SAP PS

SAP Project System Overview:
When I tried searching for a document on SAP Project systems Overview, I could not find a good document which shows high level overview.

Therefore I have decided to create a new document which will give a good overview on SAP Project System, hopefully.

This document will provide an overview on SAP Project Systems for those who have limited knowledge on SAP PS.

Also there is another type of project which are used in 'Public Sector' Industry which is a hybrid of Customer project and Internal Project. In Public sector, You get revenue from 'other companies' or Govt and reimburse the amount you spent.

Examples of organizational data included in the project definition are:
• Controlling area   • Plant (optional)
• Company code   • Profit center (optional)

The project profile number is also entered here, which determines default values and controls in various areas using these sub-profiles:
• Plan Profile  • Status Profile
• Budget Profile  • Network Profile
 Settlement Profile

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a model of the work to be performed in a project organized in a hierarchical structure.  The WBS is an important tool which helps you keep an overview of the project:

• It forms the basis for organization and coordination in the project.

• It summarizes the amount of work, the time required, and the costs involved in the project.

The WBS is the operative basis for the further steps in Project Planning, such as Cost Planning, Scheduling, Capacity Planning as well as Project Controlling.

In a WBS, the individual tasks and activities in the project are described as individual elements in a hierarchy.  

When all the data is entered in the activities, it will be possible to make the system calculate planned dates and costs for the whole project.

When the tasks within the activities have been executed they must be confirmed. When all the tasks within an activity are completed the activity is finally confirmed. Then the following activity can start.

In a network the activities are linked to each other. They can be linked in four different ways.

Start - Start  The previous activity has to start before the successive one   starts.

Finish - Start  The previous activity has to finish before the successive one   starts.

Start - Finish  The previous activity has to start before the successive one   finishes.

Finish - Finish  The previous activity has to finish before the successive one   finishes 

A milestone is linked with a date in the billing plan. When the milestone is reached, the actual date of the milestone is copied into the billing plan.

You trigger a series of events to process a particular business process with milestone functions.

Rough Cut/ Overall/ Structure Oriented/ Hierarchical Planning: This type of planning is independent of cost elements, and you use it to estimate the costs likely to be incurred for a project. This type is NOT depend on the  periods and it can be only fiscal year

Unit costing: If you have information on sources of supply, quantities, and prices, the unit costing is the most detailed project cost planning method available. You can use it to calculate overall and annual costs. This is not period dependent

Cost Element/ Activity Input/ Detailed  Planning: You can plan primary costs, revenues, activity inputs, and statistical key figures on a cost element basis.

Integrated Planning can be done with Cost centers and profit centers. Activity inputs planned in project are updated directly in sender’s cost center. Planned data can be passed on to profit centers and extended GL too.

Easy Cost planning is a costing tool to plan costs at WBS level based on qty and characteristics.

Cost planning deals with the costs you expect to incur in connection with your project as it is executed.

Cost planning has different aims at different stages of the project:

At the concept and rough planning stage, cost planning acts as the base for an initial cost estimate.

At the approval stage, it forms the basis for the budget allocation.

During project execution, you use cost planning to monitor and control cost variances.

If Investment Management is used for budgeting, Finance department would first distribute the IM budget to individual department of the project via transaction IM52

All stock items should be planned as L in the item category. This includes both BOM and stockable consumables and materials.

All non-stock items are planned with item category N. It means that the goods/services are procured and received directly to project.

Material Availability function can be used to check whether material components in networks are available on the requirements date. Note that requirements date is determined by project scheduling of the network activities based on activity relationship and the duration specified for each activity

MRP can be executed to aid in the buying process

We utilize the full external services cycle in SAP for both PM & PS.

Vendor Service Conditions are used for regularly required services.  For once off services the PO is created with reference to a RFQ in SAP.

Basic dates are the dates that have a binding character for time scheduling and for other related areas such as capacity planning.

Actual dates provide you with information on the state of the project. You enter them manually in the WBS elements or the system calculates them using confirmation data.

Scheduled dates are the start and finish dates of activities calculated by the system in scheduling. For WBS elements the scheduled dates are determined from the scheduled dates of the activities that are assigned to the WBS element

Earliest and latest dates are calculated in network scheduling and tell you the earliest or latest data that an activity must start or finish on.

Constraints:  When you schedule a network, the system takes the constraints on the start and finish dates and times that you specified into account.

Network Scheduling:

Scheduling determines the earliest and latest start and finish dates for carrying out activities in the network and calculates the required capacity requirements as well as the slack time or "floats".

Scheduling the Overall Network

In overall network scheduling, the system schedules all networks which are linked with relationships.

Scheduling the Work Breakdown Structure

The system calculates the dates for an entire project or a portion of the project (subtree) with all associated activities when you select the scheduling function.

Project Scheduling

In project scheduling you can schedule the project with all assigned activities, as in WBS scheduling. Additionally you can decide whether just networks are scheduled or whether service and maintenance orders are also scheduled.

CATS stands for Cross Application Time Sheet. It has the ability to store worked hours and to distribute information to different modules in SAP. The advantage is in its single point of entry and integration capabilities.

Different layouts (to facilitate data entry) are implemented by using profiles.

Goods receipt is applicable for non-stock items such as service materials and non-stock material where procurement is directly to project.

Goods Issue is applicable for Stock Items as well as delivery from project.

Milestone Billing: Milestones entered in WBS/Network Activities will dictate the billing plan with default billing block in the sales document. When the milestone is achieved in the project, the billing block will be removed automatically which will enable us to invoice automatically.

Resource Related Billing: Actual costs for time and materials captured in the project. System creates dynamic items for the nature of costs and it can create Debit memo or Credit memo request. Invoice can be created with reference to Debit or credit memo request.

Milestone trend analysis (MTA)is a simple and effective method of controlling dates in a project. The milestone dates on different report dates are compared. In the graphical MTA chart you recognize trends and delays immediately

The milestone technique is one of the measurement techniques for determining the earned value in Progress analysis. Each milestone represents the portion of the work that is completed in an activity or in a WBS element.

You can settle the following results analysis data to FI and EC-PCA:

Inventory values (depending on the results analysis method, capitalized costs or revenue in excess of billings)

Reserves for unrealized costs

Reserves for imminent loss

Reserves for complaints and commissions

The cost of sales, if you are using a non valuated sales order stock and are balancing in Financial Accounting with the cost-of-sales accounting method

You can settle the following results analysis data to CO-PA:

Cost of sales or calculated revenue

Reserves for imminent loss and complaints

TECO status can be set in two ways:

via confirmation with milestone functions and change WBS status to TECO; 

OR

user to go to project builder and update the project status to TECO

Projects can only be set to “CLSD” if:

No balance exists for the project (i.e. project costs have been fully settled)

All activities that require confirmation (controlled by control keys in SAP) have 

been confirmed.

The main phases where interaction between the structures is

•Goods Receive of an Equipment Type material – Equipment Master & Asset Master (with no value) created

•Goods Issue of Equipment Type Material – Equipment is installed in the Functional Location (we use BOM reference points if items need to be installed at lower levels in the Functional Location structure)

•Settlement – the equipment type assets are given a value and a non-equipment asset per functional location is created.

•We are also looking at creation of FL BOMs and populating them with all the non-equipment type materials issued to the WBS.

Custom programs and user exits along with some standard configuration eg Serial No Profiles and equipment/asset synchronization and straight data field mapping were used to achieve this level of integration.