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SM001 Intro SAP Solution Manager
SM001 Intro SAP Solution Manager
Module Objectives
• Define the SAP Solution Manager and discuss the benefits of using the various tools offered
• Discuss the benefits of using SAP Solution Manager
• Define the ASAP methodology and the phases of the Implementation Roadmap
• Explain the features and benefits of using SAP Solution Manager for implementation
• Describe the role SAP Solution Manager plays in the day-to-day operations and support of
SAP solutions
Module Content
• SAP Solution Manager Overview
• AcceleratedSAP (ASAP) Methodology
• SAP Solution Manager as Toolset for Implementation
• SAP Solution Manager as Toolset for Operations and Continuous Improvement
Target Audience
• Consultants
• Project Managers
• Project Team Leads
• Project Team Members
• IT Service Desk Managers
• IT Service Desk Members
SAP Solution Manager Overview
About This Topic
It is important to have a clear understanding of SAP Solution Manager in the overall context of an
SAP solution implementation. This topic helps define the purpose and benefits of using Solution
Manager.
Business Example
As your project moves into the planning stage, project team members of need a high-level overview
of the SAP Solution Manager. Since the project will include multiple solutions consisting of
potentially complex system landscapes, it is imperative to provide consistent and persistent
documentation of the existing systems and the planned systems. Understanding the benefits of a
central repository is essential.
Objective(s)
• Define "SAP Solution Manager"
• State the general purpose of SAP Solution Manager
• Identify the multiple usage scenarios of SAP Solution Manager
• List the benefits of using SAP Solution Manager
The SAP Solution Manager is a separate, complete Web Application Server installation that is
connected to all systems in your solution landscape. These various systems are called satellite
systems.
In this way, SAP Solution Manager acts as the central system of your solution landscape, allowing
business processes to be implemented, tested, and even monitored in an integrated manner, thus
avoiding duplication of effort and information and streamlining your activities.
Increasingly Complex Systems
In the last few years, the IT world of SAP customers has grown much more complex. Instead of one
single SAP R/3 system, there are now extensive system landscapes distributed over the entire globe
involving different solutions. Thus, it has become much more complicated to manage all of the
components of the various solutions.
The management process has also become more complicated for SAP itself. For example, over the
last several years, SAP has consolidated separate information sources and services into the SAP
Service Marketplace (service.sap.com). By having a solution management system at every customer
site, SAP can offer a virtually seamless link from customer systems to the service marketplace,
helping to reduce the time for support, notes access, and so on.
There are several reasons to implement SAP Solution Manager. First, SAP Solution
Manager enables the customer to have a faster implementation of SAP solutions and helps
optimize operations once implementation is complete.
Second, implementing SAP Solution Manager gives the customer access to all available
implementation and upgrade content.
Third, customers have easy access to all support services that are relevant to operations,
maintenance, and improvement activities. This leads to faster issue resolution through
close collaboration with Active Global Support.
There are many scenarios in which SAP Solution Manager can be used. Each scenario occurs in
one of the three life cycle phases, implementation, operations, and optimization. This is also
known as the cycle of continuous improvement.
There are six common scenarios for Solution Manager. They are:
• Implement SAP Solutions
• Monitor SAP Solutions
• Manage the Service Desk
• Link to SAP Services
• Manage Change Requests
• Upgrade SAP Solutions
Benefits of SAP Solution Manager: 1
Audio Transcript
Solution Manager provides many benefits for the customer. One of the benefits is more reliable IT
solutions. With SAP Solution Manager, companies can minimize risk during implementation and
operation. They can avoid inconsistencies in heterogeneous environments by performing cross-
component consistency checks. With the SAP Solution Manager Service Desk, customers can
resolve issues quickly. The result is better IT service and less down time.
The tools and content provided by SAP Solution Manager make implementation and change
management projects more efficient. Companies can reduce the cost of process design, technical
setup, business setup, support and operations, testing, and knowledge transfer. Centralized project
handling, blueprinting, configuration, and testing ensure consistency and avoid redundancies,
which reduces the cost of implementation projects in multi-component environments.
SAP Solution Manager provides a framework for consistent solution documentation and preserves
documents for later use, which reduces the costs of upgrades or continuous improvement projects.
Another benefit of SAP Solution Manager is faster return on investment. SAP Solution Manager
accelerates implementation and continuous improvement. It provides implementation accelerators
and a library of preconfigured business processes as a starting point for projects. This means that
companies don't need to begin from scratch, and can benefit from SAP’s business process
experience. Content and services available through SAP Solution Manager – such as
implementation road maps, best-practice documents, and SAP solution management services, –
speed learning and accelerate projects.
