Configuring Managing Resources

Configuration supporting project staffing in SAP S/4HANA Cloud is contained in the Unit 2 - Understanding Customer Project Management.

Of particular relevance is configuration ID103584, Maintain Settings for Planning, to decide the resource management method to use in the implementation.

If external staffing is not selected, SAP S/4HANA Cloud resource management is used. If it is selected, SAP Project and Resource Management is the default application instead.

This setting is irreversible.

Employee master data and employee qualifications are required in SAP S/4HANA to complete the project staffing.

Information about resources and their availability must be available per day for all relevant resources. If the integration with SuccessFactors Employee Central (SF EC) is in place, resource data, such as work schedule, holiday calendar, and time profile is created in SF EC during the hiring process. If the integration with SF EC has not been set up, you can use the API Manage Workforce Availability (API_MANAGE_WF_AVAILABILITY) to maintain resource data.

The Manage Workforce application centralizes the information of the employee, worker, system user, and business partner.

Worker is defined by sections:

In the Manage Skills app, you can manage the skills that are used to define project needs in Manage Resource Requests or to describe a resource in My Project Experience application.

You can create skills individually with this app, upload and download skills into a CSV file and restrict usage of the skills.

Once the skill is created, from this application, the skill can be added to an existing catalog, or update the skill’s proficiency levels.

If you want to upload new skills from a CSV file, download first the existing skills to obtain the file format, clean the content and add the new skills. Then run the upload function.

In the Manage Skill Catalogs app, you can create skill catalogs and group different skills by adding them to the catalogs you create. This enables you to group skills based on your chosen criteria, for example, by language skills, industry knowledge skills or craftsperson area skills. You can also navigate to the Manage Skills app to view any skill that has been added to a catalog.

In this app you can:

• Create skill catalogs
• Add skills to catalogs individually within the app
• Add skills to catalogs via CSV file upload (from the manage skills app)
• Delete catalogs

In the Manage Proficiency Sets app, you can create sets of proficiency levels for different skills, for example, language skills or industry-specific skills.

Next you create proficiency levels in the proficiency set. A proficiency level indicates a level of expertise, for example, beginner or advanced.

Proficiency sets and their associated proficiency levels are assigned to skills in the Manage Skills app.

A proficiency set can contain up to 50 proficiency levels.

Proficiency sets and proficiency levels cannot be deleted after they are created.

In the Manage Project Roles app, you can manage the roles that are used to define project needs in Manage Resource Requests or to describe an employee experience in My Project Experience application.

Note that project roles defined in this application are used for resource management processes and are not the same as the roles used in customer or internal projects.

For example, a Project Manager can request the role "Senior Consultant" in the project by selecting the corresponding activity type (this role is visible in the resource request in SAP Project and Resource Management Resource Management as well) but further specify the activity this person will develop in the project by selecting "Trainer" as the project role in the resource request.

The role defined in the project determines the cost and revenue calculation, while the SAP Project and Resource Management role is mainly informative.

Project roles in SAP Project and Resource Management are initially created in the default language (see set default language) but other languages can be added after.

Once the workforce person replication from the SAP Master Data Integration service to resource management is complete, you can start maintaining the availability data with the Maintain Availability Data app.

Availability data in this application can also be maintained using the Workforce Availability API.

Availability for resources is input by day, so you need to create an availability record per calendar day in order to correctly complete this activity.

Availability data is maintained in three steps:

1. Download the CSV template from the application
2. Edit the CSV file to update the availability data of the contained internal or external employees
3. Upload the CSV template into SAP Project and Resource Management from the application

The template can be downloaded for cost centers or individual resources. Additionally, an interval of time and default daily availability is provided that should facilitate the update of the file afterwards.

After update, the file is uploaded using the application.

This setting is available in SAP Project and Resource Management (SAP BTP), and only applies to SAP Project and Resource Management Resource Management solution.

Master data is generally created in the default language and can be extended to other languages afterwards.

Service organizations are maintained in SAP S/4HANA, in the maintain service organizations application. Service organizations group organizational data and settings therefore they are the main organizational assignment object in customer and internal projects and resource management.

In order to be able to create (upload) service organizations in SAP Project and Resource Management, cost center replication from SAP S/4HANA to SAP Project and Resource Management resource management needs to be active.

Make sure the service organization data uploaded into this SAP Project and Resource Management application is the same as the data maintained in SAP S/4HANA.

Resource organizations are mainly a group of cost centers. For this reason, a precondition to create resource organizations is cost center replication is setup.

Service organizations created in SAP S/4HANA application and set as Delivery organization are automatically replicated in SAP Project and Resource Management as resource organizations, if SAP S/4HANA cloud integration is active.

If cloud integration is not active, resource organizations can be created manually in the Manage Resource Organizations application.

Resource management uses the SAP Master Data Integration service to replicate cost center, workforce person, and workforce capability data. This data can come from source systems such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud or SAP SuccessFactors and must first be replicated from these systems to SAP Master Data Integration.

