SetupGuide BP Analytics

Business Process Analytics with SAP Solution Manager 7.0

November 2011

BPMon Analytics - Setup and User Guideline

© Copyright 2011 SAP AG. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP AG. The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice. Some software products marketed by SAP AG and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. Microsoft®, WINDOWS®, NT®, EXCEL®, Word®, PowerPoint® and SQL Server® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM®, DB2®, DB2 Universal Database, OS/2®, Parallel Sysplex®, MVS/ESA, AIX®, S/390®, AS/400®, OS/390®, OS/400®, iSeries, pSeries, xSeries, zSeries, z/OS, AFP, Intelligent Miner, WebSphere®, Netfinity®, Tivoli®, Informix and Informix® Dynamic Server

TM are

trademarks of IBM Corp. in USA and/or other countries. ORACLE® is a registered trademark of ORACLE Corporation. UNIX®, X/Open®, OSF/1®, and Motif ® are registered trademarks of the Open Group. Citrix®, the Citrix logo, ICA®, Program Neighborhood ®, MetaFrame®, WinFrame®, VideoFrame®, MultiWin® and other Citrix product names referenced herein are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. HTML, DHTML, XML, XHTML are trademarks or registered trademarks of W3C®, World Wide Web Consortium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

JAVA® is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

J2EE™ is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. JAVASCRIPT® is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc., used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape. SAP, SAP Logo, R/2, RIVA, R/3, SAP ArchiveLink, SAP Business Workflow, WebFlow, SAP EarlyWatch, BAPI, SAPPHIRE, Management Cockpit, mySAP, mySAP.com, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. MarketSet and Enterprise Buyer are jointly owned trademarks of SAP Markets and Commerce One. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners. Disclaimer Some components of this product are based on Java™. Any code change in these components may cause unpredictable and severe malfunctions and is therefore expressively prohibited, as is any decompilation of these components. Any Java™ Source Code delivered with this product is only to be used by SAP’s Support Services and may not be modified or altered in any way. Documentation in the SAP Service Marketplace You can find this documentation at the following address: http://service.sap.com//bpm

SAP AG Neurottstraße 16 69190 Walldorf Germany T +49/18 05/34 34 24 F +49/18 05/34 34 20 www.sap.com

BPMon Analytics with SAP Solution Manager

November 2011 3

Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION ................................................................................................... 5 1.1 What is Business Process Analytics? ............................................................................................ 5

1.2 Typical Use Cases............................................................................................................................ 6

1.2.1 Business Process Improvement .............................................................................................. 6

1.2.2 Business Process Operations ................................................................................................. 6

1.3 Benefits of Business Process Analytics ......................................................................................... 7

2 ARCHITECTURE OF BUSINESS PROCESS ANALYTICS .................................................................. 8 2.1 Data Retrieval and Reporting .......................................................................................................... 9

2.2 Alerting based on BW .....................................................................................................................10

3 TECHNICAL PREREQUISITES FOR BUSINESS PROCESS ANALYTICS .........................................13 3.1 Required Software Components and SAP Notes ..........................................................................13

3.1.1 Changeability of repository and cross-client customizing ....................................................14

3.1.2 System Changeability .............................................................................................................15

3.2 Administrative Requirements .........................................................................................................16

3.2.1 Activation of Info Cube from BI Content ................................................................................16

3.2.2 Activation of Services .............................................................................................................18

3.2.3 Checking status of Solution Manager Diagnostics Extractor Framework (EFWK)...............19

3.2.4 Authorizations .........................................................................................................................21

3.2.4.1 System user for data transfer ............................................................................................................21 3.2.4.2 End-user for Business Process Analytics .........................................................................................21

3.3 Prerequisites in the Solution Landscape .......................................................................................22

4 DATA COLLECTION FOR BUSINESS PROCESS ANALYTICS .........................................................23 4.1 Update Repository and Select Systems .........................................................................................23

4.2 Select Scope and Frequency of Data Collection ...........................................................................25

5 THE BUSINESS PROCESS ANALYTICS APPLICATION ...................................................................29 5.1 Analysis Selection ..........................................................................................................................29

5.2 Benchmarking and Analysis...........................................................................................................30

5.2.1 Benchmarking .........................................................................................................................31

5.2.2 Trend Analysis .........................................................................................................................31

5.2.3 Age Analysis ............................................................................................................................32

5.2.4 Detail Analysis .........................................................................................................................33

6 SETUP FOR BUSINESS PROCESS MONITORING ALERTING .........................................................35 6.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................................................35

6.2 Prerequisites ...................................................................................................................................35

6.3 Procedure ........................................................................................................................................35

7 MONITORING BASED ON DATA FROM BUSINESS PROCESS ANALYTICS ...................................39

Trend Analysis Reporting with SAP Solution Manager

4 November 2011

7.1 Prerequisites ...................................................................................................................................39

7.2 Procedure ........................................................................................................................................39

8 TROUBLESHOOTING .........................................................................................................................40 8.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................................................40

8.2 Problems during activation and configuration of BPMon Analytics ............................................40

8.2.1 No data can be selected in Business Process Analytics .......................................................40

8.3 Problems during usage within usage of BPMon Analytics ...........................................................41

8.3.1 No actual data available in Business Process Analytics .......................................................41

8.4 Increasing response times / data storage growth in BPMon Analytics ........................................42

9 APPENDIX ..........................................................................................................................................43 9.1 Authorization roles needed for activation of Business Process Analytics ..................................43

9.1.1 SAP Solution Manager client ..................................................................................................43

9.1.2 SAP Solution Manager BW client............................................................................................45


November 2011 5

1 Introduction and Motivation

The economic environment of the financial crisis has lead to increased pressure for companies to reduce

costs. Therefore, many IT departments are focusing on cleaning up their existing SAP systems that are

already live for many years and trying to identify optimization or improvement potential in the business

processes running on these systems. Frequent key words are business process compliance, business

process excellence, business process governance as well potential for old data reduction. However, for

many companies this is like searching for the “needle in the haystack” because they do not know where to

start. From the perspective of IT-departments the challenge is that these are often supposed to come up with

improvements. At the same time, IT departments are heavily relying on the functional input from the business

departments. Another challenge for IT departments is ensuring the quality of operations and investing in

innovation while budget is tight.