Using Solution Manager can also reduce the cost of operation by providing a central point of
control for multi-component environments. In heterogeneous environments, SAP Solution Manager
facilitates technical and application integration.
Finally, Solution Manager gives the customer more leverage from their IT investments. SAP
Solution Manager and integrates with IT landscapes that include both SAP and non-SAP
applications. Companies can use it to reduce their total cost of ownership without making major
changes to their IT environments.
More Benefits of SAP Solution Manager
Summary
This topic provided an overview of SAP Solution Manager. You reviewed the uses of SAP Solution
Manager, such as allowing customers to integrate their SAP Solutions and manage other
components, including the SAP Service Desk. You also learned about the many benefits of
implementing SAP Solution Manager, such as faster ROI and reduced cost of operations.
Finally, you learned that SAP Solution Manager is a separate installed Web Application Server that
offers a complete tool set to manage the life cycle of customer solutions.
Business Example
Project progress managers need a proven and repeatable methodology for planning and executing
the many activities involved. A thorough understanding of this methodology is required.
Objective(s)
• State the purpose of AcceleratedSAP (ASAP)
• List the available ASAP roadmaps
• List the five phases of the Implementation Roadmap and identify the purpose of each
ASAP roadmaps outline the activities involved in implementing, upgrading, or enhancing SAP
solutions. Each roadmap has a set of deliverables, accelerators, role descriptions and additional
guides. The five standard roadmaps are listed on this screen.
• The Implementation Roadmap for SAP Solutions provide the methodological framework for
the project team during the implementation of an SAP solution.
• The Solution Management Roadmap provides a methodology for the implementation of the
technical infrastructure and its operation.
• The Global Template Roadmap describes how to organize and run a project where a
corporate template is developed.
• The Upgrade Roadmap is designed to help you carry out the customizing activities required
for an upgrade.
• There are also other roadmaps, such as the Enterprise Portal and Exchange Infrastructure
roadmaps, but we do not go into detail on these here..
To learn more about the each roadmap, move your pointer over the name of the item you want to
learn more about.
ASAP roadmaps outline the activities involved in implementing, upgrading, or enhancing SAP
solutions. These roadmaps are enriched with set of deliverables, accelerators, role descriptions, and
additional guides. The five standard roadmaps are listed below. To learn more about the functions of
each, move your pointer over the name of the item you want to learn more about.
Implementation Roadmap
• Implementation Roadmap for SAP Solutions provides the methodological framework for the
project team to leverage in the implementation of a SAP solution. It covers, among other
things, the necessary project management, requirements gathering, design, configuration of
business processes, technical implementation, test procedures, training and organization
change management.
Solution Management Roadmap
• The Solution Management Roadmap provides a methodology for the implementation of the
technical infrastructure and its operation. The Solution Management Roadmap complements
the Implementation Roadmap.
Upgrade Roadmap
• The Upgrade Roadmap is designed to help you carry out the customizing activities required
for an upgrade. These customizing activities are essential if you want to continue to use the
same functions in your business application components after an upgrade.
Other Roadmaps
• The Enterprise Portal and Exchange Infrastructure roadmaps are simply variations of the
Implementation Roadmap.
Summary
In this topic, you reviewed the basics of the ASAP methodology. You learned that the ASAP
methodology is fully integrated into SAP Solution Manager, and Accelerated SAP roadmaps
provide content, tools, and expertise from thousands of successful implementations.
You also learned that there are several roadmaps available to the customer, the most popular being
the Implementation Roadmap. Finally, you learned that the Implementation Roadmap has five
phases: Project Preparation, Business Blueprint, Realization, Final Preparation, and Go Live &
Support.
Business Example
Project progress managers are responsible for several areas of an implementation project, from
requirements gathering and definition to configuration and testing. Coordination of these activities
demands one toolset. SAP Solution Manager supports you through each phase of your project,
from planning to testing and hand-over to operations.
Objective(s)
• Identify project management features of the SAP Solution Manager
• List the various elements of the Implementation Roadmap
• Identify the features of the Business Blueprint transaction in an SAP Solution Manager
system
• List the most commonly used components within the Configuration transaction of the SAP
Solution Manager
This screen describes the various elements of the Implementation Roadmap. These elements are the
roadmap structure, the viewing area and the attachment area.
As the graphic illustrates, the Roadmap Structure is located on the left-hand side of the screen and
gives the project a list of items that outlines what to do and when to do it.
The viewing/text area, on the upper right side of the screen, displays procedural guides,
prerequisite information, and deliverables of the highlighted structure items.
