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SAP Solutions for Cross-Industry Name/Industry Solution NameNew to SAP? Welcome!

Getting Started with SAP® Enterprise SupportEssential Information and Recommendations from SAP

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“I’m proud to work with customers from all around the world. I always take the opportunity to think ‘out-of-the-box’ and I’m willing to leave the normal working comfort zone.”Doreen Wagner, SAP Active Global Support, SAP AG

Table of Contents

GettING StArted WIth SAP eNterPrISe SuPPort

5 IntroductionWhat’s Inside SAP Enterprise Support?

7 SAP Active Global SupportEngage with SAP Active Global Support

11 SAP enterprise Support AcademyJoin SAP Enterprise Support Academy

15 SAP Solution ManagerSAP Solution Manager and Remote Support

19 Customer Center of expertiseEstablish a Customer Center of Expertise

23 engagement MethodologyExecute Engagement Methodology

27 SummaryBecome a Best-Run Business with SAP Enterprise Support

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“Our customers’ needs are of first priority, independent of what the daily business is.”Irina Schumacher, Support Engineer, SAP Active Global Support, SAP AG

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What’s Inside SAP® Enterprise Support?

INtroduCtIoN

SAP is committed to providing you the very best in customer support. The proactive maintenance offering from SAP, SAP® enterprise Support services, helps you optimize business processes, minimize risks, accelerate innovation, and manage the lifecycles of your applications. The SAP Active Global Support (SAP AGS) organization has developed a unique set of tools, processes, and services to help you leverage SAP Enterprise Support to run your software better. Continuously improved through collaboration with the over 183,000 SAP AGS customers on services delivered and top issues, SAP Enterprise Support strives to help you to implement better, operate better, and innovate better through:

• Continuous business improvement and innovation – Providing access to the latest SAP software and legal changes

• Mission-critical support – Providing 24x7 access to the support advisory center

• Global support backbone – Facilitating collaboration across the entire SAP ecosystem and partners

• tools, methodologies, content, and communities – Supporting efficient implementation and management of your IT solution

We want to give you a jump start on leveraging SAP Enterprise Support. Become a best-run business with SAP Enterprise Support in five clearly defined steps (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Getting Started with SAP Active Global Support Step-by-Step

1. Engage with the

SAP® Active Global Support organization

2. Join the SAP Enterprise

Support Academy program

3. Set up remote

supportability and SAP Solution Manager

4. Establish a Customer

Center of Expertise location

5. Execute engagement

methodology

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“In a situation where a customer encounters a critical issue affecting their ability to conduct business, the SAP Active Global Support team moves quickly to find the root cause of the issue. Thereby we help our customers to overcome and ensure that it will not happen again in the future. This protects the customer’s investment into SAP applications.”Corey Chubon, Senior Support Consultant, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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Engage with SAP Active Global Support

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SAP ACtIve GlobAl SuPPort

Now that you have chosen the software, we’re here to help with ongoing support – so you can go live faster and realize the full benefits of your SAP software–based solution. With support for all stages of your solution’s lifecycle – from planning and implementation to operations and optimization – our full range of services can help reduce your total cost of ownership. SAP Enterprise Support addresses the requirements of your entire IT environment, including non-SAP software.

Get the most out of SAP enterprise Support for implementa-tion, innovation, and operations. Plus, benefit from our tailored support engagements and project-based offerings that provide on-demand support. We can help you manage technical risk in all phases of the SAP application lifecycle.

The organization providing this support is SAP AGS, which services more than 183,000 customers in over 120 countries. Through this widespread engagement, SAP AGS has acquired comprehensive and unique knowledge about its customers. It shares this expertise in the customer-tailored approach of SAP Enterprise Support to deliver successful implementation, operation, and continuous improvement of your software.

use the Customer Interaction and Support Advisory CentersA key part of the support infrastructure is the customer inter-action center. The center is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and provides a central point of contact for assistance with nontechnical queries. You can contact the center by telephone or by e-mail. Details can be found under www.service.sap.com/supportcenters. The customer inter action center acts as a key entry point to the support advisory center.

