What Do You Do?

[moshenaveh]

Hello Everyone,

In my opinion, Empathy is an essential foundation of any online community that wishes to thrive. Empathy is the glue that keeps us together and makes every community interaction a lot more considerate and user friendly to all members involved.

I believe that the best way to encourage and help empathy spread across our community is if we connect and familiarize with one and other.

Therefore, I would like to invite you to join the What Do You Do (#WDYD) community initiative. #WDYD is your opportunity to share with everyone your role in the SAP world/ecosystem while engaging a lively conversation with fellow community members who want to learn more about the most interesting projects you've worked on, best practices, creativity and innovation and whatever you feel like sharing about what you do.

Joining this initiative is very simple:

1. Submit an answer to the question "What Do You DO" in this thread. The answer should contain a short introduction of yourself and your professional background/experience.
2. Optional: End your introduction by @ mentioning fellow community members inviting them to join this initiative while asking them one of the following questions: /What was your first step in the SAP world?/What do you enjoy most about your job?/How do you keep your skills up to date (what training/courses/reading do you do)?/Where do you see your career future with SAP?/What do you think are the challenges in your area?/What advice would you give someone beginning their career?/What do you wish you had done differently?/What did you do in your first day at work/Who inspired you the most/Do you have any specific thought leaders in the community who you follow/What was the project you enjoyed the most and why?/Feel free to make-up your own questions/ (Thanks a lot to @Colleen Hebbertf or coming-up with some these questions)
3. After you've posted your answer paste the link that you will get under the "share" button. Then use the link and this #WDYDSC hashtag to invite your friends on social media to read your answer and interact with you

Once you join other community members will continue the conversation by asking you more questions. In order to be responsive please be sure to follow this thread and activate your Email notifications.

Some additional important guidelines:

* Please contact me if you wish to champion your own topic related What Do You DO question. This way we can make sure there are no duplications and I can support you by giving you visibility in this thread and other locations.

* All questions/threads participating in the #WDYD initiative most only be tagged with the "Careers" topic in order not to disrupt the content flow of other community Q&A activity.

* Please up-vote answers you like as it will make it easier for others to find high quality discussions.

* Everyone can join! Regardless if you are new to the SAP World or an expert

* Please use comments to ask for clarification on this post and post answers to join according to the intructions provided above.

I would like to kick this off by @ mentioning fellow community members:

julie.plummer

lars.breddemann

caetano.almeida

matt.fraser

petr.solberg

m.lee

michael.appleby

jrgen.lins

denis.konovalov

1005bf8318434f49964a5737c29bb265

felipe.fraga

jeremy.good

ivy.li

matthew.billingham

jelena.perfiljeva2

luisdarui

bernhard.luecke

nicole.geischnek

andreas.holzapfel

ajay.maheshwari

krishnaananth

Former Member

rindia

raz.korn

matthias.wild

[former_member183424]

Great Initiative. It reminds me the Blog it forward.

Well, for me, I (Dibyendu Patra) am from Mumbai, India and working as a SAP Logistics Consultant with having 6 years of experience. Enjoying my life in SAP career with great fun.

My question to jrgen.lins.

1. How do you manage your time to moderate the community for almost whole day? (Sorry if I am personal) :).

2. What do you wish you had done differently?

3. What do you enjoy most about your job?

[moshenaveh]

Thanks dev.patra 🙂 You can look at it as professional twist with dynamic chat capabilities spicing.

So What does it mean SAP Logistic ? What type of companies use these products?

[former_member183424]

Hello Moshe,

Thank you for your comment and question.

Let’s get into more details. I started my SAP career on 2011. Presently, I am working in a service based company named Inteliwaves Technologies, we provide SAP supports to all other product base companies. Logistics part is a combination of multiple modules (e.g. MM, SD, PP, QM etc.). I am looking into the MM/SD part. Mostly all product based companies use these all logistics modules. In my career, I have done many implementations, supports and roll-out projects. Currently, I am working on a project for GST e-filling (Taxation of India).

By the way, in this October, I’ll complete 4 years in SAP community. Well, it’s time to a small celebration 😊.

In India, now we are celebrating a festival called Diwali. Pictures are here Diwali Celebration.

