Understanding Process Steps and Business Roles for Internal Project Management

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Define process steps for Internal Project Management.
  • Identify business role(s) for Internal Project Management.
  • Identify SAP Fiori apps for Internal Project Management.

Process Steps for Internal Project Management

Key Process Steps

  • Manage internal projects during planning and execution phase
  • Maintain work package staffing of internal project
  • Procure external services for internal project
  • Record times for internal project
  • Analyze internal projects
  • Perform accounting and financial close activities
  • Perform period end closing activities

Business Role(s) for Internal Project Management

In order to work with internal projects, certain business catalogues must be assigned to the user’s Business Role (please see section on finding and allocating business roles in Unit 1 - Introducing SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Professional Services).

For internal projects, the necessary business roles are:

Business Role

Business RoleBusiness Role Description
SAP_BR_EMPLOYEEEmployee
SAP_BR_MANAGERManager - Inbox
SAP_BR_PROJECT_MANAGER_PROFProject Manager - Professional Services
SAP_BR_PROJ_MANAGE_COMMProject Manager - Commercial Services
SAP_BR_OVERHEAD_ACCOUNTANTCost Accountant - Overhead
SAP_BR_BPC_EXPERTConfiguration Expert - Business Process Configuration

SAP Fiori Apps for Internal Project Management

Associated SAP Fiori Applications

  • Create Internal Projects
  • Plan Internal Projects
  • Project Staffing Analysis
  • Run Actual Settlement
  • Project Control Professional Services Projects

Create Internal Projects

The figure displays the app Create Internal Projects.

Purpose

You can use this app to create internal projects.

Note

You can create projects only for service organizations for which you are authorized.

Key Features

  • You can create internal projects with information such as the service organization, costcenter, profit center, project manager, currency, and dates.

    By default, the system displays the service organization of the project manager creating the project. The currency is determined from the company code of the service organization. However, you can change the currency to a value of your choice.

  • You can assign people to additional project roles such as project partner, project accountant, and project controller. Users assigned to these project roles can view and edit projects.
  • You can decide whether the project can be searched for and viewed by other project managers or only by the responsible project manager.

    To restrict access to the project by persons other than the responsible project manager and stakeholders, set the Public Project switch to No.

  • When you have entered the required information, you can either choose:
    • Save to create the project.
    • Save and Proceed to create the project and continue to plan other aspects of the project, such as work packages, work items, roles, resources, expenses, and attachments.

App Extensibility: Create Internal Projects

Key users can extend the app in the Custom Fields and Logic app using the Engagement Project business context.

You have the following options:

  • Add additional fields to forms and tables
  • Change the order of fields
  • Regroup and rename fields
  • Save the current layout
  • Make settings to exclude fields.

Note

UI adaption of this app is a one time activity and is specific to this app. You must repeat this activity to view UI adaptations when you view a project or edit a project.

You can add fields to the following UI elements:

UI Element

UI ElementBusiness Context
Information form (at header level)Engagement Project

You can implement logic for the following Business Add Ins (BAdIs):

Business Add Ins (BAdIs)

BAdlBusiness Context
Generate Project IDsEngagement Project
Send E mailEngagement Project
Check Authorization to Edit ProjectEngagement Project
Check Authorization to Change Project StageEngagement Project

Plan Internal Projects

The figure displays the app Plan Internal Projects (F1656).

Purpose

You can use this app to manage internal projects for which you are the responsible project manager. This app allows you to search for projects, copy existing projects, and edit your projects to plan work packages, efforts, resources, and recalculate cost.

Note

Your ability to display or change project information depends on the service organization for which you are authorized, and whether the project is a public or private.

Key Features

  • View a list of projects for which you are the responsible project manager or assigned to one of the additional project roles.
  • Manage your list of favorite projects.
  • Filter the list of displayed projects.
  • Search for other public projects.
  • Create new internal projects.
  • Analyze the performance of projects for which you are responsible.

    You can use available filters to view information such as cost performance and work performance.

