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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 7
1.2
1.3
Overview...........................................................................................................7
Bases from which this methodology was made...............................................7
Philosophy VS techniques................................................................................8
A few facts........................................................................................................8
Conversion rules and business object ownership............................................8
Main steps of the conversion methodology......................................................9
Where you will, for sure, have a timing problem..............................................9
There is no such thing as a free lunch...........................................................10
The computer will have the last word.............................................................10
Think SAP.......................................................................................................11
Prepare the Legacy Database........................................................................11
Before the last test run, take into account the customizations of your new system
11
Reduce the amount of historical data to be transferred.................................11
Use controls edition in SAP............................................................................11
Small is beautiful.............................................................................................11
Be wise...........................................................................................................11
Play it safe......................................................................................................11
OVERVIEW.........................................................................................................15
2.2
2.3
2.4
Business Objects............................................................................................15
Data type........................................................................................................15
Information to complete in the conversion plan.............................................16
Main Business Objects sequence of conversion...........................................17
Why a WBS ?.................................................................................................18
How to.............................................................................................................18
Suggested WBS content for data conversion................................................19
Are you sure ?................................................................................................19
Request to re-evaluate your WBS..................................................................19
Some pointers to figure out numbers.............................................................20
Ballpark figures...............................................................................................21
A formula to help . Handle with care...........................................................21
CALENDAR PLANNING.....................................................................................23
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Overview.........................................................................................................23
MS-Project or not............................................................................................24
Sequencing the tasks.....................................................................................24
Key users and consultant availability to work on Master Data.......................24
End 'at best' VS 'most probable'.....................................................................24
Are you sure ?................................................................................................24
Workload analysis..........................................................................................25
OVERVIEW.........................................................................................................28
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
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1.1
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INTRODUCTION
Overview
Implementing SAP is an important challenge, both in terms of resources (people, money,
time) and in business process. A lot is at stake and, for most of you, failure is not an option
you can afford. To put all odds on your side, you need a good methodology. One that will
provide you with a realistic planning, a solid organization, a way to manage the process and
control tools to detect and correct slippage before it becomes a problem.
An important part of this challenge will be the data conversion. Previous implementations of
SAP have shown that data migration can amount up to about 40% of the entire project. Poor
data conversion will make your Go Live very difficult, if not impossible.
This guide is aimed at helping you organize the data conversion process, which in turn, will
lead to a successful implantation.
Bases from which this methodology was made
When I was originally asked to come up with a method to convert data, I started by analyzing
passed experiences. There I found the following recurring problems :
While the project is going on:
There are many things being worked on at the same time. Yet, most of them are
not progressing.
There are documents all over the place and, somehow, they always seem to be
outdated.
At Go Live
Master data deadlines where constantly busted and production load is done in
''rush mode' at the last minute.
Some key parts of the data cannot be loaded in production. Patches are applied
to the master data in order to force-load.
Some data just will not get in at all, they will have to be entered after GO Live.
After Go Live
Some Data need to be corrected & entered after Go Live. Because the
production system is now living, data are moving targets. This makes the
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process difficult and time consuming . This translates into a costly operation.
After discussing with people who lived these situation (manager, functional and technical), we
identified the following points :
Planning and resources load estimates where way out (when they existed).
Most of the problems encountered are actually functional issues.
Information does not travel well between functional and technical team. As we
get near the Go Live, this becomes much worst.
This methodology was made to solve these issues.
Philosophy VS techniques
The approach I take to the data conversion is as much a state of mind as a technique. Both
aspect of it must be applied for results to show up. This is actually true of any concept. Most
of concept failures are due to application of the technique while neglecting the philosophical
aspect of it.
The mindset required in our case is that we must do things right from the start and solve
issues as they occur. Take the time that it requires to do thing properly and thoroughly. No
expediting, no bypassing of step, no piling of unsolved issue to keep going.
Results will initially be slower to come. However, because you will get things right on the fist
time, you will eventually pick-up an impressive speed. As in car racing, it is not the speed at
which you enter a turn that is most important, it is the one at which you get out of it.
A few facts
The data conversion is not some technical stuff to give to the programmers and wait until it
comes back. Most, if not all, of the issues and problems you will encounter in the conversion
process will be functional. Although the extract / load process itself will not be effortless, it is
the part between the extract and the load that is the most difficult. Getting the right data at the
right place with the values required for your business process is always a functional problem.
SAP is a process-oriented system and master data is an integral part of this process. Nice,
but what does it means? The answer is that everything is tied together. Master data is
dependent of the customizing, the customizing is made accordingly to the way you do your
process, and master data is needed to run your process. If you change master data, it will
most probably change the behavior of the process. If you change customizing, your master
data may become incomplete or incorrect.
Whichever phases you are in the project, data conversion always seem to be the one step
that can be pushed a little bit forward in time when you run behind in the overall schedule.
Doing this will put the conversion process too close to the end of the project. In that situation,
you will end up shoveling a ton of data into SAP at full speed with little control, if any, on data
quality and coherence. Remember the old saying "garbage in, garbage out".
There is no 'easy does it' way to do the data conversion and it takes time. Data conversion is
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made with lot of brain stuff mixed with hard work and some programming. No technological
gadget or guru will make this otherwise.
Conversion rules and business object ownership
Ok, we now know DC is a functional thing, data must not be shoveled-in and it will take lot of
work and time. How do we manage his ?
To solve this, I make the DC process part of the functional process, both in term of timing and
deliverable. Key users must do a thorough analysis of the master data and link their usage to
the process as they are customizing. They must understand which data does what, which are
needed, how it relates to the customizing & process flow and figure out where it will come
from. This knowledge will get things to fit progressively one into the other like a set of blocks.
