general business process management

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General Business Process Management

Best Practice for Solution Management

Version Date: February 2002

The newest version of this Best Practice can always be obtained throughthe SAP Solution Manager or the SAP Service Marketplace.

ContentsApplicability, Goals, and Requirements....................................................................................2

Best Practice Procedure...........................................................................................................3

1. Creating a Business Process Management Concept .....................................................3

2. Managing the Resulting Documentation.........................................................................6

3. Coordinating Management and Monitoring Activities......................................................7

4. Managing Procedure Handover and Rollout.................................................................10

5. Coordinating Future Procedure Updates and Improvements ....................................... 11

Further Information.................................................................................................................12

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Best Practice: General Business Process Management 2

Applicability, Goals, and Requirements

To ensure that this Best Practice is the one you need, consider the following goals and requirements.

Goal of Using this Service

This Best Practices will help you to develop and implement an all-inclusive concept for business-process management and monitoring for a solution landscape comprising mySAP components.This concept aims to:

Define procedures for business-process oriented monitoring, error handling, and escalationmanagement for a company's core business processes

Establish the communication links between the business-department end users and theIT department

Define the roles and responsibilities for all persons involved in the customers support andmonitoring organization

These procedures ensure the smooth and reliable flow of the core business process in order to meetyour business requirements.

See also below underFurther Information.

Alternative Practices

You can get SAP experts to deliver this Best Practice on-site if you order a Solution ManagementOptimization (SMO) service known as the SAP Business Process Management (BPM) service.

Staff and Skills Requirements

To implement this Best Practice, you require the following teams:

Application Management Team

The business process management concept (which this Best Practice aims to produce) should be

created by the Application Management Team. This team combines experts from your companys:

Business departments

Solution Support Organization (for example, the IT department and the Help Desk)

Implementation project team

Execution Team

The persons who will be responsible for applying the resulting procedures derived through using thisBest Practice include:

Persons designated to perform business-process monitoring and ensure that businessprocesses run smoothly

All parties in the customers Solution Support Organization and IT department involved inmonitoring

System Requirements

None.

Duration and Timing

Duration

Creating a business-process management concept depends on the complexity and number of yourcore business processes, and could take around one week per business process.

Implementing the business-process management concept could take around one additional week.

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Timing

The best time to apply this Best Practice is during the planning phase or during the implementationphase of your mySAP solution.

Best Practice Procedure

1. Creating a Business Process Management Concept

1. Define a team for working on this Best Practice. This team should include a leader ormoderator, as well as one or more persons from each of the following groups:

Business department

Solution support organization (for example, the IT department and the Help Desk)

Implementation project team (experts in the different business processes)

Choose your people so that the resulting team is competent to evaluate all technical andbusiness aspects of your companys core business processes.

2. Determine the core business processes of your company. For each of these core businessprocesses, perform the following steps (3-6).

Note: A core business process is a process that is essential for business success. The sumof all core business processes is what generates the bulk of a company's revenue. Anexample of a core business process in a retail company might be sales order processing andbilling. In this Best Practice, you begin by focusing on the core business processes in order tointroduce priorities into business process management. Later, under "Coordinating FutureProcedure Updates and Improvements" you extend these procedures to cover all otherbusiness processes.

3. Document the core business process from a general, functional viewpoint, including thefollowing details:

Short summary of the business process from the application viewpoint (around 10 lines).

Describe how business-critical the core process is, that is, to what extent companyrevenue is endangered if this business process does not run smoothly.

Document the business process by creating a flow chart.

In the flow chart, list the process steps, any sub-processes, and all related functions suchas ATP check, variant configuration, and so on.

For each process step / sub-process:

Mention the system or components in which the respective process steps occur,and which interfaces are involved.

List the document volume for each type of document involved, and the time of day(or month or year) when processing occurs.

Define the maximum processing duration.

Name potentially critical areas.

4. Extend the above flow chart of the core business process to include the following technicaldetails:

Technical details of each process steps, for example names of programs, transactions,background jobs, and so on

Details of any modifications to SAP-standard programs or transactions

When background jobs run

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Dependencies of the process steps, for example, where one process step cannot beperformed until another one is complete, or where some process steps require a specialtime frame.

Technical details of all involved interfaces, such as input/output,synchronous/asynchronous post-processing.

Conditions of restartability for the process, process, step, sub-process, or interface5. In the flow chart, define the objects that need to be monitored.