[moshenaveh]

Hello dev.patra and great to hear from you:)! Happy Diwali!

How would you explain MM/SD part to someone with no background in this topic? What are the top 10 golden rules/best practices?

What do you find most interesting in your recent project "GST e-filling" ?

Great pictures and I love the colors. Can't wait to get to India next week.

Will you be in TechEd?

Regards,

Moshe

[former_member183424]

Hi Moshe,

Happy Diwali to you too.

MM is related to procure to pay process, it covers planning, purchase, management of stock, goods movement, Invoice to vendor etc. SD is related to Order to Cash process, it covers order from customer, deliver goods to customer, bill to customer etc.

The top golden rule or best practice is to know about the business process. SAP is all about to cover real business processes. If you have strong knowledge about the business process, then to map into SAP will be quite easy. Another best practice to learn about the integration point of one module to another.

I haven't found anything interesting in this project GST e-filing till now. (Sad, but true).

Unfortunately, I am not able to attend the TechEd as I have some scheduled meetings on end of Oct. for a new project.

In our culture, we greet people by saying "Namaste". So, Namaste and Welcome to India. Hope you will have a beautiful stay in our country.

[Caetano]

Hello Moshe

Congratulations for the initiative. Unfortunately, due to the time zone difference, II could not be the first one to answer this thread.

I'm currently working at the SAP Center of Expertise in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where I deliver services to the SAP MaxAttention customers. My main area of expertise is Production Planning (MRP is my passion), but I also work with QM and GBT.

I started to with SAP in 2006, when I joined a company who was using SAP software as an IT trainee. Later I joined a partner as PP consultant and in 2009 in joined SAP Product Support in Brazil. Most SAP consultants who opened incidents for PP from 2009 to 2016 probably already had some kind of contact with me.

I also wrote lots of blogs, documents and wikis in SCN and I have published an e-book about MRP on HANA. Currently, I'm writing another e-book about Embedded PP/DS, which should be published until the end of the year.

Let's bring some of the Brazilian and product support folks to the WDYD initiative:

I'd like to know from my friends eduardo.rezende eduardo.chagas 2f735baee86f4b59a7e6f19c5506058f ervin.szolke raquel.pereiradacunha 197f0f77709544a3bdebe98a55f527bb what was the weirdest situation that you ever faced when supporting or delivering a service to a SAP customer? You can also answer the question moshe.naveh2!

Best regards,

Caetano Almeida

[moshenaveh]

Hello caetano.almeida !

Thanks a lot for joining! Your post made me curious. Can you please share more details about the SAP Center of Expertise. It's the first time I hear about it.

Also, what does production planning mean? Imagine I'm newbie who has no clue (which I'm:). I have more questions for you but I will keep them for later.

As for your question:

The weirdest work related experience I had was long time before I joined SAP (almost 20 years ago :-0). I worked as a scooper in Ben & Jerrys and famous guy walked-in. He asked for a Milkshake and because I was so excited I mess-up the recipe and an ice-cream & milk tornado was all over:0).

I read that you recently moved from Brazil to the states. How was transition and how do you compare the work environment in Brazil to the one you have in the states.

[Caetano]

Hi Moshe

SAP offers a special kind of contract called MaxAttention and customers who choose this kind of contract will have a package of services delivered by the Center of Expertise. We deliver from very technical services (focused in performance or custom code) to very high level consulting and architecture services.

Production planning is a module of the SAP ERP that helps manufacturing companies to plan and to execute the production activities. MRP means material requirements planning and it is a part of production planning focused in materials planning.

I moved to US last year, but in principle it was supposed to be a temporary fellowship. Before the end f this fellowship I got an offer to stay and I decided to move permanently. Now I'm more on a customer facing position, which can be something very nice (when you meet nice people) or not. Regarding the work environment, in Brazil we had more young people and a relaxed environment, as I was working at a SAP Labs. Here in Newtown Square, I think that we have more focused in services and we have more contact with customers, so it is more serious, but I like it.

Regards,

Caetano

[keohanster]

Isn't it dangerous for us to know you work for SAP Support, MaxAttention 😉

Nice to meet you!