1.1 What is Business Process Analytics?

On the one hand, SAP Business Process Analytics is a tool within SAP Solution Manager, that helps a

business department (i.e. the Business Process Champion) as well as an IT department (i.e. the Business

Process Expert or the Business Process Operations Team) to make own proposals for process optimization

and stabilization.

On the other hand, data from SAP Business Process Analytics can also be used for business process

operation. That is, this data supplies SAP Business Process Monitoring that allows automated early problem

detection (by providing automated alerting) as well as an effective problem solving (by showing the business

process context and by providing guided procedures). Hence SAP Business Process Analytics helps IT

departments reducing manual labor for business process operations leaving more free resources for

investing in innovation.

SAP Business Process Analytics evaluates key figures for business process operations. The main focus is

on key figures from the area of application monitoring (as it is called within Business Process Monitoring).

Application monitoring offers two main categories of key figures: throughput key figures and backlog key

figures. Throughput key figures give an indication about the volume of business documents that are created

per day. Backlog key figures give an indication, if business documents are not processed in due time. Key

figures from the area of application monitoring should allow you to answer questions of the following kind,

e.g. for an Order to Cash scenario: How many sales orders are open (not or only partially delivered)? How

many sales orders cannot be processed any further, because they are incomplete, have a delivery, billing or

credit block? How many outbound deliveries are open (goods issue posting not complete)? How many

picking transfer orders are open (not confirmed) in your warehouse management system? How many

outbound deliveries are in status “Goods issue posted” but no invoice was created? How many invoices

have been created but were not printed? How many sales invoices were not posted to FI?

As can be expected from an analytical application, data is evaluated in a graphical way. There are three

methods of analysis: Benchmarking, Trend Analysis as well as Age Analysis. Benchmarking allows


6 November 2011

identifying areas with high document volume as well as areas with potential for improvement in terms of

backlog. Trend analysis allows to investigate historical patterns as well as to make predictions for the future.

Age analysis allows determining, if the backlog is relevant for current operations or if the backlog rather

represents a potential for data archiving (if a delivery to a customer is overdue since 10 years, does the

customer still wait for a goods to be shipped?)

In addition to that, Business Process Analytics supports root cause analysis for measured backlog. That is,

Business Process Analytics allows to display a list of business documents that are in backlog with a single

click and to further navigate to the display transaction for a single document in the list (e.g. display sales

order).

1.2 Typical Use Cases

In order to use the potential of Business Process Analytics successfully, the right people within a company

have to get involved. The first step is to define use cases that describe who will work with Business Process

Analytics in which way. To get started, two typical use cases - "Business Process Improvement" and

"Business Process Operation" are described in the following section.

1.2.1 Business Process Improvement

The use case "Business Process Improvement" addresses the Business Process Champion from the

business department as well as the Business Process Expert of the Business Process Operations team from

the IT department. From SAP's experience, the best results can be achieved, if these teams/persons from

business and the IT department work together. The target groups are neither end users who care about their

individual work lists nor business users who care about business KPIs such as revenue and profitability.

The objective is to get an overall picture of business process operation in all systems that are required to run

the business processes that are in focus and to subsequently discover potential for improvement, i.e.

improving business processes without (significantly) changing the business process logic or flow.

In order to achieve this, the following steps have to be performed as preparation: The key figures that are

relevant for analysis are selected. Subsequently, the data collection for these key figures is scheduled so

that the data is transferred to SAP BW.

After the preparation is finished, the following steps have to be performed in regular intervals: The Business

Process Analytics Web Dynpro application is used to discover optimization potential by performing (internal)

benchmarking, trend analysis, age analysis and root cause analysis. Subsequently the findings are

discussed with the business department. Finally, measures for business process improvement are defined,

implemented and monitored.

1.2.2 Business Process Operations

The use case "Business Process Operations" addresses the Business Process Operations team within the

IT department. The Business Process Operations team works with Business Process Monitoring in SAP


November 2011 7

Solution Manager. Data from Business Process Analytics that is stored in BW can be used as a data source

for Business Process Monitoring.

The objective is to automate labor intensive monitoring tasks in order to enable valuable IT resources to

provide more added value to the company.

In order to achieve this, the following steps have to be performed as preparation: The key figures that are

relevant for monitoring and alerting are selected. In addition to that, filter variants that differentiate e.g.

different organizational units or document types are defined. For these key figures along with their variants,

thresholds are defined, that allow deciding if e.g. a critical value for backlog has been measured. The steps

that have to be performed to resolve the error situation can be documented in guided procedures. If

everything has been set up correctly, the monitoring can be activated.

If a threshold has been exceeded, an alert is shown in the business process overview. In addition to that, the

responsible people can be notified automatically via e-mail notification, SMS or service desk message.

1.3 Benefits of Business Process Analytics

Business Process Analytics enables business process improvement by performing business process

benchmarking, identifying potential for old data reduction, detecting gaps in process implementation as well

as identifying potential for improving business process standardization. In addition to that, Business Process

Analytics can make a significant contribution to improve the technical performance of Business Process

Monitoring (especially in the area of Application Monitoring).

