SAP Project Systems- It’s Future!!!
Change or Disappear seems to be the Mantra these days. So where is SAP Project Systems (SAP PS) heading for? This question has been popping up in my head from last few months. So I thought let me try and write a blog piece on this topic and get some expert views on it. 🙂
To give you all a background, I have been a SAP PS consultant from last 7 years and working on PPM since last one and half year. I truly love the capabilities and functionality which SAP PS provides to the Project Managers. Though I do encounter users complaining about the scheduling part of projects sucks in PS then say in Microsoft Projects (MSP), but overall SAP PS rules the PM area was my Holy truth 😀 😀
The complex nature of SAP PS when it fully integrates with all other modules of SAP makes it a difficult candidate for some to understand; whereas once you understand the dynamics of PS it becomes quintessential for your Project Management activities. The wide range of SAP PS to map project management and controlling with financials makes it a best fit.. But now things are changing!!!
People are moving towards WEB, there is a strong push on ease of doing business, information needs to be readily available and easy to decipher and here I think with the advent of PPM 6.0/6.1 by SAP, PS is losing its turf as the most favorable management tool.
I don’t see any major enhancements to SAP PS from last 7 years, though there have been some cosmetic changes overall to the SAP PS solution nothing revolutionary has come up or Maybe I am wrong!!
From where I am looking at SAP PS it looks like ending up becoming a back end integrator for PPM. This thought makes me uneasy @ the future of PS. Is it the end of road for PS as we know it?
So what are the take guys? Will PS survive in its current form? Your comments and thoughts are welcome. 🙂
Cheers
Sammar
Hi Sammar,
Its a good initiative to express and ask views on SAP PS and its future. With 5 years of work experience in SAP PS, I have seen its market getting up and down from time to time reason being that its not used in every industry where SAP is implemented.
When I see on SAP PS requirements then its a clubbed requirement in many openings liks PS-PM, PS-CO, FICO-PS and so on..
It seems like industries want their workforce to be multi skilled and want to hire them on cost of a unique skill.
Also, we have not seen much advancement since last 5 years in the area of PS. We saw HCM transformed into Success Factor, BASIS got many integrated solutions but such modifications are lacking in PS area.
I believe some up gradations are required in SAP PS area too to make it more usable and to create its value equal to other core areas of SAP like MM,FICO,PP etc.
Thanks & Regards
Saurabh
completly agree, high time for some major overhaul of PS Solution..
Also, I have observed a lack of Experts contribution and Moderators involvement in this forum. Not sure what exactly is the point which is prohibiting them to contribute to the forum.
I regularly visit MM and PM forum and they are flooded with experts/Moderators views,comments,blogs,documents.
I am not worrying about PS module future as it remains as fully integrated part of SAP ECC as well as it is an open system, means any customer enhancement can be built on top of it and on the same data base avoiding any interfaces. It has many important functionalities and rewriting them from scratch is too expensive exercise. ECC will remain for SAP a core product for many decades to come.
I am rather concerned about SAP strategy in the area of further developments. Quite often SAP creates software that either overlaps in parts of functionality or competes with one another. In particular I see CPM and BPC as competing products within SAP PS space.
Moreover CPM is expensive and quite confusing BI based application. For some reason SAP is pushing any new functionalities out of ECC.
To keep most of SAP PS existing customers happy it would be enough to buy few of the SAP Development Partners certified add-ons within ECC, if within SAP there is a complete vacuum of ideas for SAP PS.
For example slightly improved ECP can eliminate the need for many BPC implementations within SAP PS space. Same flexible customer characteristics and single planning transaction with real-time update to ECC database. Same flexibility of UI with html. No need to any BPC extractions/retractions and Excel like interface that looks from 90-ties.
And I quite agree, in the area of EAM there is a road map with many nice enhancements coming out on a regular basis, while SAP PS does not improve much.
Hi Paulo,
Thanks for your insight. What i meant with PS future was in terms of its usability not as a solution within ECC itself..
As you said there are competing solutions within SAP space which are eating up resources and drying the innovation in the core areas especially in PS.
CPM,MRS and some functionality within PPM could have been very well developed within PS sapce. Maybe as you said SAP doesn't want to disturb the customer base already using PS..
Hi Sammar,
I do not know if you have seen it before, but actually a very nice summary from ASUG:
<Sorry the link was removed by moderator, but you can find it at ASUG site>
Regards,
Paulo
Thanks for the information Paulo. I knew some of it, but didn't actually had the End to End progression view.. 🙂 Really Nice..
Regards
Sammar
I do not think it is going to diminish .. but more emphasis on GUI and presentation is making life difficult. However as PPM will get mature, PS will be used more in the back end.
Hi Sammar,
First of all, Thanks for taking this initiative....
I viewed all comments...Its true that, SAP PS requirement remains Up and Down in Market and there are not much solution in this field on scn as compared to others.
Also, Now what is happening , normallly Finance team is now grabbing PS module....that is also the main cause of decreasing PS demand.
I also found that People thinks that . PS means WBS, Network nothing else...and today people need jump in process. So they need and think like this.
1. Create project through excel Template
2. Planning through Excel and upload
3.Project cost acquired during process.
4. Then in month end Analysis.
5. Report moved to BI
PS finish 🙂
Rahul
Hi all
I am curious to know if any of you have worked with a plug-in such as NOVECO, where you get SAP enhanced and made easier by adding ABAP to give you 3 cockpit views to work from and use SAP standard settings and tables. I.e. no interface but enhanced functionality and thereby better user experience.
Anyone else worked with this or anything similar?
Helle T
Helle,
I've used it and implemented it. I'm very impressed.
Agree with Nathan. I had it in a Sandbox for over one year and very much recommend it.