DRAFT Ver. 1.5
SAP BI
Organization Approach
January 2, 2010
Table of Contents
1.Project Roles and Responsibilities
Project Model 1: Small Project
Project Model 2: Medium Sized Project
Project Model 3: Large Projects
Roles in a Project Organization
BW PROJECT MANAGER
BW ARCHITECT
BUSINESS ANALYST
BW DEVELOPER
EXTRACT AND TRANSFORM DEVELOPERS
PORTAL DEVELOPER
PRESENTATION DEVELOPERS
APPENDIX A: Organizational Survey results……………………………………………………….. 10
APPENDIX B: BW Support Organization Presentation………………….………………………….. 12
1.Project Roles and Responsibilities
While the organization may be in a production support mode, there may also exists on-going project development. This is typical in large and mid-sized companies that developed the enterprise data warehouse over time. The most common way to approach the challenge of creating a stable production environment while also accommodating the flexibility of a development project, require clearly communicated roles and responsibilities.
It also required that the project members are provided clearly defined tasks and training as the project(s) are starting up. As general guidelines developer training should start early for all project team members since SAP ERPskills are not easily transferable to BW; hands-on experience is needed (it is very hard to learn while being productive). The teams should also not be “over sized” so that they overlap in responsibilities with the support organization. The quality of the team members is much more important than the number of members. A skilled BW developer can accomplish in one day what 3 novice developers can do in a week (the tool has a steep learning curve).
The project team leadership should also consider the team member’s experience level with SAP BW/Business Intelligence and time and cost estimates should be based on team’s experience level. If external project resources are used, the management should plan on formal knowledge-transfer from external resources from day one.
This is done by linking inexperienced members with experienced ones as well as by having identified “go-to” resources available in all areas (make a list or all support resources and their areas of responsibilities). During the ramp-up of the project, all project team membersshould be trained on standards, naming conventions and processed that the support team has established.
In the next sections we will explore three of the most common staffing models of a project team as well as their roles and responsibilities.
Project Model 1: Small Project
Small BW Project for Single Subject Area (e.g. Billing, Inventory or Accounts Payable).
4-5 team members and normally 3-6 months duration depending on scope
These are roles, not positions. (Sometimes one team member can fill more than one role.)
Project Model 2: Medium Sized Project
Project for Single Complex Subject Area (e.g. Cost and Profitability, Internal Billing).
8-10 team members and normally and 2-4 months duration depending on scope
Project Model 3: Large Projects
Large BW Project for Multiple Subject Areas (e.g. Sales, Finance and Material Management).
15-25 team members and normally 6-18 months duration depending on scope
Roles in a Project Organization
BW PROJECT MANAGER
The project manager should be a dedicated resource, and not be involved in other major projects. This role is the key to the project's success. The manager is responsible for:
•Creating and maintaining all project plans and organizing the work environment.
•Making timely decisions and delegating tasks.
•Effectively communicating with all members of the team.
•Facilitating project meetings.
•Understanding key concepts of Data Warehousing and their implications.
•Managing "crisis" and issues effectively.
•Assuring that dead lines are met and quality is delivered.
•Managing time and expenses.
BW ARCHITECT
The data warehouse architect should be an individual who is familiar with all technology aspects of data warehousing. The data warehouse architect should have participated on more than one successful data warehouse project in a key technical role, and should have a thorough understanding of front-end tools, load tools, data base engines, data design and the technical infrastructure. The data warehouse architect is responsible for:
•Integrating all applied technologies and design the technology architecture for all integrated systems
•Supervising the technical aspect of the data warehouse.
•Leading tool evaluations and provide recommendations to the project leader.
•Providing input and recommendations on technical issues to the project leader.
•Reviewing technical work of other team members for quality assurance
•Reviewing and participating in testing of data design, tool design, data loads and presentation system design.
•Transformations, gateways, networks, and hardware selection and sizing.
BUSINESS ANALYST
The Business analyst is responsible for the overall development of reports that supports the functional of the project from a BW perspective. During blueprinting, this individual is responsible for gathering detailed reporting requirements from the business users and existing reporting groups within the organization. A key deliverable from this effort are detailed reporting requirements for areas such as the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliation efforts, closing procedures, cost and profit center accounting, and overhead management.
The ideal candidate for this position should have detailed knowledge of the industry that the company operates in, and a solid understanding of the reporting needs of such an organization. The individual should also have strong communication skills and the ability to plan, conduct and document interviews with managers and users. This analyst will also be managing the user acceptance testing and feedback process from representatives for the user community, and assure that those requirements are being met by the reporting system being built. During the roll-out of the system the business analyst are engaged in the user documentation development as well as the development and execution of the user training.
