SAP SOLUTION MANAGER DOCUMENTATION AND REPOSITORY Ajay Vonkarey
PURPOSE The purpose of this document is to provide a clear picture of the documentation features of SAP Solution Manager and the industry best practices of utilizing other documentation tools. ISSUE The current issue most customer face today is to identify and establish the right place/location/tools for SAP Solution Documentation. During SAP implementations and support, large scale of documents are created, managed and maintained. These include project management documents and SAP Solution documents. CURRENT SCENARIO As customers embark on an SAP implementation various documents need to be created and maintained during the implementation and for an optimized support after go-live. Some of the documents that get generated are: Project Management documents project scope, blueprint, project plan, project charter, Meeting minutes, resources plans SAP Solution Documents Business Process Procedures (BPP s), Design documents, Functional specifications, technical specifications, technical docuemnts
SOLUTION: Most of the customer have already established tools like SharePoint, Documentum as the central documentation storage repository It is quite important the follow the best practice and identify the best location for creating and maintaining these documents. Customers need to weigh the pros/cons of utilizing the tools compared to SAP Solution Manager for documentation SharePoint provides a central repository of all the documents with the business organization. This is used as a portal tool for all business, including IT documentation. On other hand, SAP Solution Manager the Single Source of Truth for the SAP solution, needs to have the solution related documents readily available to utilize functions like implementation, ChaRM, service desk and Business Process Monitoring. Customer need to identify the current needs and long term goal and establish the right documentation and repository tool accordingly. As a quick start and easy to utilize, SharePoint works well during the implementation when there is not a lot of SAP expertise with in the organization. SAP consultants on-board during implementation lean towards using SharePoint do to ease of use and accessibility
SHAREPOINT PROS Quick and easy to deploy Typically a corporate wide documentation and repository tool Easy adoption for both employees and consultants Standard documentation program and flexible to be adopted as per the customers requirements SAP SOLUTION MANAGER SAP Recommended and industry best practice tool for ALM ( Application life cycle mgmt.) and ITSM( IT Service Management) Robust and well designed to implement, manage and optimize an SAP Solution. A long term benefit for the customers, when functions like Business Process Mentoring and ChaRM are enabled No additional license cost part of SAP Enterprise Support
SHAREPOINT CONS Limited or no security or authorizations Additional licensing cost considering new SAP users in the system Additional hardware/database costs SAP SOLUTION MANAGER Takes longer time than SharePoint to deploy Need SME/additional expertise on Solution Manager Not as flexible or adaptable as SharePoint
APPROACH: Typically implementation projects are under tight schedule and budgets. Customers can get started using SharePoint as the standard documentation and repository tool All the documents including technical and functional can be created and housed in SharePoint Solution Manger can be setup to add the links to these documents in the Business Process hierarchy A web link can be added specific to these documents in the Solution Manager Business Process Hierarchy ( SOLAR01/SOLAR02 Transaction) During or after the implementation go-live, these documents can be migrated into Solution Manager in a phased approach The eventual goal for the customer is to have all the Solution related documents ( BPP s, Design documents, Functional/Technical Specs.) in SAP Solution Manager After go-live and for an optimized maintenance, these documents will be used for: Business Process Monitoring ChaRM Change Request Management BPCA Business Process Change Analyzer