[matt]

So... I'm known as matt - always with a lower-case m. I've been working in IT for over 30 years, with about 20 years in SAP. I'm a technical sort of person - I like working in the application server/ABAP layer; not just programming but also trouble shooting technical issues, and proposing ways of exploiting the technology for end-user benefit.

In my free time I direct theatre plays (a form known as panto, but it doesn't have any mime in it).

bfeeb8ed7fa64a7d95efc21f74a8c135 what did you do in your first day of work?

[moshenaveh]

Welcome matthew.billingham !

So searched before I post:) So is ABAP/Application some sort of an environment that allow you to create ABAP applications? And how does that reflect as a part of the service you provide to your customers with?

[Jelena]

In my free time I direct theatre plays

Really? I guess we need to open "25 facts you didn't know about me" thread. 🙂

Btw, if anyone is interested to learn more about Matt's daily life, please proceed to register number two. 🙂

[matt]

ABAP is the programming language that runs most of the functionality that ERP, BW etc. run on in Netweaver. I develop system/applications/programs that endusers like to use, and are fairly robust and easy to extend as new functionality is needed. But it's all at the highly technical end - not pretty user interfaces. I leave that to graphic designers.

[matt]

If anyone is in NW Switzerland, this is the production I'm currently directing. www.baselpanto.org Come along and see it.

[Steffi_Warnecke]

How can you not know this, Jelena?! It's like not knowing that Craig likes to rescue people with his dog, Julius is allergic to ponits and we all love goats. 😉 Didn't he bring it up in his BIF? Yes, he did!

[Jelena]

Oh dear, not sure I've actually read that one (and I thought I did). Matt has a terrible habit to post the blogs when I'm on vacation. 🙂

[Renan_Correa]

Hi Guys!
I'm currently working as independent consultant in the areas of ERP FI/SD localization for Brazil. I started in 2009 at SAP in Brazil as FI consultant and since then I've held different roles in the areas of support and services until the beginning of this year when I decided it was time to leave and face new challenges.

I've spent some time since 2010 writing blogs, documents, SAP Notes, KBA's and doing webinars regarding how to meet Brazilian legal requirements in FI/SD/MM using SAP systems.

Answering caetano.almeida question. The weirdest thing that happened to me was during a functional workshop that I was running with a colleague. My colleague went to the restroom and after 15 minutes HE did not come back, I checked my cell phone and he texted me seeking for help. He said he entered the ladies room (which was empty) and after some time many girls entered it and he realized he made a mistake, but he did not want to leave the place because he was too ashamed of hearing the girls talk there.

Now I'd like to bring other SAP former colleague to the topic if he likes: fernando.ros, what was the most exotic requirement you ever got to include in the SAP system?

Regards,

Renan Correa

[moshenaveh]

2f735baee86f4b59a7e6f19c5506058f

I was wondering when you will show-up:).

I have some questions for you:

How was to shift to becoming independent? Weren't you afraid?

How come you ended up in the SAP world/ ERP FI? What's the difference between a good consultant and an excellent one. How can the customers identify?

What did you study in university? What do you find interesting and creative about your work? What do you most enjoy?

And one last question: Can you please share what was your most successful project and how did it go?

And most important, is your friend still there or you rescued him?

[Renan_Correa]

Oohh, so many questions... You could be FBI or IRS... ;D

The change was not scary, I already had it in my mind for a longtime and it looked like a natural move when it happened. Sometimes it's a bit like Whitenaske "I don't know where are I'm going..." but all changes are like this.

I tried to ask an excellent consultant about your question but his rate was too expensive, so I'll have to answer by myself =/... I think the best consultants are always moving on to the next challenge, they do not stay in the past, they always know what's going on in the market/company, they understand not only their area but how their area relates to other areas and most important they admit they don't know everything.

By the way, my friend left the restroom and the story became famous in the project.

I have a question for you moshe.naveh2 what was the reason that brought you to work and get involved with the SAP community?

[moshenaveh]

2f735baee86f4b59a7e6f19c5506058f I will take being compared to the IRS as a compliment as it's coming from an ERP FI consultant 🙂

So I think the next question to you is what do you think is the next big thing in your field? If I googled correctly ERP FI is the master product that provides companies with all the financials solutions they need to run effectively. This actually reminds me a recent discussion I had with eli.klovski (you're invited to join the challenge:)). Also, what do you specialize in ERP FI ? What does SD mean beyond sales and distributions?

