Wednesday, August 15, 2012

ASAP Methodology

ASAP stands for Accelerated SAP methodology which is used to implement and deliver the project efficiently.
The five stages of ASAP methodologies are-

Project plan, Business Blue print, Realization, Final preparation & Go-Live - support.

1. Project Preparation: In this phase the system landscape will be set up.
2. Business Blueprint: It is a detailed documentation of your company's requirements. (I.e. what are the objects we need to develop are modified depending on the client's requirements).
3. Realization: In this only, the implementation of the project takes place (development of objects etc)
And we are involved in the project from here only.
4. Final Preparation: Final preparation before going live i.e. testing, conducting pre-go-live, end user training etc.
End user training is given that is in the client site you train them how to work with the new environment, as they are new to the technology.
5. Go-Live & support: The project has gone live and it is into production. The Project team will be supporting the end users.

The BW ASAP Methodology Implementation Project phases:
1.Project Preparation / Requirement Gathering
2 Business Blueprint
3 Realization
4 Final Preparation
5 GO Live & Support

1. Project Preparation / Requirement Gathering:

Collect requirement thru interviews with Business teams /Core users / Information Leaders.
Study& analyze KPI’s (key figures) of Business process.
Identify the measurement criteria's (Characteristics).
Understand the Drill down requirements if any.
Understand the Business process data flow if any.
Identify the needs for data staging layers in BW – (i.e need for ODS if any)
Understand the system landscape.
Prepare Final Requirements Documents in the form of Functional Specifications containing:
Report Owners,
Data flow,
KPI’s,
Measurement criteria’s,
Report format along with drilldown requirements.

2. Business Blueprint:

Check Business content against the requirements
Check for appropriate
Info Objects - Key figures & Characters
Check for Info cubes / ODS
Check for data sources & identify fields in source system
Identify Master data
Document all the information in a file – follow standard templates

Prepare final solution
Identify differences (Gaps) between Business Content & Functional
Specification, Propose new solutions/Developments & changes if required at different levels such as Info Objects, Info cube, Data source etc. Document the gaps& respective solutions proposed– follow standard templates
Design& Documentation
Design the ERD & MDM diagrams for each cube & related objects
Design the primary keys/data fields for intermediate Storage in ODS
Design the Data flow charts right from data source up to Cube .
Consider the performance parameters while designing data models
Prepare High level / Low level design documents for each data model. --- follow standard templates

Identify the Roles & Authorizations required and Document it – follow standard templates
Final review of design with core BW users.
Sign off the BBP documents

In this phase you create a blueprint using the Question & Answer database (Q&Adb), which documents your enterprise’s requirements and establishes how your business processes and organizational structure are to be represented in the SAP System. You also refine the original project goals and objectives and revise the overall project schedule in this phase.

Functional requirements should cover minimum of the below check list
Business Objectives and Benefits
Business Scope and Events
Business Process Scope
Future state process improvements
Business KPI s
Reporting Requirements
System/Client Strategy Interface Requirements
Source System Mapping
Field availability (Master data + Transaction data)
Transformation details
Data availability frequency
Data availability type
System availability and Outage window
Data load dependencies
History Data Load availability
Data Volume
Data Reconciliation
Data retention
Contingency Planning
Authorizations
Transport Strategy
Capacity /Resource Planning
Gap Analysis
Integration and Policy/SOX consideration
Support– Service Level support /Production support
Change Management

Technical requirements - Take a BI report ,translate functional requirements in to technical design.
Map KF, Characteristics, Free Char, RKF,CKF

3. Realization

Check& Apply Latest Patches/Packages ...in BW & R/3 systems.
Activate/Build& enhance the cubes/ODS as per data model designs...maintain the version documents.
Identify& activate Info objects / Master data info sources / attributes ,prepare update rules
Assign data sources .prepare transfer rules , prepare multi providers . prepare Info packages .
Perform the unit testing for data loads….both for master data & transaction data .
develop& test the end user queries .
Design the process chains ,schedule & test
create authorizations / Roles …assign to users ..and test
Apply necessary patches & Notes if any .
freeze& release the final objects to quality systems
perform quality tests .
Re design if required . (document changes, maintain versions)

4. Final Preparations:
Prepare the final check list of objects to be released .identify the dependencies & sequence of release

Perform Go Live checks as recommended by SAP in production system

Keep up to date Patch Levels in Production system

Test for production scenarios in a pre-production system which is a replica of production system.

Do not encourage the changes at this stage.

Freeze the objects.

5. GO Live & Support:

Keep up to date Patch Levels
Release the objects to production system
Run the set ups in R/3 source system & Initialize Loads in BW
Schedule Batch jobs in R/3 system (Delta loads)
Schedule the process chains in BW.
Performance tuning – on going activity
Enhancements- if any

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