The Benchmarking functionality in Business Process Analytics allows benchmarking over (internal)

organizational units. Thus, visibility and transparency can be improved.

The identification of potential for old data reduction allows the clean- up of old and open business transaction

data. This leads to improved planning results, improvement of performance of related reports or processes,

higher reporting quality as well as higher end-user efficiency.

By detecting gaps in process implementation such as configuration issues and missing closing steps of open

documents, the process implementation can be optimized.

By detecting gaps in business process standardization such as organizational units or end-users which do

not follow the process template, potential for better end- user training can be identified.

Last but not least, the performance of Business Process Monitoring in the area of Application Monitoring can

be improved significantly. This can be achieved, because data that is stored in BW by Business Process

Analytics can be re-used by Business Process Monitoring which reduces the load on the managed system

(the system which is monitored by SAP Solution Manager).


8 November 2011

2 Architecture of Business Process Analytics

Company’s core business processes can be distributed across various systems such as ERP, CRM and

EWM (these systems are also called managed systems). In order to centrally analyze these business

processes, users need a system that is connected to all involved systems. This central system is SAP

Solution Manager (that is also called managing system). SAP Solution Manager can collect data from these

systems and make it centrally available for alerting and reporting.

Architecture Overview

In the case of Business Process Analytics, this data is usually stored in the SAP Solution Manager internal

BW. There is also the possibility to use an external SAP BW. However, a decision is required for all BW data

that is used in SAP Solution Manager (not just for Business Process Analytics). It is not possible to store

some parts of the BW data on the SAP Solution Manager internal BW and other parts of the BW data on an

external BW.

The architecture of Business Process Analytics consists of two main parts. The first part covers data retrieval

from the managed system to BW as well as reporting based on data within BW. The second part covers


November 2011 9

alerting based on BW data. Of course, the data retrieval to BW is a prerequisite for the alerting based on

data in BW.

2.1 Data Retrieval and Reporting

The setup for data retrieval and reporting is performed in SAP Solution Manager. It specifies what data (key

figures) is collected, how often, and from which systems. According to this setup, the Business Process

Monitoring Infrastructure schedules the specified data collectors on the managed systems.

Data Retrieval and Reporting

On the managed system, the data collectors will be executed and the results of the data collection will be

stored in the Analytics Store. The Analytics Store consists of two parts. One part is the BW Delta Queue,

which is supplied with the result of the data collection run for later retrieval by SAP Solution Manager. The

BW Delta Queue contains semi-aggregated data that is later used for Benchmarking and Trend Analysis.

This data remains in the BW Delta Queue until it is successfully stored into the Analytics BW info Cube –

either on the SAP Solution Manager or on the external BW system. The other part is a Detail List that is only

available for backlog key figures and contains the single items that are in backlog. In contrast to the BW

Delta Queue, the Detail List contains only the result of the most recent collector run. If a collector run

produces a new Detail List, the list from the previous run is overwritten. The Detail List contains non-

aggregated data that is used for Age Analysis and Detail Analysis.

SAP Solution Manager contains a framework for the extraction of data from the managed system to SAP

BW. This framework is called Extractor Framework (EFWK). The EFWK picks up data from the BW Delta


10 November 2011

Queue on the managed system, stores the data directly in the BW Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH and reorganizes

data in the queue that has been successfully transferred without further processing in BW (PSA, DSO).

The reporting is done in the Business Process Analytics Application (based on Web Dynpro for ABAP) on

SAP Solution Manager. The Business Process Analytics Application can merge data from BW with data from

the Detail List in the Analytics Store on the managed system. Based on this data, Benchmarking, Trend

Analysis, Age Analysis as well as Detail Analysis can be performed.

2.2 Alerting based on BW

The setup for alerting based on SAP BW is performed on SAP Solution Manager. Alerting is only possible for

key figures that are available in BW.

In contrast to the setup for the data collection, the setup for alerting is not performed for a specific system but

for a business process step. It is to specify, which key figure should be monitored for which business process

step and with which thresholds. The reason for that is, that in case of an alert the business impact needs to

be visible immediately. However, in SAP Solution Manager, a business process step is always linked to a

system and therefore it is clear which managed system was the source for the data in BW. In other words,

the setup for alerting is done for a business process step (e.g. create sales order) on a managed system

(e.g. ERP), even if the data that is used for alerting is already stored on the SAP Solution Manager internal

SAP BW.

If new data for a key figure that has been selected for alerting arrives in the SAP Solution Manager internal

BW, it is checked if the thresholds for the key figure in question have been exceeded. If this happened, a

yellow or a red alert is raised. Otherwise, a green measurement indicates that everything is okay. The check

is performed on the Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH via the BPMon infrastructure that triggers the BPMon BW

Collector.


November 2011 11

Alerting based on BW

The following example will help to understand the advantage of this architecture from a performance point of view:

An example for possible results for the key figure "Sales orders with delivery block" is shown in the figure "Results of a data collection run in Business Process Analytics". This figure shows the number of sales orders with delivery block by document type (A, B, C) and sales organization (0001, 0002, 0003). It is an assumption, that for each combination of sales organization and document type a different person is responsible for analyzing the root cause of the delivery block (in this example this would be 9 different persons) and that these persons should be notified if the threshold for sales orders with delivery block in their area of responsibility is exceeded (e.g. the measurement for sales organization 0001 and document type B is 100 and the threshold is 20). Without Business Process Analytics, 9 data collection runs would have to be performed on the managed system. With Business Process Analytics, only one data collection run is required on the managed system. The subsequent 9 data collection runs are performed on the SAP Solution Manager internal BW. This is on the one hand better for performance, because the load on the managed system is reduced. On the other hand, the collection runs for alerting on BW can be performed very quickly due to the architecture of the BW Info Cube.


