During a recent client implementation in Brazil, for example, even though we could not use the Best Practices customizing directly in this instance, my team and I were able to avoid agonizing over each detail of Brazil’s complex tax/logistics requirements with a comprehensive guide gleaned from Best Practices. In many cases you can copy and tweak the customizing itself.

I will provide you with an introduction to SAP Best Practices, hands-on advice from the installation, and tips for further utilization. You can find the detailed process descriptions about SAP Best Practices in the documentation on the Best Practices DVD.

Baseline and Country-Specific Best Practices

SAP’s Best Practices consist of a country-specific baseline package. This baseline package consists of many cross-industry processes such as Procurement of Stock Material, Third Party without Shipping Notification, and Preventative Maintenance. The selection of the correct country version ensures installation of country-specific customizing, master data, and values for accounting, taxes, human resources, and currency, as well as country-specific processes. See Table 1 for a list of country-specific baseline packages.

Best Practices is divided into building blocks for the purposes of its installation. A building block contains one or more business scenarios. You can decide within limits which building blocks you want to install.

Available building blocks are listed online at https://help.sap.com/bestpractices. Navigate to Baseline Packages or Industry Packages and click on Building Block Library in the Additional information box.

Several building blocks are required for the baseline package. SAP calls those building blocks Layer 0. That includes, for example, the creation of the Organizational Structure with company, company code, plants, and storage locations. In Figure 1 you can see all building blocks (such as B32) of project BASELINE_LAYER0 in the Best Practices Installation Assistant.

Figure 1

Create your organizational structure in the Best Practices Installation Assistant

You can choose which building blocks of Layer 1 you want to install. You could, for example, decide not to install building blocks for plant maintenance and human resources, or only install discrete Production Planning (PP) or Production Planning for Process Industries (PP-PI).

Some of the building blocks might require the installation of additional software components, such as BW or Project Lifecycle Management (PLM), in addition to a basic ERP (SAP R/3) system. Some scenarios within the baseline packages require the installation of software components like BW, SCM, or PLM. Your installation and SAP license might or might not include these.

A new option in the baseline package is to customize the organizational structure and master data before installing the Best Practices. With this option you can, for example, change the sample plant identifier from BP01 and the name of the sample materials. You can use it either for highly individualized demos or as a step toward an individualized configuration. Not all industry solutions support this option yet, so you need to check the documentation before using this feature.

Industry-Specific Best Practices

SAP offers several industry-specific Best Practices — for example, for the pharmaceutical, medical device, or chemical industries. For a list of industry-specific coverage see Table 1. The industry-specific solutions are installed on top of the baseline package. There are dependencies between the industry-specific building blocks and the baseline building blocks. For example, a high-tech specific PP building block might require the installation of a baseline PP building block.

Additional Partner Offerings

SAP partners offer additional functionality on top of the industry-specific solutions. This might include additional business processes and prepared upload programs that you only get from that SAPpartner/ consulting organization. The partners are often those who co-developed SAP’s industry-specific solutions. You can find mySAP All-in-One partner solutions for your industry at www.sap.com Solutions>mySAP All- in-One.

Cross-Industry Business Packages

SAP also offers Best Practices for Business Intelligence (BI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), SCM, and other modules (Table 1). These packages are not country- or industry-specific and do not use the building block concept.

Components

Best Practices baseline and the industry-specific packages are delivered on a DVD and a CD: one documentation DVD, which also includes the data files (known as variants) for the master data upload and one installation CD with the required transports.

Documentation

All Best Practices documentation — country- and industry-specific — is available online and on the documentation DVDs. You can access it via https://help.sap.com/bestpractices. It consists of the documents in Table 2. (Not all types of documents may be available for all building blocks.)

For many scenarios, you can download a SIM file (SAP Tutor) and go step-by-step through the prerecorded business scenario. You can find those scenarios at https://service.sap.com/bestpractices >Demo & Evaluation>SAP Offline Demo>Baseline Package (UK). The offline demos for Germany and the US are currently not published there, but the differences in the scenarios between the country versions are in most cases very small. You need an S-user ID from SAP to access https://service.sap.com.

Installation

The Best Practices are delivered on two CDs/DVDs:

1. The installation CD with transports for eCATT definition and ABAP programs
2. The documentation DVD with all documentation including business processes and the data files (variants) to upload master data via eCATT

After installing the transports in your SAP system, run the Best Practices Installation Assistant. The tasks are organized into building blocks and projects. The tasks consist of BC Sets, eCATTs, and manual steps.

Installation Procedure

Step 1. Select building blocks. Select the building blocks from the country-specific Best Practices that you want to use. Check the necessary components for the building blocks. Some might require other modules (for example, BW, PLM, SCM, CRM, or Supplier Relationship Management [SRM]).