Follow this procedure outline:

1. Connect your source systems to SAP Master Data Integration.

   For each system from which you want to replicate data via SAP Master Data Integration, you must create a service instance of the SAP Master Data Integration service as well as a service key for this instance as described in the Administration Guide for SAP Master Data Integration. For example, you create one service instance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and one for SAP SuccessFactors.

   More information: SAP Master Data Integration: Administration Guide

2. Replicate cost centers from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Master Data Integration

   More information: SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Cost Center Replication

   .
3. Replicate workforce person data from SAP SuccessFactors to SAP Master Data Integration.

   More information: SAP SuccessFactors: Integrating Workforce from Employee Central to SAP Master Data Integration

4. Replicate workforce person data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP Master Data Integration

   More information: SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Workforce Outbound Replication

You can use resource management to staff resource requests for projects that were created in  SAP S/4HANA Cloud. In this case, the project data must first be replicated to resource management.

To be able to replicate project data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, you must first set up the communication. For more information, see SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Communication Management.

Set up a destination in the SAP BTP cockpit to allow communication between resource management and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

For the initial replication of project data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, you use the Manage Project Data Replication app to define the required service organizations. This ensures that only the relevant project data is replicated to resource management.

You can also set a reference date for the data replication. All projects are loaded that are active on or after this date.

Once the project data has been replicated from the source system, a default resource request is created for each replicated demand. From then on, the SAP Job Scheduling Service fetches any updated project data at fixed intervals to ensure consistency between the source system and resource management.

The following applies for the delta load:

• If the delta load contains changes to the required effort, the service organization, or the billing category, resource management displays these changes in the demand details. However, they are not copied into the resource request details. This is to avoid that the system overwrites adjustments that the requester made in the request details.
• Once a resource request is published, supplies that already existed for this demand in SAP S/4HANA Cloud are fetched with the next delta load and are added to the resource request as assignments. The resource manager can then edit or delete the assignments.
• If a demand is deleted in the source system, the related resource request and assignments are also deleted from the resource management system with the next delta load. The availability and utilization of the assigned resource are updated.
• If the time period of the work package is changed in the source system, the related resource request is also changed accordingly. This can have the following effects:
  • If the entire time period of the original resource request is outside of the new time period of the work package, the system shifts the resource request to the new time period of the work package and adjusts the start date and end date of the resource request to the start date and end date of the work package. Therefore, after shifting, the duration of the resource request can differ from the original one, depending on the new work package duration.

    Example

    Initial work package time period: January 01 - April 30

    Resource request time period: January 01 - January 31

    New work package time period: March 01 - April 30

    New resource request time period: March 01 - April 30

    Attributes such as the project role and the required skills are preserved in the resource request. The publishing status (not published, published) as well as the request status (open, resolved) are also retained. If assignments already exist for the resource request, they are deleted because the assigned resources might not be available in the new time period.

    If effort has already been maintained on a daily or weekly basis, the system sets the effort distribution method to "total effort" and aggregates all distributed effort to give the total required effort.

  • If the work package duration is shortened so that the original start date or end date of the resource request is outside of the new work package time period, the resource request is adjusted to the new time period.

    Example

    Initial work package time period: January 01 - April 30

    Resource request time period: January 01 - March 31

    New work package time period: March 01 - April 30

    New resource request time period: March 01 - March 31

    In this example, the resource request is shortened by the time period that falls outside of the new time period of the work package.

    Depending on the effort distribution method chosen, the following applies:

    • Total effort

      The total required effort is retained regardless of the length of the new resource request time period.

    • Daily effort

      Any effort that has been distributed to days that are outside of the new resource request time period is dropped.

      If the new resource request period contains days for which effort has already been maintained, the daily effort distribution method is retained. The required effort is calculated based on the new time period, that is, effort distributed to days within the new time period is added up and shown as the new required effort.

      If the new resource request period overlaps with the old one, but no effort has been maintained for the overlapping days, the effort distribution method is changed to "total effort". The distributed required effort of the original resource request is aggregated to give the total required effort.

    • Weekly effort

      Any effort that has been distributed to weeks that are outside of the new resource request time period is dropped.

      If the new resource request period contains weeks for which effort has already been maintained, the weekly effort distribution method is retained. The required effort is calculated based on the new time period, that is, effort distributed to weeks within the new time period is added up and shown as the new required effort. This applies also if the new resource request covers fewer days of a particular week. The full number of hours maintained for that week is retained.

      If the new resource request period overlaps with the old one, but no effort has been maintained for the overlapping weeks, the effort distribution method is changed to "total effort". The distributed required effort of the original resource request is aggregated to give the total required effort.

• If a supply is changed in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, for example, due to a shortened duration of the work package, the corresponding hard-booked assignment in resource management is adjusted accordingly. This has the following effects:
  • For any month for which the supply is changed, the assigned hours are redistributed within that month to the days on which the assigned resource has available capacity. The effort is redistributed equally, even if a daily or weekly effort distribution had been maintained for that month.
  • Months within the new time period for which the supply doesn't change also remain unchanged in resource management.
  • This also affects the utilization of the resource, for example, it can cause overbooking.
• If the time period of the work package is changed, the related soft-booked assignments are also changed accordingly.

In this application you can control the active replication processes and their frequency.