Global Template Management & 7.2 SP03?

[Vivek_Hegde]

Hi All,

I understand from many sources that the 7.1 Global Template Management concept is not fully functional as of 7.2 SP03 (or is it?). There some confusing information out there, some say, use branches as roll out projects, some say sites..etc. But till today, I have not come across a single comprehensive document which explains the concept of Template Management as of 7.2. Is this concept concept replaced in 7.2?  (if so, how to use the new concept?) OR is it available as of SP03, but we do not know how to make use of it?   OR is Template Management functionality yet to come to 7.2, may be in future releases?

I wish someone gives us a credible and a definite answer, not the bits and pieces of it that we have been getting so far.

Regards

Vivek

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sm72_sp03/helpdata/en/4a/a95557e03f9067e10000000a4450e5/content.htm?fram...Hi Vivek,

I am the SAP architect who built Global Template Management in 7.1. I also was architect in the 7.2 development of solution documentation. The short answer is: In 7.2 SP03 we offer the site concept for the global template management use case. The documentation is the one at the top of this reply. The editor doesn't allow me to put it here. Please also read the definition at the link Basic Terms and Concepts. This concept together with other concepts of 7.2 should be able to replace the existing Global Template Management functionality in many aspects. Some other aspects are still in development. If you describe a bit more in detail how you used Global Template Management in 7.1 I can explain how you should setup your solutionin 7.2.

Kind Regards
Andreas

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for the reply. I went through the content and that brought few additional doubts. According to the documentation "The site concept is relevant for companies that run one SAP product on separate productive systems". However consider the use case I have;

1. We are a global company with one single instance of ERP. This single ERP system is used worldwide in 44 different countries.When we do a global roll out, we use the Template Project we defined at the HQ and create local implementation projects for each roll outs. Our global template project contains, 27 Templates (like Coffee, Cashew..) and we roll out each template, one country at a time. For example; Cashew for Vietnam ; Coffee for Ghana etc. All these templates are getting rolled out on a single global ERP system with one instance. We controls the global business processes in each templates in the form of Global/Local attributes. For example Fixed Sales in 'Coffee' template is applicable and mandatory for all countries rolling out 'Coffee' template. There might be some local Coffee processes specific to each country, which we define as local attribute in individual implementation projects.  So how do we design this process in 7.2 Solution Documentation? Since Sites concept is not valid for us, what are the alternatives?

2. Suppose, if we upgrade our existing 7.1, which has 1 Global Template Project( with 27 templates) and 44 Implementation Projects; how will they be structured after upgrade? Will each roll out implementation project become one branch? If so. how do the Global/Local attributes of the Template Projects gets inherited after the upgrade into individual branches? Will we have 1+44 = Total 45 branches in solution documentation?

I have many more use case, depending on the answers I get for above queries.

Regards,

Vivek

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

before I can give you an answer, I need to understand one thing: When you are using one single ERP system for all your countries, it is obvious that all countries use exactly the same code base. There is only customizing and documentation that can make a difference. Does every country have a separate client with potentially individual customizing or do you just roll out country-specific documentation? Do you build country specific executables e.g. transactions or reports?

Kind Regards
Andreas

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Yes, all countries use same code base. There is only one Production client shared by all countries. However, we develop many country specific reports/transactions. The roll out we do is country-specific documentations.  I put it in a graphical format for better understanding.

COMMOM = A Template with some Business Scenarios having all Global Attributes

BANANA, COFFEE, etc = Templates with Product specific Business Scenarios having both global & local attributes.

So whenever we roll out, we roll out global scenarios (COMMON), + some Product Specific Scenarios (BANANA, COFFEE etc). Also these product specific scenarios are mixture of global/local scenarios again.

This is our current setup. How will this behave when we upgrade to 7.2?

Thanks,

Vivek 

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

so the rollout projects are really projects in the original sense of the word: When the project coffee rollout to Vietnam is finished, the implementation project is obsolete? Or would us use the same project to rollout the banana template to Vietnam in the next wave?

Regards
Andreas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

As far I know, rollout projects will not work in solman 7.2 and fortunately we are using Master template only for SAP implementation and support projects.

We are aware of this situation before so we intentionally managing ALL in Master Template so that we can upgrade to solman 7.2 without any issues from documentation side.

