Introduction
There are lots and lots of activities in SAP Solution Manager Configuration – many of them mandatory. If you just want to set up one scenario – IT Service Management in this case – you don’t need to perform all of the cross-scenario activities.
As an exercise, we took a freshly installed system and performed only the setup activities necessary to get the basic IT Service Management scenario up and running. We wanted to see how much we could speed up the setup process by leaving out all extraneous activities which are not absolutely necessary for the single scenario. Indeed, we found we could significantly reduce the number of activities and hence the time required. This gave us food for thought for possible future simplification of SAP Solution Manager Configuration.
However before we get around to changing the Solution Manager infrastructure – this will take some time – we thought we’d publish our results here, as you could immediately profit from this information should you want to just get Solution Manager IT Service Management quickly running on a new system.
- The results are based on SAP Solution Manager 7.2 SP04, however later support packages should also be similar.
- We also list the time it took for us to perform each activity. Since we were pretty familiar with the ITSM scenario, we had an unfair advantage. As they say, your mileage may vary.
- It took us 5:52 minutes to perform the cross scenario configuration
- We needed 49 minutes for the mandatory IT Service Management setup.
- These times do not include asynchronous “wait” times, such as waiting for communications users to be created at SAP, or for long jobs to run. We started most such activities at the end of the day; they were completed by the time we started working the next day.
- As such, we would expect the minimal setup procedure to take 2-3 days, but not with continuous effort for the whole of that time period.
Cross Scenario Mandatory Configuration
We required 5:52 minutes (about) to perform all the activities:
| Scenario | Step | Activity | Type (Automatic/ Manual/ Custom UI) | Approximate Time in Minutes to Perform Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| System Preparation | Define System Role | Define System Role | Cust | 5 |
| Check “Post Installation” on ABAP | Man | 10 | ||
| Check Secure Web Browser Comm. (HTTPS) | Man | 20 | ||
| Check Transaction SPAU | Man | 15 | ||
| Check Virus Scan Profile Parameters | Man | 0 | ||
| Check TMS Configuration | Auto | 1 | ||
| Check License Key | Auto | 0 | ||
| Check ABAP System Profile Parameters | Auto | 2 | ||
| Check ABAP Software Prerequisites | Auto | 1 | ||
| RFC Connectivity | RFC Connectivity | Cust | 10 | |
| Support Hub Connectivity | Configure Support Hub Connectivity | Auto | 120 | |
| Correction for SNOTE | Correction for SNOTE | Cust | 10 | |
| Essential ABAP Corrections | Essential ABAP Corrections | Cust | 30 | |
| Maintain Users | Maintain Users | Cust | 10 | |
| Infrastructure Preparation | SLD Connection | SLD Connection | Cust | 10 |
| LMDB Synchronization | LMDB Synchronization | Cust | 3 | |
| LMDB Content Check | LMDB Content Check | Cust | 3 | |
| Configure SAPConnect | Cust | 5 | ||
| Configure CRM | Technically Upgrade Products | Man | 3 | |
| Deactivate Creation of BDocs | Man | 5 | ||
| Maintain Product ID Length | Auto | 3 | ||
| Create Hierarchy for Material Products | Auto | 3 | ||
| Maintain Number Range for Material | Auto | 3 | ||
| Prepare IBase | Auto | 3 | ||
| Set Priorities for CRM Transaction Types | Auto | 3 | ||
| Enable Gateway Services | Enable Gateway Services | Cust | 7 | |
| Basic Configuration | ||||
| Activate Piece Lists | Auto | 6 | ||
| Activate Services | Auto | 4 | ||
| Schedule Jobs | Schedule Jobs | Cust | 10 | |
| Configure Manualy | Business Partner for Scenario Users | Man | 15 | |
| Clear Caches for Launchpad | Man | 2 | ||
| Managed System Configuration | ||||
| Maintain RFCs | Maintain RFCs | Cust | 30 |
IT Service Management Scenario Configuration
It took us 49 minutes to perform the activities in this scenario.
| Parent step | Substep | Automatic Activity | Manual Activity | Optional/ Mandatory | Time (Minutes) |
| Perform Prerequisites | |||||
| Check Prerequisites | 1 | ||||
| Check Solution Manager Central Correction Note | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check Piece List Activation | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check Connection to SAP Backbone | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check LMDB Configuration | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check Backgrounds Jobs | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check Service Activation | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check and Set Up Number Ranges | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check IBase Component and IObject Creation | Man. | 0 | |||
| Check SAP Connect Configuration | Man. | 0 | |||
| Configure Manual Prerequisites | |||||
| Enable Business Functions for ITSM | Man. | 10 | |||
| Maintain SAP Customer Number | Man. | 2 | |||
| Configure Automatic Prerequisites | |||||
| Create Hierarchy for Service Products | Man. | 5 | |||
| Background Job for Communication with SAP | Man. | 10 | |||
| Update Search Helps for IBase Objects (Only visible when needed) | Man. | 0 | |||
| Configure Transaction Types | |||||
| Copy Transaction Types | |||||
| Copy Transaction Type | Man. | 5 | |||
| Define Copy Control for Transactions Types | Man. | 1 | |||
| Specify Mapping Rules for Copy Control | Man. | 1 | |||
| Maintain Transaction Types (Custom UI) | 2 | ||||
| Set Up Business Partner | |||||
| Add Contact Person to Business Partners | Man. | 1 | |||
| Configure Landscape | |||||
| Perform Prerequisites | |||||
| Check BACK RFC | Man. | 1 | |||
| Check BCOS_CUST | Man. | 5 | |||
| Check AIINSTALLATIONS | Man. | ||||
| Check iBase Entry | Man. | 0 | |||
| Set Up Users and Partners | |||||
| Create Users and Business Partners | |||||
| Maintain Users and Business Partners | Man. | 1 | |||
| Maintain AISUSER | Man. | 2 | |||
| Configure UI | |||||
| Set Up SAP Fiori Apps | |||||
| Configure SAP Fiori Launchpad | Opt. | 1 | |||
| Maintain SAP Partner | |||||
| Set Up SAP Customer Numbers | |||||
| Maintain SAP Customer Number | Man. | 1 |
Thanks Gordan, for high level activities and time lines.
For system preparation ,infrastructure preparation, basic and managed system configuration steps are streamlined and not many issues .
But as per experience with recent ITSM setup with 7.2 sp3 , BI Related activities mored time compare with configuration steps.
Do we have any preconfigured Solution manager is available apart from CAL? , it’s very challenging for us to give the demos and convincing the customers .