12 November 2011

Results of a data collection run in Business Process Analytics


November 2011 13

3 Technical Prerequisites for Business Process Analytics

3.1 Required Software Components and SAP Notes

In order to setup and use Business Process Analytics, the following releases of software components are necessary as an absolute minimum:

- Solution Manager 7.0 SPS 23 (ST 400 SP23, BI_CONT 7.04 SP6, ST A/PI Type M)

- Each connected managed system must have at least ST A/PI Type M installed.

Not all of the available application monitors within the ST A/PI plugin are already enabled to be used with BPMon Analytics, with ST A/PI Typ M we have collectors in Sales & Services, Procurement, Manufacturing, Plant Maintenance, Automotive, Retail, EWM, WM, CRM and SRM which can be used in Business Process Analytics. The enablement of all available application monitors in ST A/PI plugin for usage in Business Process Analytics will be realized in future releases successively.

Please implement the following SAP Note(s) in Solution Manager:

- 1474351 (Corrections for unified rendering up to SAP_BASIS701/8 I) - 1498459 (Incorrect decimal conversion in Business Process Analytics) - 1474940 (BPMon: Dumps during data collection for TBIs) - 1433914 (Advance Corr. BPMon SM 7.0 EhP1 ST400 SP24 ST-SER 701_2010_1) - 1557218 (BP Analytics: Backlog key figures ==> incorrect time stamp)

We recommend implementing the following additional SAP Notes to get True Type Fonts in the graphical charts

and a more clear display of the coordination axis in the trend chart, after implementation of these two SAP Notes,

the application server has to be restarted:

- 1028690 (True Type Fonts delivered with IGS)

- 0596825 (GFWCHART configuration file)

Please implement the following SAP Note(s) in the managed systems:

- 1474940 (BPMon: Dumps during data collection for TBIs)

- 1550259 (No data is transferred to Business Process Analytics)

DISCLAIMER: Please use this Setup-Guide for Business Process Analytics at your own risk. All our recommendations regarding the activation of this functionality are based on our general experience and maybe are not valid for your specific implementation, especially when you are already using the


14 November 2011

BW component or Diagnostics in SAP Solution Manager. In this case, please consult and involve the people already working with BW or Diagnostics in the SAP Solution Manager system to make sure that all functions in BW or Diagnostics keep working.

3.1.1 Changeability of repository and cross-client customizing

Before starting the activation process, the changeability of the repository and cross-client customizing should be checked. Modifications of these items should be allowed, because several changes affecting cross-client topics are applied to the system configuration during the activation. Make sure that in transaction “SCC4” the settings for the selected BI client are set to status “Changes to Repository and cross-client Customizing is allowed” (see figure below). Otherwise change it. After completing the activation process it can be reset to its original status.

Double click on the selected BI client in transaction “SCC4”

Changes to Repository and cross-client Customizing should be allowed


November 2011 15

3.1.2 System Changeability In order to ensure objects related to the BI Reporting functionality can be activated, three namespaces have to be

set to status “modifiable” in transaction “SE03”. Following the node “Set System Change Option”, you have to

check if the namespaces “/B10/” (Generation Namespace for SAP BI Content), “/BI0/’ (Business Information

Warehouse – SAP Namespace) and “/BIC/” (Business Information Warehouse: Customer Namespace) are

modifiable. If not, change them to “modifiable” (see figures below).

Transaction SE03 used to set system change options

Check if relevant BI namespaces are modifiable - If not, change them accordingly.


16 November 2011

3.2 Administrative Requirements Within the technical activation of Business Process Analytics, two activities related to System Administration

have to be performed, the activation of the Info Cube used by Business Process Analytics and the

maintenance of authorizations to access the Info Cube and its data later on. We assume that the managed

systems you want to include in the reporting with BPMon Analytics are connected properly to your SAP

Solution Manager (including necessary RFC connections within System Landscape and the local BPM

connection is working as described in SAP Note 784752.

For the activation process, users in the SAP Solution Manager client and in the BI client with authorization

profile “SAP_ALL” are needed, because it is likely that changes within the system settings must be done. In case

you only want to grant minimum authorization to the activation user, please have look at the appendix (9.1) to see

two roles containing the minimum authorization requirement for the SAP Solution Manager client and the BW client

in order the Business Process Analytics functionality. Changing authorizations and customizing is not included in

these both roles, so in case adjustments of roles or system settings like described in chapter 3.1.1, 3.1.2 or 3.2.4

must be done, you have to take another user for this task.

3.2.1 Activation of Info Cube from BI Content

The activation of the Info Cube has to be done in the BW client of SAP Solution Manager. The number of the BW client is maintained in table RSADMINA. If this table has one entry, the BW client can be found in column “BWMANDT”. If this table has no entry at all, the BW was not activated before. In this case, login to the client of SAP Solution Manager which should be your BW client and proceed with activation.

After successful logon to the BW client of SAP Solution Manager, please enter transaction RSOR to access BW objects from BI Content (see picture). Select button “Object Types” in the left window (1), open in the middle window the node related to “Info Cube” and double-click on button “Select Objects” (2). Please select Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH from the pop-up window (3) and press on button “Transfer Selections” (4).

In case that during the activation process a pop-up window is coming up asking to select one or more source systems, please uncheck all marked source systems and press the “OK”-Button, because for this Info Cube we do NOT need any source system.

