SAP Functional Realization

More than ever before, SAP customers are under increased pressure to implement applications and upgrades in shorter timeframes with fewer resources. At the same time, the need for higher quality applications that are delivered on time and within budget has never been greater. Applications and/or upgrades delivered late and with poor quality dramatically impact business users and the company’s bottom line. Today’s typical company spends 80 cents of every IT dollar on managing and/or fixing existing technology problems. Clearly, there is a need for a solution that focuses on consistent application delivery while dramatically reducing operational support costs, without sacrificing your business needs. These challenges have caused many companies to rethink how better software quality management can achieve better results in deploying critical applications. Our goal is to ensure that your core SAP applications deliver the best performance before going live.

Description

In response, Compuware offers the most complete quality assurance solution on the market. The Compuware Application Reliability Solution (CARS) combines testing professionals with a proven methodology and a unique, industry-leading tools workbench. By using CARS, SAP customers can deliver applications on-time, within budget and with unmatched quality. When used in conjunction with software that analyzes the current SAP environment, the overall testing effort is efficient and effective -focused on areas of high risk and high change.

The NetProcess™ tool suite is integrated with Compuware’s QA software tools to provide our IT professionals with access to a full suite of application analysis tools. These tools include an activity measurement tool that utilizes R/3 historical data to correlate SAP transactions, processes and instances. This information can be compared across SAP instances - including different SAP releases. Using these tools automates the SAP functional analysis - allowing the customer’s IT resources to focus on important next steps. The analysis effort findings are used to properly scope the SAP project. When used in conjunction with CARS, a focused testing strategy and testing plan can be developed that identifies the key areas of business change and associated business risk that allows you to take full advantage of your SAP application.

Once the business priorities and risks are identified, IT professionals tailor the CARS Workbench to meet the unique requirements of the project environment. The CARS Workbench is used to instill discipline, automate processes and ensure consistency and repeatability throughout the testing life cycle. By utilizing the CARS Workbench and Compuware’s patented QA methodology, the QA team follows an automated testing process. CARS offers methods and tools that tie test plans and defects to business results, and provide metrics to make informed "go live" decisions.

Benefits

SAP upgrades are important projects - with the potential to affect many users and customers alike. Ensuring that these critical projects are a success requires an effective QA process that identifies the areas of risk and mitigates those risks through a combination of discipline, expertise and technology. The combination of NetProcess™ and CARS offers a focused approach to identifying the key areas of change and risk for any SAP upgrade. This knowledge enables the project team to manage these risks by testing in the appropriate areas. Testing cycles are more efficient while duplicate testing efforts are significantly reduced. Significant involvement by business and IT knowledgeable resources during the upgrade analysis and quality assurance effort can be reduced due to our unique approach to  transaction modeling, risk analysis and test case reusability. Customers will experience the maximum functionality of their new SAP system once deployed into production - a high quality system with  increased user productivity.  Overall, Compuware’s SAP Functional Realization service offering allows you to maximize your goals for the SAP system - enabling you with improved productivity and quality, efficiency, and responsiveness to your business needs.

Deliverables

The outcome of this solution offering is a working release of SAP that does not take heroic efforts to get implemented. Typically, the months leading up to the transition, as well as the months after the go live date, are stressful and wrought with problems and issues for the implementation team, the operations group, the help desk and other departments - not to mention the end users. CARS delivers a repeatable process for upgrades that enables each team to deliver what is needed for the business. The majority of effort involved in upgrading the SAP system is test planning, analysis and testing. Compuware delivers the tools and methods needed to solve the problem of knowing what to test and when, how to test and how much to test. While doing so, CARS builds a repository of assets to be used for future upgrades, resulting in lower costs and faster implementations.

Duration

Four months or more - tailored to meet the specific needs of the customer.