For key user to get this knowledge, I give them the responsibility and ownership of the
Mapping and conversion rules. It is their master data and they will do mapping & rules
documents. At first, this process will not simplify the technological aspect of the conversion,
nor will it make it shorter or easier say what! As I already mentioned speed will come,
eventually. The goal of the mapping and rules writing is to get key users to sweat it out and
understand SAP way of doing things. This will also help the knowledge transfer between
consultants and key users. When they are done with this, their brain will play that master
data - business process - customizing - game without even thinking about it.
The mapping document and conversion rules will become the common ground for
discussions between the different domains. Cross reading of DC specs is essential as, for
example some action taken by PP may affect SD and FI. Do not underestimate this, a small
change in PP can block all expeditions. I saw this kind of issues in all the projects I worked
on. It will also be the only common language document between the functional team and the
technical team.
The mapping document and conversion rules will become the technical staff road map. If it is
not in the rules, it does not exist. So any discussion, decision or answer must be documented
in the rules. You will be surprised to see how things change between verbal decision,
sometime made in the hallway between meetings, and written decision which required
thinking about it and assuming responsibility for it.
Again, take the time that it gets to have clear and unambiguous DC rules. When the spec has
no ambiguity and has been cross read and validated by all domains and the technical team,
and only then, can you start the development of the extract and load programs. That will be
the point where will start picking up speed, lots of it.
Main steps of the conversion methodology
Before you even start to work on specs, you must first get organized. Getting a good planning
and organization structure take about two weeks for the first draft, which will leave you with
some questions on project organization. Getting a complete and final planning will take at
least one more week. Any unsolved issues on these will haunt you throughout the project, so
finish this completely before stating any other step.
The data conversion requires functional and technical resources from most departments.
These same resources will most probably be involved in other part of the project. For this
reason, the risk of conflicting task is high and can quickly lead to a bottleneck where key
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peoples are overloaded. For this reason, you should consider the data conversion as a
project within the project. This translates into the preparation of a complete conversion plan
that will help you go through the process and will permit to foresee and solve the conflicting
resources usage before the bottleneck ever occurs.
The methodology is based on a top down process. Going through this will permit to plan,
organize, execute and follow-up your conversion. As the project is going, you will control the
evolution of the data conversion process. Each step has its own use. You may sometime feel
like you are not going to the end by the shortest route. Remember, the goal is not to get first
results faster, it is to finish the whole process faster. This method is based on many projects
experience and will help you to avoid the pitfall usually associated with data conversion.
The main steps of the data conversion are:
Organization of the data conversion (Project manager & data conversion coordinator)
Data conversion plan
The WBS with workload estimates
The calendar planning with resources loading
Going on with the Business Objects data conversion (The resource responsible of the
Business Object DC)
Data Purging and Cleansing
Mapping and conversion rules
Extract and Load Programs from rules
Data and Rules Adaptation (adjusting rules and programs following testing)
Load Unit Testing (unitary testing - small volume of manual data)
Extract and Load Full size testing (data test and validation - large volume with real
extracted data)
Full data loading into ACCEPTANCE SYSTEM
Full data loading into PRE PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Validation of converted data and Key User + Business Objects Owner Signoff
Full conversion into PRODUCTION SYSTEM and final Signoff
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Therefore, we are back to the basic rule, this kind of project takes time and the best way to
minimize it is to plan for it correctly. You will have no other choice than spreading the load
throughout the entire project.
Complaisance planning will just make a long project longer, sometimes much longer and
always a lot more expensive. Trying to go too fast with insufficient resources is usually the
basic recipe of most horror story you hear about SAP implementations.
There is no such thing as a free lunch
This is a simple system, but simple does not mean easy. Doing things right the first time is
an investment and like any investment it has a cost (money, people, time) to be paid before
you gets profits. No free lunch here.
You will need discipline, lots of it. Do no pile up delay or issue. Better to slow down, cut your
loss and figure out how to resolve problems than trying to keep going the wrong way.
You must give 100% at all steps to achieve the point where the result will be bigger than the
sum of your efforts. Expediting, bypassing or neglecting a task will have a negative effect
further down the road, which will eventually create important delays.
There is no easy does it way to do data conversion, there are just some path easier than
others.
The computer will have the last word
Computer does not do politic and cannot be "convinced" of anything. If the final data set is
not accurate and well structure, your computer will bring you back to reality the hard way.
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Think SAP
Forget your actual system and understand SAP. First and foremost, get familiar with the SAP
business process you will be implementing. Then, according to the SAP process needs,
establish what the Master Data requirements are. Then, and only then, see what can be
salvage from your legacy system.
Think SAP, do not try to fit in your old system into it.
Prepare the Legacy Database
Clean the data on your legacy system. It is easier to start from a sound legacy system than
trying to fix inconsistencies during the conversion. Delete obsolete data and make the rest of
it coherent. These two steps are called data purging and data cleansing.
This can be done without specific knowledge of SAP and can begin way before the project
Kick Off. It will save you a lot of time.
Before the last test run, take into account the customizations of your new system
Because both the organizational structure and the actual customizing influence the data you
transfer for business objects, finalize all customizations before the last test run. Customizing
changes after the final transfer may result in additional required fields, this requires preparing
and transferring more data. It can also invalidate the loaded data, which leaves you with an
incoherent data set that will be very costly to correct after Go Live.
Reduce the amount of historical data to be transferred
If your system has lot of historic data, think about archiving data. There is no need to spend
large amount of money to keep live data that are otherwise used sporadically and could very
well be stored in an archive database.
Large data set due to non-archiving of your LS will add a lot of strain on your SAP
implementation and will make the data conversion more difficult because of the volume. Also,
because data tend to be less accurate when they where created a long time ago, it will be
much more difficult to adapt them to SAP.
