MY homework includes reading everyone's SAPPHIRE "watch list". Yes, there are questions of cloud, HANA, pricing, BI and HR roadmaps (and look out for payroll,  says Jeremy Masters). SAPexperts asked questions around mobility, and we had a really entertaining conversation, as always, with Jon Reed. (Roadmap, shmoadmap, says Jon. He wants to talk integration.) 

But, time's up! Now I just want to know which sportstars will be joining Bill McDermott on Day 1.  And for those of us back in the office, we can still follow the action. (Jon Reed shared some great Twitter tips, and Scott Wallask says just follow Tammy Powlas - good advice).

SAPinsider and Insider Learning Network together are doing our part. We're live streaming the three SAP executive keynotes, plus a handful of 20-30 minute sessions: Steve Lucas on database solutions; a BI panel with Jason Rose hosting e-Bay and others; and Sherryanne Myer on HR Renewal, among others.

Here is the lineup, times, and links. Sit back for a keynote or session, and follow @sapinsider and @iln4sap for reminders, too...

TUESDAY, MAY 14

9-10:30am ET: KEYNOTE with Bill McDermoot & Bob Calderoni
Watch live on SAPinsider

Customers, Fans, and a Better-Run World -- Find out more
by Bill McDermott, Co-CEO SAP
Networked Innovation: How Business Networks Are Driving the Next Wave of Productivity and Insights
by Bob Calderoni, CEO, Ariba, Inc., and Member of Global Managing Board, SAP AG

11-11:30am ET: PANEL with SAP's Jason Rose
Watch live on the BI Network

Drive Business Value Using the Latest Business Intelligence Solutions
Speakers: Bob Russo, Maidenform Brands, Inc.
Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, e-Bay

1-1:20pm ET: SESSION with Steve Lucas
Watch live on SAPinsider

Transform Business with Database and Technology Solutions
by Steve Lucas, General Mgr, Global Database and Technology, SAP

4-4:20pm ET: SESSION with Sherryanne Meyer
Watch live in the HR forum

Deliver a Renewed HR Experience
by Sherryanne Meyer, Mgr, IT HR, Air Products and Chemicals Inc.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 15

9-10:30am ET: KEYNOTE with Jim Hagemann Snabe 
Watch live on SAPinsider

Innovation, the Unfair Advantage
by Jim Hagemann Snabe, Co-CEO SAP

3-3:20pm ET: SESSION with NuVasive's Quentin Hurst & SAP's James Naftel
Watch live on our IT Forum

Lay a Foundation for Success with Enterprise Mobility Management
by Quentin Hurst, Director, Business Systems Applications, NuVasive
and James Naftel, Sr Dir, Platform Solution Management, SAP

THURSDAY, MAY 16

8:30-10:30am ET: KEYNOTE with Hasso Plattner & Vishal Sikka
Watch live on SAPinsider

SAP HANA Changes Everything!

12-12:20pm ET: SESSION with Sealed Air Corp.'s Rajesh Mahajan
Watch live on the CRM Network

Sealed Air Corp. Adopts SAP CRM Strategy to Keep
Pace with Changing Market

All session descriptions are on the SAPPHIRE NOW Agenda page.

Enjoy! I'll be getting my cup of coffee soon.  Maybe I can fit in a manicure while catching up on SAP's procurement strategy...

-- Kristine Erickson, Managing Editor, Insider Learning Network

In this podcast, SAP Mentor and independent analyst Jon Reed (JonERP.com) spoke with SAPinsider's Ken Murphy about what's top of mind for him heading into SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando starting May 14.

Sure, Jon wants to see HANA customer stories, and more about cloud,  Ariba, and the new HANA-Sybase platform. He shares his opinion on the musial guests, and gives his take on the keynotes. Asked about how SAP can clear up customers' roadmap questions? "I'm not a huge roadmaps guy," he says, and tells us what he's really looking for instead from SAP. Great stuff from Jon Reed.

You can listen to the full discussion in the original podcast, or read the edited transcript here:

Ken Murphy: Hi everyone, this is Ken Murphy with SAPinsider and Insider Learning Network. With SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG annual conference approaching, we are pleased to be joined by SAP Mentor and independent analyst Jon Reed of JonERP.com, who has agreed to give us a sneak preview of what he is expecting to see in Orlando.

Welcome to the podcast, Jon.

Jon Reed:  Ken, pleasure to be here.

Murphy:  Before we begin, I want to get to, I guess, the most important information first: Just how many times have you been to SAPPHIRE?

Reed: Ken, I don’t have a count ready for you offhand, but I can tell you I did lose count at 10. So, that gives you some idea.

Murphy: So, you know your way around.

Reed: I don’t want to date myself any further than that.

