SAP Inside Track NSQ: SolMan: "ERP for your SAP"

[TammyPowlas]

Ajay Vonkarey, Alpha Sirius, presented " Successful CHaRM Implementation Validated Environment" on June 25th at SAP Inside Track Newtown Square.  Click here to watch the recording.  I highly recommend watching all the recordings from this event.  All the sessions I attended this day were excellent.

How do we manage without CHaRM?
Currently, without CHaRM, most of us manage transports in spreadsheets, still do approvals by e-mails, have difficulty adhering to governance, have overlapping issues with project and support landscapes and problems with traceability and audits.  We have difficulty adhering to governance through SOX compliance or other industry standards.  

ERP for your SAP
Ajay explained that SolMan is the "ERP for your SAP" since it provides the tools and processes for IT Service Management.  Ajay said it provides “Process-driven transparency for the whole application lifecycle” in that is links transports/objects back to a change request.  

He said his customers use the SolMan work centers, which provides a "central dashboard" for the user.

Ajay also indicated that SolMan 7.1 has more integration with third party applications; he mentioned there is a "gateway" with HP Quality Center.  

CHaRM Extended Configuration
For his pharmaceutical customer, they extended the configuration and notification process using digital signatures, thereby extending the audit trails.  Additionally, they extended the Web dynpros as in the inbox the user clicks on a link to SolMan to open the change request.

Ajay suggests for your CHaRM implementation that you build a prototype to help fit your needs.  He also recommends using BI for reporting to generate service level agreements and establish metrics.

He also said you already paid for SolMan so you "might as well use it".  He suggested using SolMan has a repository for your SolMan project.  There is a business process repository to implement functions in SolMan.  

"Not just a tool for Basis"
A key challenge to overcome is that SolMan is not just a Basis job as it requires experience in project management, functional and programming knowledge.

Thanks to Ajay for presenting as I enjoyed his presentation.