Our team in the support advisory center can be contacted on questions and issues concerning, for instance, your SAP Enterprise Support report or application lifecycle management. Global 24x7 root cause analysis, support during production downtime, and escalation of customer messages can also be initiated by contacting the support advisory center.

engage the Global Support backbone to resolve Issues Most issues you encounter can be resolved by accessing the wealth of information available from the SAP global support backbone. This includes the SAP Service Marketplace extranet, which encourages customers and partners to col laborate with SAP and links you to our entire service and

support infrastructure. The support backbone also includes the SAP help portal and knowledge database in the SAP Notes tool as well as your own knowledge base, which you maintain in your SAP Solution Manager application management solution. You can seek advice and assistance on resolving issues from such online SAP communities as the SAP Developer Net-work community and the Business Process Expert community. See www.service.sap.com for more information.

engage Mission-Critical SupportIf you are unable to resolve an issue with the help of the knowl-edge database in SAP Notes, you can create a customer message in SAP Solution Manager or by using the SAP Support Portal service at www.service.sap.com/message. Mission-critical support provides you with explicit service-level agreements, contact people through the support advisory center, and root cause analysis — including custom development — on a 24x7 basis.

Contact production-down support in cases of emergency. If you ever experience production software downtime that results in downtime of your business processes, the trained production-down support team will find a solution or a work-around that will allow you to resume business operations as quickly as possible. To alert SAP to such a critical situation, you should open a “very high” customer message or call the support advisory center. If SAP requires additional information and contacts you, please have the SAP customer message number and business impact details at hand when contact is made.

Creating Customer Messages When creating a customer message, we ask you to please provide certain information to help us handle your issue quickly and efficiently:

• Provide your direct contact details, including your landline phone number, mobile phone number, and e-mail address

• Describe the steps that caused the issue • Assign the appropriate priority to the customer message

as defined in the section “Customer Message Priority Classifications” below

• Document the business impact as described in the overleaf • Enter any relevant deadlines • List the component area as specifically as possible • List the version and enhancement package of all relevant

software, as applicable

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• Do you have a work-around? If so, how effective is it? • How many users are affected? • Is someone who speaks English available 24x7 as a central

point of contact for this customer message?

Refer to SAP Note 90835 for additional background informa-tion related to business impact. Please create one customer message per issue or problem. If you require further assis-tance, contact your local customer interaction center at www.service.sap.com/supportcenters.

After Submitting a Customer Message to SAPAfter you have submitted a customer message to SAP, please check to make sure your contact details are correct in MyProfile in the SAP Support Portal. You will be notified by e-mail and text message when the customer message status has changed and action is required.

Please perform the following activities to expedite the resolution of the reported issue:

• Monitor the customer message for updates on a daily basis by going to the help-desk function in SAP Solution Manager or to www.service.sap.com/inbox; for customer messages assigned a priority of “very high” or “high,” monitor for updates more frequently

• Respond quickly to all requests for supporting information • Send the customer message back to SAP after the update is

completed; you can change the status and priority directly in the customer message or request that the support advisory center do this

• For customer messages with status “customer action,” enter the required information and send it back to SAP to enable SAP to continue with the investigation; if the customer message remains in “customer action” status for too long, it closes automatically: in 14 days for “very high” customer messages, in 21 days for “high” customer messages, and in 45 days for “medium” and “low” customer messages

• A customer message can be updated at any time irrespective of status by submitting a customer message of type “Info for SAP”

Speeding up the Processing of a Customer MessageTo speed up the processing of your customer message, contact your local customer interaction center at www.service.sap.com/supportcenters.

• If requested by SAP, store remote login information in the secure area of the customer message and ensure the user ID and password will be valid for the number of days required; for additional information, see www.service.sap.com/access-support

• Include all the actions you have taken to resolve the issue, including any instructions from the SAP Notes tool you have applied and those you considered to be irrelevant

Customer Message Priority Classificationsvery high: Serious business impact due to, for example, production downtime or delays to a planned production start-up or upgrade

high: Serious disruption to normal business transactions impeding execution of necessary tasks

Medium: Problems with normal business transactions, due to incorrect or inoperable functions in the SAP software

low: Negligible or no effect on normal business transactions

The service-level agreement commits SAP to a timely initial reaction and delivery of a resolution within a fixed period of time. For “very high” customer messages, the support advisory center responds within one hour and provides a fix, work-around, or action plan within four hours after the initial response. For “high” customer messages, we provide an initial response within four hours. Please refer to SAP Note 67739 for further classification information concerning customer messages.