Murphy:  In addition to HANA, there are questions on HR – on-premise vs. cloud, for example – and some ongoing questions about BI and BusinessObjects tools selection. Are there any specific roadmap questions that you’re looking for SAP to address at SAPPHIRE NOW?

Reed: That’s a funny question, because I think you hit on the ones that SAP is most likely to touch on. And to give SAP some credit, I think they have made some progress on all of those.  I think we also want to hear even a little more on the combined kind of HANA-Sybase real-time platform portfolio.

But, I’m not a huge roadmaps guy, for a couple reasons I can explain.

The one roadmap I’m particularly interested in -- and that I would think customers are particularly interested in -- is more about an integration roadmap overall.

I think one of the aspects of SAP’s hybrid cloud approach is this ability to plug in different pieces of software which may or may not be provided by SAP, or may be from different SAP business units. So integration’s becoming a really important piece of the puzzle.

SAP for quite some time now has, in the guise of NetWeaver and NetWeaver PI, offered some heavy-duty integration to some of its largest customers.  But I’m looking for a bolder, more aggressive integration strategy going forward that includes things like integration as a service. So I don’t expect some kind of full roadmap yet, but I really want to hear more about this.

It seems to me SAP’s in a great position to help its customers with integrating this diverse range of software that’s cropping up in enterprises, some of which is proliferating in business users and line of business decisions. At the same time, SAP could also drop the ball on that issue and provide a lot of openings for other vendor or customer dissatisfaction -- which nobody wants.

So I’ll be watching for that.

Murphy: With a new HANA book and a new HANA magazine that will be unveiled at the show, and plenty of sessions on the topic (HANA, that is), it looks like in-memory will continue to be a big focus for SAP, as it was last year.

Where do you see SAP taking those discussions around HANA, and do you think there’s anything specific  about HANA that folks should take notice of this year?

Reed:  I think it’s interesting. SAP’s obviously going to be pretty aggressive about Business Suite on HANA at SAPPHIRE and trying to make clear to customers what some of the options and use cases are. It was announced in January, but that’s going to be a big piece.

One of the challenges SAP has is that HANA is more than just a database, and customers want to understand the use cases for HANA.

This could actually include using HANA as a platform to build real-time applications, or maybe purchase such applications from partners, and so SAP’s got a little bit of a challenge trying to help customers understand the different possibilities with HANA.  I’d be disappointed if SAP only talked about database replacement, because I just don’t feel that a lot of SAP customers are going to be in the mood to do kind of a database rip-and-replace.  

But once you get into industry-specific use cases where you can really see customers using real-time information and real-time computation power from HANA in new ways to break into new markets, that kind of stuff gets really interesting.  

So, I would guess that we’re going to hear about both, but it will be interesting to see if SAP can get across dimensions that make sense to customers because every customer’s a little bit different.

One of my hopes is that SAP will not just be talking about futuristic stuff with the Business Suite, but will actually have some customers – they have a lot of BW on HANA customers that have gone live now. Hopefully we’ll hear from some of those, and start to hear from a customer perspective what the real perceived benefits are. So I’m going to really be looking for that.

Murphy:  SAPPHIRE is a huge event. With so much going on, what would you recommend for those back at the office looking to monitor what’s happening in Orlando? Any social channels that you’ll be following during the show or that you recommend?

And how do you see SAP using social and its online presence to expand its reach for this conference?

Reed: That’s a really good one. Obviously, SAP’s going to be broadcasting a lot of the conference virtually, so if you go to the SAPPHIRE NOW website, or the ASUG 2013 website, you’ll have links to the live broadcasts of keynotes, for example, that are going to be shared online.

One thing that’s happening, of course, is that we no longer consume live events just as events; we’re consuming a kind of running stream of commentary. So news and conversation are kind of getting mixed, and to some extent that makes it really hard; it’s an attention-span trial to track all these different feeds.

But the other thing is it kind of gives you a real-time gut-check on what’s happening, and so for me I like to follow Twitter conversations about what’s happening -- especially with keynotes. If you’re on the ground at events, it can be useful because you can find out late-breaking schedule changes and stuff like that.

If you’re not at the event, watching the Twitter stream in particular can really help you get a handle on what’s happening at the conference.

You start to feel a part of things because you can ask questions of people who are on the ground and not feel as isolated. So for example, if you ping me on Twitter during the show I’ll try to get your question answered -- I think a lot of people share that mentality -- so that part is pretty cool.

The only thing I would issue a bit of a caution about is that my experiences at these event hashtags on Twitter are getting pretty polluted. For example, if you go search twitter.com and type in the hashtag “ASUG 2013” you might get a more focused conversation, but the SAPPHIRE NOW hashtag especially (and to some extent the ASUG hashtag) gets kind of bogged down. It is sometimes a little difficult to really track the stuff you’re interested in.

So a couple ways of combating that is to follow some individuals, either in a HootSuite-type program where you can track them individually, or to trim them into a list.

