Friday, November 23, 2007

Tickets and Authorization in SAP Business Warehouse

What is tickets? and example?

The typical tickets in a production Support work could be:
1. Loading any of the missing master data attributes/texts.
2. Create ADHOC hierarchies.
3. Validating the data in Cubes/ODS.
4. If any of the loads runs into errors then resolve it.
5. Add/remove fields in any of the master data/ODS/Cube.
6. Data source Enhancement.
7. Create ADHOC reports.

1. Loading any of the missing master data attributes/texts - This would be done by scheduling the infopackages for the attributes/texts mentioned by the client.
2. Create ADHOC hierarchies. - Create hierarchies in RSA1 for the info-object.
3. Validating the data in Cubes/ODS. - By using the Validation reports or by comparing BW data with R/3.
4. If any of the loads runs into errors then resolve it. - Analyze the error and take suitable action.
5. Add/remove fields in any of the master data/ODS/Cube. - Depends upon the requirement
6. Data source Enhancement.
7. Create ADHOC reports. - Create some new reports based on the requirement of client.

Tickets are the tracking tool by which the user will track the work which we do. It can be a change requests or data loads or what ever. They will of types critical or moderate. Critical can be (Need to solve in 1 day or half a day) depends on the client. After solving the ticket will be closed by informing the client that the issue is solved. Tickets are raised at the time of support project these may be any issues, problems.....etc. If the support person faces any issues then he will ask/request to operator to raise a ticket. Operator will raise a ticket and assign it to the respective person. Critical means it is most complicated issues ....depends how you measure this...hope it helps. The concept of Ticket varies from contract to contract in between companies. Generally Ticket raised by the client can be considered based on the priority. Like High Priority, Low priority and so on. If a ticket is of high priority it has to be resolved ASAP. If the ticket is of low priority it must be considered only after attending to high priority tickets.

Checklists for a support project of BPS - To start the checklist:

1) InfoCubes / ODS / datatargets
2) planning areas
3) planning levels
4) planning packages
5) planning functions
6) planning layouts
7) global planning sequences
8) profiles
9) list of reports
10) process chains
11) enhancements in update routines
12) any ABAP programs to be run and their logic
13) major bps dev issues
14) major bps production support issues and resolution

What are the tools to download tickets from client? Are there any standard tools or it depends upon company or client...?

Yes there are some tools for that. We use Hpopenview. Depends on client what they use. You are right. There are so many tools available and as you said some clients will develop their own tools using JAVA, ASP and other software. Some clients use just Lotus Notes. Generally 'Vantive' is used for tracking user requests and tickets.

It has a vantive ticket ID, field for description of problem, severity for the business, priority for the user, group assigned etc.

Different technical groups will have different group ID's.

User talks to Level 1 helpdesk and they raise ticket.

If they can solve issue for the issue, fine...else helpdesk assigns ticket to the Level 2 technical group.

Ticket status keeps changing from open, working, resolved, on hold, back from hold, closed etc. The way we handle the tickets vary depending on the client. Some companies use SAP CS to handle the tickets; we have been using Vantive to handle the tickets. The ticket is handled with a change request, when you get the ticket you will have the priority level with which it is to be handled. It comes with a ticket id and all. It's totally a client specific tool. The common features here can be
- A ticket Id,
- Priority,
- Consultant ID/Name,
- User ID/Name,
- Date of Post,
- Resolving Time etc.

There ideally is also a knowledge repository to search for a similar problem and solutions given if it had occurred earlier. You can also have training manuals (with screen shots) for simple transactions like viewing a query, saving a workbook etc so that such queried can be addressed by using them.

When the problem is logged on to you as a consultant, you need to analyze the problem, check if you have a similar problem occurred earlier and use ready solutions, find out the exact server on which this has occurred etc.

You have to solve the problem (assuming you will have access to the dev system) and post the solution and ask the user to test after the preliminary testing from your side. Get it transported to production once tested and posts it as closed i.e. the ticket has to be closed.

What is User Authorizations in SAP BW?

Authorizations are very important, for example you don't want the important financial report to all the users. so, you can have authorization in Object level if you want to keep the authorization for specific in object for this you have to check the Object as an authorization relevent in RSD1 and RSSM tcodes. Similarly you set up the authorization for certain users by giving that users certain auth. in PFCG tcode. Similarly you create a role and include the tcodes, BEx reports etc into the role and assign this role to the userid.

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