  • Manage the project lifecycle using the following stages:
    • In Planning: You can change the project currency, and plan work packages, work items, resources, and expenses. You can also delete a project.
    • In Execution: You can confirm the staffing of assigned resources and allow staffed resources to record their effort towards the project. When you set a project to this stage, the system automatically creates a baseline version of the project plan.
    • Completed: In this stage, resources can no longer record effort towards the project. However, you can process invoices, post expenses, and transfer costs to accounting.
    • Closed: This stage prevents further account postings for the project. However, you can reset the stage to In Execution (to allow recording of effort and processing of effort related cost) or to Completed (to transfer costs to accounting).
  • Update the profit center for the project, but only as long as no actual cost has been posted.
  • Create a new project by copying information from an existing one. Basic information from the project header and work packages are copied, and project dates are proposed from the duration of the existing project. Hence, it is recommended that you review this information before creating the new project.
  • Manage work packages and resources.
  • Manage the billing of services

Managing Work Packages and Resources

Work packages help you manage the scope and delivery of services in projects.

  • You use work packages to plan and schedule high level project activities, such as:
    • Work package dates and work items.
    • Required project roles and effort, the organization from which you want to staff a role, and whether the role is billable or not. If required, you can also specify up to five skills for each role. However, these skills are for information only and not directly used to search for resources.
    • Expenses
  • For each role, you can search for resources and view details such as:
    • Contact details of an employee, work location, skills, and experience in previous projects.
    • Employee availability for the duration of the work package.
    • Employees whose employment ends before the end date of the work package.
    • Employee availability per month (in hours or days), for the calendar year.

      Note

      Availability is calculated based on the working hours per week defined in the business partner's master data, and staffing in other projects. If resource management has been activated, the availability is based on the daily working hours maintained for the business partner.
    • You can view and manually redistribute effort across the periods of the work package.

      Note

      If you change the dates (month) of a work package, the project dates are also adjusted. Besides, you must also choose how the system redistributes planned efforts. The following options are available:

      • Retain Total Efforts: The system redistributes equally, the total planned effort for the roles or resources in the work package.
      • Retain Efforts for Common Periods: The system retains only the efforts in periods that are common between the old and new work package dates, and distributes the efforts equally between the new periods of the work package.
  • You can assign resources to project roles, based on the relevance of their skills and their availability. You can also use work items to assign responsibilities to assigned resources.
  • You can confirm the staffing of resources when the project stage is set to In Execution. This confirmation results in staffing the resource as per their availability for the work package.

    Note

    If resource management has been activated, then assignments made by a resource manager are stored as staffing confirmations.
  • You can manage documents for work packages.
  • You can delete a work package, but only if there are no actual time or expense postings.

Cost Calculation

The planned cost is calculated using the standard price for the role or the staffed resource.

  • If no delivery organization is specified, the cost is derived from the cost center of the project.
  • If a delivery organization is specified, the cost is derived from the default cost center of the delivery organization.

Note

If the resource management solution has been activated, then costs are calculated as follows:

  • If you've planned for a role or requested a resource, the cost rate of the role is used.
  • If the staffed effort for a role is equal to the planned effort, then the cost rate is determined from the specific attributes of the staffed resource. If multiple resources are staffed to a role, the planned cost is a sum of the cost rates determined for each resource.
  • If the staffed effort for a role is more than the planned effort, then the planned cost is calculated only for the planned effort using the cost determined from the staffed resources.
  • If the staffed effort for a role is less than the planned effort, then the planned cost is a sum of the cost rate for the staffed effort (determined from the staffed resource) and the cost rate of the role for the remaining planned effort.

Additional Features with Resource Management

As a project manager, you can plan for roles by requesting specific resources using the link in the Requested Resource column. The project manager can use the link in the Staffed Resources column to search for resources and confirm their assignment to the project.

Note

However, no changes are allowed once a staffing assignment has been made.

Compare and Update Project Versions

A baseline version is automatically created when you set the project stage to In Execution. This also enables the Versions area which displays a comparison of the project plan between the baseline and current versions. The default view displays a comparison of work packages that are different from the baseline version. However, you can also switch the view to display all work packages.

You can do the following:

  • Update the baseline version with the current plan of one or more work packages.
  • Synchronize key figures and values in the current project plan to enable financial reporting for projects.

