Today I would like to demonstrate how to manage and plan a support team's tasks with SAP Cloud ALM.
I do understand that there are applications available that is specifically designed for this, but my blog post is to try something different with Cloud ALM and see what the result will be. You might have done some reading and training of Cloud ALM. You might also have used the Cloud ALM Demo Tenant (sap.com) to experience it. What if you don't have an upcoming implementation or conversion project. How can you use Coud ALM for Implementation in a productive way in between projects?
Example Scenario:
One support team with multiple consultants and customers
1. Project Setup
1. Create a Project
Add a Name for your project.
No Activate Roadmap is required.
2. Add Timeboxes
Because the plan is for 2024 I added one custom phase and disabled the unused phases. The Prepare phase cannot be disabled and you still need that 1 day for creating your project.)
3. Add Users
To keep it simple you don't need to create a Team, just add the consultants to a specific role.
4. Create Scopes
Now this is where you move away from the standard functionality. In a project, scopes are used for Solution Scenarios(groups of processes). In this scenario the scopes will be used as another way to group tasks per customer.
5. Create Deliverables
Again, not standard usage but this helps with the Gantt Chart View of the tasks.
Instead of having "No Deliverable Assigned" displayed you will see the consultants name below the phase.
2. Task Management
1. Create Tasks
Either create your tasks manually or by using the upload from spreadsheet functionality.
2. Create Views
You can do a lot of filtering, grouping and sorting and then Save your views. For this scenario we need 2 views.
1st View for tasks grouped by Responsible/Consultant - In this view you can easily see what tasks are assigned to a consultant with a planned start and completed date. After grouping by Responsible you then sort by Start Date. Keep only columns needed like Title, Status, Scope, Start Date, Planned Completion and Actions(for comments and updates)
Change to the Gantt Chart(with your "Deliverables/Consultants") to do your planning and see where and when consultants will be available. Use the Zoom slider to see the schedule for the current week or month. You can also add dependencies between tasks if needed. On a side note, no export functionality of the Gannt Chart is currently available and a "cropped" month view showing all dates(1 - 30/31) on one page would be nice.
2nd View for tasks grouped by Scope/Customer - In this view you can see how many and which tasks are assigned per customer and which consultant the tasks are assigned to. Replace the Scope column with the Responsible column.
Gantt Chart will look the same because it is grouped Phase->Deliverables->Tasks, which cannot be changed, but still a valid view for planning.
3. Requirements Management
During an implementation project, requirements will be created during the Fit-to-Standard workshops.
In this scenario, requirements are used for recurring tasks and tasks that are not planned yet, kind of like a backlog. The only information needed is the Title and Scope(Customer). The requirements are not assigned to any consultant or start/completion dates and approval are not needed. In the end it is just a list of recurring and unplanned tasks grouped in different customers. Tasks(Project Tasks) will be created from these requirements. Requirements for unplanned tasks will be closed on completion of the tasks. Requirements for recurring tasks will stay open until you see fit, or when your phase/project completes. In this case, end of 2024.
Requirements can be reviewed monthly and new tasks for recurring tasks can be created. Below is an open requirement with multiple recurring tasks assigned.
4. Analytics
The best of it all, you still get valuable insights into the status of your team's tasks through the Project Overview Dashboards
Analytics - Task Distribution
Analytics - Requirements Distribution
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