Thanks

Sateesh.

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

We would use a new roll out project, may be Z_VIET_BANANA, containing Global Business Scenarios from COMMON template and product specific scenarios from BANANA template. The COMMON template and it's Business Scenarios will be adopted by all implementation project and non modifiable. We control this using Global attribute for the scenarios inside COMMON template. The Banana template at global level will have scenarios which are global in nature (would apply to India & Vietnam or any country implementing BANANA) and local scenarios, which are free to be edited in each local implementation projects.

Like this below screenshot;

Then we will use Compare & Adjust and see how much the local BANANA implementation projects comply with the Global BANANA template.

This is the arrangement since my customer is Product oriented company; they roll out the Business Scenarios applicable to those each Products to various countries worldwide, usual One Product & One Country at a time.

Regards,

Vivek

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

Hi Sateesh,

If Global Roll Out functionality or concept of Template is not available in 7.2; then it would be a major disappointment for us

What would be the point of maintaining so much Business Process structure in 7.2 Process Management, where, you do not have options for selectively rolling out structures to subsidiaries.  Probably the Process Management will end up becoming just another place to dump all your Business Process Structures and upload docs/pdfs. How will a global company would use it in true sense

What's your thought there? Would be interested to know your perspective on this.

Regards,

Vivek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

Agree with your points, but I am sure SAP will try to find a solution soon for global companies who are using rollout functionalities but as of now no solution was provided by SAP...so let's hope for the best in coming days.

Thanks

Sateesh.

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

I have understood the way your customer works now. I will give you a detailed answer tomorrow.

Kind Regards
Andreas

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

https://mdocs.sap.com/mcm/public/v1/open?shr=XkVxe4mOpLtn8a7EmhVlQtAdtxec9akGE09-1APjd-I

Hi Vivek,

above you find a link to a presentation fo Michael Skiba a very experienced expert in Solution Documentation. I found no way to attach a two MB file to this post so I used a temporary share. As you can see there there are basically two options to deal with the Global scenario: One is using sites and one is using Export/Import with multiple solutions.

The site concept is the best way to document the whole solution with a minimum of redundancy. It solves the issue that often a solution is spread on multiple productive systems. Local documentation can be flagged with the site attribute which is available on structure items and elements. It is a multiple attribute. You can filter all our lists by an attribute value. Additionally you can create hierarchical Views that only show a specific part of the solution that is used by e.g. a country. Also you can limit authorizations hierarchically to certain areas. If you want to rollout new developments from global development to local development and then to productions you would create the following branch tree:

Production

    Local Dev.

          Global Dev.

So you could individually release developments from Global Dev. to Local Dev. There local development could enhance the local parts and finally release them to Production. The benefit of this approach is, that this way you get an up-to-date documentation of the whole solution cross all your sites and cross all life-cycle states. Redundance is minimal. This is the best approach when the local development does only minor changes to the rolled-out template processes, e.g .additional transactions, documents test cases.

The Export/Import concept is closer to the traditional template approach but more redundant. You have a central template solution and for each roll-out project or country you create a new solution just as you created a project before. You export from the template and import to the project into a separate import branch.

Production

    Development

          Import

From the Import branch selected parts can be released into the Development branch. There local development can do local adaptions.

In content activation I would recommend to activate the template project only in your case. In 7.2 all your implementation projects will be available display-only for your reference. So before upgrading you should finish those projects because they can't be changed afterwards in 7.2. If you decide to migrate these implementation projects all in the same solution you will get a folder for each project in the Business Scenario area but you will get many duplicate process steps in the process step library that you would need to merge later on. There is tool support for this, but it would be a huge effort with so many projects with identical or similar process steps. So you better don't do it! If you insist of migrating some projects, then create a separate solution for each project. This is the better choice in this specific case of redundancy.

The template attribute and the global attribute are normally not visible in 7.2. But if you used them in 7.1 projects we automatically add them. However they are just normal attributes without any special functionality. If you just have global and local scenarios this should be now problem. In 7.2 you can assign an authorization area to a folder. You could create a local folder and a global folder for scenarios and assign an authorization area e.g. GLOBAL to the global folder. Then you could define restricted authorizations for the users in this area. In all other parts of the solution the user have standard authorizations. You can control everything you could control with global attributes with authorizations now.