Another really cool thing you can do, even just on search.twitter.com, is not only to type in a hashtag but also a keyword. Type in “ASUG 2013” but also “HANA”, and you might be able to get some of the chatter on HANA from more of a customer and ASUG perspective.

That’s just an example of how you can start to slice and dice things a little around areas you’re interested in. You can even do it for a topic that might not be as full of hype as HANA, something like Workflow, for example, if that’s a focus area for you.

By monitoring conversations around topics of interest, and that will help save you a bit from this barrage of noise that comes down the channel, when  and you start to wonder, “Am I getting good information, or is this for a place for people to market stuff that isn’t relevant?” So, you do have to plan ahead a little bit on how you’re going to filter and sort this information.

MURPHY: As we approach the show, are there any other predictions from you as far as surprises in store for attendees? Anything special that people should be on the lookout for?

REED: Well, you know there’s actually some pretty interesting stuff.  One is that Bob Calderoni, the CEO of Ariba, is participating in the keynote on the first day along with Bill McDermott. We haven’t heard from Calderoni on the keynote stage before yet, so that’s going to be really interesting. Ariba is going to play an important role, I think, in how SAP’s future unfolds with its business networks and such.

And then we have an ASUG keynote that night that includes a guest keynote by Seth Godin, who’s a best-selling author around marketing topics.  My opinion is that Seth can be kind of hit-or-miss; I’m not one of those people that worship him as a guru. But especially if he figures out how to tie his thinking around differentiation and brands into the kind of stuff that SAP and SAP customers are dealing with, that could end up being a really good keynote, so we’ll have to see.

And then finally on the second day, Wednesday, Lars Dalgaard, SuccessFactors CEO, is also going to be on the keynote. We actually haven’t heard from him for awhile for various reasons; he had some family matters to attend to and some other things. I’ve been told he’s very active behind-the-scenes, but this is really a chance to hear from him.

And between those keynotes, maybe we’ll get to really piece together more of where SAP is going with cloud. Although customers may not be as concerned about this today, if I’m an SAP customer I do want to feel confident in SAP’s cloud strategy going forward. We just really haven’t heard much about that this year --  it’s been “HANA, HANA, HANA, HANA.” And of course HANA does tie into cloud, but we want to understand that better. SAPPHIRE is going to be a really good opportunity to get a gut-check on that.

I don’t know if I can comment on the music event, because the lineup is a bit out of my -- how can I put this? --  my musical comfort zone. But Alan Jackson has sold 60 million records, so I guess I have something to learn from him. But I don’t know how that’s going to go, because I’m not familiar with that lineup.

Murphy: Well, Bonnie Raitt can play a pretty mean guitar herself, so…

REED: Yeah, Bonnie Raitt’s going to come through. So as long as Bonnie Raitt’s on-stage things should be okay, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen that night, to be honest with you.

Murphy:  I’ve been speaking with SAP Mentor and independent analyst Jon Reed about the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG conference in Orlando. Jon, thanks for joining us, and enjoy your time at SAPPHIRE, which we know will be at least your 11^th event.

REED: At least my 11^th! I look forward to seeing your WIS Pubs team down there, too.

Murphy:  Thanks again, Jon.

Kellie spoke to SAPinsider’s Dave Hannon about her clients’ perceptions of SuccessFactors, which HR solutions they are implementing now, the quick wins she has seen for HR mobility, and the big questions HR customers will have for SAP going forward.

Listen to the full podcast in our Podcast archives, or read the edited transcript here:

Dave Hannon, SAPinsider: Hello, this is Dave Hannon with SAPinsider. Joining me today is Kellie Fitzpatrick, CEO at Symphony Management Consulting. Welcome Kellie.

Kellie Fitzpatrick, Symphony Management Consulting: Thank you, Dave.

Dave: We’re going to be talking a little about SAP HCM and SuccessFactors today.

Kellie, first I wanted to get your perspective on the adoption curve for SuccessFactors among SAP customers. It’s now more than a year since the deal closed. What’s your perspective on the adoption and how it stacks up compared to what you were expecting?

Kellie: Thanks, Dave. I think it’s very interesting. A year ago, our business was primarily SAP. A lot of our clients were looking at the SuccessFactors product, but for our own business model, the only time we would really get involved with a client was when they were implementing SAP functionality or ERP.

So, over the last year, we have completely changed our business model;  we are now SAP and SuccessFactors. The interesting part of that is every single one of our clients who were doing SAP last year at the same time are now in the midst of a SuccessFactors implementation or thinking about a SuccessFactors implementation. I have a couple of stragglers, but that’s always good because they’re trying to wrap up what they were doing with SAP.

The part I get really excited about is that now we are talking to clients who really may not have been able to go into SAP HCM for one reason or another. Maybe it was the user interface. Maybe it was a pricing concern. But all of our clients are now able to look at SuccessFactors.

