This is my first project in my SAP career, in fact my whole career. I just want to share some of my experience so far in this upgrade. I am absolutely new to the concept of project or working on a time scale. Though I feel comfortable, there is still some more adjustment required to.
This was an upgrade from 4.6C version to ECC6.0 version(upgrades have now become more common). There were FICO and FSCM modules. FICO went on smoothly. But FSCM is where the problem started. It was a problem right from assessment. The major reasons for this problem was that there was no one who has worked before in Treasury side of SAP, the requirements and the predictions about the time frame required for the project was dismal (Though the project is still underway, it has almost all set for go live with only some minor issues remaining).
The reasons/lessons to avoid some problems during upgrade are:
The process or activites to be done for upgrade should be known before (SAP migration guide is an excellent source). The configuration or customization has changed a lot in ECC as far as treasury management module is concerned. With the introduction of update types, derived transactions and parallel valuation areas I think SAP is proceeding in the right direction (For more information on these topics please read : https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/DgBQBg , https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/wgKrBQ or https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/WAAzBg. The standard configuration changes and their functionalities are required to be known and explained to the customer because the customer might want a change in their business process and a more effecient reprorting. With every new feature SAP brings in, there is a lot of thought and research which has gone into it.
The reason why I say this is that, in our project there was a requirement (people worked in treasury will understand better) where in securities, in 4.6C, position was managed at security account level. But in ECC customization is now changed to security account groups and our client had only 1 account group. But there is customized report which shows the positions at account level. Thus we had to do all the calculations required at account level and for this we needed to understand every flow posted in 4.6C. Thus we explored on various parts of securities in treasury side and understood the flows and thus finally successfully found the calculation logic.
It had taken almost 4 months for us to develop a custom report of the above kind. It is an alternative to the standard transaction FWO0 or TPM40 in 4.6C or ECC 6.0. In this custom report, we can see all the positions at the account level irrespective of the way it has been customized. We can see the accounting information (kind of balance sheet) for transactions done in that account, the money that has come in and the money spent, gain or loss, the balance remaining and also the balance quantities - all at the securities account level and the also at security ID level (Security ID is the unique way or representing a stock or a bond in SAP).
Migration forms a major part of upgrade. During migration from a lower version (in the case of treasury) we should make sure that the custom reports or any custom transaction is not affected. Standard transactions or reports are already taken care by SAP. Hence it is only in the case custom reports where the problem is. There are some standard changes in transactions like in the case of period end closing of positions in treasury, was done in 4.6C using a transaction FWPA. Now in ECC, it is not required as any gain or loss or amortizations can be made to post (through customization) along with the main document as a derived document in ECC. Thus the process of period end clsoing is not required as all the positions will be updated currently in ECC. The existing business flows of the customer must be re organised to accomadate the changes. Identifying the standard changes and accomadating them in the custom reports is an important and major activity. The efforts to be spent have to be thoroughly analysed here.
Finally, unless there is a high change of customization required, upgrade is not that difficult, if properly planned. The existing customization needs to be known in and out. SAP's documentation do help a lot. There is a lot to learn in treasury and it is fun learning it, but unless we get into the system we will not learn it.
