Introduction
This article outlines the steps necessary to extract a copy of the SAP IMG nodes into excel and clean them up into a simple grid.
Why?
So the first question you might ask is why would you want to extract the thousands of nodes of the IMG into an excel file. From my experience I have been asked to perform this task on many projects, primarily to help with scope definition and assign and manage responsibilities. This may seem redundant these days, with the integrated tools that allow for project management in solution manager that allow you to represent this hierarchy and report against it in many ways. However in the fog of a time constrained implementation I can assure you that the learning curve and access issues to all the necessary tools, often causes things to spiral down to the lowest common denominator of representing information in a system that most people have on their computers and are familiar with. In most cases this ‘lowest common denominator’ is excel.
What can I do with this?
I have used an excel extract of the IMG on multiple projects for the following reasons, but I’m sure you could think of many more
· Create a list of in and out of scope nodes to assist with scoping
· Assign formulas to ‘estimate’ work and skills mix for a given scope
· Assign ownership of nodes within projects with multiple disparate teams
· To form a document management system to track configuration documentation
· To track configuration completion for project management
To read the details of how to to do this head on over to the original article at
http://www.consulting.mungapen.com/?p=98
