In this blog you can find out all about our innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management which are delivered as part of our 1805 release. Already in our 1802 release we’ve launched several innovations as part of our two processes Project Financial Control and Project Review. As this year is the year of the intelligent enterprise, we’re happy to introduce you to two intelligent ERP highlights as part of Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management in 1805.
Watch my video below and get a quick overview of three highlights in the area of Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management:
On our journey to the intelligent ERP we are launching a machine learning (ML) scenario supporting project financial controllers. Businesses sometimes experience that projects often don’t meet their budgets due to inadequate data, or even psychological factors: Users are often too optimistic or on the contrary they often reserve safety buffers which result in poor planning and forecasting.
Project cost forecasting based on historical data enables project financial controllers not only to forecast the overall costs of projects during the planning phase, but also during the execution of projects. The prediction is made possible via the training of a ML model. Once the training is completed, the system will be able to automatically calculate the predicted value of your project. Additionally, project financial controllers also have insights into the lower and higher prediction values which allows them to understand the accuracy of the predicted value.
Furthermore, project financial controllers can analyze the cost prediction interval and compare the cost prediction with the planned, and commitments plus actual costs, and even get a graphical or tabular view of the costs. With this ML scenario you can heavily reduce the risk of budget overruns and at the same time also manual efforts.
Find out more about this project cost forecasting machine learning use case in Sven Denecken’s blog and discover how it supports our Cloud ERP’s intelligent and digital future.
Fig. 1: Monitor Projects app providing project financial controllers insights into cost prediction
Another highlight available as of 1805 is the intelligent project assistant with SAP CoPilot. One of the main challenges all project managers need to face is to stay on top of all project related statuses, and to be able to quickly respond to any critical issues. Having the SAP CoPilot in place, project managers can now monitor their projects anywhere and anytime, and make use of voice recognition to interact with the SAP CoPilot. Not only can project managers now easily identify any project issues, but resolving any issues is now much more efficient. The chat and collaboration features of SAP CoPilot are of great value as all project stakeholders and team members can easily collaborate within the business context of a project.
Discover this before-and-after infographic and learn how SAP S/4HANA Cloud improves the lives of project managers through machine learning and a hands-free ERP experience.
Fig. 2: Project manager querying SAP CoPilot ‘Show me high risk projects with negative status trend’
As of our 1805 release, we now also offer project timeline reporting, which tremendously supports project managers in monitoring their projects’ timelines. This new function enables project financial controllers, project managers as well as project steering committee members to analyze dates of projects and assigned milestones in a new UI5 based Gantt chart. With the introduction of the new app ‘Monitor Project Progress’, all stakeholders will be able to gain a graphical, or even a tabular view on the dates and milestones of a project, which improves transparency and allows for easy analysis.
Fig. 3: New ‘Monitor Project Progress’ app allows analysis of projects’ timelines including dates of assigned milestones
With 1805, project financial controllers will be able to capture budgets for projects. Leveraging the report, project financial controllers can easily analyze their projects‘ budgets and compare budgets of a fiscal year with planned, actuals and commitments. Whenever they identify any deviations, or even risks, they can take quick, corrective measures in order not to experience any budget overruns.
As we are constantly improving the user experience of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud by introducing new SAP Fiori apps, we are also working towards the replacement of our current ‘Project Builder’ app. As of 1805 we are releasing simple project creation which enables project financial controllers to easily create simple projects (i.e. projects without a hierarchical structure) from scratch using the new ‘Project Control’ SAP Fiori app. With this new app, project financial controllers can create and maintain project header details. In addition, they can also navigate from here to the project brief to maintain additional project details. One enhancement as of 1805 in our project brief app is the attachment of documents. This functionality enables project financial controllers to attach project-relevant documents even when creating simple projects.
Since the introduction of our overview page in 1802, we’ve been constantly working on the improvement of the overview for project financial controllers. Apart from the display of costs by timeline, the overview page now also comprises cards from the project review process such as on the overall status and the detailed status as well as milestone data of selected projects. From these cards, project financial controllers can navigate to further details such as the project briefs list, or the upcoming milestones list, for example.
Fig. 4: Project Financial Controller Overview Page now also entails cards from project review process
Last but not least, as part of our process project review, we now also enable the integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design. SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design offers an ultimate cloud-based solution that empowers you to design your digital products faster. The solution consists of collaboration and engineering capabilities and enables project managers to create a collaboration in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design in the project brief application. After the new collaboration has been saved, project managers can easily navigate from the project brief app to in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design to leverage its capabilities for activity management and collaborative scenarios, for example.