Monitoring procedures ensure that the technical processes meet the requirements for stability,performance, and completeness. Monitoring must cover three areas: errors; performance andthroughput; and processing progress and completeness. For each process step:

Determine the possible errors

Define the relevant monitoring objects and monitors

Define the error handling procedures (including how to correct the error, if possible),the persons to whom errors are to be reported, and the escalation paths

To determine an appropriate strategy for each type of possible error, keep in mind the

following questions:

Do errors result in data inconsistency?

Are the errors and their causes transparent to end-users and system administrators?

Are reporting strategies and escalation paths completely defined and published to allconcerned parties?

If errors occur, are there alternative procedures or settings that enable users to avoidsuch errors?

Can the error be prevented from reoccurring?

6. For each possible type of error, create a road map for analyzing and handling the error.

7. The flow chart including the monitoring objects and error/handling procedures defined in steps1 to 6 constitute your concept for business process management. Now you need to implementthis concept as follows:

Specify the Business Process Champion (or owner) who is responsible for the overallsmooth functioning of the respective core business process.

Specify the roles and assign the persons responsible for 1st

and 2nd

levelApplicationSupport responsible for business-process monitoring, error handling, andescalation. (Note: Application Support is the general organization that performsapplication management tasks. One of these tasks is business process managementas described in this Best Practice.)

Specify the persons responsible for the following IT-department organizational units:System Monitoring, Software Monitoring, Development Support, and ProgramScheduling Management.

From the flow-chart documentation, create simplified monitoring and error-handlinginstructions for 1

stlevel Application Support.

Using the Task-Checklist Creation Guide below, include the above simplifiedprocedures as well as the existing IT-department organizational units to create overallTask Checklists naming activities related to business process management, as wellas the responsible persons or organizational units.

Test and optimize these monitoring and error-handling instructions, and thecommunication paths between 1

stand 2

ndlevel Application Support in regard to

business-process monitoring.

Integrate the responsibilities for 1

st

and 2

nd

level Application Support with the existingIT-department organizational unit responsibilities. This may mean adding some or allof the application-support duties to existing IT-department roles, and, if necessary,training the respective employees to perform these new duties.

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8. Define procedures for the future updating or improvement of the above defined monitoring anderror handling procedures in the course of time. This is a way of continuously ensuring smoothprocess flow, data consistency, and security against downtime. In particular, new proceduresare required whenever the business process is changed or altered.

Process 4Process 3Process 2Process 1

Program Scheduling Management

Software Monitoring Team

System Monitoring Team

Business

Process

Champion

Business

Process

Champion

Business

Process

Champion

Business

Process

Champion

Application Support

Development Support

Figure 1. Monitoring teams in the SAP-customer's overall Solution Support Organization.

Table 1. Monitoring roles and responsibilities.

Role Responsibilities

Business Process Champion In the Business Department

Providing the central contact person for the ApplicationManagement Team

Managing quality assurance for the entire process

Adjusting the monitoring and escalation measures for

modifications to the process

Coordinating of all process activities in the system

Defining the escalation path for problem resolution

Maintaining the application-oriented process description

Application Support In the Application Management Team

Creating application-oriented documentation

Documenting modifications to business processes

Monitoring the running of business processes andinterfaces

Providing 1st and 2nd Level Application Support

Ensuring high performance of the business processes

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Role Responsibilities

Development Support In the IT Department

Implementing any changes required to optimize business-process design

Implementing changes to programs as required to solvefunctional or technical problems

Ensuring high performance for new developments

Program SchedulingManagement

In the IT Department

Documenting technical information on program scheduling

Monitoring scheduled jobs and processes

Immediately handling job terminations or other errors

Managing restartability

Triggering escalation in case of job termination or othererrors

Monitoring performance of background jobs

Software Monitoring In the IT Department

Monitoring the performance, error logs, and memorymanagement of:

o Software such as EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO,and ERP/OLTP

o Technical components such as the ITS, theBusiness Connector, the catalog server, IPC, andliveCache

Monitoring the database Monitoring response times

Monitoring the interfaces from a technical viewpoint

System Monitoring In the IT Department

Performing systemmonitoring for, for example, thehardware, operating system, network, and external tools

Ensuring high performance for the hardware

2. Managing the Resulting Documentation1. Ensure that the documentation resulting from defining the business process management

concept has three parts:

Business process and business process step documentation. This includesmonitoring, error handling, and escalation documentation.

