Estimating SAP PPM implementation

[dpitp]

Dear community,

I am involved in a project evaluation for a SAP PPM 5.0 implementation.

The goal and first step is to use Resource Management from SAP PPM 5.0.

Besides all the information I am able to gather within the marketplace and SCN, I can't get a feeling what time is needed to implement PPM for the use of resource management.

So far we can estimate our time/costs for:

• Technical installations of hardware and software
• SAP Licences

Where we miss a feeling for the time/costs are:

• Basis configuration following the master and configuration guides
• Advanced customizing for project creation, project roles, tasks, etc.
• Integrating of already customized and prepared components/applications like CATS

I would appreciate your experiences and questions-need-to-be-asked of any kind related to my request.

SAP PPM 6.0 is not an option yet, still I like to consider any pitfalls if we would upgrade to 6.0 in a later point in time.

kindly

Darijo

[TudorRiscutia · Accepted solution]

Hello Darijo,

Well, installing the standard PPM 5.0 is not that complicated. You basically need to activate a lot of services.

If your company already uses SAP business partners, it should be really smooth to integrate Resource Management. You'll just have to create your company-specific roles (that's done via customizing). I assume you want to start using cProjects. Also, I recommend that only after you have a stable cProjects and Resource Mgt., you start implementing Portfolio Mgt.

Depending on your "company-specific" requirements and the available resources (that is, SAP developers) you should try to estimate how much it takes to customize/configure and enhance the SAP standard to fit your business processes. In my case, the company wants to "reinvent" project management, so we changed a lot in the standard (project is ongoing for almost 2 years).

CATS integration is achieved by PPM-PS integration, which is already prepared in the standard and only needs a little configuration.

As for the 6.0 version, it is mainly designed for HANA usage and SMP (Mobile). If you don't have either of those, I suggest you skip it and go with the 5.0.

Hope this makes things a little clear...

Tudor

[dpitp · Accepted solution]

Hello Tudor,

thank you very much for your answer. It helps me already to get a better understanding.

As for PPM 6.0 I see the same and follow your suggestion. We will focus on PPM 5.0.

Still I got many questions

a)

Is it possible to run Resource Management without any backend, i.e. create ressources manually within PPM? The management likes to follow a step by step approach, so that integrating HCM in a later point in time. Does this causes any severe problems?

b)

Using Portfolio Management is not planned for now. I asume we can ignore the most of the config for Portfolio for now - right?

c)

You say "....Depending on your "company-specific" requirements" - can this be done by activating certain BADi?
Actually I think we will start with the given standard, but have no idea if this will be sufficient.
What were the main reasons in your project to perform changes in PPM? Why reinvent?

d)

We are using CATS - but have no PS running. Is this a requirement in order to integrate CATS with PPM?

e)

As for configuration and customizing I will follow the Master Guide, ConfigContPPM50SP11 and the SAP Notes.

Do you got any suggestions or recommendations for other documents or sources besides this and help.sap.com or SCN?

Kind regards

Darijo

[TudorRiscutia · Accepted solution]

Hello Darijo,

a) I guess so, but you should know that Resource Management is based on Business Partners. And usually, these are maintained in the HR system, although you can manually create them using T-code BP. For test purposes in a DEV/QA system it should be alright if you create them manually. But if you later do this in the productive system, you might have some errors on the long run.

b) Yes, Portfolio is a separate "object", so you can leave it out.

c) In my case, the company has a very specific product engineering process which was previously supported by 7 (yes, seven) different tools. They wanted to merge all these tools into one, having also extended features. So you can imagine they wanted quite a lot of changes, especially since we had to migrate the existing data.

Normally, it is recommended to keep the standard as much as possible, although not everything can be achieved by customizing.

d) Well, CA-TS can be integrated with PS/PM/HR/CO/MM. These are the standard possibilities. Other than that, I guess you can integrate it with whatever, but you'll have to create and maintain this yourself. We use PS mainly for cost calculations...

PPM (at least the cProjects) was designed to integrate closely with PS.

e) There isn't a lot of documentation you can find. So you'll have to figure it out yourself. I suggest you also read this book (even though is not that technical).

By the way, we also have some SAP consultants helping us with the implementation.

Also, this is a document I created (I plan to do more, but I don't always find the time)

Tudor

[dpitp · Accepted solution]

Hello Tudor,

thank you again for the valuable answers and comments.

It is very interesting what the reason was in your companies case. Sounds like a very challenging project!

Still, I am trying to figure out how much workload will result with our first implementation.

My greatest help is indeed the recommended book you mentioned in your last comment.

That is my main reference to everything in PPM.

What I know so far is:

• We will not focus on Portfolio Management yet
• We will start with manual resource creation and assignment
• Our strategy is to start small and extend the solution by time
• No integration with other backend systems (no HCM, no PS) or MS Projects
• We will consider to integrate CA-TS and link to internal orders
• Standard config as much as possible

My estimation so far is (following mostly the chapters in XRPM handbook and IMG):

• Install software and basis administration by our basis team (DEV system) - 5 days
• Basic configuration for PPM according IMG - 5 days?
• Define and configuration of project types and structure - 5 days?
• Advanced settings for project structure (define phase types, checklists, etc.) - 5 days?
• Setting up document management of cProjects - 3 days
• Setting up project roles for resource management - 3 days?
• Setting up stand alone business partners - 3 days?
• Setting up evaluation functions to analyze operative project data - 5 days?
• ...what else is important?

For sure there are some more tasks to consider - and I would appreciate to know what they would be for a basic solution with resource management.

What workload will it cause approximately in our (small) case?

Any comment and thoughts are welcome.

Thanks

Darijo