This blog is the 4^th in a series looking at OrgAudit (aka DataQualityConsole), part of the SAP Org Visualization by Nakisa suite of applications that supports SAP HCM on premise Org Management.  The first blog was an introduction; the second looked at building the business case and the third part looked at the  standard functionality.  Now let’s look at some of the technical aspects of implementing OrgAudit.

For the purposes of this blog I refer to OrgAudit 4.0 build 0901005700, which is the build released onto SMP by SAP in November 2012.  For details on how to download the installation package please refer to the video guide available on YouTube.  Within the download package you will find the applications, SAP components and documentation.  If you are starting your implementation, I would always recommend using the latest available build version (as of 23rd April, 4.0 SP1 is available on SMP).  If you are a Nakisa Partner then refer to the Partner Portal, otherwise simply request the latest build via OSS using application area XX-PART-NKS-VSN and specifying the OrgAudit application.

OrgAudit can only be implemented in the “Staged” approach; this means that the data structures used by the OrgAudit application are held in an intermediate database.  The database is populated in a five stage process.

The error information (current and historical) is also stored in the application database.

SAP ERP 4.7 ext. 220 onwards is supported for OrgAudit.  The SAP component pre-requisites are detailed in the “VSN40_Environment_Checklist.docx” included with the documentation in the SMP package.

The Nakisa Add On and Transport package are required for OrgAudit (as per all SOVN/STVN applications), but they are the same for all applications.  So if you are using a 4.0 SOVN/STVN application already, then no additional install is required.  The 4.0 Add-On passwords can be found in OSS note 1748016.

Consult the compatibility matrix and master guide documentation to confirm your environment meets the hardware and software specifications.

For 4.0 the supported application servers are NetWeaver CE 7.2 (EhP0 SP1-SP05) or NetWeaver 7.3 – see PAM for information on supported operating systems for your chosen NetWeaver version.  For sizing, I recommend referring to the Capacity Planning Guide PDF (documentation can be found on SMP, under Release & Upgrade Info -> Installations & Upgrade Guides -> SAP Solution Extensions -> SAP Talent / Org Visualization by Nakisa -> Release 4.0).

A database is required to hold extracted & processed data, rules configuration and errors.  The compatibility matrix for 4.0 lists the supported databases as Oracle (10g/11g), SQL Server (2005/2008/2012) and DB2 (9.1/9.5/9.7/9.8).

As you may recall, the database holds extracted data for visualising the org structure as well as both the current and historical audit data.  Since this historical data is cannot be re-generated, I’d recommend backing up the database periodically to avoid losing this data in the event of a significant problem with the database.

A SOVN Org Planning licence is required to use OrgAudit.  If you have already purchased the licence, then you can obtain your licence key (also known as the “serial” file) by raising a message on SMP under application area XX-PART-NKS-LKY. If necessary, you can refer OSS note 1257386for detailed guidance on how to raise this message.

You can follow the steps in the “How to setup SOVN OrgAudit application” blog post in order to work produce a very basic setup of the OrgAudit application.

Extraction Steps

So, what are all these steps running? And how long do they take?

When using the AdminConsole, at the end of the “Audit – Run Audit” step, you will see a pop up where you can preview the audit (this step does not happen in the automated scheduled extractions). Previewing produces a PDF document which you can save if required:

Scheduling Extractions

Rules

Configuring Rules

• Does the rule apply?
• Are the prerequisites for the rule met?
• Does it apply to all employees equally (or does the filter need amending)?
• If applicable, are the keywords set appropriately?
• What impact does failing the rule cause, and hence what severity should be assigned to that rule failure?

Rules – How they are stored

Once configured, the rules themselves are also stored in the same database table (“RULES”).  If you take a look using an SQL client, you will notice the database column “TEMPLATE” is used to distinguish an entry as either a rule or a rule template.

There are 48 rule templates delivered as standard in OrgAudit 4.0.

	HR Area	Rule Purpose	# Rule Templates
PA	Personnel Administration	Rules based around employee records	14
OM	Org Management	Rules examining the integrity of the org structure	33
CM	Compensation Management	Rule checking if employee is in the compensation program	1

Whilst it is easy to enable rules during setup, I don’t think any client will want to use all rules as they stand.  This means you have to enable them one by one, configuring each one to your own requirements (weighting, etc.) as you go.  Remember each group (OM, PA, CM) needs to add up to 100% if any rules from that group are used.

In the “RULES” table there are some additional columns which are useful to be aware of:

DB Column	Description
TEMPLATE	0=Rule, 1=Rule Template
TYPE	0=General
CATEGORYID	0=OU, 1=Position, 2=Employee (see resources bundle “object_text”)
SEVERITYID	0=Critical, 1=High, 2=Medium, 3=Low (see resources bundle “Error_Priority”). Note: Severity is set in the definition of the rule and if an object fails the rule, the error severity is set and can’t be changed from within OrgAudit.
TABLENAME	Contains the database object name that the rule will use to determine if there are any errors.
GROUPNAME	OM, PA or CM

As I said earlier, always use the latest available build as I know the initial SMP release contained known issues including ones affecting rule templates 3, 4, 5, 13, 22, 30 and 44 which have all been resolved by mid-April 2013.

Finally, and somewhat frustratingly, there is no tool currently available within OrgAudit, to allow you to transfer your rules configuration between environments.

Error Statuses

Error statuses are held in a resource bundle (..\AppResources\resourcebundleconfiguration\error_status.xml) and the following statuses are available:

Status Text	Status Code	Explanation
Open	0	Any errors detected by the application during an audit run, or any closed or auto-closed errors manually set back to “open” in the application.
In progress	1	Any errors that are currently being corrected. This status is set manually in the application.
Closed	4	Any errors whose status was changed to “closed” in the application. This status is set manually in the application, and indicates that the error has been corrected in the SAP system.
Auto-Open	5	Any errors whose status was changed to “closed” in a previous audit run, but were not corrected in the SAP system before the current audit run. This status is automatically set by the application.
Auto-Closed	6	Any errors whose status was not changed to “closed” in a previous audit run, but were corrected in the SAP system before the current audit run. This status is automatically set by the application.
Ignored	7	Any errors that you do not wish to be automatically set to auto-closed or auto-opened in subsequent audit runs. Note that ignored errors are not displayed in the All Errors listing. This status is set manually in the application.

The ability to change a rule’s current status is dependent on the rule’s current error status.  The following flow diagram explains.

Scoring

A quick re-cap on scoring can be found in this video:

In 4.0, the score bands and group weightings cannot be configured via the AdminConsole.  If you wish to customise them you should look at the template called “Templates_Sherlock\dqc_generic_analytics_formula.xsl”.  For group weightings, search for “OM_ScorePercentage” to find the relevant areas to change.  For score bands, search for the “setColorCodeStyleAttr” to find the xsl:template to amend.

Summary

This ends my blog on the technical aspects of OrgAudit.  OrgAudit is more complex than OrgChart to implement and I recommend using a skilled resource with experience of at least SOVN, but ideally OrgAudit.  Nakisa provides partner training as either full 4.0 courses or 4.0 delta training (for those partner consultants who have previously completed 3.0 training).  For more details on training courses I’d recommend reviewing the list of available courses on Nakisa’s website and perhaps reading my “Diary of 4.0 Delta Training” for further insight.