Whether it be a mid-market or an enterprise account, they’re looking and saying “Hey, you know what? I really can’t afford or don’t like the user interface in SAP. I can now afford SuccessFactors. Let’s get into Employee Central. Let’s get into Employee Central Payroll. Let’s talk about Talent Management.”

Another piece of this is that this time last year, we were losing deals to Workday because of user interface or different components. Today, we’re winning against Workday because SuccessFactors and SAP have put so much time and money into the user interface, the usability, the functionality. And it’s really assisted our clients in making that switch from SAP to SuccessFactors, or adding on SuccessFactors, or even just saying let’s forego SAP altogether. Let’s just go right into the cloud.

Dave: Regarding SuccessFactors specifically, I know you’ve taken a good look at the enhancements and the upcoming release of the BizX Suite.

Are there any of those that you think would be of particular interest to SAP and SuccessFactors users? Anything you want to highlight there?

Kellie: I grew up...I was an SAP brat, as I tell people.  I really started out on the HR side. And as SAP grew their product, I was excited to see things like concurrent employment come in and how to handle positions and different things.

So with SuccessFactors, and where SAP and SuccessFactors have gone over the last year or so, I’m really excited about the ability for clients to take into account their Position Management, allocating FTEs,  looking at the budgets against the FTEs -- I think that’s very important, and I have a lot of clients who were struggling with that whole concept prior to this release. I’m pretty excited about how SAP and SuccessFactors have enhanced that.

I think Employee Central Payroll is a huge win for SAP. A lot of clients were struggling because they really wanted to go Payroll, but they didn’t necessarily want to run it on-premise. Going along the payroll side, anything that you can do from a payroll perspective, where you can allocate costs differently from an employee -- we all know that an employee doesn’t always work on the same thing every single day. The fact that they can run this in the cloud and we can post the GLs properly, I think is going to be huge for SAP.

And certainly, anything around time off. A lot of clients are struggling with, “How do I track time?“ Maybe they don’t necessarily want to go to a third-party vendor. The fact that SAP and SuccessFactors have brought that in is really good as well.

Of course, anything they can do on interfaces and sending data back and forth from SAP to SuccessFactors and backwards is going to be a huge win for clients. When you’re running a hybrid solution, you do need to get data back and forth seamlessly. I think APIs and integrations are always a big thing for our clients.

Dave: In addition to cloud, I know mobility is always a big priority. Where would you put the SAP HCM on a mobility curve, and how much impact has the SuccessFactors deal had on the mobile trajectory for SAP HCM users?

Kellie: Well, for HR, it’s probably a little bit more important for our clients, because they have areas where they have managers continuously moving. And they don’t have access to a terminal or a computer at their desk every single solitary step of the way.

What I’m really excited about - I’ll use the example of one of my clients. In order to get to mobility in SAP, they had to purchase additional software. They had to potentially do a lot more configuration. There was so much more and so many more costs associated with getting into the mobile framework. With SuccessFactors, I had a recent client who went live on Performance and Goals, and they did not like the process with SAP. They weren’t getting what they needed out of it. So they moved over to SuccessFactors.

When they moved to SuccessFactors, they started using their iPads and iPhones from day one. It made them so much more productive. It was unbelievable, so much so that they actually took another step forward and decided to look at Recruiting, Compensation, and the entire technology within SuccessFactors. In order to get to the mobile framework, it was just a few clicks of configuration and it was all set up. It made them so much more productive and efficient, and streamlined so many more of their processes. I think it’s a game changer for SAP really.

Dave: Last, I want to ask you about roadmap. That’s always something folks want to hear more about.

We’ve got SAPPHIRE now coming up sandwiched right between the HR 2013 events in the US and Europe. Were there any interesting roadmap tidbits that you’ve heard already? Or that you’re hoping to hear or expecting to hear in the events coming up?

Kellie: The big thing is to hear not only about the hybrid and the integration with SAP and SuccessFactors -- that’s a given -- but the enhancements within Employee Central, the enhancements within Employee Central Payroll. How are their choices going to be whittled down within Benefits or Time? Are they always going to use Benefits focus?

I have a lot of clients who are concerned in thinking about the Benefits functionality and the Time functionality, and how do they pull that all into a cloud framework with multiple vendors.

What I’m hoping to hear more about - I know my clients are hoping to hear more about - is what developments SAP and SuccessFactors have done to allow them to utilize these third-party vendors. How have they created a seamless interface between them, so that they don’t have to do any duplicate keying or using the data multiple ways?

It goes back to “How has our business changed?” Well, how has SuccessFactors business changed? With Gartner and Forrester recognizing them as a leader in their space, it’s going to be a huge push for SAP and SuccessFactors clients to get more information at SAPPHIRE so they can utilize that to make better decisions.