My path to community and SAP was like many great things very unexpected. I studied hospitality management in university. As a result of my entrepreneur personality I decided to start my tourism agency. My theme was to create travel packages that would empower distant cultures by making them proud of their heritage in the rural parts of Israel. It was an amazing period and I had a lot of fun. We had sculpturing evening with women, cooking courses, theatre and more. Some of those packages remine an idea only but I really enjoyed the creation process. At the time I was living in the desert in a student project sponsored by a wealthy person from Denver Colorado. He had a dream to support tourism in the Negev (developing and a desert area in Israel) by creating a tourism portal. I was tasked with creating this site together with other developers, UX experts, content writers etc. I lived the dream going all over supporting and teaching tourism entrepreneurs to promote theirs business in our site and in general. We offered them a free site and I was also in charge of teaching them how to do so. My greatest moment of joy/pride was when I was able to help a lady that owned a farm in the middle of nowhere to create her own site on her own while it was her first time using a mouse. So, that's how I got into the internet world from tourism. And what made me move away from the Negev and this project was the fact that my girlfriend back then was from the center of Israel. The next most logical move for me was to find a job that would combine between my passions: people, web and creativity. And it has been 8 years since (in December) so I guess it fulfilled my aspirations/expectation;).

[Caetano]

I probably know who was the guy locked in the bathroom and I'm burning my brain trying to figure out who was the lucky guy.

[christoph_hopf]

Hi all,

I joined the SAP Product Support in 2006 at the GSC Austria in Vienna for the DMS topic. If I remember right I started about one year later answering questions in the SDN. If someone remembers this developer network, you also know this was the era when we get T-Shirts for gaining a specific amount of points. So gamification already was working well. 😉

Now you also know that I made the migration from SDN to SCN and now to the SAP Community and I'm still focussing on answering questions on DMS, classification, CAD integration, etc. and keeping the external DMS WIKI up to date. For some years now I'm also the Community master for GSC Austria and in this role I support my colleagues when they have questions about the Community.

I still like to answer different kind of questions in the Community Q&A and hopefully we will get back some gamification or recognition program soon.

[moshenaveh]

Thanks a lot christoph.hopf . You and the community go long way back:) Did you keep one of those T-Shirts? We can trade:). So I did some search and I tried to understand what is CAD integration but couldn't really figure it out. Is it an extension to SAP products that enables you to edit diagrams ? (sorry if I got it all wrong:-0)

[Jelena]

I have an orange SDN shirt! 🙂

[christoph_hopf]

Hi Moshe,

I'm sorry but I won't trade these shirts. 🙂

CAD integration enables "Computer Aided Design" applications like SolidWorks or CATIA to interact withh the ERP system and so you can design your products and store the BOM and document data in the ERP system. For some time there is a new application for this called ECTR.

[agentry_src]

Customer Solution Expert is a grab bag of different activities. For several customers, I am their main point of contact for moving into production (pilot or full release) with their Fiori, SAP Cloud Platform, and associated services. So I get asked a lot of questions, provide a few answers directly and keep an eye on tickets to make sure they are being handled. Sometimes most of what I do is explain things so SAP support/development personnel and the customer/partner both understand the issues the same way. Sometimes I have to go find the right experts to address or find the right person who knows who the right experts are depending on what the topic is. Occasionally, I have to tell customers that what they want is a custom development task and that while developers welcome suggestions (via IdeaPlace), they don't automatically provide changes because an individual customer requests it. In some ways this is what I do in the SAP Community.

In other ways, it is more complex in trying to keep the customer happy while they are asking for free consultant services. Not too often, but it does require saying no on occasion. Most times it simply means pointing them to a different approach to a solution (sort of like suggesting using AH announcements or AEM as a type of content to eliminate using blogs for that purpose). I work with many PM, PO and occasionally sales teams. Usually I come in at the tail end of a sales effort to make the transition to licensee smoother. This type of customer relationship usually extends over more than a year and regardless of changes to my role, I never leave a customer in the lurch. I sometimes receive calls from customers on completely unrelated topics, but always get them a contact which can help them. Often I ask them to let me know how something turns out afterwards and try to follow up at some later time just to make sure.

