Sage Technologies_ SAP A1 Support_Process,Methodlogy, Approach,Guidelines v 1.6 2015-16

Sage Technologies

SAP Application Support Approach

And Guidelines Sage Consulting Division

Asian HQ: C - 102, Sector 65, NOIDA, UP 201301, India Phone: +91-120- 2406177 Facsimile: +91-120-2406177

www.sagetl.com

Global Headquarter 3400 Highway 35, Suite # 9Hazlet,

NJ-7730, USA Tel: 732-767-0010, Fax: 732-767-0015

www.sageci.com

Sage Technologies Confidential Page 2 of 11

Table of Contents

PROGRAM OVERVIEW………………………………………………………………………………………3

PROJECT ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE………………………………………………………………...4

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES…………………………………………………………………………..4

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES…………………………………………………………………..5

SUPPORT GUIDELINES……………………………………………………………………………………..5

PROJECT REVIEW MECHANISMS………………………………………………………………………..6

PRODUCTION SUPPORT REPORTS……………………………………………………………………..6

ISSUE MANAGEMENT………………………………………………………………………………………7


Program Overview As part of our application support and maintenance offering, we take complete ownership of our customer’s application. We provide services at both ends – at customer location as wells as from offshore locations. This is achieved through our onsite-off-shore model where we provide support at customer location and have an off-shore setup of dedicated team and infrastructure, called Offshore Development Center (ODC). We have developed our own well-defined and mature application maintenance process which allows effective control of the application environment and business activities.

Our Application Management Services offerings can benefit you by:

Reducing costs Providing greater availability of mission-critical business applications Providing enhanced reliability in every day support and maintenance tasks Providing greater efficiency and performance from development and support staffs Increasing internal employee morale – focused on core competencies Freeing up internal resources for revenue generating activities Providing consistent monthly reporting with agreed upon metrics ( SLA) Enabling the “Right-sizing” and “Right-sourcing” of tasks Injecting documentation and

Quality into the overall support process Providing access to the application support best practices developed and continuously improved upon by Sage Technologies’ Guaranteed service levels

Our ASM approach We have developed our own well-defined and mature application maintenance process which allows effective control of the application environment and business activities. Our transition process consists of unique knowledge transfer methodology and effective documentation of process and procedures provide safe means in transition to off-shore for greater efficiency and cost saving for customers. All of these activities are governed and monitored by an SLA framework


Support Process Overview Our Typical process flow for SAP support services

STPL will augment Client to provide complete SAP application support which includes helpdesk, L2 functional and L3 Technical (ABAP & Basis) as on need basis.

Helpdesk Support L2 and L3 Functional Support – All modules implemented (FICO, SD, MM, PP, PM, QM, HRPY, PS) L2 and L3 Technical Support (ABAP & Basis)


Client will route the incidents to the appropriate support team (internal or external). Client will continue to dictate the direction of SAP, design, delivery, support & project management services. The Service request priorities, reaction times, assignments and indicative SLA’s are identified as under:

Severity Definition Response Time Resolution Time

1 System is unavailable or required within 24 hours or a critical business function cannot be done and there is absolutely no work around.

1 Hour 4-8 hours

2 A significant business function cannot be done and a work around cannot be sustained beyond 3 days without a serious business impact.

1 hour 1 Day

3 A user is unable to do a given business application but a work around is sustainable or is not required.

1 Hour 1-2 business day

4 A non-critical, non-urgent situation. This is a request for enhancements/new requirements to functionality or business processes.

< 1 Day Negotiated with the Client

Project Team Structure

SAP ABAP Consultant

SAP SD Consultant

SAP FICO

Consultant

SAP BASIS

Consultant

STPL Project Lead/

Account Manager

STPL Program

Manager/Head

Client Project

Manager/SPOC

Client SAP

Super

Users/end users

Client IT Head/Program

Manager

Strategy, Risk Management, Escalations

Planning, Status, Issues, Metrics &

improvements

Daily Support issues, resolution,

root cause

analysis, reporting

SAP MM

Consultant

SAP HR

Consultant


Roles and Responsibilities STPL Program Manager

Managing the full team in the engagement Handling the induction of new staff and release of staff from the project(s). Ensuring that the resources are managed effectively and efficiently Reviewing project deliverables Setting up operational guidelines. Escalation point for Sev 1 and Sev 2 issues. SLA Management Meeting/reviewing transition plan requirements. Participating in Steering Committee meetings and project reviews(onsite/offshore) Interfacing with customer on regular basis through Telecoms/onsite visits Managing Project resources effectively and task allocation / Shift Planning / On Call List Coordinating with client Counterpart and other managers in the organization. Ensuring adherence of the team members to the specified Service levels Identifying and ensuring that all team members are given required training to enhance their

skills to perform their work effectively Identifying training needs for the team First point of escalation for problems related to their area Reporting in their respective areas

Sage SAP support team

Supporting 24 X 7 production support issues Respond to on call message if they are on call person Addressing regular requirements as defined within the parameters set Ensuring that interaction with colleagues is conducted professionally, and is in keeping with

established office etiquette Consistently improving the quality of work to improve upon previous quality ratings and deadline

adherence.


MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Support Guidelines To support client, Sage will provide the live support till 19:00 pm IST .For any emergency issues, the live support person in the particular week can be contacted at any time. In non-critical situation, the support team member in his respective areas will acknowledge the issue and will respond back with the resolution as per the SLA. Here the response time will be the next working day if issue comes after 19:00 pm IST.