Finally, press on button “Install” beneath the top menu bar (5) and select “Install” from menu to activate the Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH.


November 2011 17

BW Objects in BI Content

If the activation is successful, the following picture is displayed, please ignore the warning message related to node “Installation of Info Object (IOBJ)”.

Successful activation of Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH


18 November 2011

3.2.2 Activation of Services

The Business Process Analytics functionality is designed as a Web Dynpro component, therefore the activation of the corresponding HTTP Services

/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/ags_bpm_bi_navigator

/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/ags_bpm_bi_analysis

must be checked in client independent transaction SICF in the SAP Solution Manager. Please select Hierarchy Type “Service” and press the “Execute”-button:

Selecting HTTP Service Maintenance

Then follow the path /sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/ in the list “default host” and find the two entries ags_bpm_bi_navigator and ags_bpm_bi_analysis. If the two entries are greyed out, please right-click on each of this entries and select option “Activate Service”. Afterwards, the two entries should be active and shown in black color.


November 2011 19

Activating Services

3.2.3 Checking status of Solution Manager Diagnostics Extractor Framework (EFWK)

For the data transfer between managed systems and SAP Solution Manager, Business Process Analytics is using the Extractor Framework (EFWK) from Solution Manager Diagnostics. In order to use it, its actual status has to be evaluated and missing parts have to be activated and configured in SAP Solution Manager.

First of all, it has to be checked in transaction SM37 in Solution Manager client if the report E2E_EFWK_RESOURCE_MGR is running in SAP Solution Manager; otherwise it has to be scheduled to run each minute throughout the day.

This job is checking if data extractors defined within the EFWK in table E2E_ACTIVE_WLI are due to execution regarding their actual status described in table E2E_EFWK_STATUS. If data extractors are due, they are executed in the managed systems via RFC call due to the settings in table E2E_RESOURCES – if no data extractors are due, the report is finished immediately, generating no further workload.

In a second step, the settings in table E2E_RESOURCES have to be checked. This table should at least contain the RFC destinations NONE, SOLMAN_DIALOG_WORKPROCESSES and the SM_<SID>CLNT<Client No.>_READ connections from SAP Solution Manager to the managed systems for which Business Process Analytics should be set-up, as summarized in the following screenshot:


20 November 2011

Maintaining Resources of the Extractor Framework (EFWK)

In case entries are missing, please add them via button “Create” in the menu bar, the LASTUPDATE field is filled with the time stamp information YYYYMMDDHHMMSS, use as a starting point the RESOURCECAP and RESOURCECOUNTER settings from the screenshot, they determine how many EFWK extractors can be started in parallel for a specific destination.

Afterwards, you have to check if the EFWK is using a special RFC connection to access the BW Info Cube in the BW client due to general Solution Manager configuration.

Therefore, please execute function module E2E_CONFIG_READ in transaction SE37 with input key SAP_BID to evaluate which RFC connection is used to access BW, afterwards double click on the results entry to see the name of the used RFC connection and check if it differs from NONE:

Looking for RFC connection from Diagnostics Setup for BW access


November 2011 21

If you find an RFC connection with another name, this connection is used for access to BW and therefore please add an additional entry to table E2E_RESOURCES for this RFC connection with the settings from entry “NONE”.

3.2.4 Authorizations

3.2.4.1 System user for data transfer

If the EFWK is using a special RFC connection with name pattern “BI_CLNT<Client No.>” as described

before in a Solution Manager system, the available system user in this RFC connection (SMD_BI_RFC) in

BW client needs an extension of authorizations in standard role SAP_BI_E2E to access the Info Cube

0SM_BPMRH for data transfer and data query operations regarding the execution of Business Process

Analytics. Please add following authorizations in the role SAP_BI_E2E in a customer specific role for

Solution Manager 7.0 SP23 and SP24:

S_RFC – Activity: 16

Name of RFC to be protected: RSOB Type of RFC to be protected: FUGR

S_RS_COMP - Activity: 16

InfoArea: 0SM_BPM Info Cube: 0SM_BPMRH Name (ID) of reporting component: $0SM_BPMRH Type of reporting component: REP

S_RS_ICUBE – Activity: 03, 23

Info Cube Subobject: AGGREGATE, DATA, DATASLICE InfoArea: 0SM_BPM Info Cube: 0SM_BPMRH

3.2.4.2 End-user for Business Process Analytics

The end-user who wants to access Business Process Analytics via Solution Manager Workcenter – Business

Process Operations needs the following additional authorizations in his user profile: In the roles

SAP_SV_SOLUTION_MANAGER, SAP_SV_SOLUTION_MANAGER_DISP and SAP_OP_DSWP_BPM

the authorization object SM_BPM_AUT must be extended by value 40 (BPA – Business Process Analytics).

Of course he should have the general roles for Business Process Monitoring according to SAP Note 784752. If the RFC connection “NONE” is being used for access to BW (see chapter 3.2.3), the end-user

needs additionally the role SAP_BI_E2E.


22 November 2011

3.3 Prerequisites in the Solution Landscape

In order to collect data for Business Process Analytics, a solution needs to be available. Either an existing

solution is selected or a new solution has to be created. In a solution, systems and corresponding business

processes can be bundled. This makes it possible to monitor productive business processes across the

relevant operational systems.

In order to create a solution use transaction code SOLUTION_MANAGER. First of all, enter a name for the

solution and define the original language. Then click the "Continue" button.

Create Solution

Within the Solution Landscape Maintenance the logical components have to be entered. Logical components

are used to determine which systems will be managed within the solution. Therefore the selections that are

made in the Solution Landscape Maintenance influence, which systems are later available for monitoring. To

use the F4-button should help to select the relevant logical component(s).


