Solution Manager Demystified Part 1: BPO

We put together a number of Executive Summaries and Work Samples in an effort to demystify Solution Manager functionality and to illustrate its benefits beyond Basis. I’m starting this series with Business Process Operations (BPO) but feel free to read all our summaries and samples here. For additional context you may also want to read my SolMan article. I hope you will find this helpful.

Business Process Operations (BPO)

Business Process Operation is an application within Solution Manager (SolMan) which is used to monitor your critical SAP business processes. Dashboard alerts and status are reported based on key performance thresholds values. Email and texting can be incorporated as well as mobile devices it monitoring your business.

The benefits of Business Process Operations

1. Detect problems before they become crucial for mission critical business processes
2. Utilize trending analysis of business key figures to identify unusual performance in the business
3. Efficiently manage background jobs in order to automate business processes reducing failure rates
4. Check and validate data consistency between different data targets (SAP to non-SAP databases)
5. Manage key business process interfaces for Business Intelligence(BW/BI), Process Integration(PI) and ECC
6. Set up Alerts to dispatch text or email based on threshold criteria
7. Set up dashboards for different business process scenarios, authorized users or company/plant combinations
8. Monitor all SAP systems, hosts and database software centrally. Trigger alerts based on assigned thresholds and severity levels

Work Sample

We implemented the Business Process Operations (BPO) solution for our clients to help them improve their business performance and meet continuous quality improvement (CQI) initiatives.

The BPO solution involved multiple areas, first was IT operations, then key interfaces which handled EDI, Banking, BW and PI transactions and finally the sales, logistics, finance and production areas. For IT Operations we set up the Alert monitoring of all SAP systems and transition from a reactive to proactive approach. Additionally, using the threshold approach allowed Basis and DBA to take action on a scheduled time rather than allowing the business to get interrupted. Faster and more timely resolutions were achieved when the right party got email notifications for interface failures. The BPO dashboards and queries are used by the business line managers to measure performance, ensure KPI are being met and being proactive to prevent potential delays. Using BPO, the finance department achieved faster order invoicing and reduced accounts receivable aging; sales department improved order fulfillment rate and production reduced stock transfer orders (STO) by spotting inventory inaccuracy.