Defining Business ImpactWhen entering a “very high” customer message or escalating a “high” customer message, you must include a description of the business impact by answering the following questions:

• Is the problem in a productive, test, quality assurance, or development software environment?

– If it is in a test or development system, when are you planning to go live?

– Will it impact the going-live schedule for another project? • What impact does your problem have on your business?

– Financial impact: What amount of revenue will be lost? – Process impact: What business processes are affected? – Operational impact: Are systems down?

SAP ACtIve GlobAl SuPPort

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For information on how to provide details about how an issue is impacting your business, see SAP Note 1281633 at www.service.sap.com/notes.

When an Issue Has Been ResolvedOnce an issue has been resolved, you should confirm resolution of the issue reported by a customer message at your earliest convenience by completing the call closure questionnaire. In this way, you can directly influence how we improve our support service, because we use the information to refine and adapt our issue resolution process. If for any reason you are not satisfied with how we handled your issue, please provide us with feedback as described in SAP Note 736045.

Continuous Quality Checks and Improvement ServicesThe main purpose of remote continuous quality checks and improvement services is to identify technical risks and opti-mization potential; support an implementation as it goes into live production; and improve system performance, availability, stability, and data consistency. In addition, improvement services like a modification justification check or a custom-code maintainability check help you to:

• Gain an overview of all custom code and modified objects in your software landscape, if applicable

• Readily adopt additional functional developments in standard SAP software

• Facilitate the installment of functionality in support packages and the maintenance of your SAP solution

The latest release of SAP Business Suite software provides innovation without disruption in the form of SAP enhancement packages. An improvement service for accelerated innovation enablement provides access to SAP solution architects to evaluate the innovation potential of the latest SAP enhancement package and how it may be deployed to fulfill your business process requirements. To give you a quick start, live expert sessions include demos of the new functionality.

To review the full set of continuous quality checks and improvement services, visit www.service.sap.com/CQC.

A continuous quality check service can be requested via a support request within SAP Solution Manager or by contacting the customer interaction center by visiting www.service.sap.com/supportcenters.

SAP ACtIve GlobAl SuPPort

IN brIeF The customer interaction center and support advisory center connect you with the support services of the SAP® Active Global Support organization.

leArN More Learn to use the SAP Support Portal service in only a few minutes. Visit www.service.sap.com/support-welcome.

Contact your local customer interaction center by visiting www.service.sap.com/supportcenters, using SAP Note 560499.

Learn more about continuous quality checks and improvement services at www.service.sap.com/CQC.

tIPThe customer interaction center is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – take advantage of it!

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“I enjoy helping our customers to understand and leverage SAP Enterprise Support services in order to run better.”Ami Patel, SAP Enterprise Support Advisor, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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expert-Guided Implementationexpert-guided implementation is a delivery methodology that uses a balanced combination of training, practical experience, and expertise on demand. The focus is on enabling you – with the assistance of SAP experts – to execute complex activities in your own software landscape. It is important that during the delivery itself, the activity is executed as described in the training. Sample activities include performing an update, customizing, and executing a service. Expert-guided imple-mentation enables you to execute activities without being a subject-matter expert. The expert-guided implementation methodology closes the gap between classroom training and consulting. Expert-guided implementation supports you during the execution phase of your project and occurs in the following major steps:

• empowerment – The SAP expert provides a step-by-step explanation in a virtual classroom training session.

• execution – You execute these steps in your own SAP software environment.

• expertise on demand – An SAP expert helps you, if necessary, during the execution.

The SAP Enterprise Support Academy program is a collaboration platform that fosters company-wide enablement for end-to-end operations. It is your one-stop shop for SAP Enterprise Support services, designed to benefit you by offering role-based content from experts for experts.

SAP Enterprise Support can serve as your foundation for enterprise-wide business and IT operations. You will realize the value of SAP Enterprise Support and its methodology as you engage in its implementation, operation, and innovation phases. The flexible learning program offered by SAP Enterprise Support Academy consists of the following key components: guided self-services, expert-guided implementation services, meet-the-expert Webinars, and a library of product-, database-, and operating system–specific best practices.