I have four customers at this time, though one is pretty self-sufficient and our contacts occur every other month or so. Other customers have a single group that I work with, while with one other it is with many multiple different organizations under a global governance. That last customer involves many contacts over the course of a week with calls, emails, and regular meetings with several different focus groups. My role calls for flexibility and responsiveness (this is the most important aspect).

[Jelena]

For several customers, I am their main point of contact for moving into production (pilot or full release) with their Fiori, SAP Cloud Platform, and associated services. 

Those must be some very lucky (or very rich, cough) customers! 🙂

[moshenaveh]

Thanks michael.appleby ! Sounds like you deliver VIP services to your customers. How do you chose them/they are assigned to you? By size? And by pilot do you mean that they do a beta phase for Fiori products? What part do you find most satisfying in your work? The release?

[agentry_src]

Hi Jelena, Moshe,

These customers were all initially contacted during a beta test or controlled availability phase of product launch. They are a mix of different business types. I have a strong background in Oil & Gas and several candidates were from that topic area, but that was more coincidental than deliberate. It does help understand the businesses, but I have also done significant work in Manufacturing, Pharma, Steel Production & Fabrication, Retail, and Electronics/Defense systems, so I am pretty flexible in supporting a wide variety of companies.

The main focus was to get them successfully using the products as well as gathering feedback on what did or didn't work the way they expected. Customer self-selected by pursuing the early adoption of the products (Fiori Cloud and Cloud Platform). Two of the customers came on very early in the Fiori Cloud development process and one of those was the first external customer to go into production with an app. One customer was contacted during that same time period but due to various negotations, did not get licensed until over a year later, but the personal contact were still in place (despite numerous personnel changes at the customer over that time period). The last customer was the result of a request for support by the SAP Cloud Platform PM/PO team and is really more of an as needed basis (there have been other customers in that position in the last year or so). Since I wrote the post above, I got pulled into an additional customer's issue which was only recently resolved and their ticket closed. In all these situations, clear communications and a good network of both developers and Product Support folks resolves the problems. Even to having a call on TechEd Monday morning (very early LV time) with the customer and developer (who was also at TechEd LV) which got the focus on the right area.

Generally, the satisfaction comes for getting the customer live with their implementation. Sometimes it is simply the customer listening and taking action based on our feedback. Since tickets are used to report problems (thereby documenting the issue and later its resolution), there is a sometimes uncomfortable relationship on that front, but we (my self and those folks I drag into help) usually manage to keep it to friendly discussions rather than an adversarial relationship.

Cheers, Mike

[moshenaveh]

Thanks michael.appleby . Sounds very interesting. What is the most creative solution/things you did in your career? Who are the people you've learned from the most?

And what tips would you give Mike Appleby in his first day of his career? What would you do different?

[agentry_src]

Hi Moshe,

Tips:

1. You never know all the answers so cultivate a network. Always assist those in your network as much as you can. You never know when you will need their help in return.
2. Pay it forward and ask those you help to do the same.
3. Collaboration is key and respond to requests promptly, regardless of how you respond.
4. The wrong choice made early usually allows time for recovery.
5. You learn more when things are rough than when everything works.
6. Learn from those who oppose you as much as from those who support you.
7. Irish Diplomacy is often the best diplomacy.
8. You eat the elephant one bite at a time. It either takes a long time or more people to help finish the meal.
9. Don't be afraid to speak up regardless of who's in the audience.
10. Forgive, but don't forget. It is easy to get screwed more than once.
11. Keep confidences. Trust those who do likewise. Don't trust those who can't (see number 10).

One of the oddest things I remember is running a 17 day high volume electronics manufacturing demonstration for the US Air Force at Westinghouse (partnered with Texas Instruments). We had a design flaw in one of the components which was correctible, but only with test equipment at TI and only after it was installed with the rest of the components. So every morning we had to hand carry partially assembled RF hybrid assemblies from Baltimore to Dallas. One of the people from the program office (BG) came in at 5:00 AM, picked up the assemblies, caught the 7:20 AM flight out. Drove to the TI site. Waited for several hours (depending on how many assemblies) while the tuning was done, picked them up and flew back to Baltimore on either the 5:30 or 7:50 PM to put them back into the production line. One of the best parts was BG brought back BBQ (Ribs, brisket, etc.), Cajun food (Jambalaya, Crab/Shrimp Etoufee, Gator tail) and once a huge steak dinner every night for twelve days in a row for me to eat (usually around 11:00 PM). He ended up with a couple free trips from all the miles accumulated playing delivery man. Long, very long, days, very short nights, but ultimately successful (leading to further contracts).