When you use the Update Baseline or Sync with Finance buttons, a copy of the information is also transferred to finance, to enable management reporting for different entities, based on actual and plan data for projects. Hence it is recommended to periodically update and synchronize the relevant versions.

Note

The planned revenue in the baseline for management reporting is always zero (0) for internal projects.

App Extensibility: Plan Internal Projects

Key users can extend the app in the Custom Fields and Logic app using the following business context:

  • Engagement Project
  • Work Package

You have the following options:

  • Add additional fields to forms and tables
  • Change the order of fields
  • Regroup and rename fields
  • Save the current layout
  • Make settings to exclude fields.

Note

UI adaptation through field extensibility is a one time activity. You must repeat UI adaptations separately in screens that display project information, and in screens where you can edit project information.

You can add fields to the following UI elements:

UI ElementBusiness Context
Information form (at header level)Engagement Project
Additional information (at the work package level)Work Package

You can implement logic for the following Business Add Ins (BAdIs):

Business Add Ins (BAdIs)

BAdlBusiness Context
Generate Project IDsEngagement Project
Send E mailEngagement Project
Check Authorization to Edit ProjectEngagement Project
Check Authorization to Change Project StageEngagement Project

Project Staffing Analysis

The figure displays the app, Project Staffing Analysis .

Purpose

With this app project managers can view and analyze the staffing situations in projects for which they are responsible. You can view information about resource requests, whether staffing has been fulfilled, the resources assigned to a request, the distribution of planned and staffed effort across months, and the cost

Key Features

  • Use filters to search for resource requests
  • Personalize the display of information by creating your own views. By default, the list displays resource requests only from projects for which you are responsible, or assigned as the project partner, project controller, or project accountant. However, you may use the Project or the Work Package filters to view resource requests from other projects.
  • View resource requests and the status of staffing
  • View whether resource requests have been fulfilled, are overdue, or due in the future
  • View the progress of staffing per resource request
  • Display an overview of the project, especially information such as:
    • The total planned cost for the project, and a comparison between the planned cost of resources and the cost after staffing
    • The overall progress of staffing within the project
  • Display detailed information for a resource request, such as the duration, requested skills, planned and staffed hours, resources staffed to a request, the delivery organization of resources, and the cost per resource. You can also view how the staffed effort is distributed across months.

Run Actual Settlement

The figure displays the app, Run Actual Settlement .

Purpose

This app enables you to run actual settlement for the project. Costs are collected in projects only temporarily. Settlement is the process where the actual costs incurred for a WBS element, network, or activity are allocated, in whole or in part, to one or more receivers. Costs are settled to one or more receivers as part of period end processing.

Key Features

  • You can create a variant with the selection for the internal project.

    Variant information:

    • Project definition to be settled
    • Attributes
    • Description
  • You can enter the processing data:
    • Selection variant
    • Settlement period
    • Fiscal Year
    • Processing type
    • Test Run
    • Detail List
    • Check Trans. Data
  • You can settle work packages to the cost center, G/L account, and/or WBS element

Project Control – Professional Services Projects

This application that can be used as one common entry point for all customer and internal professional service projects.

The key features of the Project Control Professional Services Projects app include:

  • One list that shows customer as well as internal professional service projects
  • Show basic project attributes in a tabular form and search based on them
  • Possibility to be enhanced by customer attributes
  • Navigation to professional service project related apps, including creation of projects
  • Navigation to related sales order and solution order (depending on user’s authorization)
  • Possibility to enhance the navigation options by help of the business catalogs assigned to users

How to Perform Internal Project Management

Start the simulation to perform the process steps of the Internal Project management (1A8) scenario.

DemoStart Demo

Recommended Resources

Links to Recommended Resources

Note

Please open links to standard websites in your regular desktop browser instead of the remote desktop browser used for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud training system. Use the remote desktop browser only for accessing the training system. In both SAP Activate Roadmap and SAP Best Practices Explorer, verify that you are logged into an active session before attempting to access or download accelerators. Active sessions time-out after approximately 10 minutes of inactivity. You must refresh the webpage to renew an active, logged-in session. In SAP Best Practices Explorer, also verify the "Version" of any solution package you access is set to the correct country localization. This dropdown menu is found at the top of the solution package information, next to the description.

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