Watch for our upcoming “Quick IQs” in tutorials from SAP Enterprise Support Academy on how to make and change system settings.

Guided Self-ServicesWith guided self-services, SAP offers customers proven pro-cedures to analyze and optimize their software landscapes. These procedures are based on the experience of a multitude of service deliveries made to thousands of SAP customers. Guided self-services are delivered through SAP Solution Man-ager and focus on the most likely candidates in the software landscape for improvement, such as system performance, data volume management, change management, security optimization, and business processes. The guided self-services are available to be used by customers of SAP Enterprise Support when and how often they choose. Examples of guided self-services include business process analysis, security optimization, and structured query language (SQL) statement tuning.

Join SAP Enterprise Support Academy

SAP eNterPrISe SuPPort ACAdeMy

SAP® EnTERPRiSE SuPPoRT AcAdEmy PRoGRAm

Guided self-services – Run them at any time, at your own pace, in your own software landscape

expert-guided implementation services – Learn to run guided self-services within your own software landscape, with direct access to experienced service engineers

Meet-the-expert Webinars – Meet the experts and stay on top of SAP’s product strategy and service and support strategy

best-practices library – Help your employees get the most out of the how-to guides for SAP® software and services

Accelerated innovation enablement – Evaluate the innovation potential for your software landscape

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Information on the use of best PracticesThe best-practices library is an encyclopedic resource for how-to guides on products, databases, and operating systems. The use of best practices helps you improve your IT operations by giving you access to the practical experience collected from leading companies across all industries. Besides providing con-tent focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP), the library has been extended to cover SAP BusinessObjects™ solutions.

Over 30 expert-guided implementation services are available.

Two sample flows of services are detailed here to illustrate the interplay between expert-guided implementation and guided self-services:

• Set up SAP Solution Manager: – Use expert-guided implementation called “basic

configuration” to prepare your SAP Solution Manager – Use expert-guided implementation to learn how to implement

your required functionality in SAP Solution Manager, for exam-ple, documenting your solution or setting up monitoring

• Get up to speed on a guided self-service: – Learn about self-services through expert-guided implemen-

tation, for example, to optimize your software’s transac-tional performance, use the expert-guided implementation called “guided self-service: performance optimization”

– Use the self-services on your own as needed, for example, the “performance optimization” guided self-service

Meet-the-expert WebinarsThe series of Webinars offered by SAP Enterprise Support Academy brings the engineering competence of SAP experts right to your desk, no matter where you are located.

The meet-the-expert Webinars cover the entire spectrum of support specifics as part of end-to-end operations:

• Topic-specific deep dives as well as new concepts and strategies

• Interactive format, allowing for Q&A sessions • Recordings accessible through the replay library

ToPicS covEREd by ExPERT-GuidEd imPlEmEnTATion includE:

Strategy planning, for example, creating an application lifecycle management road map

Preparation, for example, basic configuration of SAP Solution Manager

Process implementation, for example, business process monitoring or test automation

operations, for example, business process analysis or security optimization

bEST-PRAcTicE ToPicS includE:

Leveraging best practices

Backing up and restoring SAP® software landscapes

Applying best practices for transport management

Executing proactive performance and capacity management

SAP eNterPrISe SuPPort ACAdeMy

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SAP eNterPrISe SuPPort ACAdeMy

IN brIeF The SAP® Enterprise Support Academy program is a collaboration platform that fosters company- wide enablement for end-to-end operations.

leArN More Learn everything about SAP Enterprise Support Academy at www.service.sap.com/esacademy.

tIPUse expert-guided implementation to develop your process strategy and implement the SAP Solution Manager application management solution in combination with meet-the-expert sessions.

Joyce Murr, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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“With SAP Enterprise Support, we give our customers the expertise and automation tools they need to run their environment so that our customers can focus on more productive activities.”Marcel Jung, Head of SAP Enterprise Support Operations EMEA, SAP Active Global Support, SAP AG

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Some key features and functions of SAP Solution Manager include:

• Accelerated implementation – SAP Solution Manager provides content that accelerates the implementation of SAP Business Suite software.