Finally, the attachments area on the lower right-side of the screen displays various items, such as
accelarators, issues, supplemental documentation, and project team members responsible for the
tasks listed in the roadmap structure.
The main elements of the Implementation Roadmap are:
• Roadmap structure
• Viewing/text area
• Attachments area
The roadmap structure gives the project team a list of what to do and when to do it. This appears
on the left-side of the screen displayed. The roadmap structure can be filtered by roles so that each
team member can focus only on those items requiring their attention.
The viewing/text area, on the upper right-side of the screen, displays procedural guides,
prerequisite information, and deliverables of the highlighted structure items on the left-side of the
screen.
The attachments area on the lower right-side of the screen displays various items, such as
accelerators, issues, and supplemental documentation. In this area you can also carry-out various
tasks, such as assigning project team members and tracking the status of the highlighted item in the
roadmap structure.
The Business Blueprint Structure is displayed on the left side of the screen. This structure is
developed in the business process workshops. All requirements are recorded and associated with a
structure item. The content used to establish the structure is found in the Business Process
Repository.
The business structure displayed on this screen is based on Business Scenarios. The business
scenarios are defined first. Then, supporting business process groups are chosen from the Business
Process Repository, based on those scenarios.
On the right side of the screen, associated items are available to support the line-items in the
structure on the left. Additional features, such as project documentation, transaction assignments
and graphical flow of processes are also available.
Once the blueprint structure is finalized, the blueprint document can be generated and becomes the
“master plan” for the realization phase of the project.
The Business Blueprint structure is displayed on the left side of the screen. This structure is
developed through the business process workshops; all requirements gathered are recorded and
associated with a structure item. The content used to establish the structure is found in the
Central repository for components of SAP Solution Manager solutions. These components can be:
• Structure elements: organizational units, master data, processes and process steps
• Assignments to structure elements such as transactions or IMG activities
Business Process Repository (BPR).
The business structure displayed on this screen is based on a business scenario. The business
scenarios are first defined, and then supporting business process groups are chosen from the BPR
based on those scenarios.
These decisions are based upon the activities outlined in the Business Blueprint phase of the
Implementation Roadmap, where workshops are organized with the purpose of defining the
business process needs of the project.
On the right side of the screen, associated items are available to support the line items in the
structure on the left. Additional features such as project documentation, transaction assignments,
and graphical flow of processes are also available.
Once the blueprint structure is finalized, the blueprint document can be generated and becomes
the "master plan" for the realization phase of the project.
Components of the Configuration Transaction
The purpose of the Configuration transaction is to use the Business Blueprint structure to configure
IMG objects in your development system. Here is a list of the most commonly used components
available in the Configuration transaction:
• Project documentation
• Transaction assignments
• Configuration of IMG objects
• Development items
• Test cases
• Graphics
• Training materials
Using the blueprint document generated in the Business Blueprint phase, the project team will go
into the Configuration transaction in the SAP Solution Manager to customize the attached
development system. Customization is the configuration of the Implementation Guide (IMG)
(Implementation Guide (IMG) A tool for configuring the SAP system to meet customer
requirements. The Implementation Guide (IMG) explains all the steps in the implementation
process, tells you the SAP standard (factory) Customizing settings, and describes the system
configuration activities. The hierarchical structure of the IMG is based on the application
component hierarchy and lists all the documentation that is relevant to implementing the SAP
system. The main section is IMG Customizing activities, where the relevant system settings are
made. You can also document projects in the IMG such as:
• The SAP Reference IMG
• The Enterprise IMG
• The Project IMG)
Implementation Guide (IMG) objects in the target system. The blueprint structure is replicated in
the configuration screen. The associated items on the right side of the screen provide a place for
documentation, administration, tracking, IMG objects to be configured, test cases, and team
members assigned.
Let's walk through the test workflow outlined on this screen. First, a project structure is created and
test cases are collected. In the second step, the collected test cases are assigned to different test
packages in the project structure. Then, the test packages are given to the assigned testers the
project. The test packages are executed and then the test results are analyzed.
The benefits of this systems are:
• Fast test preparation and execution
• A single point of access to the complete system landscape
• Central storage of testing material and test results
and
• Re-use of existing testing material
This figure shows the components of the testing workflow, from the building of test plan to the
execution of the test cases within the plan to the analysis of results.
The benefits of the testing features include:
• Reduced time for test preparation and execution
• Single point of access to complete system landscape
• Central storage of testing material and test results
• Re-use of existing testing material
Summary
This topic focused on the various tool sets available in SAP Solution Manager. You reviewed the
major project management features such as links to Microsoft Project and a work breakdown
structure. You also learned about features of the Implementation Roadmap, such as the roadmap
structure and the accelerators area. Finally, you reviewed the major features of both the Blueprint
and Configuration transactions.
