PPM Projects integration with Change Request Management as of 7.1 SP10

When we used  the Solution Manager projects (SM Projects) for Change Request Management, there was a need for a bigger project management tool which would help us in managing the IT Projects in more structured way.  What I mean by the structured way is the seamless information exchange between the Project Management Office (PMO) and Change Management Team in a maintenance or implementation project.

Project Management (PPM Project)  is a cross-industry tool which is used to plan and monitor development and consulting projects.  Many customers use PPM to effectively manage their ongoing projects since it has wider integration possibilities (like PS, FICO…). With SP10, exciting things are happining with Project Manageemnt  in Solution Manager area as we are seeing Solution Manager maturing as THE TOOL for entire IT Management (call it ERP for IT). When PPM is deployed in Solution Manager system we see this new possibility of running the projects in a better way.

Source: SAP

Using this;

A. Customer can leverage SAP PPM as the project planning and scheduling tool in SAP Solution Manager.

B. SAP Solution Manager tool remains as Project Excecution Tool and Change Managemnt is now Integrated to PPM Project Management functionality.

Solution Manager Project is assigned  to PPM Project and we can chose what type SAP Solution Manager projects can be assigned to a Project Management project.

Status Mapping b/w PPM Project and Solution Manager Project is allowed. This allows mapping  SAP Solution Manager project status values onto Project Management project status values. This information is used to synchronize Project Management project status values to an SAP Solution Manager project.

The Tasks in the PPM Project is where the Change Request is mapped. There are several ways to create  Change Request/ Tasks  in this integration.

i. Manually create transaction out of task: You will be able to create a transaction via a button, after the task has been released.

ii. Automatically create transaction on release of task: The system creates the transaction automatically after the task has been released

iii. Create task on customized action of transaction: In the transaction there will be an action available to create the Project Management task.

The Change Request inherits the title from the respective Task.

This integration allows the time recording features too, time recording can be done in Request for Change and the data is transferred to PPM Task. Another feature is  mapping the SAP Solution Manager status values of requests for change onto Project Management task status values. This updates the status of the Project Management task, depending on the status of the request for change.

Functional Restrictions

  1) You cannot assign more than one SAP Solution Manager project to an SAP Portfolio and Project Management project

  2) You cannot assign more than one SAP Portfolio and Project Management project to an SAP Solution Manager project

  3) You cannot assign more than one request for change to an SAP Portfolio and Project Management task

  4) You cannot assign more than one SAP Portfolio and Project Management task to a request for change

  5) No distributed deployment

  6) No integration of Quality Gate Management

  7) No Roadmap integration

  8) No migration of objects from the existing integration of Change Request Management and cProjects.

  9) No functional relation and no assignment between the new integration and the existing integration of Change Request Management and cProjects

10) You can assign only one SAP Solution Manager project to one SAP Portfolio and Project Management project. The relationship is always 1:1, so the

assignment to an SAP Portfolio and Project Management project is not copied when you copy an SAP Solution Manager project.

  11) When you transport an SAP Solution Manager project, the SAP Portfolio and Project Management project assignment is not transported.

  12) Not every SAP Portfolio and Project Management project type can be assigned to every SAP Solution Manager project type. The possible assignment

combinations of project types are defined in the customizing.

  13) An SAP Portfolio and Project Management project that is assigned to an SAP Solution Manager Project cannot be archived.

(Credit: SAP IT PPM presentation)

I am still exploring other features and very excited about this integration and endless possibilities we can now achieve with PPM – SM Project Management tool.  I shall blog my experiences in coming days.

Cheers,

Vivek

Note: The technical configuration of above mentioned integration is explained in this blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/it-management/alm/solution-manager/blog/2013/12/09/the-beginers-guide-to-integrating-ppm-with-charm-in-sp10

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