Super User "Right-Sizing" Exercise

[Former Member]

As many of you know, the Super Users play a tremendously important role during the implementation of SAP.

We have seen further value from the Super Users as they have been involved in new functionality expansion, upgrades, and enhancements. The also serve as our front-line troubleshooters.

I have been asked a theoretical question that I'm hoping some of you may have insight or ideas about. The question is "How do we know that we have the right number of Super Users?". This is being asked now that we have completed our globalization project and will soon complete a global upgrade.

Has anyone made significant changes to their Super User model post-implementation? If so, what did you base the decision on? How did you deliver the change? What worked well, and what didn't work so well?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Andrew

[Former Member]

Dear Andrew. We have been live on a global rollout for 4 years and now going into an upgrade to ECC 6.0. We have recently had a redesign of our super-user role because the role was not very effective because it was considered a part-time role and secondary to running the function for which they were working in. The model we are moving to has a "Process Leader" covering a portion of the business process for a business or region. What we saw as a differentiator was that these "super-users:" needed to be able to look across processes to most effective and not just one process. So for instance a "process leader" would cover Demand Planning, Supply network planning and deployment planning in their process role. They are the experts in the process. There will potentially be experts in Demand Planning who know more about each transaction in DP but the process leader has the knowledge to go across several processes which is where the real benefit is realized. This requires less associates, but they would be by business or region and covering all process areas. They would also have a functional role in the department which they are supporting. I hope this helps.

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

<a href="http://help.sap.com/saphelp_45b/helpdata/en/52/671792439b11d1896f0000e8322d00/content.htm">Securing Super User ( SAP* ) Against Misuse</a>

Best regards,

Tarun

[Former Member]

Dear Andrew,

One Super User would be sufficient if you are sure that only one person at any given point of time would use the same. You need not have one Super User per person (super user).

There should not multiple logins with the Super User. You can have only one if you are sure that there would not be multiple logins.

Regards,

Naveen.

[Former Member]

Andrew, there is no right or wrong answer here.

Super users should stay in place after an implementation, and should be used for UAT of small changes that are made.

Super Users should be used to teach new starters, how to use SAP, and there should be enough cover to cope with sickness and holidays, i.e. at least 2 in each significant team.

However a super user needs to have a day job, and the pull from the business will come, these people are not IT, they are business people and need to do their day job first, and be a super user second.

You also need to consider what happens when a super user leaves.

One nice thing we had with super users is they also were part of the acceptance board for new changes, managers may request a change, but the super user needs to agree to it, this helps in sign off, testing and UAT.

Super Users are business people who feed into the SAP team and play an important part in the relationship between the two departments.