Use controls edition in SAP
Data entered in SAP should de cheeked using some controls reports. This is especially useful
for manual data entry and transactional data.
Small is beautiful
Start small. The first time you transfer data, begin with a few records of a business object.
This way, you learn how the program works. After transferring some records successfully, try
transferring a larger amount of data. Make sure that you transfer each different type of data
before you transfer on a larger scale.
Be wise
The full data integration in your production system is the end of the process and should
mostly be a technical operation where we push some buttons to get some results. To reach
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this goal, it implies that all functional and technical issues where dealt with before starting the
full size transfer from the Legacy System. The hard work is in the mapping and
establishment of conversion rules from the old to the new system. That is where you will
make or miss your conversion. Don't even think about loading large volumes into production if
you are not completely ready.
Play it safe
I strongly suggest that you perform a system backup (or client copy) after transferring a
significant amount of data. The backup allows you to secure a specific level you have
reached during the data conversion process. If you have any problems, you can return to this
level, and you do not have to begin the process all over again.
1.3
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SAP Data Transfer Made Easy guidebook. It can be found on the SAP Simplification
Group web site
Quick Reference Guide LSMW (How to ) and Presentation of LSMW. Can be found
on web site http://service.sap.com/lsmw It require a user name a password
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WBS
Calendar planning
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2.1
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OVERVIEW
This section describes the organization of the conversion. This is the first building block of
your conversion process and must be completed right at the beginning of the project. This
part of the process is to be done by the project manager and the data conversion coordinator.
2.2
Business Objects
A Business object is a general category for data that defines something like material master,
vendor master, stocks, orders, purchase requisitions or organizational units. The first step is
identifying which business objects are required in your SAP implementation.
Data type
There are three types of data involved in a SAP system: master data, transactional data, and
historical data.
Master Data. Application master data tends to be more static once defined. Most master
data can be driven by the legacy applications. Examples include vendors, customers,
charts of accounts, assets, bills of materials, material masters, info records, and so on.
Transactional Data. Transactional data is current and outstanding transaction data that
needs to be captured from the legacy system and defined to the SAP R/3 applications for
business process completion. Examples include accounting documents, open purchase
orders, open sales orders, back orders, and so on.
Historical Data. Historical data needs to be brought over from the legacy system to the
SAP R/3 System for reference purposes. Examples include closed purchase orders,
closed sales orders, summary general ledger information, and so on.
Data conversion plan sample
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What
Which business objects will be converted from the legacy system into SAP.
Where Where are the data, which Legacy System's are involved for the extraction.
How much
Estimate the number of records to be ultimately loaded into SAP.
How
There are two aspects to be considered :
The way data is extracted from the Legacy System
Automatically extracted from the Legacy system without manual
intervention.
Manually filled spreadsheet
Combination of an automatic Legacy System extraction + Manual Entry
into a spreadsheet
The data transfer method you choose will determine the types of resources you
need. For example, you may need temporary employees for the manual data
entry and programmers for writing your own extraction programs. You need to
know both what data is in your legacy system and which SAP applications
correspond to the business objects that will be transferred. One person does not
have to know all of this, but the people who know this information should work
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closely together.
Who
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Pre-Required
- GL account Master
(Include primary cost & revenue elements)
- Profit centers hierarchy
- Profit centers
- Cost centers hierarchy
- Cost Centers
- Characteristics
- Classes
- Activity types
Optional
Internal orders
WBS elements if PS module.
Material Master
Work
Centers
Banks
Doc Mast
Customer Master
Vendor Master
BOM
Condition record
- Discount
- Pricing
Purchase
info records
Sales
info records
Routing Text
Source lists
Storage Bins
Open A/P
Open A/R
Opening Balances
Stocks (VM)
Stocks (IM)
Open Sales Orders
Contracts
Open Purchase Orders
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Why a WBS ?
Estimates for a project planning must be deducted and justified from a logical process. They
represent the real workload required for the different tasks of the project. The WBS is a great
tool to figure out these numbers. It will permit to estimate the workload of each task without
any duration or calendar consideration. Ignoring the date factor help in getting as objective as
possible. The workload is calculated in Person/Days. Whether there is one or five persons
assigned to a task, the workload is always the same. The usage of Person/Days will help in
getting a more precise calendar planning and will make evaluation of the conversion progress
easier.
WBS Sample
How to
The idea is to break the project in chunks and then break each of these in tasks. You then
proceed to evaluate the workload required for each of these elements. It will be much easier
to get accurate and objectives numbers on small specific tasks than on a large chunk. How
to break it and at which level is more an art & experience mix than it is a science. The more
WBS you do, the better you will get at it.
If your WBS is not granular enough, your estimate is more difficult to get and will be less
accurate. An error on one element will also have a greater impact. As for progress follow-up,
it will be less accurate, since any detected slippage will involve higher number because the
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Business Objects Mapping & Conversion ( For detailed information on these items,
refer to section 3 )
Data Purging and Cleansing
Mapping and conversion rules
Extract and Load Programs from rules
Data and Rules Adaptation (adjusting rules and programs following testing)
Load Unit Testing (unitary testing - small volume of manual data)
Extract and Load Full size testing (data test and validation - large volume with real
extracted data)
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Total
Total - at best (total in Person/Days of each business object)
Total - most probable (total at best + 20 to 25% buffer)
Explain clearly what a Person/Day is: "let's say you have only this to one task to do and
you have to do alone, how many days will it take?".
