Sunday, March 05, 2006
Another SAP Blog
Some time ago, Shathees Loganathan posted a comment on one of my blog posts about his SAP Blog and asked my to share this with you. In his blog you will find many tehnical articles about mySAP Finacials and Tehnical concepts. I recommend you to read his articles because they're good and free.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Breaking into SAP
Many readers of this Blog was asking me about how to "Break into SAP". I found a very interesting guide you can read here.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Career Objectives for 2006
Happy New Year!
2005 was a great year for my career and I hope 2006 will be even greater.
This is 2005 in review (from my career point of view):
My career Objectives for 2005 was:
1) Get ABAP skills:
How to achieve it:
- debug errors
- review instructions that I don’t know
- write simple programs (2 hours/week)
- read ABAP discussion forums
- read ABAP articles
2) Get Workflow skills:
How to achieve it
- read SAP Workflow documentation
- read SAP Workflow forums
3) Get IS-U overview skills
- read IS-U courses
4) MM/WM & SD skills
- read MM&SD discussion forums
- read MM&SD articles
- read MM&SD management books
Conclusions:
During 2005, I have increased my knowledge in the following fields:
1) ABAP
- ABAP debugging. How: Every time the configuration ends into an error or into a wrong result I debugged the ABAP program of the transaction that generated the error.
- ABAP programming. I have developed some ABAP reports: List of invoices, Change the rate category of the installation based on the annual consumption stored into an installation fact.
2) Print Workbench. I reviewed the IS_U_BI_BILL standard form and altered it to display the gas direct tax and the right amount in ROL.
3) ISU Overview. I need to focus more on this topic in the coming year. I have not read the ISU courses yet. To do for the next year:
- read ISU courses
- focus on EDM.
4) MM/WM & SD skills. This topic was not my priority during 2005 and will not be for 2005 either.
5) Presentation skills. This year I had 3 presentations, 2 was focused on MM module and one was ISU - billing related.
6) Training skills
This year I trained 10 people for 5 days in ISU billing.
7) ISU Billing and Invoicing. I got a good understanding of Billing and Invoicing model, functionalities and process.
Conclusions:
My career is on the right path. I love what I do and I love to learn more about SAP IS-U. I think that IS-U will have a good market in Romania and in Eastern Europe. In 2005, I planed the above objectives but I didn’t review it until now, and this is not a good practice. For 2006, I want to plan a few objectives for career development and I want to review the progress to achieve those objectives at least monthly.
Career objectives for 2006.
These are the career objectives for 2006:
1) Learn German language.
I think that if I learn to speak German, I will have many opportunities (SAP projects) to choose from to develop my career as an SAP Consultant.
How to achieve this objective:
- Buy and Learn German for Beginners Correspondence Course from Eurocor.
- Spend at least 4 hours/week learning German.
- Speak German with SAP consultants from SAP AG.
- Learn 10 German SAP words per week.
6 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on real life situations.
Total learning hours after 6 months (projected): 96 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 240
12 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on technical SAP issues. Total learning hours after 12 months (projected): 198 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 480
2) Learn ISU EDM - Energy Data Management.
How to achieve this objective:
- be part of EDM implementation team in a project
- read books on the subject.
2005 was a great year for my career and I hope 2006 will be even greater.
This is 2005 in review (from my career point of view):
My career Objectives for 2005 was:
1) Get ABAP skills:
How to achieve it:
- debug errors
- review instructions that I don’t know
- write simple programs (2 hours/week)
- read ABAP discussion forums
- read ABAP articles
2) Get Workflow skills:
How to achieve it
- read SAP Workflow documentation
- read SAP Workflow forums
3) Get IS-U overview skills
- read IS-U courses
4) MM/WM & SD skills
- read MM&SD discussion forums
- read MM&SD articles
- read MM&SD management books
Conclusions:
During 2005, I have increased my knowledge in the following fields:
1) ABAP
- ABAP debugging. How: Every time the configuration ends into an error or into a wrong result I debugged the ABAP program of the transaction that generated the error.
- ABAP programming. I have developed some ABAP reports: List of invoices, Change the rate category of the installation based on the annual consumption stored into an installation fact.
2) Print Workbench. I reviewed the IS_U_BI_BILL standard form and altered it to display the gas direct tax and the right amount in ROL.
3) ISU Overview. I need to focus more on this topic in the coming year. I have not read the ISU courses yet. To do for the next year:
- read ISU courses
- focus on EDM.
4) MM/WM & SD skills. This topic was not my priority during 2005 and will not be for 2005 either.
5) Presentation skills. This year I had 3 presentations, 2 was focused on MM module and one was ISU - billing related.
6) Training skills
This year I trained 10 people for 5 days in ISU billing.