Anything around vendors, the functionality itself, how they’ve enhanced it…when we look at our competitive landscape, SAP and SuccessFactors are stacking up against the competition and are giving people pause, and helping them to make better decisions.

Dave: Kellie Fitzpatrick, CEO of Symphony Management Consulting – thank you very much for joining us today.

Kellie: Thank you for having me, Dave. I really appreciate it.   

In a recent online Q&A on Insider Learning Network, Turnkey Consulting's Marc Jackson took questions on GRC audits, useful transactions and tools, auditing  performance and transport paths, the affect of the ABAP stack now in release 10.0, Firefighter audits, and other topics.

Read the Q&A in our Compliance Forum, or review our edited transcript here:

Matt Moore, GRC 2013: Welcome to today's forum on strategies and tools to audit your SAP GRC system. I’m pleased that we have Marc Jackson from Turnkey Consulting here to take your questions.

Marc is a Manager with Turnkey and is responsible for delivering and developing their Audit and Risk Management services. 

Marc will also be speaking at GRC 2013 in Amsterdam in June on the topics of auditing GRC systems, AB&C compliance, and SoD management.

Welcome, Marc, and thanks very much for joining us today! It was great to have you as a speaker at GRC 2013 in Las Vegas last month.  I see a number of advance questions here already, so I’ll let you tackle those.

Marc Jackson, Turnkey Consulting: Hi Matt,

Thanks for the introduction, and welcome to everyone for my Q&A session on auditing GRC systems.

I see there has been quite a bit of activity on the posting already so I'll make a start on replying straight away.

Thanks,

Marc

Ken Murphy: Hi Marc, can you suggest any steps to simplify audits of change management/transport paths? Thanks, Ken.

Marc Jackson: Hi Ken,

This is a good starter, as Change Management is just as significant for GRC systems as it is for any other SAP systems in your landscape.

If unauthorised changes are taking place in your GRC system then this could undermine the integrity of the controls and compliance related data coming out of it.

The key thing to remember around the transport path is that your GRC system should ideally have a 3-tier landscape - DEV, QA & PROD. Therefore, a quick way to check this in your system is to use transaction STMS and then hit the "Transport Routes" icon. This will provide you with a graphical illustration of the GRC systems defined as part of the transport route.

There are many other areas of Change Management which can and should be covered as part of your GRC review, such as the procedural elements which are followed when making changes to the system (e.g. change request procedure, testing steps, migration to production approval etc). The procedure should be tested using traditional sampling techniques.

You should also look for any GRC-related changes which have been made directly in the QA or production environments rather than via the Dev system (use table E070 and look at the system identifier in the initial 3 characters of the transport request name).

There's much more to talk about but I hope that helps as a starter!

malinirao: How to audit SAP GRC Process controls? What are the things to check apart from the controls library?

Marc Jackson: Hi Malinirao,

GRC Process Controls (PC) is quite a unique system to audit but there are some specific parts which need a certain level of attention.

The master data should be checked for appropriateness and completeness (i.e. has your organisation's control framework been reflected accurately within the tool, have the relevant risks been assigned to the correct sub-processes, control and control objectives etc).

However, if your organisation is using PC to automatically monitor the operating effectiveness of controls then you must get assurance over the logic and data held within the related business rules and data sources. The primary purpose of this is to ensure they will accurately reflect the status of the control it is monitoring.

You can do this by looking in the Rule Set-up work area, and select business rules within the Continuous Monitoring section.

AlexanderHartwig: Hi,

I have some questions on GRC v10.0. My clients are now moving into v10.0 and I would like to know what are the key differences between AC5.3 and v10.0 and what would be the implications to an audit.

Are there additional risks that would need to be addressed as a result of the version (and platform) changes?

Marc Jackson: Hi Alexander,

The big difference between the 2 versions is that 10.0 uses an ABAP stack, which actually makes auditing AC easier and reduces the risk in my view!

For example, in 10.0 all non master data-related changes should use the standard SAP Transport Management System. So this means, as is the case in standard ECC systems, that a change can be made in the development system and be migrated through all of the other GRC systems along the transport path in a controlled manner. No need to manually re-apply everything which can easily lead to mistakes, as well as providing some standard tools to help protect the process.

It also means that access is assigned using standard PFCG roles as well. Therefore, it makes it easier to review and understand who has access to specific GRC functionality using traditional techniques such as SUIM reports, or even using the ruleset itself to monitor GRC access.

Another big difference is the integration between the GRC applications. So you might want to check if AC & PC are being used in this way (e.g. managing mitigating controls in PC etc).

malinirao:

• What are the available tools to audit SAP GRC?
• What are the best practices that need to be followed to ensure SAP GRC is compliant with the organization security policies and procedures?