People I have learned from over the course of my career(s). Way too many to list, but I learned from several people in every job I ever had and almost every class while in college which was a lot more than absolutely required for my degree. Four different majors will do that to you. Drill sargeants in basic training, crew chief on the pipeline construction team, my friend and landlord who taught me how to pay it forward, various roomates who helped reconstruct my first house (framing, drywall, plumbing, electrical, flooring and more), customers when working as a consultant (SAP Manufacturing Intelligence and Integration, aka MII), the lead SAP Consultant when working on TM at a major food supplier, and many, many of the people here at SAP throughout my career. All the managers (Jeremy Good, Frank Platt, Robert Holland and Sudhanshu Srivistava) who have supported my efforts with various customers and in SCN/SAP Community.

Boy, do I have diarrhea of the keyboard this morning, but hey, Moshe asked!

[Jelena]

By day, I’m supposed to be doing ABAP development but because the new corporate overlords are taking over our beloved SAP systems, there is not the whole lot of ABAPing required lately. On any given day I might be answering user questions why they cannot ship something (“how many times do I have to explain you people the difference between the order-related and delivery-related billing?!!! Gosh!!!”) or checking why the files were not FTPed somewhere. At the moment, I’m also considering investing in premium LinkedIn account, cough-cough.

By night, I grow long fangs (already have pale skin, dark circles around eyes and red lipstick by day) and pray upon poor unsuspecting SCN members who just want someone to answer their questions. Without a shred of empathy, I drag them to Google or throw them into the moderation pit. [cue The Thriller music] Aa-ha-ha-ha! Aa-ha-ha-ha!

Somewhere in between I cheat on SCN with other online communities, such as City Data, and entertain the kid, his friends, and their parents. Last week we decorated pumpkins. Now we’re preparing for the annual “cookie open house” when we invite a bunch of kids to bake and decorate cookies before Christmas. These Diversity cookies 🙂 and the gingerbread ones are favorites.

[Renan_Correa]

Files FTPed? that is coooool...

I get nostalgic with these things, nowadays people only talk about JSON, REST API`s and microservices they do not know the suffering of using EDI with FTP, AS2 or RVS.

[Jelena]

Hahaha! Oh no, we don't need no fancy APIs here. Give us a flat file by FTP! To be fair though, APIs can fail just as bad sometimes. With FTP, at least you have a file that can be moved manually.

[DiegoDora]

If you like to drag people into google then I think that I'm going to rock your world with this website 🙂
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=SAP+Leonardo

Also know as "Let Me Google That For You"

Check it out! It's absolutely wonderful hehehe!!

That being said, thanks for sharing your "WDYD" with us 🙂

[Jelena]

I've sent quite a few people there in the past but then they complained to the moderators.

[moshenaveh]

jelena.perfiljeva2 thanks! The pumpkins design sounds lovely.

How do you feel ABAP coding evolved since you started working on it? How did you end-up as an ABAP developer? What does it really mean?:)

How would you describe a normal project you engage? What are the steps you take? How do you decide what needs to be done?

[Jelena]

How I started was already mentioned in my old BIF (although it was the evil twin Jelena The First 🙂 ). How my coding evolved is probably vastly different from how ABAP evolved itself. I still don't have access to 7.4 at work, so am just reading about the cutting edge stuff on SCN so far. "Can look but can't touch". 🙂 But at least I already said buh-bye to the table headers, REUSE_ALV..., and SO_NEW_DOCUMENT_SEND_API1, so doing my best.

[siva_vasireddy2]

"pray upon poor unsuspecting SCN members who just want someone to answer their questions. Without a shred of empathy, I drag them to Google or throw them into the moderation pit. [cue The Thriller music] Aa-ha-ha-ha! Aa-ha-ha-ha!"

This reminds many of the members to first google the Topic and then get back to the Blog