Project Workspace

 

Product

Project Workspace

Release

2.6

Based On

SAP enhancement pack 7 for SAP ERP

Documentation Published

April 2017

Project managers need to consider different aspects of projects (risks, statuses, schedules, budgets, resources, as well as the commercial side of selling project-related work). These aspects add complexity to the project managers' tasks. It is even more complex and difficult if different systems are used for the management of these different aspects.

Project Workspace (CA-CPD-WS), a component of SAP Commercial Project Management (CA-CPD), offers a unique solution that connects these different aspects of the project together in a single user interface. It provides a framework to integrate diverse systems and business objects that relate to the life cycle of a real-world project.

Implementation Considerations

Typical users of SAP Commercial Project Management belong to industries such as engineering, construction, and operations or professional services. These users are primarily engaged in simultaneously executing multiple projects for different customers.

In Project Workspace, users can get a quick view of their respective projects using embedded Analytics and reviewing data such as open purchase orders or unpaid customer invoices, from underlying systems. Based on this information, the user can trigger follow-up actions.

Project planners can create financial bids, plan on actual objects, carry out forecasting scenarios, and track the financial health of ongoing projects. The integration with SAP ERP allows financial controllers to carry out routine tasks based on accurate information and embedded Analytics allow key stakeholders to view the status of important key performance indicators (KPIs) of the project. For more information about the financial planning of master projects, see Project Cost and Revenue Planning.

In addition to this, you can also integrate functions that support the management and planning of issues and changes that occur during project execution. The integration with Project Cost and Revenue Planning allows you to view accurate information about issues and changes and their impact on project planning, cost, and revenue. To know more about the processes related to issues and change requests, see Project Issue and Change Management.

As of SAP Commercial Project Management 1.0, the master project is available. The master project allows you to maintain a consistent object through the life cycle of a real-world project. This object serves as a link to related documents such as CRM opportunities, Sales and Distribution (SD) quotes or orders, documents, or purchase orders. The master project holds information about the project status, stages, reporting attributes, roles, and team members.

Within Project Workspace, users can create master projects and link multiple business objects such as CRM opportunities, Project System (PS) project definitions, cProjects, work breakdown structures, sales orders, purchase orders, and so on. These business objects can exist in both SAP and non-SAP systems.

Integration

Project Workspace (CA-CPD-WS) is integrated with the following components:

Function

Application Component

Project cost and revenue planning

Project Cost and Revenue Planning (CA-CPD-FP)

Updates to project issues and changes

Project Issue and Change Management (CA-CPD-PCM)

Information about opportunities

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Information about work breakdown structures (WBS), networks, and activities

Project System (PS)

Information about purchase requisitions, purchase orders, service entries, and vendor invoices

Materials Management (MM)

Information about sales orders, sales contracts, debit memos, invoices, and billing

Sales and Distribution (SD)

Information about objects in Collaboration Projects (cProjects)

Collaboration Projects (CPR-XRPM)

Features

Project Workspace (CS-CPD-WS) provides the following features:

  • The master project that integrates multiple business objects that are used in a real-world project setup.

  • A project workspace to monitor and manage the different aspects related to a master project.

  • A framework to configure and personalize user-specific alerts and notifications.

  • The ability to set up teams and assign roles and responsibilities to members.

  • The flexibility to define master-project-specific rates that are reflected in the billing process.

  • A billing plan manager to plan and execute billing events such as fixed price and resource-related billing.

  • The integration with Project Cost and Revenue Planning (CA-CPD-FP) to enable project cost planners and controllers to plan and forecast project-related costs and revenues. For more information, see Project Cost and Revenue Planning.

  • The integration with Project Issue and Change Management (CA-CPD-PCM) to document, estimate, and track issues and changes that occur during project execution. For more information, see Project Issue and Change Management.

Constraints

Other than creating master projects, you cannot directly create any other standard business object from the project workspace.