November 2011 23

4 Data Collection for Business Process Analytics

In the setup for data collection the following main steps have to be performed. Firstly, a decision has to be

made, from which systems (the so-called managed systems) data is collected. At the same time it needs to

be sure that SAP Solution Manager is updated with the actual list of application monitoring definitions (key

figures) available on the managed systems. Then the scope (which key figures) as well as the frequency

(how often should these key figures be collected) of data collection is specified. Finally the data is transferred

to BW.

It is of utmost importance to consider the impact that the settings for scope and frequency of data collection have on data volume, performance and system resources (also on the managed systems!). In no case, the data collection should be scheduled too frequently. Please follow the recommendations given in the section below!

The Data Collection can be set up in the Business Process Monitoring Setup Session.

Call BPMon Setup Session via Solution Manager Workcenter

4.1 Update Repository and Select Systems

Before the actual data collection settings can be entered, the systems from which data should be collected

have to be selected. The information, which data can be collected from these systems is often not available


24 November 2011

on SAP Solution Manager. In fact, especially the application monitors available for Business Process

Analytics are delivered as add-on (i.e. ST-A/PI) on the managed systems.

To make the monitors available in the SAP Solution Manager, the monitor definitions need to be transferred

from the managed system to a central repository in the SAP Solution Manager System. As a sub-node within

the Basis Settings an update of Central Application Monitoring Repository is offered. To get the monitors

available it is required to select the managed system first and then to click the button “Load Monitors”.

Load Monitors

After that, the logical components (i.e. system and client combination in the leading role for the solution) from

which data should be collected for reporting have to be selected.

Select Logical Component(s)


November 2011 25

4.2 Select Scope and Frequency of Data Collection

Next the application areas for the corresponding logical components (e.g. Sales & Services,

Procurement) can be selected. The application area is a filter that allows restricting the list of monitors that is

offered in the next step. Several monitoring types are available, but at the moment no interface and cross-

application monitors are supported yet. From the following application areas can be selected:

Extended Warehouse Management

Manufacturing

Sales & Services

Procurement

Plant Maintenance

Automotive

Retail

Warehouse Management

Application Areas

The node "Application Monitors" below the selected logical component allows to select the monitors for data

collection. A monitor (or monitoring object) represents a collection of key figures that are usually related to


26 November 2011

the same business document type (e.g. sales orders, deliveries, purchase orders). Use the F4-help of

column “Monitor name” in order to select the relevant monitoring object. In column “Monitoring Object name”,

you can change the name of the monitoring object. The check box on the left hand side of the row must be

marked before the entry can be saved and the next open check can be reached.

Selection of Monitoring Objects

Within the tab “Monitoring Schedule” the user can decide how often a data collection should run. In order to

do this, it can be selected in which intervals and on which weekdays a data collection is performed.

Therefore two scheduling types are available:

- on a weekly basis and

- on a monthly basis

can be planned, when the monitoring should run.

Then the button “Save + next open check” should be pressed to get the next screen.

Backlog key figures should be scheduled in no higher frequency than once per day. If a high data volume is

expected, it should be considered to schedule such data collectors in a lower frequency. Throughput key

figures should be scheduled exactly once per day. Furthermore it is strongly recommend that the flag "Data

from previous day" is set in order to make sure that the data for a whole day is collected. Otherwise, the

result of the data collection depends on the time of execution. For example, if a collector for a throughput key

figure is scheduled without the flag "Data from previous day" and the collector runs at noon, only the

throughput from midnight until noon would be captured.


November 2011 27

Definition of monitoring schedule

The tab “Key Figures” shows all available key figures of the selected application areas. It is required to mark

the key figures that should be monitored.

Settings for the Monitoring Object

For each key figure, it is possible to enter a selection variant (a so called counter). This counter is a further

option that allows the user to select better what data is really required. On one hand, this counter allows to

restrict the data collection according to the parameters that are offered for the key figure. For example, a

customer might want to analyze the backlog of overdue outbound deliveries only for a certain market that

can be determined from the shipping point (e.g. US* for the market). On the other hand, the check-boxes for

“Group by” allow the user to select upfront, which dimensions should be later on available for reporting

reasons (e.g. Benchmarking). At least one group by flag should be selected,


28 November 2011

Pop-up for counter definition

Only for those fields, for which the Group by check box is selected, an analysis of the distribution of these

fields is possible. If you want to analyze, for example, the distribution of overdue outbound deliveries across

the different shipping points, the “Group by “-check box must be selected for the Shipping Point field. In the

Business Process Analytics application, such fields are available as so-called dimensions.

For the other fields without a “Group by”-flag at the end of the row the selection limitations can be made here

(if limitations are wished). With the F8-Button all entries of the popup can be saved. In the field “Short text

(optional)” a name for the counter can be entered. A counter must be customized for each key figure in the

same way like described before.

After that all entries should be saved and the Generation/Activation can be performed. Check the messages

in the activation protocol that give an indication if the data collection, as well as the data transfers to BW,

have been scheduled successfully.

After the Generation/Activation, check “Load Master Data” should be visible. This check shows an overview

of so-called Semantic ID’s that contain the master data for the dimensions that have been selected for

analysis. In the field “Status of MD Load” you can see if Master Data has been loaded. In the field Date of

last MD Load, you see how current the master data in BW is. If the status is not Loaded or Scheduled or if

the Master Data is too old, you should load the master data by selecting the Semantic ID’s you want to load

and by pressing the button “Load BW Master Data”.

