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New SAP RDS called SAP MDG Content Accelerator

steffen_ulmer
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2012 Oct 09 8:44 AM
7,168


Hi,

This week (week 40 in October 2012) SAP released a new Rapid Deployment Solution for SAP MDG called SAP MDG Content Accelerator. You can find more information here: http://service.sap.com/rds-mdgca.


2018 UPDATE: This RDS got retired: Please contact me in case of questions.


Introduction


The new RDS MDG Accelerator package includes in principal four different areas as accelerators:

  • Workflow templates delivering business rule-based sequential and parallel workflows,

  • Validation and Derivation Rules to manage data entry to ensure data quality,

  • Contextual analytics providing transactional insight on master data objects and

  • End-to-end master data process monitoring across one or multiple target systems, including local and global processes using SAP Process Observer.


I would like to highlight in this blog especially the last one of the list above because its targeting the same idea which I just recently explained in a blog of mine. (http://scn.sap.com/community/mdm/master-data-governance/blog/2012/06/11/monitoring-of-cross-system-w...).


Business Requirements


Typically SAP MDG is deployed on a dedicated Hub Client and/or System and the master data gets replicated to several business systems for transactional usage. Sometimes the master data gets even further enriched in the client business systems on local or client specific data sets. From a business perspective the complete process:

  • Creation and modification of master data in SAP MDG,

  • Replication to several business systems such as SAP ERP and none SAP System,

  • Enrichment and final completion of the master data in the client system and

  • Even the usage of the master data in business transaction (transactional data)


should be monitored, observed and centrally documented to be able to

  • Inform end users: For instance a business users wants to check for a specific creation or modification request where the process resides at a specific point in time,

  • Optimize: Identify bottlenecks (technical or human related) in the end-to-end process and

  • Reduce costs: Instead of cost-intensive investigation based on manual work activities on separate systems and log-files done by administrators a solution must in place where end users can themselves do simple queries on cross system processes.


RDS Package Details


If you apply that part of the RDS to your system you will be able to observe the material master data creation across three systems:

  1. The creation of the global attributes in your SAP MDG Hub

  2. The successful replication and enhancement of the material master data on the SAP ERP productive client 1 (same instance as the MDG Hub)

  3. The successful replication and enhancement of the material master data on the SAP ERP productive client 2 (different instance as the MDG Hub)


The following high level graphic should give you an overview:



As you can see, the process observer is running on the same instance and client as the SAP MDG application. Both components are enabled by switching on a business function. Although the end to end process goes beyond the borders of clients and systems process observer component is able to collect all this information into one single point. The process observer will capture all these information for every single instance started on the standard delivered MDG Change Request MAT01 and MAT02. Instead of limiting the information to the change request within MDG, the RDS process observer functionality will also monitor steps in the two client systems of SAP MDG. Within the clients individual SAP Business Workflows are started to route the tasks (enrichment and final approval) to the correct individuals.

Collecting such business-activity-information into a single point is a relatively technical task and the user will not be involved. Because of that I cannot post any screenshots in this blog. But I can show how you can search and display later on the captured information:

1. Search for processes instances:



2. Display Details:



BTW: The SAP Process Observer Monitor is also available as a SAP Web Dynpro ABAP application and can thereby also be displayed in NWBC and even SAP Portal.

The RDS includes a guide to setup the Process Observer for Material observation (create and change) but can be easily adjusted to observer Customer and/or Supplier processes as well.

Summary:


If you want to

  • Increase your productivity of your business activities in master data governance processes across clients and systems,

  • Identify bottlenecks in these end to end processes,

  • Simplify the way how end users can check the status of their master data creation


I recommend to have a closer look at the newly released RDS called SAP MDG Content Accelerator. The RDS will definitely speed up the implementation of this scenario.

At this stage, the RDS delivers you the basics to satisfy the above mentioned business requirements. After you apply it, your end users will be able to do the following via the SAP Process Observer Monitor:

  • Search for Business Objects and process instances,

  • Check which business activities has been executed on a specific change request or business object

  • Identify who/which person has done an activity and then,

  • Confirm that the replication was successful,

  • Check in which system the activity took place and

  • Conclude where an active change request across system resides at a certain point in time


Out of scope of the RDS are right now two parts in respect to the upper requirements list:

  • Identify bottlenecks by process KPI reporting: This can be achieved by using SAP Process Observer Analytics for BW and ODP, which is built in functionality of the SAP Process Observer.

  • Graphical representation of the process observer information: This can be achieved via multiple ways. One option is to develop a Web Dynpro ABAP CHIP application which displays the information in the Side Panel with a SAP JNET graph. As mentioned in my other blog I have already implemented such an ABAP CHIP with relatively low effort.


Video:


I have captured a screencam which can be watched here. The storyboard is:

  1. Sally Springs creates a Change Request in SAP MDG

  2. She enters basic global data in a web form and sends the request by pressing Submit

  3. Michael Miller ( Data Steward and Approver ) receives a new task in his inbox and reviews the data

  4. Michael approves the new material in SAP MDG. The activation and replication of the new record is triggered

  5. Paul Burke is a local data steward. He enriches the material in a local SAP ERP system and completes his task in transaction mm02

  6. A fourth user is doing the same step as Paul in a other SAP ERP system.


Sally is observing the complete end-to-end cross system process by using the SAP Process Observer Monitor.

The video might not be displayed in your browser. You can check the video via this link:  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xu6vx8_20121010-sap-rds-process-observer-simple-no-voice2_tech

Best Regards

Steffen

To get more information on that topic I recommend reading the following:

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