Key Roles,Responsibilty,skills and real time issues faced by SAP Consultant in PI Landscape

Dear SCN users,

Some of my friends who recently joined SAP world frequently get confuse over the roles and responsiblity of SAP PI consultant.Even in past,I faced some issue where customer directed some incidents to us just beacuse it was mentioned as PI issue.I hope some of you have also faced this simillar issues in your sap career where you received or asked to work on some of the key issues which are not directly related to you but due to lack of  information,you are not sure whom to direct those issue at RIGHT TIME and to RIGHT GROUP.If you are aware whom to contact for which issue,you will not only help yourself but also you will help your customers.And a closed co-ordination among team will save the time and will help you to give your deliverables  within timeframe.

In this blog,I will try to highlights some of the key Roles and Responsibility of SAP consultant whether he is admin or infra or PI developer.

I will divide the Environment into 4 Parts.

Basis Team:-

• This team is first point of contact for all PI system architecture design.
• They are responsibile for Deployment  for PI components such as ESR and SR.
• Maintain and keep the database updated.
• They will create the business and technical system which developer will use while developing interface.
• Responsible for PI system maintainence and upgration.
• Responsible for SLD maintainence and configuration.
• Responsible for providing system access to right person with right access.Ex-testing team doesnt require all the Tcode access.They just require system monitoring access for their testing.
• Responsible for tranports.ex CTS+ as per the business need from development envirnoment to quality to production.

Skills:-

• Architecture knowledge of SAP PI.

Some of the Key Issues related to Basis team:-

• Make sure that PI system is always accessible.If not than message will start failing.Sever should not be down.
• If SLD,IR or ID is accessible but very slow in opening than they should refresh the cache and take neccesary actions.
• Developer should not have the access of admin part of the PI system.
• Responsible for Disaster Recovery of the system.Disaster Recovery means incase if server is located in Singapore and some disaster such as earthquake or flood occur than they should quickly switch to backup system.
• Responsible for all the Internal error category type such as :-message failed due to password expired.

Infrasturcture Team:-

• Responsible for the proper network connectivity.
• They must make sure than network connectivity between PI system,3rd Party system and all the connected systems are proper and up to date.
• They must keep a track on logs on network distrubance even if you are accessing the system through VPN.
• Any message which fail such as with HTTP 403 type in which the request is valid but server is not able to process those message.You can see this type of error in Communication channel.

Skills:-

• Network and Server Knowlegde.
• VPN and Cisco Knowlegde for remote connection.

Some of the Key Issues related to Infrastructure team:-

• Connectivity between systems should be proper and up to date otherwise message will start failling in communication channel and moni.
• They should have a proper backup and recovery program incase if any unexpected issue occur.

PI Development Team:-

• Responsible for understanding and co-ordinating with functional consultant before developing any interface.
• Responsible for writing the technical specification of all the interfaces.
• Development in Enterprise Services Repository.
• Configuration in Integration Builder.
• Having Knowledge of all the node functions.
• Responsible for co-ordinating when SIT and UAT is going on.
• Responsible for makning any changes in interface only if there is proper CR for this.
• Responsible for error or alert handling.

• Should have a proper and clear understanding incase of any issue.

Skills:-

• PI development knowledge for both part design as well as  configuration.
• Java Knowledge will add advantage.
• Basic ABAP knowlegde.
• If SLD knowledge is there than it will be an added advantages.

Some of the Key Issues related to PI Development team:-

• Mapping not correct.
• Adapter Level configuration not correct.
• Node Functions,boolean or other functions not used properly as the result output is not correct.
• Close Co-ordination between ABAP,testing and functional team incase if the issue occured frequently.
• Responsible for doing proper transportation from devlopment–>quality–>production system.
• Business and Technical System error.
• Message may fail with network issue.
• Monitoring of full load and delta load data trigger.

PI Support Team:-

• Primary responsibility of PI support team to make sure Production system is up and running.
• They are responsible for any issue occured in Production system raised by customer to be solved within the SLA.
• If it is data issue they should try to check and process the message as per the requirement.
• Responsible for handling incidents and tickets causing service disruption in the PI landscape
• They should not change the mapping if any message failed with mapping error.They should highlight it and take help from development team to fix the issue.
• Any changes should not be carried out directly in production.
• They should keep monitoring the system and if they see any issue or alerts or message failed,they should take the neccesary actions.
• Responsible to maintaing the monitoring report of PI message flow includes successful as well as failed.
• Co-ordinate with other teams if issue require multiple team involvement.

Skills:-

• Having deep knowledge of SAP PI.
• Java Knowledge will add advatange to his skills.
• Most important:-should have proper soft skills such as having proper knowledge and correct information before writing any mail to customer because these are the consultants  who are the first contact point for the customer.Any wrong information in the mail will lead to escalation and will keep the issue in pending status only.
• Should have clear Project landscape Knowledge.

Some of the Key Issues related to PI Support team:-

• Incident raised due to data issue or mapping issue.
• Responsible for processing the message if any message failed or stuck in queue.
• Error which occur frequently should be combined and problem ticket should be raised to fix the problem.
• Warehouse or Orders or high priority message should be processed quickly,if it stuck.
• Improper Monitoring will lead to disruption of system.

I thought to summarize all in one blog having roles,responsibility,skills and issue related to PI landscape.Please share your views,opinion and suggestions so that I will keep updating this blog and it will help all those who are new in SAP world or already in this world but dont have clear idea whom to contact or who is responsible for which issue.

Regards,

Abhinav Verma