• testing – To speed test preparation and execution, SAP Solution Manager provides a single point of access to the complete software landscape. It enables centralized storage of testing material and test results to support cross- component tests.

• Change control management – This functionality organizes any software and configuration changes made to your IT solution.

• It and application support – In this area, SAP Solution Manager helps you manage incidents more efficiently and eases the settlement of support costs. Centralized handling of support messages makes the support organization more efficient.

• root cause analysis – This expedites identification, analysis, and resolution of problems in heterogeneous environments. As a result, problem resolution is accelerated and availability of business processes increased.

• Service processing – This functionality makes appropriate service recommendations and delivers SAP support services.

• Administration – The software offers a central entry point and consistent access to all SAP technology.

• Solution monitoring – You can employ centralized, real- time monitoring of software, business processes, and interfaces, which reduces administration effort. Proactive monitoring helps you avoid critical situations, while automatic notifications enable fast response to issues.

• Service-level management and reporting – The software eases the task of defining service levels and provides auto-mated reporting. Service reporting covers all software in the solution landscape and generates a consolidated report containing the information you need to make strategic IT decisions.

SAP Solution Manager 7.1 is the central solution to address application lifecycle management (ALM) and the operation of software solutions. It supports heterogeneous software environ-ments, and its functions cover all key areas from implementation and going-live phases to managing the operation and ongoing improvement of solutions. SAP Solution Manager 7.1 combines tools, content, and direct access to SAP experts to increase the reliability and stability of solutions and lower the total cost of operations. SAP Solution Manager also serves as the linchpin in establishing cooperation within the SAP ecosystem, that is, facilitating cooperation between project teams, SAP partners, consultants, and SAP Active Global Support. It simplifies communication between all stakeholders of a solution.

SAP Solution Manager covers the entire lifecycle of a solution. For customers with SAP Enterprise Support, its coverage includes not only SAP software components but also non-SAP software and hardware used to run your business processes.

SAP Solution Manager and Remote Support

SAP SolutIoN MANAGer

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establish a remote ConnectionThe remote support infrastructure of SAP increases the efficiency of its support processes by allowing SAP support employees to access your solution remotely.

The remote support infrastructure is used to offer several features and services of SAP Enterprise Support:

• Continuous quality checks • Incident management • Software updates • Knowledge databases and communities • SAP EarlyWatch Alert service • Guided self-services

To learn more about this remote service connection, visit www.service.sap.com/remoteconnection.

document the Solution landscapeThe documentation of your IT solution serves as the founda-tion for all the functions of SAP Solution Manager. In order to be able to perform mission-critical support, you must thor-oughly document the following:

• Existing solutions • Business processes • Custom code • Interfaces and partner solutions

Use the solution documentation assistant in SAP Solution Manager to determine the business processes that are used in production systems and to display this use graphically. See Figure 2 for an overview of all the stages of application lifecycle management that SAP Solution Manager supports.

A PlAtForM For ACCelerAtING INNovAtIoN

SAP Solution Manager is an integrated, end-to-end platform for accelerating innovation and facilitating application lifecycle management (see Figure 2).

Steps to Set up SAP Solution ManagerTo set up SAP Solution Manager, you perform the following major steps:1. Install and configure SAP Solution Manager2. Establish a remote connection to the SAP EarlyWatch®

Alert service from your productive software environment 3. Document your technical landscape, core business

processes, and any modifications made to the standard software

4. Enable efficient root cause analysis of the entire software landscape

Install and Configure SAP Solution Manager If you have questions as you install SAP Solution Manager, you can get assistance at www.service.sap.com/rkt-solman. Your central starting point for the technical implementation of SAP Solution Manager is the master guide.

In addition, specific guides for installing, configuring, and operating the software are available. All guides can be found at www.service.sap.com/instguides when you select SAP ­Components­–>­SAP­Solution­Manager.

SAP Enterprise Support Academy offers a variety of expert-guided imple mentations that support you in setting up and configuring the support infrastructure for SAP Solution Manager.

