Americas' SAP Users' Group

ASUG DFW Chapter Meeting

Agile Project Methodology -

Enhancing the Finance User Experience

ASUG – PRESENTER – DON MOORE

Corporate Accounting Operations Manager with a background including chemicals manufacturing,banking and financial services, food beverage and bakery manufacturing. Strong focus in accountingoperations utilizing the SAP business integration application for financial reporting; changemanagement in corporate transitions including acquisitions, mergers and spin offs; and systemconversions and upgrades. Served as subject matter expert on finance implementation team forgeneral ledger and accounts payable transactions analyzing processes to achieve targetedbenchmarks.

Corporate Accounting Manager - CampbellTaggart, Inc.(IPO The Earthgrains Company)Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. -14 years)

Sr.Accounting Manager, National Inter-Company AccountingBank One Corp. (DBA J.P. Morgan Chase) - (4 years)

Manager, General Accounting OxyVinyls LPOccidental Chemical Corporation - (2 years 9 months)

Manager, Inventory AccountingSafety Kleen Corporation - (1 year 3 months)

General Ledger Manager, Financial Shared ServicesCelanese Chemicals Corporation - (1 year 5 months)

Project Management - PIP / SAP Process ImprovementProgram - FI RTR ProcessTeamCommercial Metals Company - (6 years)

AGILE – A practical implementation methodology thatallows you to implement operating functionality ofsoftware in short iterative cycles, generating fasterresults, gaining immediate insight to the value and

AGILE – A Project Methodology in SAP

results, gaining immediate insight to the value andincreasing the flexibility of the implementation withprogress monitoring.

The Project Overview – PROJECT GLSU

Problem Statement Project Description Project Goals and Objectives Project Approach Preliminary Project Scope (Statement of Work) Critical Success Factors

STEPS IN AGILE METHODOLOGY SUCCESS –Project Charter

Critical Success Factors Assumptions Constraints Risks

Accounting processes a large volume of financialpostings in SAP.

Potentially 50,000 Travel and Expense Postings per year.

Approximately 2,000 General Ledger postings per year.

PROBLEM STATEMENT – PROJECT GLSU

Entering these transactions in SAP or uploading them with theSAP delivered RFBIBL program is time consuming.

Limitations on size of entries and the number of line items thatwill be posted.

The intent of this project is to deploy Z Option - GLSUas a solution for Financial Shared ServicesAccounting.

GLSU is a spreadsheet uploader tool that can post

PROJECT DESCRIPTION – PROJECT GLSU

GLSU is a spreadsheet uploader tool that can postdata directly into the SAP system, in two ways:

1. Posting achieved without leaving MS Excel 2. Batch (Background Processing)

Direct Posting allows you to enter SAP data withoutever leaving the Excel spreadsheet.

Excel dialog boxes tell you if the posting was successful andreturn the SAP document number and other SAP messages upona successful post.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION – PROJECT GLSU (cont)

At the highest level, the GLSU batch postingfunctionality works in a two step process...

1. User inputs data into the spreadsheet. This is the posting datawhich will then be posted to SAP. These entries can be as long asyou require. You are not limited by any SAP limitations ondocument posting size and you can post multiple worksheets at atime.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION – PROJECT GLSU (cont)

time. 2. Post the export file to SAP. Using the GLSU custom transaction

“ZGLSU”, the user will then post the data to SAP using a simpleprocedure.

Installing GLSU involves activating the GLSU MS ExcelAdd-In manager in your spreadsheet.

Develop a deployment strategy for your SAPlandscape and train tool administrators on requiredtasks.

Identify target Postings (SAP Tcodes) in SAP BusinessProcesses and develop standard templates forfinancial postings.

PROJECT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES - GLSU

financial postings.

Identify and Train target end users on tool capabilities.

Test new posting templates for accuracy and establish a libraryfor central storage of validated templates.

Identify Project Resources and Plan to Implement

PROJECT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES - GLSU

Accounting will document project requirements.

IT will estimate the project work effort to support the businessrequirements as documented by the business.

Project Team will agree upon the scope and estimate for thisproject effort.

PROJECT APPROACH – PROJECT GLSU

Any additional scope must be submitted to ProjectManagement to be reviewed and approved for thisproject. Significant scope increases may need to beworked as a new project.

Project Team will execute the appropriate deploymentplan for the SAP landscape and complete Unit Testing.

PROJECT APPROACH – PROJECT GLSU

plan for the SAP landscape and complete Unit Testing.

User Acceptance Testing to be executed by FinancialShared Services Accounting. SAP IT supports UserAcceptance Testing and resolve any issuesencountered.

Communications and Training will be provided foremployees affected by the process enhancements.

PROJECT APPROACH – PROJECT GLSU (cont)

SAP IT Support will deploy changes to Production andprovide support for the initial Go Live activities.

Install program application in your SAP Landscape

Develop install process for Windows 7 DesktopComputers for executable programs

Develop Process Documentation / Training for ToolAdmin Tasks

Identify postings (Tcodes) for SAP Business Process

PRELIMINARY PROJECT SCOPE – PROJECT GLSU(Statement of Work)

Identify postings (Tcodes) for SAP Business Processthat will be in scope for this project.

Develop upload templates, validate, and establish templatelibrary for archiving and storage.

PRELIMINARY PROJECT SCOPE – PROJECT GLSU(Statement of Work)

Estimate document storage requirements / archiverequirements

Identify target end users, assign license, and train onnew process

Complete User Acceptance Testing in QE2

Deploy Z Option GLSU tool to PRD 100

PRELIMINARY PROJECT SCOPE – PROJECT GLSU(Statement of Work)

Deploy Z Option GLSU tool to PRD 100

Tool Application install process (SAP Server/Desktop)

Network / Storage capacity to retain postingdocuments.

Complete Excel template development for requiredpostings.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS – PROJECT GLSU

Completed Training for end users on tool capabilityand functionality.

Successfully complete required postings in PRD

End User desktop computers and work stations willbe running the Microsoft Windows 7 OperatingSystem.

SAP G.U.I. (Graphical User Interface) 7.2 will beinstalled with all current patch releases available.

ASSUMPTIONS – PROJECT GLSU

Document storage is limited to existing capacity fordocument archiving.

End Users are limited to the number of GLSU licensesavailable from vendor.

CONSTRAINTS – PROJECT GLSU

Risks

Project Authority and Milestones

Funding Authority Summary Budget

Project Oversight Authority

Major Project Milestones

ADDITIONAL AGILE PROJECT METHODOLOGY

Major Project Milestones

Project Structure

Project Roles and Responsibilities

Responsibility Matrix

Approval Authority for Changes

Change Control Process

Questions / Answers

AGILE – AN SAP PROJECT METHODOLOGY

Questions / Answers

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