Copying Item Financial and Capacity data to determining Item

[Former Member]

Hi Folks,

I have a typical business process requirement of a pharmaceutical company that I have to map in SAP PPM.

Business processes:

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- In this organisation, people from any business unit and of any job level can log his/her idea in SAP as a Portfolio Item. In this Portfolio item, the idea initiator prepares the brief scope and motivation of the idea (which is only text) along with the annual financial and capacity details. These details then are reviewed by some steering committee members.

- If this idea is approved by the committee, then the idea has some funds to be spent over 5 years. But the financial and capacity planning data is not changed at this point of time because of the obvious reasons that the budget is approved on the initial cost and timeline estimates.

- Now if we consider the statistics of objects being created in the system, there can be 1000 ideas in a year that are created by initiators out of which 50 ideas are approved by steering committee and becomes the operational project.

Problem statement:

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When mapping this requirement in system, I am planning to configure separate item type for ideas and then once they have been approved the user should create a separate item which should then have linked project and all other actuals data. Why this way of design is because the idea will eat up the number range objects as well as very few being linked to actual projects. So I want to keep these items separate.

The problem is that there is no object linking I found between item to item which can copy the financial and capacity data from one to another. Kindly let me know if this is possible.

Thanks in advance!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Aditya,

I do not like the idea that you want to re-create these Items. Another possibility is to set the 'Proposal' flag on the Item Type at Decision Point level (not at Item Type level) - you will set this 'Proposal' flag for the Decision Point/s before approval, and then NOT set this flag for the Decision point/s after approval. Once then approval is granted you will approve the relevant Decision Point reflecting this step which will move the Item to a Decision Point where the proposal flag is no longer active. This will therefore automatically then remove the 'Proposal' flag against the Item. This is a standard mechanism and will also allow you to see the 'Proposal' Items separately from the 'Active' Items in you dashboard scope (i.e. you can in your Item dashboard see the Proposals separately from the Active Items). As for your number range...so what if some numbers are 'used up' - a number range should not have logic associated with it.

Regards
C

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Chatsworth,

Thanks for the reply.

As you explained, in sandbox I have already configured and demonstrated with first 2/3 decision points as 'Proposal' and then onwards next 5 decision points as actual project related decision points. The last 5 project related decision points are linked to project via DFM. The client liked the idea, but there is a challenge.

Before presenting idea to the steering committee, the initiator enters some fancy details into more 50 custom fields to get his/her idea approved. Now this data requires good time to load a single item when opened.

This is the reason why I want to keep "Idea" related item separate to "Approved Project".

Please let me know if there some better way of designing this.

Cheers,

Aditya

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Aditya

This is even more reason why you don't want to be recreating the Item. Or are you saying that you want some information on the original 'Idea' and not have the same amount of information on the 'approved project' ? If this is the case it is not a good design in my opinion

I can only suggest that you revisit all the requirements as 50 + custom fields sounds like a lot of information to carry. You can perhaps rather consolidate some of this information into questionnaires for example. I do not know all the ins and outs of your requirements though

In summary...using the proposal mechanism and also to consolidate your custom fields would be my recommendation. In my opinion you should not use multiple/separate Items

Regards

C

[ashwinipingle]

Hi Aditya,

Duplicating items which are approved will lead to misrepresentation of data. You/whoever will maintain the system will need to be very careful during reports since there is a high chance of double-counting in the reports.

How can you ensure that the original numbers based on which the idea got approved are carried forward to the new item? e.g. A user can get an idea approved for say $X and then create another similar item for $Y. Can you ensure that the new item has exactly the same field values as the original one that got approved? Will the steering committee agree to approve again the new item?

"eat up number range" is not a problem at all, are you anticipating that system will be left with no numbers at all after next 5 years?

For idea management, there is another module by SAP which can capture all ideas. Please evaluate if using "Idea Management" component is feasible.

Please keep me updated on your design decision. I am curious to know.

Regards,

Ashwini Pingle

[Former Member]

Hi Ashwini,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, you point is correct in terms of misinterpretation of data as well as reporting. I will consider this point for sure.

However, as I replied to Chatsworth's post, we have a separate requirement of 50+ custom fields at item level which are mandatory to approve the project work. That is another reason apart from "Number range" and that is driving us to look for separate items options instead of one having all the data.

Also the "Idea Management" module is not in scope, so though being good suggestion we can't go for it.

Please let me know if there could be better solution in terms of design in this particular case.

Cheers,

Aditya.

[ashwinipingle]

Hello Aditya,

Try to see if there is a possibility to dump all the 50+ fields and their values into a custom table along with item id and delete the values from the item. Probably you can lessen the time required to load the page. This is a very "dirty" way of achieving what you want. Reporting will have to be custom. Also users cannot change the values after this dump is taken at a certain point int he workflow. This might work if the users don't want to frequently refer to those 50+ fields after approval. Need to find out how they can see those fields while Portfolio Review.

Better way is to analyze which of those 50+ fields is taking a lot of time -- mostly text fields should not take time to load. Try to check load time starting with 5 fields and then increasing the fields gradually to 50+. My guess is certain type of fields might contribute to higher load time. If this is not the case, then customizing is the option.

Regards,
Ashwini Pingle