Load Master Data


November 2011 29

5 The Business Process Analytics Application

Benefits and use cases of the Business Process Analytics application have already been explained in the

section "Introduction and Motivation". This section now focuses on explaining how to run this application in

detail.

The Business Process Analytics application can be called as URL from the Business Process Operations

Work Center. You find the URL in the section "Common Tasks".

Business Process Operations Work Center

5.1 Analysis Selection Firstly, the timeframe for analysis has to be selected. If you have selected the timeframe, press the button

"Apply Timeframe". Subsequently the solutions that are available in the selected timeframe are selected from

BW. Select a solution. The settings for timeframe and solution are locked once they are made. These

settings cannot be changed afterwards. In case you want to reset the application, press the refresh button in

your browser window.

Next, the key figure that you want to analyze has to be specified. You can do this by selecting system, client,

monitoring object name and key figure. Once you have done this, the button "Perform" becomes visible. If

you press this button, a new window for benchmarking and analysis opens. You can open several windows

for multiple key figures in parallel.


30 November 2011

Analysis Selection

5.2 Benchmarking and Analysis

In the heading of the Benchmarking and Analysis window all selections that are made in the previous

window are shown. Furthermore, the buttons for Benchmarking, Trend Analysis, Age Analysis (by year and

month) as well as Detail Analysis can be seen. These functions will be explained later in further detail. First,

in the "Filter and Drill down" section, it has to be decided, which dimensions are required for further analysis.

The available dimensions are those fields where the “Group by” has been set in the Business Process

Monitoring setup session (see Chapter 4.2).

Dimensions for Analysis


November 2011 31

5.2.1 Benchmarking Benchmarking allows users to perform a two dimensional analysis. In the example shown in the figure below,

the backlog of overdue outbound deliveries by delivery type and shipping point is displayed. If the key figure

is a backlog key figure - as it is in this case - the most current measurement in the selected timeframe is

taken for benchmarking. Otherwise, a document that is in backlog for a longer period of time will be counted

several times leading to wrong results. If the key figure is a throughput key figure, all measurements in the

selected timeframe are aggregated. Therefore it is crucial during the set-up to schedule a throughput key

figure exactly once per day!

It is also possible to restrict the displayed data by selecting only specific dimension values, for example only

Shipping point 0001 (see Chapter 4.2). The graphic will then only display the items of this shipping point.

Benchmarking

5.2.2 Trend Analysis How the measured value for a key figure has developed within the selected timeframe is shown with trend

analysis in the figure shown below, the trend for the backlog of overdue outbound deliveries for delivery type

"Outbound Delivery" and the shipping point "Warehouse EW3" is displayed. There is no difference in

behavior for backlog key figures and throughput key figures.


32 November 2011

Trend Analysis

5.2.3 Age Analysis Age analysis is only available for backlog key figures and allows you to determine how old the documents

that are in backlog are. With this information you can decide for example, if the backlog indicates an

operational issue or if the backlog rather represents a potential for old data reduction. In the figure shown

below you see the age distribution for the backlog of overdue outbound deliveries for the delivery types

"Outbound Delivery" and "Replenishment Delivery". Age analysis is only possible for one dimension (see

Chapter 4.2, definition of dimensions via Group-by flag), because the other dimension is always calendar

year or calendar month.


November 2011 33

Age Analysis

5.2.4 Detail Analysis Detail analysis is only available for backlog key figures and allows determining the root cause for potential

backlog. A click on the button "Detail Analysis" allows the user to get a logon screen for the managed

system. Once logged on, a list of the single items that are in backlog is available. The selections that are

made in the "Filter and Drill down" section are used to filter this list so that only the items that fit to the

selected filter criteria are displayed. In the example shown in the figure below, a list of all outbound deliveries

of type "Outbound Delivery" that are overdue is shown.


34 November 2011

Detail List

From this detail list, the user can navigate to the business transaction by clicking on a single item of the list,

in order to determine the root cause why this document is in backlog. In the figure shown below, the

outbound delivery 80000555 is displayed in transaction VL03N that is opened automatically by clicking on

the delivery 80000555 in the detail list.

Display of a Single Item in the according Business Transaction


November 2011 35

6 Setup for Business Process Monitoring Alerting

6.1 Motivation

Alerting based on BW data from Business Process Analytics can be used to define a monitoring on the analytical data collected by Business Process Analytics to react on specific exceptions in the Business Process execution flow. If a specified threshold is exceeded, an alert is generated in the BPMon Operations session and several auto-reaction methods can be defined (e.g. automatic mail notification). The analytical data is already available in the BW of SAP Solution Manager so that the workload regarding data collection from backend systems can be reduced.

6.2 Prerequisites

In order to use Alerting based on data from Business Process Analytics, the data collection for Business

Process Analytics had to be configured and activated before on the level of logical components in the

BPMon Setup session so that data is already available in the BW Info Cube when data for alerting is

executed. This already available setup session including configuration for logical components should be

selected and can be changed to add the BPMon Alerting setup. To define the application monitoring objects

relevant for a business process step within the business process it is required to start the business process

monitoring setup session for the relevant solution. To make sure, that all monitors are available, the latest

ST-A/PI release can be downloaded from SAP Service Market Place (quick link: /supporttools. This ST-A/PI

tool needs to be implemented on the managed system and its coding uncommented via RTCCTOOL.