Simplified monitoring, error-handling, and escalation procedures

Task Checklists of all related activities and the responsible persons or organizationalunits

2. Make this documentation available to all groups in the customers Solution SupportOrganization, such as:

1st

and 2nd

level Application Support (for business-process monitoring)

IT organizational units:

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i. System Monitoring Team

ii. Software Monitoring Team

iii. Program Scheduling Management

iv. Development Support

To make this documentation accessible, set up a know-how database and make thisdatabase and its folder structure known to the various teams.

3. Ensure that the business process documentation serves as a link to the documentation oftechnical details and is used to help new employees in application support understand a givenbusiness process from the application viewpoint.

4. Add to this documentation references to related documents, such as guides and planningdocuments created by the business department or the implementation project team.

5. Ensure that the business process documentation is very detailed and oriented to the technicalside of the process steps. It should be used as a basis for troubleshooting for 2nd-LevelApplication Support.

6. Ensure that the interfaces are adequately covered in all parts of the documentation. These

interfaces are the interfaces between the SAP and/or external components running the corebusiness processes. The documentation should be technically oriented and indicate all thebusiness-critical aspects of the interfaces.

3. Coordinating Management and Monitoring Activities

1. For business processes involving more than one system or component, to perform monitoringset up more than one monitoring team (as shown below in figure 2).

Process 4Process 3Process 2Process 1 Documentation

Business Process Monitoring

Software Monitoring

System Monitoring


Figure 2. Monitoring tasks. There are four layers of monitoring affecting all business processes;

each layer uses several types of documentation.

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2. If appropriate, divide monitoring into 1st

and 2nd

Level monitoring (as shown in figure 3 forSoftware Monitoring).

3. To create Monitoring or Task Checklists, use the Task-Checklist Creation Guide below. TheGuide summarizes the recommended contents of the procedures in the various monitoringlevels. This provides you with a starting point for creating your own Task Checklists ofmonitoring, error handling, and escalation procedures. An example for a Monitoring or Task

Checklist is shown in table 3.

Checklists:1. Bulletin Board 1st-Level

2. Monitoring

Performance

Monitoring

1st LevelTraining

2nd LevelTraining

Persons Responsible for

Monitoring Concept

SAP Monitoring

Checklists:1. Bulletin Board 2nd-Level2. Short dump List

3. Update Error List

4. Sys Log Entries5. R/3 Lock Entries

1st and 2nd Level

Support

Escalation Paths

Software Monitoring

1st Level

Software Monitoring

2nd Level

Component

Monitoring

Figure 3. Example of elements of a software-monitoring concept.

Table 2. Task-Checklist Creation Guide. To define monitoring, error handling, and escalationprocedures, use the guide in the following table.

Monitoring Level Contents of Task Checklist Monitoring Areas

System Monitoring Monitoring objects

Monitoring periodicity/timing

Error handling

Escalation paths

Reference documents

Hardware, operating system,

database, network, andexternal tools

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Monitoring Level Contents of Task Checklist Monitoring Areas

Software Monitoring Monitoring objects


Error handling

Escalation paths

Restartability

Performance

Reference documents

Performance, error logs,memory management of:

Software such asEBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO,

and ERP/OLTP

Technical componentssuch as the ITS, the BusinessConnector, the catalog server,IPC, and liveCache

Interfaces from thetechnical viewpoint

Business ProcessMonitoring

Monitoring objects


Program

runtime/dependencies

Error handling

Restartability

Escalation paths

Reference documents

Performance

Business processes andinterfaces

Program SchedulingManagement

Background jobs

Restartability

Performance

Timing of background jobsand other programs, forexample, during peakbusiness periods.

Business Department Business Process Champions

Error logs

Processes

Process steps

Problems/causes

Error handling

Reference documents

User operations

Table 3. Example of a Monitoring or Task Checklist for a particular business process step. Forpractical purpose, the lists should be issued per Responsibility or corresponding monitoringteam.

MonitoringObject

MonitorTA/Tool

MonitorFreque.

MonitorTime

Indicatoror Error

Monitoring Activity orError Handling Procedure

Respon-sibility

EscalationProcedure

ProgramRHBAUPAT

SM37 every2 hours

Start at8:00 am

status active check if job iswithin timeframe (depen-dencies?)cancelled check for de-pendencies and restart job

Applicationmonitoringteam

Contact theprogramschedulingmanagementph. 911

Dialog

responsetime of TABBPPU99

ST03 daily 9:00 am < 2 sec exceeding indicator value

report to systemadministrator and manager

System

monitoringteam

Contact the

systemadministratorph. 912

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4. Integrate the Application Support tasks that are related to business process management andmonitoring in your overall Solution Support Organization. For end-users, Application Support isresponsible for the problem-free, error-free, and high performance functions of the processes.