SAP SolutIoN MANAGer

Application lifecycle management

Figure 2: SAP Solution Manager and Application lifecycle Management

designrequirements build and test deploy operate optimize

SAP® Solution Manager

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SAP earlyWatch Alert ServiceWith the SAP EarlyWatch Alert service, you can perform the following:

• Monitor the essential administrative areas of SAP software components

• Stay up-to-date on software performance and stability • Remain informed at all times due to the fact that the service

runs automatically • Respond to issues proactively, before they become critical

understand root Cause AnalysisSAP Solution Manager diagnostics functionality provides efficient and safe root cause analysis of incidents. It supports the ABAP® programming language, Java, C++, and the Microsoft .NET framework. The software standardizes, aggregates, and corre-lates performance and resource metrics and gives access to technical configuration information. In addition, it provides transparent information about exceptions, traces, and changes to software code and configurations. More information can be found at www.service.sap.com/diagnostics.

Usage Rights for Managing End-to-End SolutionsExpanding the usage of SAP Solution Manager from SAP soft-ware components to non-SAP software and even hardware is easy from a licensing perspective for customers of SAP Enter-prise Support. You are entitled to use SAP Solution Manager for your entire solution at no additional charge, provided the solution is properly documented in SAP Solution Manager. That means that any incidents that occur across your end-to-end processes, which contain both SAP and non-SAP software components, are covered.

Summary SAP Solution Manager addresses your entire IT environment, including all the processes, tools, services, and an organizational model to manage SAP and non-SAP solutions throughout the application lifecycle. Besides helping you take swift action throughout the application lifecycle, SAP Solution Manager contributes to decreased complexity and reduced operational costs and eases the introduction of business innovation. And it comes to you as part of your SAP Enterprise Support agreement. You are entitled to use it at no additional charge.

SAP SolutIoN MANAGer

IN brIeF The SAP® Solution Manager applica-tion management solution facilitates efficient application management and collaboration with SAP.

leArN More For information on SAP Solution Manager, visit www.service.sap.com /solutionmanager.

To learn more about the diagnostics functionality of SAP Solution Manager, visit www.service.sap.com /diagnostics.

For details on the SAP EarlyWatch® Alert service, see www.service.sap.com/EWA.

tIPUse the SAP Enterprise Support Academy program for a balanced approach – a combination of expertise on demand and expert-guided implementation – to implement SAP Solution Manager.

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“Building a bridge between my customers and SAP Active Global Support will help them to operate better and innovate faster.”Andrea Trone, SAP Enterprise Support Advisor, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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Contract management – Process contracts with SAP, which may include consideration of system measurements, settlement of software maintenance, business processing of purchase orders, user master-data administration, and installation data administration.

Coordination of innovation requests – Record and coordinate innovation requests from your organization. In this role, the Customer COE acts as an interface to SAP. The center has to undertake the actions and make the decisions required to avoid making unnecessary modifications to SAP applications and solutions.

Information management – Serve as primary contact point for all SAP software–specific questions, organize access to SAP information, and distribute information to specific target groups (management, end users, and project teams). Initiate knowledge platforms on SAP topics and information exchange meetings.

Service planning – Have a service planning process carried out regularly by your contact person together with SAP. Service planning starts during the initial implementation and is per-formed thereafter in regular intervals.

The certification of a Customer COE attests to the effective services and high quality of operation of a customer’s SAP solutions. It confirms that the Customer COE serves as a link between business areas and IT within the company. Moreover, it allows customers to achieve additional advantages through the fast exchange of information and closer collaboration with SAP. A Customer COE drives transparency, facilitates integrated quality management, and expedites resolution of critical challenges across SAP solution operations.

Primary Customer Coe functions include contract and license management, support operations, information man-agement, and communication of input to SAP development.

When you establish a Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) organization, you can count on a single source of truth and hub for functional collaboration between your business and IT units – and between your company and SAP. This helps you increase the transparency of business processes, minimize downtime to boost system and business process availability, and reduce total cost of ownership. A center of expertise helps stimulate innovation by keeping software up-to-date with changing requirements, providing skills training, making use of expertise on demand, and much more.

Functions of a Customer Center of expertiseA designated and certified Customer COE must be in place to act as the central point of contact for interaction with the support advisory center. Without a Customer COE in place, delivery restrictions will impact the degree to which we are able to provide mission-critical support.

