigned to the user. User Creation, user assignment and authorization activities are all completed with these steps. Once the process is complete the information is synchronized with the LDAP server which the portals uses for authenticating and authorizing. If these steps are automated it has been observed that it is extremely cost savings and a reliable process which provides timely access in a timely manner.