Cloud ALM for Team Task Management and Planning

[WernerJ]

Hi All Community Members and SAP Cloud ALM followers.

Today I would like to demonstrate how to manage and plan a support team's tasks with SAP Cloud ALM.

I do understand that there are applications available that is specifically designed for this, but my blog post is to try something different with Cloud ALM and see what the result will be. You might have done some reading and training of Cloud ALM (Learning Journey's at http://learning.sap.com). You might also have used the Cloud ALM Demo Tenant (sap.com) to experience it. What if you don't have an upcoming implementation or conversion project. How can you use Coud ALM for Implementation in a productive way in between projects?

Example Scenario:

One support team with multiple consultants and customers

Manage support tickets, daily tasks, recurring tasks, mini projects.

1. Project Setup

1. Create a Project

Add a Name for your project.

No Activate Roadmap is required.

2. Add Timeboxes 

Because the plan is for 2024 I added one custom phase and disabled the unused phases. The Prepare phase cannot be disabled and you still need that 1 day for creating your project.)

3. Add Users

To keep it simple you don't need to create a Team, just add the consultants to a specific role.

4. Create Scopes

Now this is where you move away from the standard functionality. In a project, scopes are used for Solution Scenarios(groups of processes). In this scenario the scopes will be used as another way to group tasks per  customer. 

5. Create Deliverables

Again, not standard usage but this helps with the Gantt Chart View of the tasks.

Instead of having "No Deliverable Assigned" displayed you will see the consultants name below the phase.

2. Task Management

1. Create Tasks

Either create your tasks manually or by using the upload from spreadsheet functionality.

2. Create Views

You can do a lot of filtering, grouping and sorting and then Save your views. For this scenario we need 2 views. 

1st View for tasks grouped by Responsible/Consultant - In this view you can easily see what tasks are assigned to a consultant with a planned start and completed date. After grouping by Responsible you then sort by Start Date. Keep only columns needed like Title, Status, Scope, Start Date, Planned Completion and Actions(for comments and updates)

Change to the Gantt Chart(with your "Deliverables/Consultants") to do your planning and see where and when consultants will be available. Use the Zoom slider to see the schedule for the current week or month. You can also add dependencies between tasks if needed. On a side note, no export functionality of the Gannt Chart is currently available and a "cropped" month view showing all dates(1 - 30/31) on one page would be nice.    

2nd View for tasks grouped by Scope/Customer - In this view you can see how many and which tasks are assigned per customer and which consultant the tasks are assigned to. Replace the Scope column with the Responsible column.

Gantt Chart will look the same because it is grouped Phase->Deliverables->Tasks, which cannot be changed, but still a valid view for planning.

3. Requirements Management

During an implementation project, requirements will be created during the Fit-to-Standard workshops.

In this scenario, requirements are used for recurring tasks and tasks that are not planned yet, kind of like a backlog. The only information needed is the Title and Scope(Customer). The requirements are not assigned to any consultant or start/completion dates and approval are not needed. In the end it is just a list of recurring and unplanned tasks grouped in different customers. Tasks(Project Tasks) will be created from these requirements. Requirements for unplanned tasks will be closed on completion of the tasks. Requirements for recurring tasks will stay open until you see fit, or when your phase/project completes. In this case, end of 2024.

Requirements can be reviewed monthly and new tasks for recurring tasks can be created. Below is an open requirement with multiple recurring tasks assigned.

4. Analytics

The best of it all, you still get valuable insights into the status of your team's tasks through the Project Overview Dashboards

Analytics - Task Distribution

Analytics - Requirements Distribution

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Conclusion

A quick and simple way for task management and planning in SAP Cloud ALM.

Project and screenshots made possible by the Cloud ALM Demo Tenant (sap.com).

Keep on learning and keep on trying.

Thanks