Slicing the elephant

– how we started to use SAP Solution Manager at Volvo Group...

All companies running SAP need to use SAP Solution Manager to some extent. I will describe how we started to use the product at Volvo Group to give you some inspiration to take more of the functionalities in use. As SAP gradually has positioned more and more services and functionalities in this product it can be a bit over-whelming trying to figure out how to start. So, I hope to inspire you to look into the product. In Sweden we also have a Solution Manager Focus group for information sharing; at the end of the article you find more information on this.
SAP Solution Manager is a big elephant, so how should you slice it to be able to swallow the first bite? At Volvo Group it started like this...

The SAP landscape was expanding with more SAP components, more systems every day. Change and Transport Administration was taking a lot of time both from the application management teams and from the Basis team as the SAP Transport Management System was not used. When SAP introduced Change Request management in Solution Manager Volvo IT started a pre-study and evaluation as a ramp-up customer. At about the same time Volvo Group had concluded that they needed to be Sox compliant as it was noted on the US stock exchange. One of the main IT controls was to have good change request management procedures in place and after the conclusion of the pre-study Solution Manager was appointed as the tool to be used in the SAP environment.

We started the implementation in the autumn 2005 with a first pilot in December 2005 and between January and September the appointed financially critical systems were all linked to Solution Manager and running Change Request Management.

It was a fast project, driven by the need to live up to the Sox demands as interpreted by the Volvo Group. The first year was hard both for business and IT as the ways of working had to be greatly altered. No quick fixes were possible; changes had to be agreed with the Business System Owner before development could start. For IT it was sometimes frustrating not being able to fix a small problem without a long approval process. During 2007 and 2008 the processes have been accepted and even liked and also partly adjusted to allow for separate maintenance changes and specific handling of implementation projects.

The result for the Business has been a clearer view of what changes are performed in the systems and a better control of what functionalities are requested from the key users/ super users of the applications. For IT and Business, a better view on who does what in the process, a better test procedure where test results are documented and approvals are logged and stored in the same tool. Less time is spent on transport administration for the basis department. We have also seen a reduction of the number of changes and times when changes are moved to the productive system environment.

First cut is the deepest...

So, for us the first slice was the Change Request Management but in the mean time SAP put demands that all the Early Watch Alerts should be run via Solution Manager. Gradually all the SAP systems and clients were connected to Solution Manager.

Then SAP made it mandatory to type in a key generated from Solution manager to be able to install a new system. That ensured that no new SAP system could be set up without being defined in Solution Manager.

So, gradually SAP has steered us to a situation where Solution Manager is the hub containing information about the complete SAP system landscape. The Solution Landscape Directory – SLD from the PI/XI component is also interacting with Solution Manager to get the information about Java based system into Solution Manager.

In spring 2008 we activated the Java stack in Solution Manager to make it possible to use the Solution Manager Diagnostics or as it is also called E2E Root cause analysis, which is demanded to have in place for receiving SAP support on newer SAP components with Java functionalities.

This tool has been used in a handful of systems during 2008 and has proved helpful when running performance testing of new functionalities in the portal. I can´t say it is used extensively yet but we do not have that much Java based functionalities either.

We used to have System Monitoring (CCMS) in a separate system but this will gradually move into Solution Manager starting from now. For this the new user interface through Work Centers will be taken in use for the Basis team as it gives you nice reporting and views on the system alerts defined.

For Volvo IT, Solution Manager is useful for the SAP system administration and operations and is centrally positioned in the middle of the SAP landscape. SAP is gradually centralising many new functionalities to Solution Manager which on one hand is very good, on the other hand give high demands on HOW you maintain and operate the Solution manager system. It is good but also a bit scary as so much functionality is depending on, and residing in one system. The demands of availability are high and it is also important that the system performance is good and stable. So far our experiences are good, we have been struggling with the system response times, but over all the system has been robust and stable.

Getting into the back-bones...

If you consider how Solution Manager was introduced we at Volvo started with the newer functionalities and have later, from 2007, taken a bite at the oldest parts, the documentation and project management slice. The old ASAP methodology on how to implement SAP solutions was included in Solution Manager and has been extended and is constantly updated.