Regards
Andreas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

I do not see any update yet from SAP which confirms that they support Global Roll Out Implementations in solman 7.2 and they document which you have provided was released in 2014 and I will be glad if SAP supports.

Recently, we had a conversation with SAP ALM expert who confirmed that SAP is yet to release official statement on global roll out projects for supporting in Solman 7.2

Thanks

Sateesh.

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

Hi Sateesh,

there is note 2194918 which lists the official limitations in Process Management. Last change is 15.08.2016. A listed limitation is "global attribues do not control changes". Global Roll Out or Template Management is not listed here for good reason. There are different ways to do it in 7.2, as I described in my post. The document I posted is not from 2014, Michael just used an outdated template. The document is of cours just a first draft to give you an idea which options you have in 7.2 and there is certainly more documentation to be delivered on this feature. But best practices and how-twos won't come on a silver tablet, at least not for early adopters. We at SAP really need the questions and the input of you experts in SCN to see if our proposed procedures work for them or not.
Kind Regards
Andreas

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for the document. It sure helps a lot in putting together some information and binding them together. I now have  some idea on how this may work, I will try this in our PoC system and update here. Based on your detailed reply, I set my expectation before beginning my trial in PoC as below;

1. Single Solution Approach  ---->    Global Production Branch

                                                       |

                                                        --------------Global Maintenance Branch

                                                       |

                                                       ---------------Global Development Branch

                                                                           |

                                                                           -------------- Local Development Branch 1

                                                                           |

                                                                           -------------- Local Development Branch 2

I will try the authorization concept to define what can be changed in 'Local Development Branch 1 & 2 '.

2. Multiple Solutions, where each solution I consider as a template and export/import them to roll out Solutions. Personally, I want to use this as last approach because we will end in 45 Solutions as per our customers requirement which becomes a lot of housekeeping efforts.

3. As per the release restriction note, there is no reporting available as of SP03 in Process Management. Since now I am clear that Branches will be the vehicles for the roll out concept in general, I do have few wishlist when SAP delivers reporting in Process Management. From my previous experience with several customers, the one simple thing they always ask is something like below; in 7.1, there was Compare & Adjust feature which did some justification of this need. I hope something similar (little less complex! ) would do great benefits;

4. I also hope, soon we get a clear documentation from SAP on the presumed use case of Roll Out and Template Management using Process Management in 7.2 with a sample scenario. There was an excellent guide in 7.1 titled "SAP Template Management for Initial Roll Out.PDF" which had everything customer needed in terms of template management. The entire discussion of Template Management or Roll Out use case somehow got hijacked during ramp up. If any of the ramp up customers tried or upgraded 7.1 with Template Management to 7.2 during early adoption; we would love to see more lesson learnt or best practices according to their experience. But unfortunately, I see very few active discussion on this area here.   Since 7.2 has already crossed early adoption stage, now in general availability, there needs to be more clear documentations made available to customers which I hope will be available soon.

Thanks for the detailed replies. I sure look forward to try my own and I will update this thread with the practical observations & limitations I see as of SP03.

Regards,

Vivek

[former_member190969 · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

concerning your summary I need to add some comments from SAP side.

@ point 1:

The branch tree must be built up a bit different:

Top branch is Production branch as you wrote. This has two child branches: Maintenance Branch and Development branch. Child branch of Development branch should be the Template branch. You can only release content from child to parent branch, not from parent to child and not from brother to brother. I think you need a Template branch that should hold everything that was in the template project in 7.1. This releases to the Development branch. In the Development  branch local adaptions can be made. You should avoid brother branches as in your model Dev branch 1 and Dev branch 2. This will leed to many conflicts. This is only reasonable if you really have separate systems with parallel development as in the case of Maintenance and Development branch and landscape. Basically the branches should correspond to the system landscape. The separation between different locations should only be done using the Site attribute.

@ point 3:

We don't have a compare and adjust tool in 7.20. When I get you right you want to know which local extensions have been done to the template in development branch to see, which of them could be rolled in to the templates next wave, so other countries can benefit of them. I am afraid we cannot support this so far. It will be possible to generate a blueprint document in SP03. So you could do a manual comparison between the two word documents generated from Template branch and Development branch as a fall back. This might serve as a workaround until we have a more comfortable solution.

Best Regards
Andreas