ASAP methodology & Levels of support

Question

HI experts,
For support analyst:
1.what is meant by level 1,2 &3  support in  MM....
2. Can someone kindly brief me the diffrent phases of ASAP methodology in detail pls
Regards
Gandharva

Answer 1

Hi
Basically it depends on the SLA , the most of the company follow as below
L1 - Production issue - to be closed within - 1hour, 4 hours or 8 hours - Changes can be done in PRD itself or changes movd from Development - QAS - Production.
L2 - Medium changes - to be closed within the time frame based on the change request - It might be 2 days, 4 days or 1 week - Changes will be test in DEV and Moved to QAS for UAT and then it will be moved to PRD.
L3 - Set of changes - which means it is mini project, all the changes will be done within the duration, ex: 2 months. The changes will be moved to QAS for UAT and integration testing, finally all the changes will be moved to PRD, it has Go-live date and so on. this is kind of Mini projects.
ASAP
Refer following link;
ASAP Roadmap
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_47x200/helpdata/en/48/623972d55a11d2bbf700105a5e5b3c/content.htm
SAP Projects are implemented as per ASAP Methodology.
The ASAP solution was developed to ensure the successful, on-time delivery of a project. SAP delivers the AcceleratedSAP (ASAP) methodology for project management and system implementation.
Developed by SAP to optimize the success of implementing the SAP Business Suite, ASAP streamlines the implementation by providing templates, methods, tools, and accelerators that have been built on the success of thousands of previous SAP implementations. The ASAP methodology adheres to a specific road map that addresses the following five general phases:
1. Project Preparation, in which the project team is identified and mobilized, the project standards are defined, and the project work environment is set up;
2. Business Blueprint, in which the business processes are defined and the business blueprint document is designed;
3. Realization, in which the system is configured, knowledge transfer occurs, extensive unit testing is completed, and data mappings and data requirements for migration are defined;
4. Final Preparation, in which final integration testing, stress testing, and conversion testing are conducted, and all end users are trained; and
5. Go-Live and Support, in which the data is migrated from the legacy systems, the new system is activated, and post-implementation support is provided.
ASAP incorporates standard design templates and accelerators covering every functional area within the system, as well as supporting all implementation processes. Complementing the ASAP accelerators, the project manager can create a comprehensive project plan, covering the overall project, project staffing plan, and each sub-process such as system testing, communication and data migration. Milestones are set for every work path, and progress is carefully tracked by the project management team. Effective CommunicationWeekly update meetings ensure full communication between the project team, the client project team, and project management. These meeting are used not only to update on project status, but also to identify any issues or risk areas that may threaten the project. By identifying these problems early, they are more easily mitigated and resolved, reducing their impact on the project timeline. Ensuring Quality and Mitigating RiskProject quality is verified near the completion of each project phase. Using existing ASAP checklists, these quality checks ensure that all tasks for the phase have been completed properly, that all relevant documentation has been kept, and that all tasks required to commence the next phase of the project have been completed. In addition to the specific project team, companies may use Quality Assurance reviews on all of its projects to ensure that experience gained on other projects has been taken into account and that the optimum system design has been utilized.
What ASAP stands for ?
ASAP: Accelerated Systems Application and Products in Data Processing
All implementation projects have the following phases:
Scoping - What is to be implemented i.e. which sub modules are to be implemented some clients may not require credit management for example. Look at the project scope document carefully it will tell you what SAP sub-modules in SAP you should be prepared for. Usually the sales people along with project manager do it.
As is - Here you understand the existing business processes of the client. Your BPO collect all the ISO-documentation (if client is ISO certified), reports and forms at this stage and you analyze how and when the reports/forms are generated, where the data is coming from. You also do a Level -2 training for your BPO so he is made aware of all the required transactions in SAP.
Once this is over BPO can start learning with the consultants help more about SAP. This is crucial because if you miss out any transactions the BPO may forget about some of his Business processes which may come up later. It is a good practice to ask the BPO to make flow charts to explain business processes.
To-Be - In Parallel you map these processes to SAP. Processes that you are not sure of as to whether they are present in SAP or not you try to do a configuration of those processes, and along with the BPO(Business process owner he is the clients employee who knows about the clients business processes probably a middle management guy, there can more than one), BPO involvement is required as he may be able to tell you his requirements better. Once you do the business modeling you will also be made aware of the gaps between as-is and to-be, here decisions have to be made as to whether an ABAP development/system modification is required or not and so on. Involve the BPO as much as possible and document everything it is good practice do not be lazy about it.
Business blueprint: Here the as-is and to-be and gap analysis is explained. This is the document that you will be using to do your configuration in the realization phase.
Realization phase: Here you do the configuration in the development server (there are three clients -development, quality, production). You also decide on the master data format, so that BPO can go collect the master data. You also give ABAP specifications for forms, reports etc, system modifications etc. Unit testing: Your BPOs and a few key users sit down and test your configuration in your module only. It is good to test the BDCs that you need for uploading data at this stage so you have more realistic data and your BDCs are tested.
Integration testing: Once all modules unit testing is over then the configuration is transported to the Quality server, where testing for all the modules is done by BPOs and end user, this is to check if any problems are there in integration between various modules. Once all is okay from the QA server configuration is transported to the production server.
Go live preparations Data uploading: The collected master data is checked and the uploaded into production server (sever and client I have used interchangeably). Now you are ready for go live i.e. users can now use the production server.
Read ASAP methodology for more details you will understand better.
ASAP methodology means nothing but standard process for implementation of SAP, It consists of 5 phases.
1. Project preparation - consists of identifying team members and developing strategy as how to go.
2. Business Blue Print - consists of identifying the client current process, requirement and how SAP provides solution. Consists of detailed documentation
3. Realization - The purpose of this phase is to implement all the business and process requirements based on the Business Blueprint.
4 Final Preparation - The purpose of this phase is to complete testing, end-user training,
5 Go Live and Support
Hope it clarifies.
Thanks & Regards
Kiran