Every customer is asked to set up a Customer COE location within 12 months of signing the contract for SAP Enterprise Support. The Customer COE is an organizational unit that serves as the central point of reference within a customer organization for contacting SAP. Because it covers all core business process flows, it strengthens the connection between the customer’s user departments and the customer’s IT depart-ment. A Customer COE must support all the SAP applications and solutions on which the customer’s maintenance agreement for SAP Enterprise Support is based.

A Customer COE must perform the following basic functions.

Support desk – Set up and operate a support desk and the applications used to manage the SAP software landscape and provide a sufficient number of support consultants. This service should be available during local standard business hours – at least eight hours a day, five days a week, and nor-mally Monday through Friday. The customer’s support process and available knowledge are reviewed together with the scope of the service planning process and the two-stage certification – primary and advanced for large customers – for a Customer COE location.

Establish a Customer Center of Expertise

CuStoMer CeNter oF exPertISe

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In order to achieve certification as a Customer COE, the following items must be reviewed:

• Setup of a support desk with a sufficient number of support consultants – To maximize the effectiveness of customer resources when acting on reported issues from identification to resolution

• Contract and license processing in conjunction with SAP – To help ensure the customer is using its purchased license according to what has been licensed, thus mitigating the potential implication of using unauthorized licenses

• Management of business requirements and input to SAP development – To identify functionality gaps in advance to minimize the impact on the productive system; to help the customer obtain clear guidance from SAP on the functionality available and thus avoid development and maintenance costs of redundant custom code; to be aware of the different programs SAP provides for improving the products and solutions used today (customer connection program) and influencing SAP development (customer engagement initiative)

• distribution of information – To initiate knowledge platforms on SAP topics and information exchange meetings

• Continuous quality check planning – To allow the customer to take an active part in leveraging the service offerings available, to serve as a counterpart for the support advisory center, and to maximize value for the customer organization

In the primary certification process, the customer com-pletes a checklist and submits it to SAP. SAP validates the checklist, tabulates it, and derives a score from it. SAP sched-ules a remote call to discuss the results of the checklist with the customer. The customer is then notified of the certification results.

Customer COE certification is valid for a maximum of two years. Recertification can be performed at least every two years.

The Customer Center of Expertise is a team that acts across all business units. Ideally located in a company’s application management unit, it brings all stakeholders to the table to resolve challenges and issues and helps manage mission-critical operations, providing:

Solution documentation

Change and test management

Top-issue management

End-to-end quality management

CuStoMer CeNter oF exPertISe

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CuStoMer CeNter oF exPertISe

IN brIeF A Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) organization drives quality management and increases the transparency of critical challenges in SAP solution operations across business and IT units.

leArN More To learn everything you might like to know about a Customer COE, visit www.service.sap.com/coe.

tIPYou can ask your support advisory center for further information.

Patrick Wells, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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“Executing the Engagement Methodology has allowed me to engage proactively with my customers. By understanding the customer’s overall situation, together we are able to define an action plan to improve mission critical operations and safeguard new implementations and upgrades.”Kristen Reddington, SAP Enterprise Support Advisor, SAP Active Global Support, SAP Americas

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The engagement methodology focuses on the following six major areas:

• Business processes • Round-the-clock activities (a 24x7 schedule) • Infrastructure • Software solution change management • IT service management • Deployment of new functionality and users

Customers can request support from SAP at any time. The sup-port advisory center analyzes the customer situation based on the information provided, conducts interviews with customer ex-perts when required, and offers the most appropriate action plan.

SAP Enterprise Support helps you get the most out of your investment in SAP software. With decades of experience, we know how to support you with an engagement that helps you implement, operate, innovate, and run your software better on a continuous basis. SAP AGS has developed a methodology to engage with you proactively and efficiently by sharing its intellectual property. The objective of the methodology is to enable you to understand your entire situation and define together with you an action plan that will improve your operations and safeguard your implementation projects.

