My journey with SAP

SAP:  System, application, products in data processing. It took me a while before I could actually remember the abbreviation.

What is SAP? What does it stand for?? Why do people use this?? Ain’t the legacy system, MS Office, Outlook cool enough???

All these questions kept haunting me till I actually started working with SAP. I started with QM module as an end user, who’s been instructed to carry out few transactions with limited access and who always got to look up to power users & core users, people in power with statements like ‘this belongs to system settings and you can’t do that’, ‘Come to me if you have a problem’, ‘Oh.. what did you do. This would crumble the system’ and blah blah…..

Finally, I got an implementation project for SAP upgrade. I was chosen as module lead.

My feelings then,

WoW!! I’m a core user now (the powerful one 😉 ). Now I do have all the authorizations, access everything. But wait.. I still do not know how to use them 🙁

No issues 🙂 , I got to play a bit around. I started with very basics. I had As-Is vs To-Be documentation, Integration sessions and Master data followed by testing, defect, re testing, defect, re re testing, defect…. n testing, defect…. Gosh!!

At this point, I used to think ‘Now I know all the TCodes, I can prepare master data, I can modify master data. I can decide what value would the system take for a characteristic. I do know QM 🙂 But this was the time for a twist.

My consultant used to tell me, why don’t you drop this requirement. I used to tell him, why don’t you simply accept that you don’t know how to map this. Then he came up with a new word: RICEWF 😕 . Oops, what’s that !!

My theory about the QM learning shattered into millions pieces. System, application, product was much easier than Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements, Workflow, Forms

Anyway, I got to move further. Z development and then testing, defect, re testing, defect. Modifications done in program, testing & defect gone, but new defect came up, re testing & defect 😥 😥 😥

I somehow learnt to live with this RICEWF thing and my life was moving very happily (with endless loop of testing and defects) 😐

Time for a bang !! Even though it wasn’t a Kingkong thing but my dreams of becoming QM consultant started fading away. Security-Basis-Authorization….. another new thing for me. And the worst part again, endless loop of testing defect testing defect testing defect……..!!

Finally big day comes with all nervous moments. Go- live. In fact successful go- live 😀 .

Suddenly, I found all the statements (‘this belongs to system settings and you can’t do that’, ‘Come to me if you have a problem’, ‘Oh.. what did you do. This would crumble the system’ and blah blah….. ) surrounding me. Did I fell into the same shoes or earlier power men were correct, I still don’t know.

Never mind, I now know all the things. I know the business mapping, I know the integration part, I know the master data, I know the RICEWFs, I know the BASIS (at least SU53 😀 ), I can instruct people for different tasks. Have I become a SAP QM consultant now, I thought YES but.

T W I S T !!!!

As soon as I started as support team for SAP, I heard about Configuration settings, SPRO 😯 .

I did not know about this. Where did this come from? We are done with Go-live and where this config part was hiding whole year. Standard answer: This is consultant job. Now you are going to become a consultant so you must know about the configuration settings.

Ahh…. I started exploring it (and still exploring). Before this moment, I had not used QM beyond our business scenarios.

Exploring further, I landed up on SCN.. 😎

What do I find here?  I find several requirements needed to be mapped in different ways, even though they could be similar. I find how a feature can be used in different business cycle. I find the basic concepts which I had never even thought of. I find people struggling to accept the change management. I see people looking around for a solution, SAP just does not recommend. I have found lot of things, I have known lot of things…. So, Have I become a QM consultant?

I guess not. I believe SAP is an ocean & I have got only a drop yet. And this journey is long, very long… So much to learn, so much to explore.

Long journey, challenging journey yet interesting !!!

I’m sure you guys would definitely agree to what I have said.