How other companies are using SolMan..like the Blondie song goes

[TammyPowlas]

 

As the Blondie song goes "One Way, or Another, I'm gonna find ya...I'm gonna get ya" - well  Solution Manager  has finally caught me.  I attended 5 days of Solution Manager classes this week.  Of course everyone needs to implement it for the Maintenance Optimizer/Support Packs, but what about the other ITIL-related processes of incident management, problem management and release management?

The first two days of class covered Service Desk.  During the class, we learned that most major large companies aren't using Service Desk.  Most companies who use Service Desk use it only for SAP support and not other IT-related tickets.  Our PMO wanted to know about Service Desk XT; our instructor said it was just an interface.

SAP is really pushing towards using SolMan Work Centers; however many class attendees reported that the response time from SolMan work centers was slow. 

Does anyone recognize this prompt/button?

It's a SolMan Work Center loading...for as Jim Spath provided

What I don't like about the ABAP WebDynpro is searching for the Components whereas with service notifications within the SAPGui they are automatically populated.

I'm an end user...what SAP component am I using...and how do I search?

I could see if I were a heavy SAP portal user where I would want the work centers.

Another interesting factoid is that automatic routing to your support team based on module isn't so automatic to set up.

Day 3, when the Change Request Management class began, I learned that most large companies do not create SolMan "project" projects...they use maintenance projects for large projects as well, as they find them more flexible.  One large company reported that they do not even use the test message feature.

There was a "push" to use SolMan work centers in the materials as well; however, the instructor raised a good point - will your key users (mainly developers and configurers) really be using work centers?  In his opinion, no, they would use the SAPGui transactions.

I can understand why SAP recommends using BW for report SolMan reporting; the native SolMan reports are not so easy to run and execute (SOLAR_EVAL).  The instructor explained that Solution Manager's first name was SOLAR, hence many of the SolMan transactions begin with "SOLAR".  Interesting fact! The SAPGui reports don't show trends, graphs, and since there is BW Business Content for SolMan it should be a likely candidate for BI reporting.  Someone in class said there's a "baby BI" for Early Watch diagnostics.

Should the Basis team be the one doing the imports into production?  The class was divided on this; the large companies said "yes" as segregation of duties was needed.

One large company said they would only create change requests/transports if the developer could relate it an item in their SolMan business hierarchy (I assume built by SOLAR01/02).  In my mind, I wonder if this is really going to work, but I couldn't make any cogent arguments against this during class. It is an interesting concept and I would like to follow up with them to see if it works in practice.

I was a little surprised at the lack of mentions of SAP certification during class; it was splashed all over the SAP training center computer screen savers about the benefits; but no mention/discussion in class about it.

So at the end of the day, am I a "SolMan"?

Well, no, not yet, but the journey has just begun.