7) ISU Billing and Invoicing. I got a good understanding of Billing and Invoicing model, functionalities and process.
Conclusions:
My career is on the right path. I love what I do and I love to learn more about SAP IS-U. I think that IS-U will have a good market in Romania and in Eastern Europe. In 2005, I planed the above objectives but I didn’t review it until now, and this is not a good practice. For 2006, I want to plan a few objectives for career development and I want to review the progress to achieve those objectives at least monthly.
Career objectives for 2006.
These are the career objectives for 2006:
1) Learn German language.
I think that if I learn to speak German, I will have many opportunities (SAP projects) to choose from to develop my career as an SAP Consultant.
How to achieve this objective:
- Buy and Learn German for Beginners Correspondence Course from Eurocor.
- Spend at least 4 hours/week learning German.
- Speak German with SAP consultants from SAP AG.
- Learn 10 German SAP words per week.
6 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on real life situations.
Total learning hours after 6 months (projected): 96 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 240
12 months after starting to learn German, I should be able to have a conversation on technical SAP issues. Total learning hours after 12 months (projected): 198 hours
Total SAP German Words after 6 months (projected): 480
2) Learn ISU EDM - Energy Data Management.
How to achieve this objective:
- be part of EDM implementation team in a project
- read books on the subject.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Why I like beeing an SAP Consultant
I like beeing an SAP Consultant because it requires a mixture of diferrent skills from different area, and to combine those skills is a nice career. I like the tehnical part of a business (IS system, programming, databases, etc) but also the business itself (I'm an graduate of Accountings). I like meeting new people and exchange ideeas, I like to travel and see new cities and sites, I like to dress in a suit (I love ties), I like to learn and read a lot (both tehnical and business related stuff), and of course I'm making good money out of this.
Now, the question is: is consulting for everyone? When I was a student I wanted to be a programmer, but then I discover that programming is boring because you don't get the chance to express yourself, you only write code based on tehnical specifications. Consulting is the opposit. People are asking for your advice, you CONSULT them on different matters and aspects of their business, and the you have the chance to configure the business in SAP, by making links between software components and functions. That's why I love beeing an SAP consultant.
Now, the question is: is consulting for everyone? When I was a student I wanted to be a programmer, but then I discover that programming is boring because you don't get the chance to express yourself, you only write code based on tehnical specifications. Consulting is the opposit. People are asking for your advice, you CONSULT them on different matters and aspects of their business, and the you have the chance to configure the business in SAP, by making links between software components and functions. That's why I love beeing an SAP consultant.
SAP Books
This is a list of SAP Books:
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Career Builders Toolkit: The Book
Matt Moran, an writer, spokeman and IT Consultant, wrote The IT Career Builders Toolkit
, a book about bosting your career and take it to new hights. Matt is also writing a blog about IT career: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career/. I think it worth reading Matt's book and blog, and also his website http://www.cbtoolkit.com. This readings will definetly add value to your career.
Daniel
, a book about bosting your career and take it to new hights. Matt is also writing a blog about IT career: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career/. I think it worth reading Matt's book and blog, and also his website http://www.cbtoolkit.com. This readings will definetly add value to your career. Daniel
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Becoming a SAP Consultant
Steve posted an comment on this post asking me about "How to become a SAP Consultant". That's is a good question which deserves an detailed answer.
Becoming a SAP Consultant is a hard job, beeing SAP consultant is even harder. Anyway, it pays the effort. Entering into the SAP world can be possible in 2 ways:
- working for a company that wants to implemente SAP as it Enterprise Application System, either as a final user (the one which enters the data or runs some reports) or as a key user (the one which take part in the implementation project as a member of the implementation team)
- get a job as a Junior SAP consultant with a SAP Consultancy Company, with or without SAP experience.
After first contact with SAP as a junior consultant it takes 2 years to be confortable with one module and be a Consultant with responsabilities in configuration.
How did I found my path into a SAP Consultant Career.
In 2000, I was in my final semester at Academy of Economics Study in Bucharest, Romania. I decided to get a job before I finish the studies so I applyed to many programmers jobs, but I got only rejections, exept from ROMSYS, my current employer which decided to hire my as a ERP Consultant. So for 3 years I've been an ERP consultant for an local romanian ERP application. And after this 3 years, my company decided to become an SAP partener and I was choosen to be part of the new SAP team. Now I have 2 years of SAP experience, an MM certification and 1 year experience is SAP IS-Utilities (Billing and Invocing).
Hope all of you who wants to become an SAP Consultant to be as lucky as I was, get a junior SAP Consultant job and work as hard as you can to progress into your SAP Consultant Career. It worth.
