Globalization of projects makes an efficient exchange of information between project teams at different locations, and with different technical environments, essential.

CEP uses the power of the Internet for business processes that involve your company and external partners (manufacturers and subcontractors).

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. You can use CEP to select documents, project structures, and product structures in R/3, and send them using the Internet to chosen participants for further processing. The modified objects and/or comments are then sent back to you, so that they can be evaluated and transferred to R/3 as required.

The following system requirements exist for the participants:

• Internet Explorer version 4.0 or higher (for Windows 95/98 and NT)
• For editing documents, spreadsheets, and so on: Microsoft Office

The collaboration process in outline:

• For each project task, the owner places the relevant objects (project definitions, WBS elements, activities, materials, documents, and BOMs) in a folder in R/3. Configuration management is used as the editing tool.

• The selected participants are then sent an e-mail that contains an Internet link (URL) to the Internet server, from which they can then download the folder to their PCs.

• The participants process the data locally offline with the programs they have on their PCs (for instance Microsoft Office, or CAD systems). As a result, external participants can take part in the processing of projects without having to install R/3 and without knowledge of R/3.

• After they have finished working on the project, the participants return the modified folders to the owner. For each participant a successor folder is created in the system.

• The owner is informed automatically by e-mail when changed folders are returned, and can check, compare, and reconcile the data with the original structure in R/3.

A project manager needs a list of all the materials required in the current project from the project team and the business partners supplying various parts. To do this, the project manager creates a folder in R/3, in which he or she places a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (with a detailed overview of costs and dates), and the project specifications from the customer. He or she uses the Internet to make this folder available to the project team and the external participants.

These people can then download the folder to their PCs, add data to the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, add further documents describing the necessary materials, and return the folder with comments to the project manager.

The project manager is automatically informed of the changes, and forwards the folders that have been returned to the responsible controller for internal review.

Together with the project team, the project manager compares the comments from the controller with those of the external participants, and transfers the data required to R/3.