First day in the BI implementation project, I was excited and eager to venture into the world of Business Intelligence. I was nervous as I was new to BI(being an ABAPer was of little help at that initial stage).
The BI team was supposed to make reporting solutions for Sales, Finance, Production and Purchase business areas. SAP ECC SD, MM, FI etc. modules were the primary sources of data. During the distribution of different reports among BI consultants in the team, I was assigned to create the reporting solution for sales based on SD module.
Following are the steps and challenges I went through during the development of this reporting solution.
The result is the business blueprint, which documents in detail the results gathered during the requirements workshops. The business blueprint serves as a technical and functional guide during the subsequent phases of the implementation project.
I had a lot of meetings with the SD functional guy who gave me the all the functional/business requirements for the report. I gathered information about the frequency(daily/weekly/monthly) of availability of updated report, the layout of the report, the input variables prompt for the report and the special conditions & exceptions to be carried out for the report. After collecting all the information, I created the document called the business blueprint which provided the technical specification based on the functional specification provided by the user.
Project Realization
The BI team was supposed to make reporting solutions for Sales, Finance, Production and Purchase business areas. SAP ECC SD, MM, FI etc. modules were the primary sources of data. During the distribution of different reports among BI consultants in the team, I was assigned to create the reporting solution for sales based on SD module.
Following are the steps and challenges I went through during the development of this reporting solution.
Typically, there are five phases of the BI Implementation Project.
Project Preparation
In this phase, the project goals and objectives are clearly defined. An agreement between SAP Partner(firm responsible for SAP implementation) and SAP Customer(firm where SAP is being implemented) is made which defines the scope of the project. A steering committee is formed for smooth function of project execution. The steps taken during this phase helps to identify and plan the primary focus areas that need to be considered. The project schedule to be followed during the implementation is defined. The budget plan needs to be laid out in this phase.
A core team(from client) and a project team(implementation team) was formed. We were 3 SAP BI Consultants in our team. My role started after the kick-off when the scope for the project was defined.
Business Blueprint
One or more workshops for gathering the requirements are conducted, during which business processes and individual functional requirements of your organization are identified and analyzed. The workshops provide the opportunity to fine-tune the original project goals and objectives as well as to revise the overall project schedule, if necessary. Business Blueprint
The result is the business blueprint, which documents in detail the results gathered during the requirements workshops. The business blueprint serves as a technical and functional guide during the subsequent phases of the implementation project.
I had a lot of meetings with the SD functional guy who gave me the all the functional/business requirements for the report. I gathered information about the frequency(daily/weekly/monthly) of availability of updated report, the layout of the report, the input variables prompt for the report and the special conditions & exceptions to be carried out for the report. After collecting all the information, I created the document called the business blueprint which provided the technical specification based on the functional specification provided by the user.
Project Realization
The goal of project realization is to configure(implement) all the business process and technical requirements documented in business blueprint. First, the Baseline Configuration i.e. major scope of the project is covered and then the Final Configuration i.e. remaining scope of the project is covered.
During project realization, I created the complete flow for the reporting solution on the Development Server based on the requirements stated in the business blueprint of the project which includes extraction of data from SAP ECC SD DataSources to SAP BI development Server, transforming the data to meet the business needs of the report, creating the relevant cube for the report and creating the report in BEx Analyzer.
Final Preparation
The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation including testing(both unit testing and integration testing), end user training, system management and cut-over activities to make it ready for Go-Live i.e. to make sure that all the prerequisites for the project to Go-Live have been met. This phase also consists of additional configuration work which was not stated in the business blueprint.
Being a small team, I tested the report by loading both master data and transaction data on the Quality Server. I demonstrated the report to the end user and solved some critical issues faced during the execution by the user.
Go-Live and Support
In this phase, now the project moves from Pre-Production environment to the live Production System.
During Go-Live, my primary goal was to ensure the successful operability of the solution and provide full production support to optimize the overall performance of the solution.
Stay tuned for an elaborated example of all the phases/subphases involved in the End to End Implementation Project in my next blog coming shortly.
During project realization, I created the complete flow for the reporting solution on the Development Server based on the requirements stated in the business blueprint of the project which includes extraction of data from SAP ECC SD DataSources to SAP BI development Server, transforming the data to meet the business needs of the report, creating the relevant cube for the report and creating the report in BEx Analyzer.
The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation including testing(both unit testing and integration testing), end user training, system management and cut-over activities to make it ready for Go-Live i.e. to make sure that all the prerequisites for the project to Go-Live have been met. This phase also consists of additional configuration work which was not stated in the business blueprint.
Being a small team, I tested the report by loading both master data and transaction data on the Quality Server. I demonstrated the report to the end user and solved some critical issues faced during the execution by the user.
Go-Live and Support
In this phase, now the project moves from Pre-Production environment to the live Production System.
During Go-Live, my primary goal was to ensure the successful operability of the solution and provide full production support to optimize the overall performance of the solution.
Stay tuned for an elaborated example of all the phases/subphases involved in the End to End Implementation Project in my next blog coming shortly.
