Process Management in SAP CALM – Common Q&A

Hope everyone have started exploring the CALM and the paradigm shift in ALM world in upcoming years. So, everyone is ramped up with CALM and its capabilities? Well, here I would discuss my experience on the insights of Process Management in the CALM space. If you have started Process Management capability in CALM, here are the key factors to be considered on your journey.

1. Can i create a new Business Process?

No, 26,592 pre-defined processes are available all together as of today. You have to use the    pre-defined best practices.

2. Can i create or modify business flow diagram?

No, it is tabooed in CALM. You have to use the provided Diagrams.

3. Can we add executables, Monitoring objects, upload documents, Test documents?

No, only Requirement and notes can be created from here. No concept of uploads for now.

4. What are work-Strems?

Work-streams are pre-defined under process management. It is more of like a categorization   schema but in this case, pre-built. This is used to view the Process and scope holistically.

5. How are requirement and task related to each other?

It is always requirement followed by a task. Post finalizing, task has to be generated, which is nothing but a form of approval

6. How do we create requirements?

A new requirement can be created from Requirements icon and also from the business flow      diagram. Ideally from the business flow diagram which gives a clarity of relation. Requirements can be downloaded into excel sheet.

7. Is there any approval mechanism for requirement?

Requirement has to be created with a task and that task has to be generated manually. Generation of task is one of the approval Process here. This is an irreversible process.

8. Is there any Dashboards available for Processes?

Not explicitly, but the Project overview gives you visibility to defined scope and corresponding   Business Processes. This can be drilled down via pre-defined workstreams.

9. Unable to view process diagram clearly, for Fit to standard workshop!

Download the relevant Process diagram in pdf or SVG format. Ideally SVG format should give you the optimal visibility

10. Where do I Import and update the Best Practices?

No, you have a predefined one available.

11. Requirements and its maintenance.

Requirements once generated with a Task, can’t be deleted in a process.

But non generated Requirement can be easily deleted. Be wary of it.

12. How do we use workstreams?

This is certainly used to segregate/categorize the requirements. Since these are predefined, plan well in advance accordingly. Below are the 11 workstreams available.

13. What are the “country” options offered in process management?

21 Countries versions are supported, or you can use generic.

14. How to create a scope and distinguish several scopes within same Project?

Go to Projects and select your Project name

Now come back to Processes and follow the screen

15. What is the Ideal sequence to pursue in Process Management?

Create a Project ->Assign Roles -> Define/Create scope ->Align business Scenario-> enable Business Process -> Create Requirement -> Generate Task

To sum up, Apparently the CALM has not evolved to its complete form and the information given above is the initial and current state of Process Management. If you are exploring and setting up for the first time, try to consider all the above points to help you configure seamlessly and reap the best out of it. Certainly, this blog post would help you to navigate on your learning curve without any obstacles. Cheers!!