What you find in Solution Manger today are the different SAP Roadmaps that give you guidance on HOW to run an SAP implementation, both a one-shot implementation and roll-out of a global solution to different entities, upgrade project, implementation from a technical view et cetera.

The other leg of the project tool is how you use Solution Manager to scope your solution based on the SAP Business Process Repository where you find the SAP standard business processes and what SAP transaction codes are used to run a certain business process.

In Solution manger you define the Business Process in a project structure and store all documentation related to the implementation such as Business requirements, specifications, business rules and decisions. Based on the stored documents a Business blueprint can be aggregated/generated as a base for the realisation. The same structure is re-used to store configuration documentation, development specifications, test cases and you can also create test plans and follow up on testing.

So, starting in 2007 the first projects used part of this functionality and we also defined what is now called Project Framework. The Project Framework is a Volvo specific set of document templates and instructions to use when running an SAP implementation and combines general Volvo IT methodologies with SAP practices.

For the Volvo Group common financial solution, a complete methodology how to roll-out the finance solution to new companies was defined in a Volvo created Roadmap.
For this common Financial Solution the business processes was modeled with IDS Aris tools and synchronised with Solution Manager. The Business processes are published on the Intranet with links to the documentation stored in the Solution Manager structure. These models are used to introduce new companies to the common financial processes used in the Volvo Group. There is also a link from the process model to a SAP training system (and vice versa) to make it possible to directly experience the system functionalities.

The benefit of using Solution Manager as a documentation store is of course that you find all documents in one place. The structure makes it easy to find relevant documentation and also to store documents more intuitively. When a project has gone live all documentation is easy to hand-over to maintenance.

One of the nice “easy to use” functionalities is the possibility to bundle documentation and send it to relevant users; the Learning Maps. Once you have stored documents in your solution manager project structure you can generate an html page listing the documents in chapters. The page makes it possible to open and read the documents stored in Solution Manager.

The driver here is of course to be able to reduce time for class room training. Through the published Business processes the new users get an overview of the process, can navigate to documentation describing the process in different level of detail, they can jump to the training system and run the processes or process steps and have the Learning map as a compilation of the most important documentation.

What we currently are including in the process is the link between the stored documentation and the change request management. As we all know documentation tend to be neglected and not updated; with this possibility given in the Solution Manager Enterprise extension you can get a system support to link with the documentation that needs to be updated when a change is done.

Not full yet...

At Volvo we will constantly consider if and how Solution Manager can help to reduce cost and time for the solution operation, support and maintenance of the SAP landscape. It is a tool to facilitate and standardize, to reduce time spent on the everyday activities, mainly for the IT department. The intention is of course also to give a better transparency and control to the business, mainly to solution and system owners. The business benefits are there to reap but as always, you need to decide what the needs are in your specific situation. For Volvo, Solution Manager has given advantages such as better quality control but it has also caused a need to review our processes and ways of working for IT as well as Business.

So, what other parts are we
nibbling on now?

• Solution directory – we have not really taken that in use yet but that is planned for 2009. We are looking at the possibility to use the Interface repository as we have many standard interfaces that are used in different SAP systems. .

• With the new demands from 2009 to have SAP issued maintenance certificates for the SAP systems to be able to download support packs and enhancement packs for the Net weaver environment the SLM, Software Lifecycle Management, is something to look into.

• License Administration Workbench – LAW, we will include that in Solution Manager as it makes sense to have it running in the central hub.

• CTS+ or One-transport-Order. We have made some tests to combine the java and abap in the same transport request and move it with the TMS. Next step would be to put the Change Request Management on top.

• Enhancing the ChaRM processes to be able to plan and follow-up on lead-times and other KPIs

Well, the list could be longer…
An elephant is a real big animal and even though we have started to take a few bites SAP is adding to the elephant all the time and I think it is starting to look more like a mammoth. But a mammoth and an elephant are related so you should be able to slice a mammoth too!

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