5. To ensure the smooth running of core business processes across the entire system

landscape, set up the Solution Support Organization in a business process-oriented manner.

6. Define reporting strategies and escalation paths for each monitoring level that must be used ifspecified or unusual errors or problems occur. The following figure sketches an example ofreporting and escalation paths within a reporting strategy. You must define the form ofcommunication to be used, and the conditions under which communication is required.

Software Monitoring Business Process MonitoringSystem Monitoring

2nd Level Support

Business Process Champion

Application Management Team

Solution Support

Organization


Figure 4. Example of reporting strategy showing various escalation paths that must beformalized.

4. Managing Procedure Handover and Rollout

To facilitate going live with the procedures in your business process management and monitoringconcept (within the framework of the overall solution management concept) proceed as follows:

1. Define the persons that are to be responsible for rolling out the procedures and ensuring thatthey are implemented.

2. Set up a know-how database for all procedures and make this database and its file structureknown to all teams that are part of the Solution Support Organization (see above, under"Managing the Resulting Documentation").

3. Implement the tasks of the Solution Support Organization as defined in the Task-Checklist

Creation Guide. In addition, train the employees for the new procedures. You should havealready assigned the Application Support tasks related to business process management and

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monitoring to the various teams comprising your overall Solution Support Organization (asdescribed above under " Coordinating Management and Monitoring Activities").

4. If other companies are part of your Solution Support Organization, arrange a formal anddefined handover of tasks. This will apply if, for example, the IT department or hardware arehosted or outsourced.

Planning, Documentation Development, Handover, Training, Rollout

Procedures

Rollout and

Implementation

Training of

Solution Support

Organization

Development

of Procedures

and Task

Check Lists

Business

Process

Management

Concept

Procedures

Rollout and

Implementation

Training of

Solution Support

Organization

Development

of Procedures

and TaskCheck Lists

Ongoing

Process

Analysis

time

Figure 5. Managing planning, documentation, handover, training, and rollout.

5. Coordinating Future Procedure Updates and

Improvements

System landscapes and business processes change over time, and this results in changes to thedocumentation derived in this Best Practice for business process management and monitoring. Inaddition, monitoring, error handling, and escalation procedures can be revised, expanded, andimproved.

To incorporate both types of documentation changes in the business process management concept,the following strategy is recommended.

1. Set up a team to plan, review, and rollout all changes to the documentation for the businessprocess management concept. This would normally be a part of the Application ManagementTeam. The tasks of this team include:

Changing any of the documentation resulting from this Best Practice. (The three formsof this documentation are described above under "Managing the ResultingDocumentation"). The changes should reflect both application-related changes andunderlying technical changes. Your general procedures for software change-management should include guidelines for adding changes to the documentationresulting from this Best Practice.

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Releasing the changes: Ensure that any changed documentation is released in duetime and forwarded to:

i. The persons involved in the execution of these procedures, for example,Application Support, the Software Monitoring Team, and the SystemMonitoring Team. For example, after updating the documentation, send aMonitoring-Change Notificationto the respective monitoring teams,

describing both the changes and their implications for the Solution SupportOrganization.

ii. All other areas of the Solution Support Organization

Archiving changes:

i. For smaller changes to a document, you do not need to create a new version.Instead, keep a change log. This describes what, how, when, and by whomthe business process management and monitoring concept was changed.

ii. For larger changes it is recommended that you create a new version.

2. To improve the completeness of all procedures, in addition to the core business processesanalyzed above, over time, all otherbusiness processes should be analyzed and

documented. These include periodic processes such as archiving, and month-end closing.

Further Information

Business process management is one important part of Application Management, which aims toprovide a bridge between the existing support functions of IT departments and the respective businessdepartments in an SAP-customer's solution management environment.

Business process management is a substantial part of an overall solution management concept.

How Business Process Management Fits into Solution Management

The primary goals of a solution management concept are to:

Ensure that the daily running of systems, interfaces, and core business processes isreliable and smooth

Enable extensive monitoring and uniform maintenance of a (possibly distributed)production system landscape

To create a solution management concept, you must first perform a comprehensive analysis of thecurrent status of the system landscape, interfaces, and core business processes. Thedocumentation resulting from this analysis can also be used to communicate solutionmanagement procedures to all employees, and enables new support employees to learn solutionmanagement techniques within a short time.

