Global template and rollouts vs. Solution Directory

[Former Member]

Hello,

I would like to know what is the best way to maintain the global template and the related rollouts documentation.

I know the functionality of Solution Directory, ie. it should be the primary place to maintain a solution in production, changes should be done using maintenance project, checking out scenarios etc. However, my customer is running into a couple of challenges. The current situation is as follows:

- The global template phase I has been finished (containing financial template).

- The global template phase II development is starting (containing logistics template).

- The phase I template has been rolled out to five countries which all are in production.

- The phase I template will continue with new rollouts coming.

- All the country-specific rollouts are actually in one physical SAP system so there is only one system to be maintained.

I see it somehow impossible to try to maintain the template + rollout documentation in one single solution in Solution Directory. There is only one Documentation tab in the solution and if we put all the country-specific documentation there it is a mess. Furthermore, all the rollout projects are separate, it would be difficult to manager rollout projects with one maintenance project. Not to add the fact the compare and adjust functionality applies only to template projects not solution.

I have the feeling that we would need continue maintaining the global template and rollout projects in SolMan Implementantion projects (template + rollout projects, template versions, compare and adjustment etc.). Only if I want to start process monitoring I would use solution but otherwise it cannot be very much utilized at the moment.

Any comments? Have I missed something here now? I would appreciate any practical experiences about this.

Br,

Timo

[ryan_wermager]

Hi Timo -

The situation you are experiencing is similar to what I have seen. And that is...ensuring Solution Directory is the "Single source of the Truth". It is almost impossible when you have two parallel activities going on between 1) SAP implementation projects and 2) SAP maintainence/sustain activities in production.

Solution Manager seems to be a great tool for companies that are in a sustain mode, resolving issues when found in production. We recently decided to change our approach from SAP's recommended and best practice of using the Solution Directory connected to a Maintainence project and implementation projects being seperate rollout initiatives managed seperately. Instead, we have changed our "Solution Manager Landscape" to encompass all activites into a 1 template project. We now don't plan on going back to the SAP best practice of Solution Manager until we are completely done implementing SAP and we have identified what our true business processes are. For example: creating the Business Process Hierarchy.

[Former Member]

what is the best practice in solution manager where you have One global template project and multiple Country specific Implementation projects ?

If you have have continuous implementation projects for one specific country (for .e.g CNT#1), How do you manage this implementation projects ? is it OK to create new implementation project (for e.g IMP#1....#n) by copying the country specific (CNT#1) implementation project ?

I am trying to structure our solution manager to manage this. Any thought will be greatly appreciated.

-Riyaz

[ryan_wermager]

We are managing 1 template project with multiple implementation rollouts (country, site specific) by utilizing the keywords within the project templates area of Solution Manager. As an example we created keyword to distinguish between documentation that is for a specific country and/or site. By doing this, we are able to use SOLAR_EVAL to know which documentation is specific to each country. SAP would say using "keywords" is the best practice.