Marc Jackson: Hi Malinirao,

There aren't any specific dedicated tools to use as such when auditing GRC systems. The tools which you can use either exist in the GRC back-end system itself (i.e. reporting tools such as SUIM, displaying relevant tables, displaying PFCG, SU01d etc.)

Or you should use the tools and techniques available in the GRC system for the purposes of auditing it (e.g. defining GRC-specific sensitive access in your ruleset so you can report against it, using Process Control reports to identify any risks which haven't got a control assigned against them in the control framework, digging into the business rules to understand the logic and whether it would accurately identify a control deficiency or not etc.).

You can also use traditional interview techniques as well and speak to the people that own and maintain these systems.

charukesh: Hi Marc,

What are the best practices for auditing the SOD rule sets?

If a landscape has multiple systems like ECC, SRM , HR and no Logical Systems/Cross-systems are defined, how do we highlight the inefficiencies?

Best regards,

Charukesh

Marc Jackson: Hi Charukesh,

When auditing the GRC rulesets there are a few things to keep in mind. The ruleset is there to define those access risks that are deemed significant to the business and translates them into SAP authorizations, so that offending users can be identified as part of detective or preventative controls.

Therefore, the identification of SOD & SA risks is heavily dependent upon accuracy and completeness of the ruleset. So you need to review the ruleset content, which includes:

• Risks
• Functions
• Actions
• Permissions

Now, you won't be able to say on your own whether everything is OK or not. You also need to talk to the relevant people to understand the process taken during construction of the ruleset to ensure that the right people were included in the design workshops, so that the risks are relevant to the organisation and not just out-of-the-box.

You should also ensure custom functionality has been included where it could help contribute towards a risk.

I'm not sure I completely understand the 2nd part of your question - could you please elaborate? Thanks.

charukesh: Thanks for your reply Marc.

Let me rephrase the question. Maybe now I am asking a slightly different question:

 If 2 systems connected to RAR have conflicting functions (Analysis Scope for function is set to cross system) and if no cross system rules are generated, will the system detect/show correct results?

Marc Jackson: Hi Charukesh,

Thanks for your follow-up post.

Regarding your question, I haven't actually used RAR with the cross-system function as yet, but logically I would expect that if no cross system rules are generated then a 'no access rule' selected error would result. However, I can't confirm this for sure based on my lack of exposure to these situations.

Apologies I couldn't be more conclusive for you, but hopefully it's provided a little bit of help for you.

Thanks,

Marc

D.J.: We will be upgrading from GRC v5.3 to v10 later in the year. What is the best approach for migrating our rulesets, workflows, and settings from one version to another? Any other tips for upgrading?

Marc Jackson: Hi DJ,

This question is a little "off topic" as it's related to GRC upgrades rather than tips and techniques to audit your GRC system. Therefore, it's a little bit out of my own subject area and I don't want to give you any false advice.

However, I have colleagues who would be able to provide you with a full and accurate answer to these upgrade queries. Could you please email one or both of the following contacts: Simon Persin  Kehind Eseyin

Thanks,

Marc

JuneChandler: Hi Marc,  In order to fully audit the usage of Fire Fighter in GRC10 is it possible to track from the FF log report right through the documents posted or data changed in the back end system? 

We are in the process of upgrading from 5.3 and this is one of our key challenges as we end up running numerous reports in our backend ECC system to identify the impact of the FF usage. 

Thanks, June

Marc Jackson: Hi June,

This is quite a common problem, so you're not alone with your challenges! Unfortunately, you are going to encounter the same problems in 10.0 as you're currently experiencing in 5.3.

The good thing is that SAP are aware of these limitations and are currently trying to enhance this transparency within the audit log of FF usage report to more explicitly tell you what actions have actually been performed with the FF user.

I hope that helps ease your frustrations a little. Although it's encouraging you are being so diligent!

Thanks.

JuneChandler: Hi Marc,

Thanks for the response.  It's great to hear that SAP are aware and looking into it.  I will keep an eye out for developments from them.  Thanks for answering the questions.  Some extremely useful information for us. 

Kind Regards, June

Dave Hannon: Marc, thanks for taking our questions today.

A person I spoke with recently brought up the performance of their GRC system, so I'm wondering if GRC auditing can have any implication on the overall performance of the GRC system, for better or worse? Thanks.

Marc Jackson: Hi Dave,

That's a good question to ask. Because the common techniques which you will be using to audit your GRC system tend to be quite traditional methods such as running reports, or displaying tables in the back-end, or checking parameter settings etc., then there is no impact at all.

Even when you're actually doing stuff in the front-end, it tends to be navigating around to relevant parts of the tool to check master data, ruleset content, business rule logic, assignment of mitigating controls etc., all of which require no "heavy lifting" on system performance.

The only impact I can foresee is when you are using the ruleset to run risk analysis reports as part of your investigation, but these can be done smartly to avoid any detrimental impact (e.g., running it for targeted user groups at a time, running them in the background, etc.).