An important part of solution management is the monitoring concept. Monitoring aims to ensurethe high availability of all systems and components involved both general availability and systemperformance. Good performance is an important requirement for the smooth running of corebusiness processes.

When IT and application managers plan the overall solution management concept, this meansconsidering all of the topics in the following list. You will see that the issues related to businessprocess management and monitoring are part of points 1 through 6.

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Ingredients of an Overall Solution Management Concept

To define this concept, you must document the following:

1. Business Requirements

Documenting your business requirements is the prerequisite and input for a solutionmanagement concept. The documentation should mention you requirements for:

General availability of business processes and systems

Requirements for high availability

General impact on business (input for disaster and recovery planning)

Workaround solutions in case systems are not available

Implementation status (explaining what has been completed and what must still bedone):

Project milestones

Roll-out waves

Future IT projects

2. Solution Support Organization and Communication

Describe the customer's Solution Support Organization that is responsible for managing dailyrunning of the solution:

Organizations involved

Roles and responsibilities

Per process

Per system and software component

Per interface

Service level agreements (internal and with partners)

Communication and escalation paths

User help desk

3. Business Process Management

To establish a business-process management concept, you must properly understand anddocument various aspects of the business processes:

General description

Process steps and document volumes

Interfaces

Process responsibilities (business process champion) Availability requirements, the impact of the process on business

Performance requirements/constraints

4. System and Solution Landscape

Document various aspects of the system and solution landscape:

Hardware components

Software components such as EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO, and OLTP

Technical components such as the ITS, business connector, catalog server, IPC, andliveCache

Availability and maintenance windows

5. Application and Integration Management

Business-process oriented monitoring concept:

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Definition of monitoring objects (what has to be monitored, how often, by whom,for which purpose, and so on)

Error handling procedures

Process restartability

Escalation paths

Interfaces and integration management

Monitoring

Restartability

Data consistency

Availability

Program-scheduling management

Master data maintenance

Data management and archiving

6. System Management

These are typical topics, particularly concerned with changes to EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO:

Technical software monitoring (software related)

Backup and recovery strategy

Storage management

Performance management

Spool administration

System administration procedures

Facilities management

Hardware management

Operating system administration

Basis administration

Database administration

System monitoring for EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO components such as the ITS,business connector, catalog server, IPC, and liveCache

Third-party monitoring tools, such as Tivoli, Patrol, and Realtech

7. Network and Frontend Management

Network monitoring (lines, switches, hubs, routers and so on) Upgrade of frontends (SAPGUI, browser, mobile clients)

8. Change Management

Code ownership

Responsibilities (sign-off)

Procedures regarding transports in to the production system

System landscape and client strategy (DEV, QAS, PRD)

Upgrade procedures taking into account:

Availability and maintenance windows

Software components

EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO, OLTP and so on

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Technical components

ITS, business connector, catalog server, IPC, liveCache and so on

Implementation of support packages and core patches

Application of notes

9. Quality Assurance ProceduresDocument your strategy and procedures for:

Functional testing

Integration testing (data quality)

Stress testing (mass data)

Going live and cut-over strategy

System/operation handover

10. Security

Document your strategy for security at the following levels:

Application, for example, user authorization profiles

Operating system

Database

Network (intranet/Internet)

Roles in Defining and Applying the Solution Management Concept

In order to achieve a steadily and reliably running application and system, solution managementrequires the following persons or groups to take appropriate action:

1. Business Department: Business departments must operate the application in accordance with

defined operating procedures.2. Application Management Team: A major part of the application management teams

responsibilities is to define and follow the business-process management procedures described inthis Best Practice. This includes business process monitoring, error handling procedures,escalation paths, and program scheduling management from an application viewpoint. Theseprocedures ensure that business processes run smoothly from a technical viewpoint.

3. IT Department: The IT department must define and apply monitoring procedures including:

System Management and Monitoring of, for example, the hardware, operating system,database, network, and external tools

Software Management and Monitoring for the system landscape. This includes, for example,monitoring the performance, error logs, and memory management of:

Software such as EBP/BBP, CRM, SCM/APO, and ERP/OLTP

Technical components such as the ITS, the Business Connector, the catalog server, IPC,and liveCache

Program Scheduling Management and Monitoring

The present Best Practice advises the application management team on how to define theprocedures it needs in order to fulfill the business-process related requirements of acomprehensive solution management concept.

Feedback and Questions

Send any feedback by composing an SAP customer message to component SV-GST-SMC at

http://service.sap.com/message.

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