Process Flow Change

At the beginning of a project, you may not be certain about which item type or initiative type needs to be chosen to provide the most appropriate process for the project. The process includes the decision points and phases for the project and after completing the first phase of a process, you may find the remaining phases do not suit the project. This function allows you to change the process, even after the project has started, by choosing a new item type or initiative type.

The item or initiative type that you can change to depends on which decision point or phase is currently in progress. You can only change to another item or initiative type that has been defined in Customizing that has an equivalent active decision point available. There must be matches for each decision point or phase up to and including this decision point or phase.

Prerequisites

In Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management, under Portfolio Management Global Customizing Portfolio-Independent Settings you have made settings for the following activities:
- Define Portfolio Item Types
- Define Initiative Types
- Make Settings for the Status Mapping For Items
- Make Settings for the Status Mapping For Initiatives
You have Person Responsible authorization in the corresponding item.

Features

The system identifies the active decision point and assesses if a process change is permitted. Permission for a process change is dependent upon the current state of the item or initiative. The system finds the last decision point for which the following conditions are true:

There is a status.
The status grouping of this status (defined in Customizing) is not Created/Not Started.

For example, an item may have the decision points below. The decision point Design is the base on which the system evaluates whether a process change is possible:

Decision Point	Status	Status Group
Ideate	Closed	Closed
Specify
Design	Released	Active
Develop	In Preparation	Created/Not Started

Activities

To change the item or initiative type, open the Item or Initiatives details screen and choose the Change Process pushbutton. The Change Process screen opens and you can change the item or initiative type. The new item types or initiative types that are available are based on the currently active decision point, and dependent upon what was set up in Customizing.
Changing the process leads to a new set of decision points. You choose whether the system renames the previous decision points, or deletes them (including all assigned information) and creates new ones.
The system updates the decision points that have already been processed so they reflect the setup of the new item or initiative type. The decision points are evaluated based on their order. If the new item type or initiative type has fewer decision points, the decision points of the old item or initiative type that do not have a corresponding decision point are deleted. If the new item or initiative type has more decision points, these additional decision points are added.
The system determines the status of the new decision points from the settings made in the Customizing activity Make Settings for the Status Mapping For Items. Mappings are defined between the item or initiative decision point statuses and the status of the two different item types themselves. The system decides the new decision point status through the following assessments:
1. If the old decision point status has a mapping to the updated or newly-added decision point, then the new status is used.
2. If there is no mapping between the old and new decision points, the system checks whether the status of the old decision point is available as a status that can be used on the new decision point.
3. If the old status is not available for the new decision point, the status is set as in one of the following:
  - The last available end status for closed decision points
  - The first available start status for the decision points in process and decision points with status group Created/Not started, in case decision points should be updated
  - No status for all newly-created decision points
The same process is used to determine the status of the new item type.
If a project is assigned to the item, the new decision points are remapped to the project phases. The mappings of decision points to phases in Customizing are used in this reassignment process.
If no mapping of the new decision points to the project phases exists, the new decision points do not have links to project phases. In the Item Details screen, in Relationships Related Objects , you can remap the decision points for items. (Initiatives are always automatically linked with a corresponding project and the lower phases). For more information, see Related Objects Management

The links between the phases and old decision points are always deleted.

More Information

Example: Process Flow Change

Dashboard of Phases and Decisions

Decision Point Details