Select the industry-specific package that best meets your needs. Look around a bit; there might be two or three industry packages that describe processes in your company. You could manually add a building block from a second industry package by following the building block configuration guide.

Step 2. Basis steps: Install the DVD. The transports from the installation DVD need to be imported into your SAP system. Plan one to two days with help from a Basis consultant for this.

Locate the installation guide “Quick Guide to Installing the SAP Best Practices Baseline Package (US)” (or the quick guide for the version you are installing) on your DVD and update this document from the SAP Service Marketplace/OSS. A prerequisite is an installed ERP system. Necessary components (BW, PLM, SCM, CRM, SRM) for the selected building blocks have to be installed. All components need to be at the required patch level. You can check the installed software components and the patch level via System>Status and then click on the component information icon (magnifying glass). Then:

1. Install the required software components.
2. Install the patch level (and sometimes a kernel or database update) by downloading the transports from SAP Service Marketplace and installing them with transaction SPAM.
3. SAP notes: Install the required SAP notes with transaction SNOTE. A working connection to the service marketplace to automatically download the notes is very helpful. The use of transaction SNOTE was described in the SCM Expert article “Quick Tip: Simplify the Implementation of SAP Notes with Note Assistant,” by Mitresh Kundalia (October 2005).
4. Install transports from the DVD (eCATT, transactions like the building block installer).

Step 3. Functional steps. The installation of the Best Practices takes about two to four days for a functional consultant with some ABAP experience, for each (the baseline and the industry packages):

1. Install variant files on hard drive. You need to specify the location of these files during project activation. You have to modify some of these files before you upload them.
2. Change your GUI settings as described in the quick guide to allow scripts to attach to the GUI.
3. Import each building block or project and then activate each project step. Import building blocks or projects using transaction /n/SMB/BBI (Figure 1). On the Best Practices Installation Assistant – Project View screen, click on the Import (project) button and select the project file (for example, Pro_ BaselineLayer0_US.bpp) from the DVD. The documentation might call for the installation of the building blocks first, before installation of the project. When you install a project, the associated building blocks are automatically installed as well. You can install the building blocks (*.bpb files) via the create icon on the Building Block Builder – Project View, Figure 2.


Figure 2
Adjust Max Level of building block if required
4. Check the project for errors. You can manually execute the check or the system executes it automatically when activating a project. If you installed a too high patch level and receive an error like The checks on project BASELINE_LAYER0 have reported errors, you can switch to the Building Block Builder – Project View and identify the building block that causes the inconsistency. Change the Max Level of that building block to the current installed version (Figure 2). If your patch level is too low, install the required patch.
5. Check if required SAP notes are installed by clicking on the note assistant icon on the Best Practices Installation Assistant – Project View (Figure 3). The message box on the right lower corner of the screen informs you about required notes. If you need to install another SAP note, you can do that via transaction SNOTE.


Figure 3
Review output of Note Assistant Click Here for larger image
6. Activate the project in the correct order starting with BASELINELAYER0. When you activate a project for the first time, it asks you for the target language, the directory where the variants are located, and a workbench and customizing transport request. You can create the transport request directly from the pop-up window (Figure 4). If you install multiple projects at the same time, you can use the same transport request for all projects.
   
   

   Figure 4

   Specify transport requests for the installation of the Best Practice project
7. The Best Practices Installation Assistant starts to activate all tasks (ECAT, MANU) in the given sequence in the project, until the system receives an error or gets to a manual task.
8. Execute and confirm manual steps. The Best Practices Installation Assistant stops at the manual steps with an information message Manual step that requires manual confirmation. Click on the documentation icon to the left of the manual step to get a step-by-step procedure for what you need to do (Figure 5). Execute the manual task in a separate session. Close the documentation and click on the confirm manual step (C…) button in the task line, change the status to successful, and enter a reason for the confirmation. Then click on the activate icon again to continue with the activation of the project tasks.
   
   

   Figure 5

   Document and confirm manual task Click here for larger image
9. Run eCATTs. Some of the eCATTs have to run in the foreground. In that case, choose the UI Controltab. On the Start Mode for Comment TCD drop-down menu, select A Process in Foreground, Synchronous Local, then choose the execute icon. Click on the enter icon in each screen of the eCATT to move to the next step in the eCATT.

   You can check the log of an eCATT by clicking on the log number next to the log icon below the project task line. Then you click on the display detail log icon, the magnification glass in the right bottom pane. See Figure 6 for a sample log.

   
   

   Figure 6

   Check the eCATT log

Troubleshooting Tips

In the event of a problem, try the following:

• Check the eCATT logs.
• Run eCATTs open using transaction SECATT and the test configuration gathered from the log.
• Check the content of variant file (external file).
• If the document for a manual step is missing look in customizing documentation Building Block Configuration Guide. You can then execute that step manually and manually confirm the project task even though the eCATT failed.
• Contact SAP at bestpractices@sap.com.