The operations section of the SAP Solution Manager is the point of access to SAP support services,
including remote services, on-site services, self-services, and best practices documents. Based on
your solution configuration, recommendations for these services are triggered dynamically. The
SAP Solution Manager is the delivery platform for services delivered as part of your maintenance
agreement with SAP.
This topic will introduce you to the functions available through Solution Manager that can help
manage, support, and optimize the productive environment. Features such as solution monitoring,
Service Desk, and Change Request Management (Change Request Management means Component
of SAP Solution Manager used to manage SAP Solution Manager projects (maintenance,
implementation, template, and upgrade) from top to bottom: starting with change management and
project planning, through resource management and cost control, to physical transports of changes
from the development environment into the productive environment.) are defined.
Business Example
Project progress has successfully reached the Go Live stage of the implementation, and hand-over
to the operations staff is forthcoming. IT managers require a single, comprehensive tool to help
them effectively implement and manage solutions within multiple system landscapes.
Estimated time to complete this topic: 30 minutes
Objective(s)
• Describe the concept of Solution Monitoring using the SAP Solution Manager
• Explain the capability of the service desk features in SAP Solution Manager
• Describe some advanced features of the SAP Solution Manager
Once we have a live production system, Solution Manager takes on the role of a central system that
integrates tools such as system monitoring, business process monitoring and the help desk.
Solution Manager is a powerful tool because it is your gateway to SAP Support. Based on your
solution configuration, Solution Manager automatically triggers recommendations for services
such as remote consulting, self-services, and best practice documents.
We'll examine these features in more detail.
The increasing number of IT solutions is a growing challenge for the administration team in a
computer center. As a result, computer center managers demand a monitoring method that is
centralized (with all information in one tool), yet can be extended to cover new components.
Instead of classic system monitoring of individual system components, we now talk about solution
monitoring, where entire business processes can be monitored across multiple components. This
concept is realized through the following three monitoring sections within the SAP Solution
Manager: Business Process Monitoring, Central System Monitoring, and Service Level
Management.
The continually increasing number of IT solutions and components is a growing challenge for the
administration team in a computer center. The number of components has increased from what was
required with SAP R/3 (including SAP instances, database, hardware, and operating system) to
include an ever-growing range of technologies. As a result of this development, computer center
managers demand a monitoring method that is centralized (with all information in one tool), yet can
be extended to cover new components.
Instead of classic system monitoring of individual system components, we now talk about Solution
Monitoring, where entire business processes can be monitored as a whole across multiple
components. This concept is realized through the following three monitoring sections within the
SAP Solution Manager:
Monitoring Recommendations
Use Service Level Management in the SAP Solution Manager to lay the foundation for setting up
the correct procedures for monitoring of your SAP solution. The recommended technique is to
define an explicit monitoring concept for central system monitoring using the Computing Center
Management System (CCMS) in conjunction with the SAP Solution Manager. This form of system
monitoring, that starts with monitoring all business-process-relevant system components, is known
as the inside-out approach. The complementary outside-in approach involves using tools from third-
party manufacturers. To achieve comprehensive monitoring, SAP recommends using both
approaches simultaneously.
The service desk offers a complete infrastructure for running a solution-wide support organization
at your site.
Features of the service desk include:
• a Message handling process
• a Customer solution database
• SAP Notes Management
• Solution Manager Diagnostics
Now that we have talked about some of the features of solution monitoring, we will look at another
component of the SAP Solution Manager: Service Desk. The service desk offers a complete
infrastructure for organizing and operating a solution-wide support organization at your site.
Features include:
Summary
This topic reviewed the Solution Manager functions that help manage, support, and optimize the
productive environment. The features included solution monitoring and the service desk. You also
learned about advanced features of solution manager such as Change Request Management and
Solution Manager Diagnostics.
Module Summary
This product provided an overview of SAP Solution Manager. You reviewed the uses of SAP
Solution Manager, such as allowing customers to integrate their SAP Solutions and manage other
components, including the SAP Service Desk. You also learned that the ASAP methodology is fully
integrated into SAP Solution Manager, and Accelerated SAP roadmaps provide content, tools, and
expertise from thousands of successful implementations.
You learned about the major features of both the Blueprint and Configuration transactions and how
you can use these features to develop your own customized structure. Finally, you reviewed the
features included in solution monitoring and the service desk and how these features help manage,
support, and optimize the productive environment.