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Technical Data

Technical Name of Business Function

PRS_ERP_CPILS1

Type of Business Function

Enterprise Business Function

Available From

SAP Enhancement Package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0

Technical Usage

Central Applications

Application Component

SAP for Professional Services

Directly Dependent Business Function Requiring Additional Activation

LOG_SD_CI_02 Optional Business Function: PRS_HCM_CPILS_1 to be activated to use CATS Webdynpro App (requires installation of EA-HR 605)

Typical small and medium-sized, professional-services organizations deploy their professionals in both client-facing and internal engagements.

Managers of professional-services organizations tend to keep track of the current availability and skill profiles of their team members by relying solely on spreadsheets or databases, which they also use to document staff assignments. Consequently, staff assignments are typically made without the use of a harmonized employee-management system that provides visibility across units and enables a consistent cross-organizational view of employee availability, employee utilization, and utilization forecasting.

The Commercial Project Inception & Lean Staffing business function enables you to streamline enterprise operations and increase the efficiency of both project-oriented and service-oriented business. In addition to dedicated features that help set up and maintain commercial projects and related staff assignments, Commercial Project Inception & Lean Staffing provides automatic functions to help track, control and analyze billable work, enhance operational control, facilitate compliance with client contracts, and reduce costs.

Prerequisites

To enable all the features provided with the Commercial Project Inception & Lean Staffing business function, make sure that the following prerequisites are met:

  • Install the relevant version of the following components:

    Type of Component

    Component Name

    Required for...

    Software

    SAP_APPL 605

    EA-APPL 605

    The activation of all features.

    Business Function

    PRS_HCM_CPILS_1, which requires the installation of the software component EA-HR 605

    The optional activation of the new Webdynpro application for CATS time entry.

    If not activated, CAT2 or CATSXT can be used.

  • Activate the business function LOG_SD_CI_02 (Sales & Distribution 2) and the Staff Assignment and Work Engagements (EA-SAWE) Enterprise Extension.

  • Complete the settings recommended in Customizing under   SAP Professional Services   Enhancements   Enhancements for Commercial Project Inception   BAdI: Define Follow-Up Activities for Configurable Sales UI  .

  • Assign users to the PFCG profiles SAP_SAWE_UNIVERSAL and SAP_CATS_LEAN_STAFFING, or to a role which includes these menu entries.

  • See the security-relevant information at http://help.sap.com under   SAP ERP Central Component   English   SAP ERP Cross-Application Functions   mySAP ERP Security Guides   SAP ECC Industry Extension Professional Services   Commercial Project Inception and Lean Staffing  .

Features

This business function comprises the following applications:

  • Commercial Project Inception

  • Lean Staffing

  • Employee Forecasts

  • WIP Details

  • Service Attributes

  • Personal Object Work Lists

Commercial Project Inception

The Commercial Project Inception application allows you to simplify the creation of commercial engagements by:

  • Providing a consolidated view of customer contracts and project controlling.

  • Enabling straightforward set up of controlling structures for improved financial contract management.

  • Synchronizing the creation of contracts and projects, including a subsequent linking of contracts with projects (when you create a sales document, you can create a project using standard WBS elements).

Lean Staffing

The Lean Staffing application introduces new tools that can be used to manage assignments of employees to both client-facing and internal engagements, and enables you to:

  • Easily identify the right professionals for your engagements.

  • Assign selected employees to engagements and apply rules.

  • Monitor employee assignments.

  • Simplify and validate time recordings for employees (CATS).

  • Obtain reliable reports and forecasts about employee utilization.

  • Use integrated functions for service-specific billing and financials

Employee Forecast

Visibility of the utilization and availability of individual employees is a key asset for professional service providers.

The Forecast application allows individuals to plan their own time, while documenting their availability / non-availability in parallel. This improves the assessment of your employee commitments, raises visibility of employee utilization and increases the reliability of the business forecast.

The flexible reporting options offered by this application are based on preferences that you can define in Customizing.

WIP Details

You can now save details of work in progress (WIP) determined during the Results Analysis and execute reports to understand the details of WIP.

The WIP details are saved in the database during the results analysis for subsequent reporting. A reporting function is provided using Simplified Reporting, which supports standard or customer-specific SAP Query and BI Query reporting based on an infoset that is enabled as a BI InfoProvider.

Service Attributes

The billing of services to clients is based on SAP’s Resource Related Billing Solution.To incorporate the diverse requirements of a service provider as flexibly as possible, new service attributes have been introduced: You can use these to add new parameters and characteristics to your service process that are valid throughout the entire commercial process, or are electively only relevant in individual process steps. These attributes allow you to control all resource-related billing processes using individual criteria.

Personal Object Work Lists

New configurable personal object work lists (Power Lists (POWL)) are available that improve usability and user navigation. You can use these functions to easily create personal work lists on the basis of feeder classes. They are also instrumental in adding valuable process guidance for the entire professional services quotation-to-cash business scenario. The Commercial Project Inception & Lean Staffing business function includes new Power Lists for:

  • Sales documents

  • Internal orders

  • Projects

  • Customer service orders

  • Staff assignments

  • Employees.