It might also mean you may need to set up an extra user or two on your GRC system for the auditors to use, unless you already have such users set up.

Thanks,

Marc

Matt Moore: Thanks to all who posted questions and followed the discussion!

A full summary of all the questions will be available here in the Compliance Forum. And of course, I invite you to our annual GRC 2013 conference in Amsterdam, June 11-13.

Marc will present three sessions, and we hope you have the chance to see at least one of them in person!

You can get updates on the conference by following me on Twitter at @mattmoorewis, and you can discuss the event using the hashtag #grc2013

And finally, thank you to Turnkey Consulting’s Marc Jackson for taking the time to respond to these questions.

Marc Jackson: Thanks Matt. I'd also like to quickly thank all of you for posting questions or following the session. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions on this topic area. You can e-mail me at marc.jackson@turnkeyconsulting.com

Thanks,

Marc

To answer this question,we  recently moderated a Q&A with Michael that covered the performance and analysis benefits of DVM, the latest features and functionality, how to use information gleaned from DVM to determine the value of an archiving project, the difference between ADK and DVM, implementation and configuration considerations, and more.

You can read the full text of the Q&A in Insider Learning Network's IT Forum, or read our edited transcript here. And don’tm miss Michael at the SAP Solution Manager Seminar later this year.

Molly Folan, SAPinsider Events Welcome to today's SAP Solution Manager Forum. For the next hour, NIMBL's Michael Pytel will answer questions on SAP Solution Manager 7.1 and the Data Volume Management (DVM) work center.

Michael is just coming off some great Solution Manager sessions at Admin 2013 and we're looking forward to his sessions at the SAP Solution Manager Seminar as well. Today we're covering a feature of SolMan 7.1 that Michael said is underutilized but can really improve performance and simplify a data archiving strategy. Thank you so much for joining us today, Michael!

I know there are already a number of questions, but when you have a moment, I'd also like to start with some DVM basics to set this up. You've mentioned that there are "dramatic improvements" in DVM in 7.1. Exactly what role do you see for DVM in improving system performance and technical operations? And what measures and reporting can system administrators expect to see in a DVM work center?

Michael Pytel, NIMBL: Thank you for having me! Great to be here! Excited to field some questions on Data Volume Management.

DVM is an underappreciated tool, in my opinion. It allows organizations to perform an archiving analysis without having to create a whole sandbox environment where we need to archive and measure what was done. DVM does everything based on data it gathers via Managed Systems and lets you simulate settings. It also creates some great reports for administrators to show business users what's consuming a system.

DVM in Solution Manager 7.1 is still based on the idea we deploy SAP Service Tools to our Managed Systems (the SAP systems to be analyzed). Basis administrators are already familiar with this process since our Early Watch Reports require the Service Tools as well.

From a performance perspective, system administrators also know that smaller tables mean faster performing systems. It's amazing how many times we've helped an organization find old or unnecessary data via DVM. A lot of times it's custom tables that were written for an interface and no one knew specific tables needed to be purged.

As part of Solution Manager 7.1 SP08, administrators will get the following features in their DVM Workcenter

1. Statistics & Trends -- What's growing and where? What tables and how old is the data in specific tables?

2. Potential Savings -- If I archived, how much disk could be saved?

3. Archiving Info -- If I'm currently archiving, what am I getting rid of?

4. Service Documents -- Great reports that are generated based on data in your environment. Includes recommendations from SAP on what to archive.

Ken Murphy: Hello Michael,

I'm curious, which SAP and non-SAP systems and modules can DVM report on? Can it analyze legacy R/3 systems as well as more recent SAP ERP implementations? Thanks, Ken

Michael Pytel: Ken -- Thank you for joining! Great first question. DVM can connect to R/3! We've had the opportunity to configure on R/3 4.6C and Solution Manager 7.1 SP05. Lots of notes to apply as you can imagine. Key component is to install the SAP Service Tools on any/all managed systems (ST-PI and ST-A/PI). Check out the DVM preparation note here.

The note above also describes the basis patch level required to use DVM. If you've got Early Watch Reports running, you're almost ready for DVM.

Umeshsap14: Hi Michael,

We have SAP Solution Manager 7.1 sp4.

Can I configure DVM using this SP level or do I need to increase the sp?

Also please let me know the BI and BO standard dashboards for the DVM.

Regards,

Umesh

Michael Pytel: Umesh -- Thank you for the post! DVM has been around since Solution Manager 7.01. Vastly improved in SM 7.1 and now includes some guided setup procedures in SP05 and above. You can technically get started on SP04 -- but be aware you will probably run into 25+ notes to be installed.

Re: dashboards -- if you can get to the latest SP08 for Solution Manager 7.1 you would have access to the DVM planning dashboard not available in SP04.