Explain the work to evaluate. For example, making the conversion rules mean ; talking
about it with the consultants and Legacy System experts; writing the first version ; having
meetings to answer gray areas ; doing some tests for uncertain fields ; cross reading the
documents and finally, some reflection time. Therefore, as you see, it is lot more than just
figuring how long it would take to write some lines of rules.
Count everyone's time. In the above example, you must count time for you, the
consultants, the LS Experts, those present at the meetings, those doing tests, etc. It adds
up very quickly.
Explain the average law I mentioned above and make sure they do re-estimate all the
elements with the same scrutiny. While some high workload tasks may be overestimated,
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Avoid talking about deadline or total workload. They have to evaluate all elements
independently from each other.
I personally went through that process a few times. Interestingly in all cases, the reevaluation turned out with a slightly higher global number. Mainly because they realize there
is more, small but still time consuming, tasks than originally thought so.
Some pointers to figure out numbers
These are pointers to help you come up with the first draft. You need that first draft as a
starting point of discussion before you start trying to get help from the rest of the team.
If there are two legacy systems, it will take twice the time (see next title 'Ballpark figures
for more info).
As mentioned earlier, avoid thinking about deadline or total workload. Just honestly
evaluate each element independently from each other.
For some elements, you are clueless. It is very difficult to find someone who knows all, but
there is always someone who can help you on a specific topic. This is where splitting a
project in small elements will help. Do not hesitate to ask around.
Take into account the number of fields you need for each Business Object. If you have no
clue, take 200 for Material Master, 100 for Customers, 100 for Vendors, 40 for BOM, 40
for Routings. These figures are for an implementation with modules FI, CO, MM, PP and
SD. Later on, you can adjust to values that are more exact.
For BOM and Routings, if they are merged in a single structure in your LS (i.e. multilevel),
count that BOM will take double the time you originally estimated and Routing will most
probably have to be done manually from scratch. SAP is Single Level (unless it changed
in newer versions) which mean that materials hierarchy is in the BOM and the operations
sequences are in routings.
Material Master is huge. It requires time and energy, lots of it. On top of being a difficult
one, it is the first one you will have to do.
There is much to learn while doing Material Master, and this learning will put in
question the process, which key users though they had already cornered.
Different people come up with their own set of rules, which need to be put together
in a single Material Master. This will create collisions and conflicts, which will need
meetings, discussions and testing before the issues are solved.
The conversion rules are different for each Material Type and it is not always the
same key users who have the info for the different types.
Other than the Big Five, workload estimates are rarely linked to the number of fields. The
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key is then the quality of the Legacy System data. Here are some factors on that will
make the process much longer:
Historical data that was never purge
Inconstant data (well, no one have these in their systems, right!)
Part of the data existing aside in Excel, Access or other non formal system
Information spread into different systems
No clear owner or manager of a business object in the Legacy System (then it is
probably messy)
Be conservative, in doubt, over estimate rather than under estimate. Never mind how
much you investigate or know the LS. There is always one business object where you will
discover, at the last minute, that it just will not fit into SAP without major unplanned efforts.
It is not bad luck, it just happens every time. Bad luck is when you did not consider it in
your planning.
If the data is not extracted from the LS but generated manually, it will take longer. The
time is however more predictable as manual data is rarely bugged.
When you extract data automatically from the LS, it should be faster. However take into
account that programming means possible bugs. It also needs modifications when the
rules change (and change they will), which again may bring bugs
If you have part automatic and part manual, like "yes we can extract most of it, but need to
do some adjustments in Excel", add extra time (50 to 100% more). At first glance, this
seems like the easiest way to go. Well, its not! Trust me, these will be real headaches.
Although almost impossible to avoid them, try having as little as possible of these. In all
cases, prefer maximum usage of conversion rules.
Ballpark figures
Here are some figures to give you a ballpark of the projects I worked on. These are not
absolute figures, as they vary from one project to another.
In projects involving the modules FI, CO, MM, PP and SD, having from 20 000 to 40 000
material master items with all related BOM and Routings, about 2 000 vendors/customers, 10
000 inventory records and all other basic DC stuff, it gave me something between 400 to 600
Person/Days per legacy system.
I say per legacy system and this is something important to consider. If you have different
legacy systems, you tend to think the second one will go faster than the first. There is
absolutely no gain. Each system must be evaluated as if it was a different project. If one take
500 Person/Days, than two LS will take 1000 Person/Days. This will probably be a major
disagreement point among the team when you will show your numbers. Keep in mind that for
all the projects I worked on, it proved to be true. Mapping is different, conversion rules are
different and issues with LS data will not be the same. Since these three items represent the
bulk of the DC process, you can see why two LS will be twice the energy.
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Base on the volume data from your WBS, you can calculate as follow :
For mapping : Count 10 min per field (0.02 day per field) and add 1 day to the total for set
up and explanations
Conversion rules : Count 10 rules per day (0.1 day per field)
Data and Rules Adaptation : Count 12 seconds (~0.000416 day) per record and by field
(number of fields x number of records x 0.000416). There is more, later on, explaining
what is Data and rules adaptation.
As you see, you need to establish how many fields need Data and Rules Adaptation. I use a
percentage in the WBS so that I can recalculate all the workload easily as I learn more about
the LS. Base this on the number of fields you will populate in SAP. I usually count that about
80% of the fields are solved by conversion rules and 20% will need data and rules
adaptation. If the data are in bad shape in the LS, go toward 70%-30%.
This formula is most pertinent for Material, Customer and Vendor masters. For BOM and
Routing, the time is less dependent on the number of fields than on the complexity of the data
to extract. For those two, you can use the formula and then add between 50% to 100%,
depending on the legacy data complexity. As stated earlier, if BOM and Routing are merged
in a single structure in your LS (i.e. multilevel), count that BOM will take double the time you
originally estimated and Routing will most probably have to be done manually from scratch.