BW DEVELOPER
The BW developer is responsible for creating the data objects for the reporting areas. This includes designing all structures within BW that supports the reporting, such as DSO objects, InfoCubes and MultiProviders (views). This also includes creating data models for the subject areas, as well as the formal approval process for each object. The data structures are based on the user requirements gathered during the project’s interview phase, and enhanced during the blueprinting phase. Core requirements for the data model come from user inputs and the work conducted by the business analyst.
Key deliverables include data models for each data structure developed, test planning and execution, and documentation of extensions to standard business content, a data dictionary and an implementation of master data, hierarchies and changing dimensions. In addition this individual is responsible for the performance testing and tuning and the development of aggregates, indexing strategies and partitions. The role of BW developer is a key to the overall project success, and the individual must have very strong BW skills with implementation experience from other BW systems.
EXTRACT AND TRANSFORM DEVELOPERS
The extract and transfer data developer is responsible for designing data extracts and reviewing the data available on the SAP ERP legacy system. It involves reviewing existing load routines and validation programs, creating all objects and mappings from ERP to BW, and validating standard content provided. The developer will create custom developed validation rules and generic extracts as needed to support the level of customization needed in the DSO and InfoCubes.
The developer should also understand the nature and quality of the data and should provide a data dictionary of the source data, if this is not available from the source system. Key deliverables from this group is the source – target mapping of each field used in BW to SAP ERP and automated extract, load, validation, cleansing and reconciliation programs from source system(s) to BW.
During the realization phase, the extract and transform developers are designing each individual extract needed for moving data from ERP components to InfoCubes, or DSO, that are being designed by the data architect. This includes validation of selection criteria, filtering, load logic (ABAP), data cleansing, source-target mapping validation, and documentation of each extract design for the InfoCubes, DSO objects in scope. The individuals staffed in these roles must have very strong ERP and BW experience with solid understanding of ABAP coding as well.
PORTAL DEVELOPER
The developer in this position is responsible for the design and development of user roles for accessing the SAP BW environment. This includes the creation of security requirements for the user interface, BW role reconciliation, as well and integration of reporting help features, collection of external data for reporting purposes and the integration between BW reports and jump-points to the transactional system.
The individual in this role is also responsible for the design and development of standard templates for reports delivered by the development teams, as well as the user acceptance process for these templates. In a SAP Portals environment, the individual is also responsible for the content management section of the portal and the configuration on the navigation bars and initial launch pad.
The individual staffed in this technical position should have a strong reporting and design background from SAP BW as well as development knowledge of portals and the integration of standardized reporting environments. Prior industry experience would also be helpful. The individual must also have solid programming experience in HTML, Java and XML.
PRESENTATION DEVELOPERS (a.k.a. report writers)
The presentation developer is responsible for designing core reports for the functional area that they support. This includes reviewing business requirements, existing reports, and working with the BW developers to assure that the business requirements are supported in the cube and/or the DSO design, and creating template reports for user acceptance based on requirements.
The presentation developer is also an individual who has a specific tool background. The developer may later work on 3rd party presentation tools, Business Objects tools and SAP’s Business Explorer (BEx) tool suite. The developers must assure data security, user friendly reports, "drill-down" features, as well as a flexible design of data hierarchies and a logical and easy to use Graphical Unit Interface (GUI) for end-users. Finally, the developer must assure that the front-end tool provides all functionalities supported by the logical data model(s) and that the tool takes advantage of the physical database design features.
The design work also includes a detailed description of each access point, the navigation of access points, as well as a detailed role description with association to the pertinent reports. The presentation developers also work with the portal developer to integrate roles with the existing roles in the web portal.
APPENDIX A: SURVEY FINDINGS OF 103 SAP BW DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
This is an overview of the survey results from the BW and Portals Conference, by Dr. Bjarne Berg and WIS publishing. The survey focused on the organization of BW Query development, BW Infocube & DSO development, BW Data Extract, Transform and Load development, BW Support organization, BW Hardware organization, Project management organization. Overall103 representatives from companies that have implemented BW responded and also indicated the industries of their companies.
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DRAFT Ver. 1.5
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DRAFT Ver. 1.5
APPENDIX B: BW Support Organization Presentation
A presentation called: "Developing & Maintaining Your SAP BI Support Team and Their Skills- A Roadmap for Organizing, Recruiting, Training & Motivating Your BI Staff" is found at:
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