Support coverage

Key:

Live Support

On call

The on-call support is for the urgent issues and non-critical issues will be taken care by next working day.

Severity Level monitoring and escalation process:

Problem Area Source of monitoring Escalation Sage level 1 Escalation Sage level 2

Role

Trigger for escalation and mode Name Trigger for escalation

Severity level 1/2

Critical transaction not happening for all authorized users which impacts business immediately

User reports problem

Functional support team

Immediate by call

Program Manager Immediate by call

Critical reports which can stop business are not functioning for all authorized users.


Functional/Technical support team

Immediate by call

Program Manager Immediate by call

Severity level 3

Others


Functional/Technical support team None None

In case of Sev 1, Sev 2 issues, Client team should call up the relevant on call person in the respective area apart from following the escalation procedure for Sev1/ Sev 2.


In case the on call support person does not respond within 1hr of calling, then the CLIENT team needs to escalate it as per the guidelines below: If a response is not received within 1 hr please escalate in the following order. Escalate to next level if no answer is received. EL1: Contact STPL Delivery Lead……………………… EL2: Contact STPL Account Manager……………………… EL3: Contact STPL Program Manager………………………

Project Review Mechanism

Periodic reviews and meetings have been jointly agreed by client and STPL Managers for tracking the support and enhancement activities.

The meetings are at four levels:

1) Managers Meetings – Monthly 2) Meeting with team - Daily ( internally by STPL Project Manager) 3) Issue Clarification ( as on need basis) 4) Ad hoc – As and when required basis

However the meeting schedules would be changed as we progress and stabilize into production support.


Reporting Mechanism

Type of Reports Description Time & Frequency

Monthly

Consolidated issue report for the month

Lists all the issues opened by support team members and resolved within 1 month

1st

of new month

Monthly Issues consumed report Issues consumed from support bucket

1st

of new month

AdHoc

As per any specific requirement from CLIENT

As on need basis

Issue Management

Issues related to the engagement are logged into issue resolution sheet, which is then circulated amongst client and STPL Managers and taken up for discussion and resolution. Any Manager can log in an issue for discussion.

We have also developed our own issue management tool to support our SAP ASM clients. It is web-based tool to interface with customers on issues and resolution. The customer can log-in issue online and with automated workflow the ticket is assigned to relevant support team. Issues, action, decision, resolution, estimation and actual efforts can be tracked.

Reporting will help to extract reports which can be used as a powerful tool for doing root cause analysis for repetitive issues and can be permanently fixed.

All type of SAP issues can be logged in the tool with least effort as all the modules and type of issues already defined for selection.


STPL’s Quality management process The Project Quality standards shall be worked out right at the outset of the project in consultation with

PE. The Project Quality Assurance plan, which would detail these processes and standards, shall be

adhered to throughout the life of the project.

Quality Assurance will focus on:

Comprehensiveness of functional specifications

Compliance with all functionality stated in the functional specifications

Compliance with the ABAP Programming Standards

Compliance with the Development Methodology

Preparation of Quality related documentation

Compliance with the Documentation Standards

Compliance with Estimation Guidelines

Consistency in coding

Compliance with user interface standards

Unit Test & Integration Test Plan preparation

Unit Testing & Integration Testing

These Quality Assurance activities span across the phases as listed below.

Step Description Quality Assurance Activities

Project start-up

1. Project start-up

Define Processes and standards

Define quality goals and performance levels

Prepare/finalize checklists and references

Development Lifecycle

1. Review of Functional specifications Review of comprehensiveness of functional

specifications

2. Technical Specifications / Solution Blueprint Preparation

Compliance with the functionality stated in the functional specifications

Compliance with the Documentation Standards for Technical Specifications

Internal review of the Technical Specs 3. Test Plan & Test Data Preparation Preparation of test plans with test data

Compliance with the functionality stated in the functional specifications, as a part of the test plan preparation

Compliance with formats and procedures for test plan preparation


Step Description Quality Assurance Activities

4. ABAP Code Generation / SAP System Configuration

Compliance with the ABAP Programming standards

Compliance with the user interface standards

Consistency in coding

Compliance with the Documentation standards for SAP system configuration

5. Unit Testing and String Testing Code Walk through by peers and testing by techno-functional consultants who have prepared the test plan and test cases.

Testing to ensure compliance to desired functionality, as per test plans

Conformance to the expected test results.

Defects Documentation and Bug Fixing

Causal analysis

5. Acceptance testing Defect and Problem logging

Causal and impact analysis

Error tracking and reporting

Sub-Project Closure

Sub-Project Closure Internal and External Feedback

De-allocate Resources

Compile Project Closure Report

Lessons Learned

Project Management

1. Requirements Management Requirements are Documented

Allocated & approved (baseline) requirements forms the basis for development

Requirements are managed & changes to baseline are done as per formal change control

2. Change Management Controls changes to baseline work

3. Project Tracking and control Projects plans and data are centrally maintained and regularly updated.

Work packet tracking based on unique reference number

Quality is an integral part of our commitment to deliver timely and cost effective software services. Our

goal is to achieve excellence and maintain customer confidence by means of prevention-based,

continuous improvement processes. Quality engrossed processes are followed at every step of the

project life cycle ensuring the highest possible quality of the project delivered. Established well-defined

project controls and quantitative monitoring provides our clients with the transparency in our work and

also enables us to improve further.

Sage Technologies_ SAP A1 Support_Process,Methodlogy, Approach,Guidelines v 1.6 2015-16

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