Other than the Big Five, the number of fields has little to do. It is the complexity of the
process, which needs to be taken into consideration. If you really count all the time spent on
one business object, none will take less than 10 Person/Days. Use you judgment and apply
between 10 to 30 Person/Days per business object according to expected complexity. Each
time someone tells you "this is a one day thing", make a note of it and follow the time it really
took from start up to a loaded and validated data set you will see, nothing takes less than
10 days.
Another business object, which is also special, is inventory. At first it look simple enough, but
getting 100% of the data in SAP will prove to be a challenge... if you plan to shoot less than
100%, go back to page 1 of this document.
If you use WM in SAP, it will be even more challenging.
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If you use WM in your LS and it is not working perfectly, it will be a great challenge.
If you do not have WM in your LS and want to use WM in SAP, than you are in for a heck
of a ride. In this situation, consider converting without WM and implementing it later, once
you system has been stable for a while in production.
For Inventory, count 30 days for IM + up to 100 days for WM according to the three possible
scenarios I just mentioned. If you have a doubt, try finding someone who went through it
before. Done right the inventory load takes lots of work but the process will go well. Badly
managed it will keep you up 24hrs/day for a few days before GO Live and after.
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CALENDAR PLANNING
Overview
At this point, you have assigned resources in the Data Conversion Plan and estimated the
charge for each of the WBS elements in Person/Days. You must now transform this
information in duration for each task, this is the calendar planning.
To do the calendar planning, using MS-Project or other planning tool, you will enter the tasks
and complete it with the following information :
Tasks efforts in Person/Days
Tasks dependency
Names of the resources assigned to each task and the percentage of their
availability on it
Non working days and Holiday.
This will not only give you a calendar date planning based on an objective workload estimate,
but it will also permit a quick identification of resource over-allocation, overlapping of
dependant tasks, and delay due to non working time and bottlenecks.
On most conversion, the overload on key user is always a major problem. Your key users will
be strongly solicited right from the beginning of the project. Keep in mind that the more you
go on with your projects, the more they will be solicited to troubleshoot problems, and this will
be on top of their normal conversion work. The result is that their availability will only get
lower as the project is going on. Do not under estimate this fact in your planning.
Once you will be done with the DC calendar planning, you must integrate it in the overall
project planning and do a resources load analyses. This task is most difficult, time consuming
and very frustrating (especially if you do not master MS-Project).
Calendar planning sample
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MS-Project or not.
Most probably, the only planning tool you'll have available will be MS-Project. Although it is a
nice tool, it also has great talent in 'auto messing-up' your schedules (make backup copies
and make them often).
My first advice is that you should learn the basics of MS-Project before you get into it. It will
be a much less frustrating experience. Some quick learning books can be found and are
useful
Whichever tool you use must be able to give you a resources load analysis. This will be a key
element of you planning.
Sequencing the tasks
When I sequence the task within one business object, I never overlap two tasks. Yes, since
the process between test and rules and loading is iterative, we should be able to do them in
parallel. However to do this realistically you would need to consider the effort on each task to
be non-linear. If you get into this, your planning will take forever if ever you finish it.
Experience has proved that the best way to get an accurate calendar planning for the DC
process, while keeping it simple enough, is to never put task in parallel within a business
object.
Key users and consultant availability to work on Master Data
When assigning key users and consultant to the Data Conversion tasks, count only 20% of
their time available. This gives you an average of the time they will be able to give you
throughout the entire project. Sometime it will be less, sometime it will be more, but overall it
will be 20%.
"20%, that is only one day a week!". Yes, remember that bottleneck we mentioned before.
You'll see that getting this much attention from key users will be quite a challenge when you
get towards that bottleneck.
And remember, if you take 20% of the key users time for DC, whoever is planning other work
on the project must take into account that the key users are available at only 80% for them.
End 'at best' VS 'most probable'
In the WBS you estimated all the tasks as honestly as possible, which gives you the required
workload at best. Then you added 20 to 25% buffer, which gives you the most probable
effort.
In the calendar planning, all tasks are entered with the WBS value at best. The end date will
then be the "at best". To get the most probable end, you need to add a single task at the very
end of that planning which is equal to the buffer in the WBS is entered. The resources
allocation is to all key users at 20% (take into account only lead key users for each domain,
not support consultants).
For example,
My calendar planning end on April 30th
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At the very end of the calendar planning, I will add a 200 days task with 5
resources. This will translate as a 20 days duration buffer for the lead key users.
Now I have the most probable end date.
Believe me, it is very difficult to do better than the most probable date.
Are you sure ?
"That long, are you sure ?" Here we go again, the same phenomena as in the WBS will
occur. Many peoples will challenge your calendar planning. They would whish all could be
done quicker, faster, easier and all in parallel. As in WBS, they will focus only on some big
tasks, generate great theories and totally ignore the overall picture and possible side effects
on the overall planning caused by any change on some tasks.
Remember the part in the first section of this document, which stated "It takes the time that is
needed." Here is the part where this statement takes most of its sense.
- Do not parallel the task hoping to save time. There are only 24hrs in a day and people need
sleep.
- Do not forget the 20-25% margin
- Do not change the Person/Days established in the WBS, it is the most objective values you
can get.
- If you need to finish a task faster, never change an end date or the workload. Changes the
resources allocations to obtain the timeframe you want then re-validate the resources
workload.
Workload analysis
Here you are, now you have to identify the resources overload and play with the task
sequencing until all resources are in normal workload.
This is a very difficult and frustrating step. In addition, since MS-Project will regularly mess
things for you, MAKE BACKUP copies before making changes in the calendar planning.
