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Collaborative Engineering & Project Management (CEP) 

Scope of Functions

As of Release 4.6C you can further leverage the power of the Internet for business processes that involve your company and external partners (manufacturers, sub-contractors).

The purpose of CEP is to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge between the person responsible for a project in your company, referred to as the owner, and external partners, referred to as participants, who are all involved in a common project, for instance planning a new plant. The owner can select documents, projects and product structures in the R/3 System and send them using the Internet to chosen participants for further processing. The participants comment on and modify objects that then can be evaluated and if desired, transferred to the R/3 System.

CEP offers you the following advantages:

System independence: Participants require only e-mail and an Internet browser - neither an R/3 System nor R/3 experience are required to take part in project collaboration.

Easy to use: The objects that are sent to participants are arranged in hierarchical structures. This provides a clear overview and makes navigation simple.

Automatic notification/ status display: When a participant changes objects and returns them, the owner and other participants (if desired) are informed and can see the changed status.

Security: The objects to be processed are copied from the R/3 System to an Internet server. The participants are informed of the server address (URL) by e-mail. They can log on with an authorized user ID and password. The participants do not have access to you original data structures in the R/3 System they provide their feedback on a folder which is a copy of the original.

Collaborative Engineering & Project Management supports two alternative scenarios:

• Competitive scenario : During the whole process the participants have no knowledge of the other participants. This is for instance the case for invitations to tender/requests for quotation where the participants receive exactly the same documents and compete against each other for an order.

• Cooperative scenario : The participants cooperate on a project. If one participant returns modified data, the others are informed automatically and can access this information.

Overview of the individual process steps:

1. Creating a folder in the R/3 System and notification of the participants

For each project task the owner places the relevant objects (project definitions, WBS elements, activities materials, documents, BOMs,installations) in a folder in the R/3 System. DS:RELN.LO_CM_46C_CM>Configuration Management is used to process the folder, which is then published . This means that the folder is locked (fixed) for changes and an Extended Markup Language (XML) file is generated. This format enables the objects to be sent via Internet and is used to store the data on a local PC. The chosen participants can all access the fixed folders at the same time.

The owner creates a list of participants for each folder . These participants are then notified by e-mail that the folder is available on the Internet server whose URL is included in the e-mail. It is possible to send comments and instructions to the participants.

2. Downloading the folder (objects) to the local PC of the participant

After the participant has logged on to the Internet server using the link supplied, they receive a list of all the folders that they should process. They can select the entire folder or individualdocuments in folders and download them to their local PC. If the participant is using CEP for the first time, the system automatically downloads an internet plug in or ActiveX components for viewing and editing the objects without R/3. It is possible at any stage to download the remaining documents from the server.

3. Offline processing by a participant

The participant can now log off the Internet server and process the downloaded objects locally. In Release 4.6 C it is possible to modify project structures via MS-Project and documents via the plug in or loca lly installed programs. The following changes can be made to documents:

• Create/delete document info record

• Assign/de-assign original application files

• Assign documents to objects (material, document, activity, WBS element)

• Redlining (graphic editing) and markup

To edit project structures, the project objects are transferred to MS Project.

4. Returning modified folders to the owner

When a participant wants to return modified objects to the owner, they log on again to the Internet server with a single mouse-click. A "successor" folder is created into which the modified objects are transferred. This new folder is assigned to the original folder. As a result, the owner can see which participant has returned which data and from which folder the data originated.

5. Monitoring and internal review

The owner uses Monitoring to review the current state of the folders. The status of folders is displayed on an overview screen, and tells the owner whether a folder has been sent, downloaded, or returned. From the same screen the owner can distribute returned folders to other users for internal review (either with read-only or change and reconciliation authorization).

6. Comparison and reconciliation of modified objects with the original structure in the R/3 System

Before reconciling the data with the original structure, the owner can compare the successor folder from a participant with the original folder (or the folder from another participant). Individual objects, partial hierarchies, or complete folders can be compared. New, changed and deleted objects are highlighted in addition to those which have been moved within the hierarchy.

The objects selected for transfer to the R/3 system are visible in the results overview, they are then checked and transferred to the original structure. The transfer is logged to record both successful transfers and errors. If errors or inconsistencies occur during data transfer, the owner can make temporary changes to the master data of individual objects to facilitate reconciliation.

Reconciliation of individual objects can also be triggered directly from the Monitoring screen without comparison. Here the owner selects the modified objects in a successor folder, checks them and then transfers them using a pushbutton to the R/3 System.

Effects on System Administration

The following system requirements exist for the owner:

The following system requirements exist for participants:

If the EAI viewer that is necessary for redlining is not installed locally, it is downloaded automatically together with the ActiveX components. Participants can use their local CAD systems to display and edit files containing 3D objects.

Effects on Customizing

In the Collaboration Profile you specify, for instance, which scenario (competitive/cooperative) to use, the URL that participants should use to connect to your Internet server, and whether the data is read-only.

The activities Field Selection and Define Life Cycle Profile are optional.