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @CorinaReise and LinkedIn
Watch my video below and get a quick overview of three highlights in the area of Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management:
Project Cost Forecasting Based on Historical Data
On our journey to the intelligent ERP we are launching a machine learning (ML) scenario supporting project financial controllers. Businesses sometimes experience that projects often don’t meet their budgets due to inadequate data, or even psychological factors: Users are often too optimistic or on the contrary they often reserve safety buffers which result in poor planning and forecasting.
Project cost forecasting based on historical data enables project financial controllers not only to forecast the overall costs of projects during the planning phase, but also during the execution of projects. The prediction is made possible via the training of a ML model. Once the training is completed, the system will be able to automatically calculate the predicted value of your project. Additionally, project financial controllers also have insights into the lower and higher prediction values which allows them to understand the accuracy of the predicted value.
Furthermore, project financial controllers can analyze the cost prediction interval and compare the cost prediction with the planned, and commitments plus actual costs, and even get a graphical or tabular view of the costs. With this ML scenario you can heavily reduce the risk of budget overruns and at the same time also manual efforts.
Find out more about this project cost forecasting machine learning use case in Sven Denecken’s blog and discover how it supports our Cloud ERP’s intelligent and digital future.
Fig. 1: Monitor Projects app providing project financial controllers insights into cost prediction
SAP CoPilot as Intelligent Project Assistant
Another highlight available as of 1805 is the intelligent project assistant with SAP CoPilot. One of the main challenges all project managers need to face is to stay on top of all project related statuses, and to be able to quickly respond to any critical issues. Having the SAP CoPilot in place, project managers can now monitor their projects anywhere and anytime, and make use of voice recognition to interact with the SAP CoPilot. Not only can project managers now easily identify any project issues, but resolving any issues is now much more efficient. The chat and collaboration features of SAP CoPilot are of great value as all project stakeholders and team members can easily collaborate within the business context of a project.
Discover this before-and-after infographic and learn how SAP S/4HANA Cloud improves the lives of project managers through machine learning and a hands-free ERP experience.
Fig. 2: Project manager querying SAP CoPilot ‘Show me high risk projects with negative status trend’
Project Timeline Reporting
As of our 1805 release, we now also offer project timeline reporting, which tremendously supports project managers in monitoring their projects’ timelines. This new function enables project financial controllers, project managers as well as project steering committee members to analyze dates of projects and assigned milestones in a new UI5 based Gantt chart. With the introduction of the new app ‘Monitor Project Progress’, all stakeholders will be able to gain a graphical, or even a tabular view on the dates and milestones of a project, which improves transparency and allows for easy analysis.
Fig. 3: New ‘Monitor Project Progress’ app allows analysis of projects’ timelines including dates of assigned milestones
Project Budget Reporting
With 1805, project financial controllers will be able to capture budgets for projects. Leveraging the report, project financial controllers can easily analyze their projects‘ budgets and compare budgets of a fiscal year with planned, actuals and commitments. Whenever they identify any deviations, or even risks, they can take quick, corrective measures in order not to experience any budget overruns.
Simple Project Creation
As we are constantly improving the user experience of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud by introducing new SAP Fiori apps, we are also working towards the replacement of our current ‘Project Builder’ app. As of 1805 we are releasing simple project creation which enables project financial controllers to easily create simple projects (i.e. projects without a hierarchical structure) from scratch using the new ‘Project Control’ SAP Fiori app. With this new app, project financial controllers can create and maintain project header details. In addition, they can also navigate from here to the project brief to maintain additional project details. One enhancement as of 1805 in our project brief app is the attachment of documents. This functionality enables project financial controllers to attach project-relevant documents even when creating simple projects.
Project Review Cards in Overview Page for Project Financial Controllers
Since the introduction of our overview page in 1802, we’ve been constantly working on the improvement of the overview for project financial controllers. Apart from the display of costs by timeline, the overview page now also comprises cards from the project review process such as on the overall status and the detailed status as well as milestone data of selected projects. From these cards, project financial controllers can navigate to further details such as the project briefs list, or the upcoming milestones list, for example.
Fig. 4: Project Financial Controller Overview Page now also entails cards from project review process
Integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design
Last but not least, as part of our process project review, we now also enable the integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design. SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design offers an ultimate cloud-based solution that empowers you to design your digital products faster. The solution consists of collaboration and engineering capabilities and enables project managers to create a collaboration in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design in the project brief application. After the new collaboration has been saved, project managers can easily navigate from the project brief app to in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design to leverage its capabilities for activity management and collaborative scenarios, for example.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1805 Release Blog
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- New SAP S/4HANA Cloud User Community: register here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- What’s New Viewer here
- Help Portal Product Page here
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @CorinaReise and LinkedIn
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