Experiences with SOLAR02: Who is linking IMG to Blueprint Structure?

[Former Member]

Hello all,

For some business scenarios in the Business Process Repository, SAP has associated many IMG configuration table entries to business processes or scenarios. For those areas, it's possible to get a business process oriented view of configuration.

I'm wondering how many other projects have successfully gotten the functional implementation team to validate and/or complete those links to reflect what was actually done to implement. Some configuration spans across scenarios, so SAP provided the Configuration Structures to be able to create the list of completed configuration there. Especially for HR, some consultants want to put everything into a Configuration Structure instead of attacahing to the configuration tab for the Business Process. Any comments on which is best? Any successes getting the configuration list assigned to the business processes?

Thanks,

Marcel

[raguraman_c]

Hi All,

Check this best practice for Business Process Management. Gives you a very good idea of it can be managed.

https://websmp105.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700004444512001E

It doesn't talk about SOLAR01/SOLAR02. but this document gives you a good idea, of BPM can be managed with SOLMAN.

--Ragu

[Former Member]

Sorry for the delayed response. We have had both experiences, where the team decided to organize configuration separate from the Blueprint Structure, and also where they did it on the config tab per scenario, process, or process step. The difference depends both on the scope of the project and the willingness of your team to change and make the extra effort to associate configuration with business processes. Our HR Payroll projects have argued that the configuration is organized differently than for other SAP functional areas, and is difficult to group per scenario. Finance projects have pointed out that it is easy to make the association, especially since SAP has done this already in the BPR for many items under Finance.

We are still recommending in all cases that configuration be associated with the scenarios, and not included in a separate parallel structure. This defeats the purpose of trying to make a closer connection between actual business processes and underlying technology. It also means you have to look in multiple places to get the complete picture. What have been your experiences?

[Former Member]

Hello,

I am also interested in further ideas on the topic in this thread. Could someone in the SAP Solution Manager community share some of their project experiences in this matter?

Regards,

Guido

[Former Member]

I'm seeing a few issues that make it hard to convince project teams to place the configuration on the business processes level.

Mapping the configuration to the business processes seems to be too time intensive during a project. It's a quick corner to cut in order to keep to a deadline.

Also, it's difficult to know where you should place some IMG objects because of how they can affect many processes. They wind up having to put them at the scenario or in the top level configuration folder. Having the configuration detailed at various levels limits the ability to see the big picture of what has been configured and in what order. It also limits the reuse of the processes in future projects because some IMG object configuration is detailed outside of the process.

Anyone else have some experiences to share?

best regards,

Jason

[kimmo_sirpoma]

Hi, Jason and Marcel.

It's almost a year now since your last discussions in this thread. Can we start it again?

I'm also confused with the usage of configuration structure in contrast to configuration tabs found in Scenario and Business process level when BPR content is used. You both have probably implemented already your SolMan projects, so which direction did you choose? Did you structured configuration requirements in the configuration node or rather used the scenario/business process level configuration tabs.

In link http://service.sap.com/rkt-solman there exists a document 'SAP Solution Manager Blueprint and Implementation Content.pdf' which suggests in my understanding, that use primarily the Configuration Structure node. And use scenario/BP level configuration tabs only if there is scenario/BP specific customizing requirements.

However, in the same site, there is a SAP Tutor session 'ERP Finance', which demonstrates using configuration on business process level. OK, it is a demonstration, but one could think that it also the 'best practise'.

br: Kimmo