More detail on the planning dashboards can be seen here.

TomKissel: Hi Michael,

We run MM, FI/CO, and HR/Payroll. A number of years ago, we tried to get data archiving going, but ran into roadblocks with getting approval (from on high) to remove anything off of the main system. Can this module tell us what the savings (in disk/tablespace) would be for archivable objects (without actually removing anything)? (Our database is ~1.4 TB, running Oracle, no compression.)

Michael Pytel: Tom -- Thank you for joining! Lots of customers in the same place. How do we decide if an archiving project will give us some meaningful returns?

The above is the value pitch for Data Volume Management. It will not archive your systems for you -- but it does give you access to more information than customers had before. We can answer questions like...

1. How old is the data in my system?

2. What module is consuming the most storage?

3. What does SAP say I should archive?

4. If I archive, how much space could I save?

The last question is answered with the DVM component "Potential Savings" analysis. Solution Manager collects data from the target system and stores the information inside Solution Manager. Then we run some analytical reports (provided by DVM/SAP) to find out what can be saved.

How do you get started?

1. Ensure you have your Early Watch Reports active and running normally

2. Access the DVM Setup via Transaction SOLMAN_SETUP

3. Follow the wizard and installation prompts

4. Post setup, ensure your DVM extractors run completely (sometimes easier said than done)

If you have any BW experience in house, it sometimes is good to have a BW person around to check the extracts into Solution Manager (yes, Solution Manager does also include BW, crazy).

Here is a screenshot of what the DVM setup wizard looks like.

Giovanny: Michael,

What is the difference between ADK and DVM? Is DVM just for analysis?

Michael Pytel: Giovanny -- Thank you for posting!

DVM is a complement to ADK. It is only used for analysis to help discover what to archive, what archive objects to use, and to measure the savings before/after an archive execution.

Here is a link to an online demo of DVM within Solution Manager 7.1.

sheaMatt: Hi Michael,

You mentioned "the DVM planning dashboard not available in SP04." Can you tell us more about that?

Michael Pytel: Correct -- dashboards were not included (to the best of my knowledge) until SP05. You can see an example screenshot of the dashboard on page 12 of this doc.

How practical are they? You can only view them in SolMan -- and cannot export. Use it during demos to executives. But the service delivery reports are more effective for sharing with non-SolMan users (they are in MS Word format)

Here is a link to the self-service demo.

Dave Hannon: Michael, are there any scenarios where DVM could be a useful solution that SAP users might not think of? A hidden use case, if you will? Thanks!

Michael Pytel: Hidden use case? Hmmmm! Good question.

I think one idea is the ability for DVM to analyze all tables -- customer-created objects included. For example, sometimes we focus most of our energy on what's in front of us -- sales orders, POs, transfer orders, etc. What about the tables supporting the little known interface for XYZ? It's amazing how we (SAP project teams) focus on building an interface that meets business requirements but don't think about the long term effects on systems.

For example, we found a table using DVM that was growing faster than any other table on a customer system. It was a GL interface related table storing journal entries. It was an intermediary table that wasn't being purged once the final records were written to the standard SAP tables.

Long story short -- DVM provided a better view into what was growing, how fast, and when, than our DBAs could provide.

DanielLeal: Michael, how much overhead does DVM typically introduce to a system?

Michael Pytel: Daniel -- Good question!

So here's how the process works on the backend.

1. Much of the data is already provided via SDCCN and Early Watch Reports.

2. When we set up a potential savings analysis or custom analysis, this kicks off the DVM extractors.

3. DVM extracts are the same as BW extractors -- it's extracting data from the target system using programs included with SAP Service Tools (ST-A/PI and ST-PI).

4. Data is loaded into BW cubes on SolMan and then reports are executed.

When running these "extra analyses" we can schedule them. They will consume a dialog/background process and read data from the system. It is additional workload but difficult to quantify. Thankfully we can schedule them.

Michael Pytel: For all that joined -- here is another great link on SDN which references some critical notes to be implemented, etc.

And a reminder -- we first need to complete Managed System Configuration and have Early Watch Reports active before starting DVM. Managed System Configuration takes between 4-6 hours per system assuming you have system admin access.

How do we deploy DVM when we use a hosting partner? Get them to complete Managed System Configuration -- and install the notes defined above. Once they've completed, you can begin running analyses in DVM.

Thank you again everyone for attending! Insider Learning Network is such a great resource!

Michael Pytel
@michaelpytel
michaelpytel@benimbl.com

Molly Folan: Thanks to all who joined us in the Forum today. Some great discussion here! (And you can post your questions at any time in the IT Forum. Simply log in to Insider Learning Network, go to the IT Forum and select the "New Thread" button at the top of the page.)

Once again, thanks to Michael Pytel of NIMBL for taking these questions today. We look forward to seeing you at the Solution Manager Seminar!