Once the planning is done and resources workload is realistic, you are ready to go. At this
point you'll only have to identify slippage as the project go and take corrective action before it
has an impact on the project duration.
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Data
Purging
&
Cleansing
Project kick-off
Load Unit
Testing
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3.1
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OVERVIEW
This section gives you information on the major steps involve for each Business Objects.
Each person who is responsible of a Business Object should read this.
In the previous section we saw one of the methodology main ingredients. It involved mainly
planning and is actually a basic management concept, which is applicable to any kind of
project, computing or other. The second main ingredient of the methodology, which will make
it so efficient, is the way we deal with the conversion process itself.
Before you begin.
When working on the conversion, do not try to fit your Legacy System into SAP. Think SAP
and understand it. Then you can see what can be recuperated from your Legacy System.
Converting into SAP while having in mind your Legacy System process will for sure lead you
into the wrong path. Get familiar with your SAP Business Object. Create object, read the on
line documentation, understand the requirements, go through your complete process. This
will make the conversion easier.
Documentation of your work (conversion spec. and mapping sheet)
Keep in mind that SAP is a highly integrated system. Master Data has direct and indirect
impacts on all process, which is not always obvious. For this reason, all rules and mapping
must be documented in clear format to permit cross reading and validation among the whole
functional team. This will permit a better circulation of information between domains and
awareness of other modules decisions.
Although a structured documentation process might take a bit longer at first, it will permit to
have a synergy that will eventually make the whole bigger than the sum of the parts. I know, it
sound like a theory from a big book, but it really does work.
3.2
The purging and cleansing of the Legacy System will save you lot of time and effort in the
following steps of the conversion. Start this as soon as possible and do as much as possible.
This can be done without specific knowledge of SAP.
Data Purging
Before transferring data from your legacy system, delete all the old and obsolete data. For
example, you may delete all one-time customers or those for which there where no
transaction in the last two years, also delete unused materials.
Data Cleansing
This process corrects data inconsistencies and ensures the integrity of the existing data
during the migration process. For example, there are often lots of inconsistencies in
Customer and Vendor address fields. You will quickly find that SAP will not let you load
any address fields unless you get them clean.
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The documentation of each business object will contain the Data conversion rules (or
specification), which include :
Key user are ask to question their Legacy System values and integrity
Rules permit a clear statement of what a key user think. Thus permitting to identify
conflict and misunderstanding between domains.
You'll have to keep in mind that these will be made by key users who may not be familiar with
writing computing rules. Therefore, it is necessary to give some example and to explain some
basic key element in rules writing.
Basic properties of a rule :
Fields names
This is a crucial one. When discussing or writing notes, ALWAYS refer to a field in
the form TABLE-FIELD. You will quickly realize that as the project go, different
people will start using different names for the same field. As well they may start
using the same name for different fields.
On top of this, some fields exist in different views in SAP master data. Sometime it
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is the same field that is shown at two places while other times it is really two
different fields. The best way to know which case apply is to have the TABLE +
FIELD information.
Example:
In Material Master, the field Availability check exists in the "MRP2" and the
"Sales Gen" views. If you look at the TABLE-FIELD of each view you get :
MRP2
: MARC-MTVFP
: KNVV- ZTERM
: KNB1- ZTERM
It is not the same field. In the payment view, the field is linked to the Company
Code while for the Billing view it is linked to the Sales Organization (you find this
by looking at the tables keys). So both of these fields can have different values.
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This is the most complex Business Object to document and, at the same time, it is the one
you must start with in you conversion process.
Material Master is a key to all domains and a lot of fields need to be discovered and
understood. To get that understanding from key users we proceed as follow :
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: KNVV- ZTERM
: KNB1- ZTERM
It is not the same field. In the payment view, the field is linked to the
Company Code while for the Billing view it is linked to the Sales
Organization (you find this by looking at the tables keys). So both of
these fields can have different values.
SPECIAL MULTI VIEWS
In can however happen that no specific domain can be identified as the lead or
main user of a field.
Lets take for example, MM / PP status (MARC-MMSTA) which is in views :
purchasing, MRP1, workscheduling, costing 1, quality management.
If no one can be clearly identified as the lead for that field, then we put it in a
dummy view called SPECIAL multi views. This is used to put all the fields that
exist in different views and for which we cant assign a lead functional.
2nd step : Regroup selection of all domains
Once this is done for each domain, than you (the DC manager ) have to put together
all the results. This would yield something that looks like this :
Example of fields selection grouped for all domains
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3rd step : Build the data conversion rules template with all the selected fields.
Specify for each field, which domain selected it. If more than one domain selected the
same one, put the name of all the domains who selected the field.
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different functional domains into a single product. Failure to understand this is will get
you into trouble, and this is true for all the SAP implementation process, not just the
Data Migration part of it.
As the project goes, the QUESTIONS LIST becomes the data conversion TODO LIST.
Anything that is promised, due, scheduled or to be given must be noted there.
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You now have Material Master conversion rules documented and a TODO LIST to follow up
on the issues to be solved before you can load the data.
Material Master conversion rules sample
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G00
RULE
Note that SAP term Security deposit equal Retention in PRMS
Type of transaction
TYPE field in PRMS :
Partial PMT: Pay.
Credit Memo:
Cr M.
Debit Memo: Dr M.
Invoice :
Inv.
Non A/R cash:
Non AR
Adjustments:
Adj
Any other type is an error.
Validation to apply both at extraction and load.
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G00
3
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RULE
Partial PMT. must be negative in PRMS, if not ERROR
Credit Memomust be negative in PRMS, if not ERROR
Debit Memo.must be positive
in PRMS, if not ERROR
Invoice..must be positive
in PRMS, if not ERROR
Any other type is an ERROR.