The engagement methodology of SAP Enterprise Support offers a structured approach for SAP customers. Its under-lying philosophy is twofold, building both enablement and collaboration elements into every engagement phase:

• enablement of the customer to analyze and implement action plans independently

• Collaboration between the customer and the advisory center of SAP Enterprise Support

In essence, the methodology is a closed-loop approach for companies of any size and complexity to identify areas for improvement, define an action plan, execute on it, and finally measure the resulting impact. The engagement model SAP uses is best leveraged through the offerings of SAP Enterprise Support Academy. They include expert-guided implementations, meet-the-expert Webinars, and guided self-services available within SAP Solution Manager.

Execute Engagement Methodology

eNGAGeMeNt MethodoloGy

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reporting and results – Review the engagement and services delivered to determine the progress achieved, with support of the measurement platform in SAP Solution Manager, and determine the impact of the results on your operations. This strict “review and control” mechanism makes sure that no important “to-do” item is missed and publishes the result of the improvement cycle to all stakeholders. You can also review and customize the management summary reports on the status of your support engagement, which are created on an ongoing basis, in order to gain a better understanding of how the engagement is addressing your areas of concern. The management summary report includes:

• Areas focused on by the engagement • Top issues • Measured benefit of engagement, including agreed-on KPIs • Action plan and next steps

All engagement activities are hosted in SAP Solution Manager. They can be conducted by the customer as a self-assessment session or by consultants from SAP AGS. Based on the findings, an action plan is generated reflecting the customer’s needs, which can be adjusted manually as needed. A status report can be generated that summarizes the progress made so far and specifies the next target on the journey toward reducing the total cost of operations.

Key Phases of the engagement MethodologyFigure 3 provides an overview of the key phases of the engage-ment methodology. Details of each phase are provided below.

360° review – Determine the scope and priorities for a new improvement cycle based on a comprehensive, tool-based evaluation of your current situation, and identify areas for improvement

Benefit case – Determine why a particular topic should be prioritized and what improvements for business users and your IT organization will result; apply predefined benefit cases to expedite the definition process

Support plan – Structure and schedule your use of SAP Enter-prise Support services, and align them with your activities

Services – Execute guided self-services directly, and access services delivered by SAP experts

Measurement and analytics – Gain transparency about your “before” and “after” state using the “KPI framework” in SAP Solution Manager; use the measurement platform to quantify the improvements and run benefit case simulations

engagement

Figure 3: Key Phases of engagement Methodology

you SAP expert

eNGAGeMeNt MethodoloGy

reporting and results

Services

Measurement and analytics

360° review

Support plan

Benefit caseSolution landscape

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New with SAP Solution Manager 7.1Management dashboards provide access to KPIs in SAP Solution Manager for IT executives on a highly aggregated yet meaningful level (see Figure 4). The transparency provided by the dashboard functions allows you to quickly detect opti-mization potential and communicate achieved improvements to your stakeholders and sponsors.

eNGAGeMeNt MethodoloGy

IN brIeF The engagement methodology used by SAP® Enterprise Support services gives the customer a model to help them benefit from their engagement with SAP Enterprise Support.

leArN More To learn more about the engagement methodology, visit www.service.sap.com/TSM. To learn about the expert-guided implementation, visit www.service.sap.com/esacademy.

tIPExpert-guided implementation sessions help you jump-start the engagement methodology.

Register for expert-guided implemen tation sessions by visiting www.service.sap.com/esacademy.

Figure 4: Management dashboards in SAP® Solution Manager

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“My mission is to lead customers through critical situations and bring them back to a normal business.”Joachim Mayer, Global Escalation Manager, SAP Active Global Support, SAP AG

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SAP Enterprise Support brings the value of support and maintenance services to a new level. We go beyond your SAP applications to provide end-to-end support for your entire platform (see Figure 5). This includes SAP and non-SAP solutions. Whatever your technical requirements and whatever your business needs, SAP Enterprise Support helps you perform better.

Become a Best-Run Business with SAP Enterprise Support

Figure 5: SAP enterprise Support in a Nutshell

Application lifecycle management

designrequirements build and test deploy operate optimize

SAP® Solution Manager

SAP Active Global Support

Close collaboration

Services developed and delivered

Continuous improvement

SAP enterprise Support

Academy

Support advisory

Implement better Innovate better

Solution landscape

operate better

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SuMMAry

reporting and results

Services

Measurement and analytics

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Support plan

Benefit caseSolution landscape

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