6.3 Procedure

Access the BPMon Setup session via the SAP Solution Manager Workcenter for Business Process

Operations (see Chapter 4) and start the BPMon setup within the node of business processes select first the

relevant business process, then the relevant business process step(s). To navigate forward the button “Save

+ next open check” can be used. On the node of application monitors within the selected solution the same

application monitors should be selected than are used for reporting into BW. For those monitors a set up of

an instance of the monitor was made for the logical component context. This monitor makes sure that data

from monitored system is extracted to BW. In order to create such an alerting monitor instance choose

pushbutton "Create with Reference". In this case, the alerting based on BW data from Business Process

Analytics is enabled, otherwise – if the button “Create with Reference” is not used – the data will be retrieved

via standard collection in the backend system.

Note: The flag in column "Select" just activates the sub nodes. It does not have any effect on the actual

monitoring activation status.


36 November 2011

Application Monitors – Creation with reference Now the available monitoring objects for BW data are shown and can be selected:

Available monitoring objects for creation with reference

Within the selected monitoring object, all available keyfigures can be selected from the value help. Please

select only those keyfigures for Alerting which you already configured before for data collection on the level

of the logical components, because otherwise no data will be available in the BW Info Cube and hence the

alert status of this monitoring object will remain grey – which means undefined.


November 2011 37

Selection of Key figures

The alerting based on BW data will be executed right after the data collection for Business Process Analytics

is finished for the referenced monitoring object, so you do not need to maintain an additional monitoring

schedule on this level.

A counter per key figure must be defined next:

Counter definition

With a double click on the field for the counter additional restrictions for several fields can be made. Please

respect, that only such fields are offered, that have a “Group by”-flag in the counter of the BW selection.


38 November 2011

Additional selection limits

To finalize the BPMon process the generation of customizing and then the activation of the solution must be made.

Generation/activation of the solution


November 2011 39

7 Monitoring based on Data from Business Process Analytics

7.1 Prerequisites

An activated Business process monitoring solution that monitors at least one key figure is required to get

alerts within a monitoring session.

7.2 Procedure

To get information of the monitoring session it is required to look at the process overview:

Process Overview

The status of the whole process is shown with an alert icon. The alert rating can be “green”, “yellow” or “red”.

“Green” is the lowest rating and “Red” the highest. The highest rating of a key figure defines the status of the

whole process. With a click on the alert icon a more detailed view is offered. On the left hand side of the

screen a navigation tree makes it easy to find information for each monitored key figure:

Detailed view on alerts


40 November 2011

8 Troubleshooting

8.1 Motivation Within this chapter, all known issues which can occur during the product life time and which are already

known sometimes face technical issues for which we want provide you – according to our experience – a

short description how to handle and solve it.

If you face technical issues which are not included in this chapter, please feel free to create an OSS

message on component SV-SMG-MON-BPM, providing a detailed description of your issue.

8.2 Problems during activation and configuration of BPMon Analytics

8.2.1 No data can be selected in Business Process Analytics

If you face this issue, it is a good starting point to have a look at the content of Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH. Please enter transaction LISTCUBE and enter in the following screen in the field InfoProvider 0SM_BPMRH and press the execute button (F8). You will get an information that this InfoProvider contains too much characteristics and you are asked to make a preselection. Confirm this pop-up window and the following two screens by pressing the “Execute”-button (F8). Then a query is started on the Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH to show the stored key figures of the first 200 entries and you see a list of data coming from the Info Cube if the Info Cube is not empty.

In case you get the following error message “Inconsistent input parameter”:

Error message “Inconsistent input parameter”

please follow the instructions in SAP Note 1107821 to fix the issue in the BW. Afterwards try to access Business Process Analytics again to see if now data is available.


November 2011 41

8.3 Problems during usage within usage of BPMon Analytics

8.3.1 No actual data available in Business Process Analytics

If you face this situation after a certain usage time of BPMon Analytics (and you did not changed the configuration at all), we recommend to have a look at the settings of the Extractor Framework from Solution Manager Diagnostics to see if the managed systems (clients) are marked as relevant for Diagnostics.

First, open the configuration wizard for SAP Solution Manager with transaction SOLMAN_SETUP and select “Managed System Configuration” from the left window. Then select ABAP technical system and client from the right window and click on button “Configure Systems”:

Starting the configuration wizard via transaction SOLMAN_SETUP

At step of number four of the guided procedure “Diagnostics Configuration” for the ABAP technical systems, select “Configure Diagnostics” in the table:

Step four of guided procedure “Configure Diagnostics”


42 November 2011

In the next screen, the technical system is pre-selected. Mark the technical system as “relevant” for Diagnostics by de-selecting the checkbox “Not Diagnostics Relevant” and press the “Set” button:

Change the setting of technical system to “relevant” for Diagnostics

Afterwards, leave the transaction.

8.4 Increasing response times / data storage growth in BPMon Analytics

If you face during usage of BPMon Analytics problems with increasing response times of the BPMon Analytics UI or with increasing growth of data storage use of Info Cube 0SM_BPMRH, especially its fact table /BI0/F0SM_BPMRH, we recommend to activate a housekeeping for the Info Cube in BW according to SAP Note 1514022 (BPMon Analytics - BW Housekeeping for Info Cube).


November 2011 43

9 Appendix

9.1 Authorization roles needed for activation of Business Process Analytics The following roles are additionally available with SAP Note 1615121.

9.1.1 SAP Solution Manager client

According to our general experience, we suggest to use the following role Z_BPM_BPA_SETUP_BW for the activation tasks which should be done in the BW client of SAP Solution Manager, but please be aware to use this role at your own risk.


44 November 2011


November 2011 45

9.1.2 SAP Solution Manager BW client

According to our general experience, we suggest to use the following role Z_BPM_BPA_SETUP_SOLMAN for the activation tasks which should be done in the SAP Solution Manager client, , but please be aware to use this role at your own risk.

Documents

SetupGuide BP Analytics