LSM Load parameters
KTOPL - Chart of account :
CA00
BUKRS Company code: 0070
GSBER - Business Area : 0040
BUDAT Posting Date :
05-31-02 or last day of last closed period.
OFFSET Account (2) :
REPRISECL
SKPERR Skip err :
X
Directory organization
As you go, you will end up with lots of documents and versions. To store the different files on
your local server, use a specific directory structure. I suggest having a structure with a
directory for each Business Object to store all the files relevant to the data conversion. Here
is an example.
C:\.
Data Conversion
00 - Organization
DC PLAN
DC WBS
DC SCHEDULE
Old
< Store here previous versions of above mentioned documents >
01 - Material Master
Material Master - Field Selection Sheet.xls
Material Master - Data Conversion Spec.doc
< Keep here only the latest version of each document >
Old
< Store here previous versions of above mentioned documents >
Working Files
< Put here various working files >
xx -BO name
BO - Data Conversion Spec.doc
< Keep here only the latest version of each document >
Old
< Store here previous versions of above mentioned documents >
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Working Files
< Put here various working files >
Version management of conversion rules
As the project goes, rules will change. This is a certitude. As you get closer to Go Live,
changes will get more frequent, they will occur faster and will require a quicker reaction time.
Considering the stress on the whole project team and the overall load on all members near
GO Live, there is a real danger to loose control here. One way to stay on top of things while
having extra quick reaction time is good document management, which will permit a good
change management. Although it may sometime feel frustrating to go through versioning for
key users, it will ultimately be the best way to go fast without breaking something else that
already works (regression).
Here how it goes :
Freezing of V02
Once everyone agree that V02 is OK (functional and technical staff), freeze the
version.
Password protect V02, so no one changes it afterwards
Make a copy of the document as V03
In V03, accept all changes so that there is no visible change.
In V03, activate MS-Word change tracking (should already be on)
Put V02 in the "Old" directory
Unprotect V03
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ALL CHANGES between V01 and V02 are visible through MS-Word change
tracking.
Any change required by functional team must be done in V03. DO NOT
CHANGE V02
Once V02 is programmed, load it and ask functional team to validate.
All correction has to be entered in V03.
And so on
If you are not familiar with MS-Word change tracking I strongly suggest that you get
acquainted with this functionality.
Murphy's protection : Save it often and get good backups.
You will be working with MS-Word, using change tracking, and Excel. These are nice tools
but they regularly go wild and scrap your document. This is mostly true with large documents.
So save often and make backups of all your Data Conversion documents. I usually keep a 7
days rolling backup of all my files somewhere on a local PC to protect me from MS-Office bad
behavior as well as network failure and human error.
Be certain of two things :
If you have many large MS-Office documents, at least a few of them will go totally
corrupted during the project. It always happens.
It also always happens that someone mess-up a document, usually the most critical
one. .
This all happens because of a certain Murphy's and there is no way around it.
3.4
The rules documents for each BO have sections for Legacy sources and extraction
procedures and Purging and cleansing rules. This should explain what to clean/purge, what
to extract and how to proceed. If it does not, IT MUST BE DONE BEFORE YOU DO ANY
PROGRAMMING.
It is essential that this be clearly documented and validated by the key user responsible for
the BO. We are at the start of the process and any error or omission at this point will affect us
for the rest of the project. Once this is all documented, validated and understood, you can
start work on the extraction programs and process.
Once the extraction is clear, we must look at the load programs and process. This implicates
all the aspects of loading the required fields into each BO. Again, as for extraction, if there is
ambiguity or incomplete information in the specs, DO NOT PROCEED. At this point, take
your time to solve the issues you can see on paper before you do any programming. This will
prove to be an enormous time saver later on.
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Most of the time, when you do not begin any programming until all extract and load rules are
100% clear (and I mean 100%), there is a tendency to think that you just make everyone
loose time. Not so. If you found issues at this point, it means that there will be errors in the
process and you will have to address these issues anyway. It just will be more difficult and
time consuming to do it after the programming is done than now.
3.5
This is, by far, the most time consuming part of the conversion process. This is also the most
difficult, where System Migration Managers can loose control of the conversion process.
Remember this throughout the whole process: As in car racing, it is not the speed at which
you enter a turn that is most important, it is the one at which you get out of it.
The migration process is an iterative one.
After you have the specs, you do the extract and load programs
Some questions or issues will arise. You must address them and document in
the specs whatever corrective actions are needed. The specs must always be
updated to reflect the new requirements BEFORE you correct any program.
Do unit testing of the load
Some questions or issues will arise. You must address them and document in
the specs whatever corrective actions are needed. The specs must always be
updated to reflect the new requirements BEFORE you correct any program.
Following the modifications, you need to redo the unit testing of the load.
Full size test cycle
Some questions or issues will arise. You must address them and document in
the specs whatever corrective actions are needed. The specs must always be
updated to reflect the new requirements BEFORE you correct any program.
Following the modifications, you need to redo the unit testing of the load and
redo a full size test cycle.
For all the Systems Migrations I did, these iterations accounted for a major part of the DC
process duration. This is time consuming and can be very frustrating if not properly managed.
In a nutshell, here are the guidelines most useful at this point :
1. First, when something needs a change, it must be documented and validated in the
specs so that it is clear and unambiguous to all. Keep in mind that a change from one
domain can affect others and they will find this only later in the process, once everyone
forgot about what was exactly changed.
2. The Business Object Key user is the one accountable for the rules (all of them)
relating to his/her BO, for their maintenance and for the end result. This is not the
technician part of the work. The tech team is there to develop programs according to
what the rule says.
3. If it is not in the rules, it does not exist. So if you do not see what you need, get it
documented.
