SAP PS s4hana Progress Analysis and Result Analysis

[gustavo_hermozaazaldegui]

Dear SAP

In S4HANA ON PREMISE/ 2020/ 01 (02/2021) FP.

I have some questions regarding this interesting topic because many customers are asking the same question why the progress analysis is not more flexible in SAP and requires to put in each element or activity a method and require the planning of each activity? ¿ why do they need to go another emerging products as Noveco ePM to work with forecasting or Earned value and son on? Maybe Could you give us any advice with regarding this topic ? The following:

I have the following example:

very important to take into account is the method to be used or the combination of them:

https://help.sap.com/saphelp_afs64/helpdata/en/7e/016b35bc3611d2b4b8006094b9c9be/content.htm?no_cach...

• In each WBS has one method assigned, in this case is equal Planned= Estimated, and Actual = Estimate.
• In each internal activity as Planned = Cost proportional, Actual = Degree of processing.
• In each Cost activity as Planned = Estimated, Actual = Estimated.

My activity has 7200 hours, it is very important that operations are planned, otherwise it is not working, the following.

If I look at the table values the internal operation NV000000074400000001 has 7200 hours which would be the sum of 600,000 + 1,466,666 + 1,466,667 + 1,333,333 + 1,466,667 + 866,667. I understand that SAP makes a proportion against the planned dates and distributes these hours according to the days.

Then we run transaction cne1, and cne5 we have the following result.

Then the POC would be the proportion of the distributed value of each month 7, month 8, month 9...etc. between the total planned values, i.e.: POC = 120000 / 918600.12 = 1.306336E+01

So, the POC * total hours : 1,306336E+01 * 7.200.000 = 940.561,60

If we subtract : 940.561,60 - 600.000 (number of hours distributed in each month) we will have 340.561,60

We obtain from month 8 and multiply 2933.33 * 340,561.60 / 1,466,666 (amount of hours distributed in each month) = 681.12

Add the 120,000 of month 7 * the 681.12 and you have 120,681.12.

It seems that the standard falls short with this formula........, what I don't understand is ¿why it takes the values of month 8?

And Why don't we get values for a cost activity when we have actual cost ? the following example.

To sum up:

If we have a project with a high level of breakdown in structure in WBS elements and activities like for example 1500 to 5000 WBS elements unifying engineering and assembly, what transaction exists in SAP that allows operationally without users having to assign different methods to each WBS element and how to plan each activity? I mean, customers see this not operational and demand a high effort within their operative... Any suggestions to analyze the progress from another tool like for example office analysis, or BW etc?

All recommendations are welcome!

Best regardas

Gustavo Hermoza

http s://people.sap.com/gustavo.hermozaazaldegui#overview

[Neeraj_Jain · Accepted solution]

Hello Gustavo Hermoza Azaldegui,

Please refer below SAP link. Might be you will get some insight.

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/4dd8cb7b1c484b4b93af84d00f60fdb8/4503c453f57eb44ce10...

Regards,

Neeraj Jain

[gustavo_hermozaazaldegui · Accepted solution]

Hello Neeraj Jain,

Thank you very for your information.

It appears that since the expected costs are evenly distributed over these periods, i.e. it gets values for the corresponding month 7,or 8 or 9, etc. and to this it adds the distribution

of hours by the value of the next month's plan and thus gets the field BCWS.

I found this information regarding the calculations, but I have not found a real example that explains the distribution as I have put above.

https://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp60_sp/helpdata/en/b4/ba853488601e33e10000009b38f83b/frameset.htm

On the other hand, this combination, at first glance, appears to be not updated or not working in s4hana. Could you check this please? or Is there any improvement in this?

https://help.sap.com/saphelp_afs64/helpdata/en/7e/016b35bc3611d2b4b8006094b9c9be/content.htm?no_cach...

Because, using the proportional cost method, I have obtained a result with a plan of 123,000.00, an actual cost of 30627. My POC act result is 24.9 correct. However, in the information on the website there is no mention of using this method and using the estimates method I do not get any value or result. The following.

Thank you very much for your advice!

Best regards

Gustavo

[BalasubramanianAP]

Hi, Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

My opinions:

1) SAP is an integrated ERP system which is designed to suit most of the industry processes. We may need to go for specialized tools/interfaces for specific industry processes (like what you specified like Noveco ePM etc, which is also certified by SAP).

2) The mass numbers of WBS/activities can be handled by creating Project Templates (Standard Projects/WBS/Network) to suit specific business processes. But we need to build from scratch.

3) We may also try to copy the data values using Substitution/validation from one object down to the next level. We can also have User-exits/Badi's to fulfill in some extent.

4) Using specialized 3rd party SAP certified tools may be useful to speed up the process and achieve the "business goals". Customers are ready to pay even higher for these tools to speed up their business.

[gustavo_hermozaazaldegui]

Thanks Balasubramanian for sharing your opinion. Without a doubt whatsoever to share any experience or expected results from the customer.

In fact, I think this helps to improve any process more in these times that the customer wants everything but when they must specify or make a decision the focus changes into something more flexible and easy where the end user does not need to execute many steps to get a result . Let me drive deeper into it and pin down the following point on your comments.

Point 1) Answer ==> Yes, correct. Noveco ePM is an SAP-Certified third-party product. I understand that Noveco systems is the Vendor and it has a license. In this approach, Noveco has a highly sophisticated workbench that representing the project and all its connections to materials, planned, cost/revenues against the progress analysis workbench (CNPAWB transaction ) for the common analysis of progress data that SAP has in their version as s4hana v2020 or another versions.

On another note , the customers can use SOA, i.e, this allows companies to design their IT-Based business processes in a more flexible manner or way.

Point 2) Answer ==> Yes correct, Another option that they can make model copy from an existing project. In fact, this is the way that most convinces them.

Point 3) Answer ==> it appears to be the correct way forward because when you perform a progress analysis, the system determines the measurement methods to be for the individual objects according to the following strategy:

1. We can determine the method using a BadI (Note oss 549097, user-exit: CNEX0031)

2. We explicity store one method and one progress version in the object

3. The progress version involves the planned method being copied as the actual method and viceversa (not possible using Estimates and Proportionality methods)

4. We need to put a measurement method in customizing as the default value for the object type.

5. The system uses the 0-100 method.

We cannot assign measurement methods to assigned orders manually instead, we can only store a default value in customizing.

Point 4) Answer ==> I agree with you but i cannot help but say that not all customers are ready to pay for these tools. it will depend on the budget, What is the volume of effort in hours/persons to manage the tools within its operation? and if the times to analyze large volumes of information are reduced considerably or drastically to reasonable times, that is, we return to the same thing that a customer said literally, if you sell a good tool with sophisticated functions at 60,000 euros or dollars, but then you tell they that you have to include more hours and therefore they need to invest more money, the customers say that does not serve them. The customer don’t looking something sophisticated. ie, the clients are not looking for something sophisticated with powerful functions, what they are looking for is something that covers their needs with a lot of flexibility, processing a volume of information and delivering the result in reasonable times.

It also happens when a third party wants to sell, sell and the users want to simplify steps, then many needs arise because the client wants to simplify steps, until the client decides to do it as SAP does manually but only adapting processes very critical within its operative as the first phase. And finally, a big company with a significant sales volume is not the same as moderately entrepreneurial companies where their margins and budgets have been affected by the current volatile market circumstances.

Thank you very much for your recommendations, It helped me a lot to focus on a possible solution in the standard.

All recommendations are welcome!

Best regardas

Gustavo Hermoza

http s://people.sap.com/gustavo.hermozaazaldegui#overview