Implementation Uses

SAP Best Practices are a perfect way to build a demonstration and rapid prototyping system. To get the most use out of it, you should allow time for the installation before the blueprinting phase of your implementation project starts. Discussing a business process is so much easier for the business team when it can see the future process demonstrated — even if it is not with its own master data — and if the final customized process will in many cases be somewhat different from the Best Practice business process.

In earlier versions the benefits of the Preconfigured Clients (PCCs), SAP’s previous name for Best Practices, ended with the prototype. Most implementation teams chose to build their development client from scratch, using the customizing of the PCC as reference. Now with the building block model you can install only the business processes that you want.

Every project needs to adjust customizing and business processes from the Best Practices to the customer requirements. In a fast-track, low-complexity project you might only rename the default plant BP01 by changing only the plant description. In an installation with somewhat higher complexity you can create new plants with plant codes of your own choosing by copying from SAP’s Best Practices plant BP01 instead of from plant 0001, SAP’s standard-delivered plant. In any case you can be sure to base your customizing on a completely configured SAP system with working processes.

Building a Business Landscape

During the installation of the SAP Best Practices, recording of transport requests is turned on in the target client. You specify the transport requests when you start installing building blocks (Figure 4). You can move the customizing transport requests into your other clients in the development system like sandbox, development, or golden and development testing clients. Another option is to build these clients via a local client copy. These approaches have some differences. The first is that you don’t test the transport process for clients in your development system. The second difference may come from local transport requests.

During some manual steps of the building block installation the documentation proposes to record manual customizing in local transport requests. Changes made with local transport requests to client-specific settings (customizing transport requests) are in the target client after a client copy, but not in a client built from client 000 with transported customizing. Take good notes if you are asked to create a local transport request — for example, for workflow activation or agent assignment. You might not want to transport the agent assignment to a sample user into your SAP clients, but for the process to work in your system, you have to set up the workflow to work within your organization.

I would advise using the transport system to build your clients rather than making a client copy. This ensures reproducible results when moving to your quality assurance and later the production system.

User Exits

During the installation of SAP Best Practices you are asked to activate some user exits, such as a user exit for cost determination in building block J08 (USEREXIT_PRICING_PREPARE_TKOMP) or customer enhancements for material determination using customer hierarchies in building block J57 (Extended Sales order processing). These user exits may or may not be applicable for your situation. If you transport the workbench transport request into your quality and production system, you also transport these user exits. You might want to adapt some of the user exits for your situation.

Again, take notes during installation, so you can review how valid this particular user exit is for your implementation: Do you want to use the user exit as implemented by SAP’s Best Practices, or do you want to modify it, or not implement it at all? If you are using the user exit as implemented or adapted to your company’s needs, you need to transport the implementation and possibly the changes to it into your quality assurance and production boxes. If you are not going to use the user exit you should make sure that your development box stays in sync with quality assurance and production. Do this by either transporting the user exit, if it has no negative effect on your implementation, or by rolling back the user exit implementation and transporting these changes through your system landscape.

Upload programs

All master data used in the building blocks is loaded into SAP — mostly with eCATTs. You might be able to reuse some of these uploads during your implementation. You can identify the eCATT in the installation logs of the building block (transaction /n/smb/bbi) as shown in Figures 5 and 6.

Another way is to search for the transaction code creating the master data in the test configuration or in the variant files (the comma separated value text files for the upload). For example, MM01 (create material transaction) is used by test configuration /SMB15/MM01_ALL_VIEWS_O015_J30 using external file SMB15_MM01_ALL_VIEWS_O015_J30_01.TXT. These upload programs might not always be perfect — for example, the work center upload only works with three of six possible activity types and only for standard work-center categories, but it might fit your situation perfectly and beats not having an upload program at all.

Post-Implementation

If you have not installed the Best Practices, you might still benefit from the documentation available online. Identify the process that interests you in the baseline or industry-specific packages and check the scenario description or the overview presentation. When you have found the correct process, try to locate the SAP Tutor or business process procedures. If you want to implement it, use the building block configuration guide.

I implemented Best Practices for a plant in Brazil. Brazil has some country-specific legal requirements: a tax document — the nota fiscal — has to accompany each material movement, requiring special customizing in MM, SD, and FI. SAP’s country-specific baseline package for Brazil had a description of the processes in the overview presentation and the building block configuration guide described all of the customizing transactions. Though the customizing could not be copied (the company had its own customized pricing procedures) each necessary customizing step was well documented and gave me and the other team members a step-by-step guide to customize the processes.