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4. Have the discipline to manage change by versioning the documents and making sure
they are cross-validated by all implicated stakeholder.
5. It is better to take your time to do it correctly rather than rushing it, which usually
means you may have to slow down at some points. Results will initially be slower to
come, but you will eventually progress faster and faster. As problems can accumulate
in a snowball effect, so does success (and this is a good news). Take the time to do it
right now and you will eventually pick-up an impressive speed in the next steps.
6. The specs must always be updated to reflect the new situation BEFORE you correct
any programs. You must be thinking, OK, stop repeating the same thing again and
again, I got it. I do so because this is the most common error I saw on projects that
failed. Trying to save time a team starts working on new solutions without taking time
to document, cross read and validate the specs. They sure are getting output quickly
this way but are they going in the right direction ?
7. If you start running in all directions and cant keep you head out the water, STOP, and
go back to step 1.
3.6
Here we want to test the load programs at a unitary level. The goal is to see if we can load all
the fields for all the data types without error. We are more concerned about going through the
load cycle without SAP stopping us, rather than validating the correctness of the values. For
this we use a very small volume of data, usually creating data manually from scratch rather
than using real extracted data.
The kind of issues you usually encounters at this point looks like the following :
Some mandatory fields are missing
Some dependency between 2 fields in one view where not considered and you cant
load as expected
Invalid values where given to you in the rules
Errors in the load programs
Using a load program, SAP did not behave as you expected (it sometimes behave
very differently with a load tool than it does with manual data entry)
As mentioned earlier, the conversion process is iterative. Following the issues youll find here,
you will have to go back to the functional key user, find solutions and document them in the
specs (this is the responsibility of the key user).
3.7
At this point, we want to know if we can load the data with the processes we developed
(extraction and load), as well as validating the results of the conversion in SAP.
At the end of this step, we will have a fully functioning and validated conversion cycle.
This is done it two steps:
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1. Load data that comes from the full extraction process (starting with small size and
progressing with larger data set, up to 50% of the complete data to be converted)
2. Load a full size data set (at least 50% of the complete data to be converted and
progressing towards 100%) using the full Extract and Load cycle. The goal is to
achieve 100% of loaded data
After each load, the functional that is responsible for the business object must validate the
data. This is time consuming and must be done as soon as possible. Remember the
bottleneck with key user I mentioned earlier in the planning section, the farther you are in the
project, the less availability youll get from the key user responsible of the BO.
Finally, of course, following the issues you will find here, you will have to go back to the
functional key user, find solutions and document them in the specs (this is the responsibility
of the key user).
3.8
Before going into pre-production, you must be able to start from an empty SAP client, extract,
load 100% of the data, and have full data validation from the BOs key users and the BOs
Owners.
From this point on, if you change something, you must redo a full extract-load-validation cycle
for the BO affected. Failure to do so (i.e. making last minute changes and not validating them
full size) will 99% of the time creates bugs in the load process at production time.
Again, to achieve this you will need lots of discipline. While you can correct bugs in dev, it is
difficult to correct them in pre prod (and suicidal). If at the end you load in production and
create data inconsistencies, it can take up to a year to correct this. Because the production
system is living its own life and cant be controlled as in dev, correcting Master Data errors is
like shooting a moving target the more you try to fix it, the more you seems to break
everything around it. I have seen teams cheating on this step and still have corrupted BOM
after a year. Since BOM affect Purchasing, Costing, Manufacturing, Inventory, etc. you can
imagine in which condition their SAP got after a while.
3.9
Since you went through all the steps and followed all the methodology guidelines, this is just
a formality.
You do a full load in pre-prod, starting from a copy of prod and doing everything
exactly as you will do in prod
You get the whole thing validated by the BOs key users and the BOs Owners
Then you get written signoff from the BOs Owners that all is A-OK (insist to have it
written, not verbal)
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After, you do the final production load and get final signoff
Finally you have nothing else to do, as by following this methodology, you managed to
load 100% accurate Master Data and no rework is needed (yes, this happened to me
for real)
Here are the guidelines to follow here. Again simple but requiring a lot of discipline :
It is better to make manual corrections or create programs the correct the data
after loading them. This way you do not induce regression into the extract/load
process.
When it is time to load in prod, do exactly as you did in pre prod, and then apply
the manual changes or run the data correcting programs exactly as you did in
pre prod.
If you must change the anything in the load/extract process or programs, you
must again do a full pre-prod load test/validation of everything.
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CONCLUSION
Now you know how I did different Master Data migrations faster and better than others did. I
successfully used this methodology in different industries, in different countries and with
starting projects as well as with projects already running which needed to be turned around.
The methodology itself is mainly a mix of good old common sense and management 101.
Each step is the foundation needed for the next step. Complete each step at 100% and the
next one will be easier. This will have a snowball effect, permitting you to gain more speed
from step to step. Not following this rule will also have a snowball effect, but in the other
direction, reaching a point where the conversion process becomes totally out of control.
The difficulty is not in understanding the methodology. Pressure to show rapid results (any
results), tendencies to push forward issues so we can keep progressing, and resistance to
slow down when the process starting to get out of hands. These are the most difficult
challenges you will have to overcome in order to complete each step at 100%
Although it may sometimes looks to others that you are taking the long route to get there,
remember that the objective is not to finish a specific step ASAP. The goal it is to complete
the whole process in the best time possible and to deliver a complete set of Master Data that
will not need rework once in production.
This is how I managed to keep my head above the water and continuously see where we are
going, even when everyone else seems to be in crises.
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B - WBS template
WBS Template.xls
Routing conversion
spec sample.doc
Materials Classes
and Characteristics structure.ppt