Daniel
Becoming a SAP Consultant is a hard job, beeing SAP consultant is even harder. Anyway, it pays the effort. Entering into the SAP world can be possible in 2 ways:
- working for a company that wants to implemente SAP as it Enterprise Application System, either as a final user (the one which enters the data or runs some reports) or as a key user (the one which take part in the implementation project as a member of the implementation team)
- get a job as a Junior SAP consultant with a SAP Consultancy Company, with or without SAP experience.
After first contact with SAP as a junior consultant it takes 2 years to be confortable with one module and be a Consultant with responsabilities in configuration.
How did I found my path into a SAP Consultant Career.
In 2000, I was in my final semester at Academy of Economics Study in Bucharest, Romania. I decided to get a job before I finish the studies so I applyed to many programmers jobs, but I got only rejections, exept from ROMSYS, my current employer which decided to hire my as a ERP Consultant. So for 3 years I've been an ERP consultant for an local romanian ERP application. And after this 3 years, my company decided to become an SAP partener and I was choosen to be part of the new SAP team. Now I have 2 years of SAP experience, an MM certification and 1 year experience is SAP IS-Utilities (Billing and Invocing).
Hope all of you who wants to become an SAP Consultant to be as lucky as I was, get a junior SAP Consultant job and work as hard as you can to progress into your SAP Consultant Career. It worth.
Daniel
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Becoming an SAP Consultant: The Book
I just remembered that I read Becoming an SAP Consultant a while ago.
Although it's an old book which refers to old SAP versions, I t good for beginners because it give them an overview of the SAP world. I've read this book in the first weeks of my first implementation and I got some good advices on various topics: from how to behave in some circumstances to what is ABAP. I definitely recommend this book as a must read for a junior SAP consultant.
a while ago. Although it's an old book which refers to old SAP versions, I t good for beginners because it give them an overview of the SAP world. I've read this book in the first weeks of my first implementation and I got some good advices on various topics: from how to behave in some circumstances to what is ABAP. I definitely recommend this book as a must read for a junior SAP consultant.
Skills of a good SAP Consultant III
3) Presentation skills
SAP is a new life for an enterprise. SAP reorganize the old business processes and makes them better. In order to have a smoth SAP implementation you have to transfer knowledge to customer team. Depends on your teaching and presentation skills if the customer team understand the new SAP processes and helps you to implement them or not. So in order to win the customer team for your side you have to have excelent presention skills and make them understand the SAP processes and make them view how their processes will run with SAP.
It doesn't matter what tool you use to make your presentation. It matters if at the end of the presentation you've met your goal: people to understand what you have just presented.
For how to make a very good presentation I recommend you this book: Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Skills of a good SAP Consultant II
Today I will focus on:
2) Programming skills
SAP is an application developed in ABAP. I think is the only software that you can see it's source code. This is way you can see how things works behinde the scenes and you can debug the software to see where the error is coming from. I think that every SAP consultant must know a little of programming and database.
What to know about databases:
- what a table is
- what a primary key is
- how the tables are link with each other
- how to see the content of a table (SE16)
What to know about programming (ABAP):
- how to define variables
- how to define an internal tables
- how to fill an internal table
- some SQL to manipulate data
- how to debug a program
You may say that for ABAP there are ABAP consultants, but as a functional consultant you can resolve some minor issues in configuration for example if you know some abap or some debuging techniques.
Next time: 3)Presentation skills.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
SAP IS-U Consultants
Are there any SAP IS-U Consultants who are reading my blog? I would like them to contact me at danieltoba@yahoo.com to discuss about ISU, because I have some Billing issues.
SAP Top Sites
In my net surfing I just discovered this site: http://www.saptopsites.com/ which it seems to be a collection of SAP sites. You can vote my blog here.
Skills of a good SAP Consultant I
What are the skills of a GOOD SAP Consultant? Well, this is a hard to answer question but I'm willing to take the risk ans propose an answer. I hope others will come with theirs opinions to compile a GOOD SAP Consultant Profile. Today I will focus on comunication skills.
1) Comunication Skills.
A GOOD SAP Consultant must know how to comunicate with other parties involved in the implementation: customer employees, customer team members, coleagues, management team, other vendors.
A GOOD SAP Consultant must adjust it's comunication skills to the level of whom he/she needs to comunicate, so he/she must know when to speak and when to listen, when to jump into a conclusion, when to have a hard tone or a soft one. I think all this skills comes after years of experience (I have 5 years of ERP consulting) and I still learn from my comunication experiences.
Also, it is important to know the language in which you comunicate. I think that all the SAP consultants must know English and also German, because there are a huge part of SAP which is documented in German. (From my experinece, the IS-U module has it's function modules documentation mostly in German).
Other comments anyone?
Next time will introduce other skill: Programming knowledge.
Monday, July 25, 2005
ISU - Transport of Billing Master Data
For transporting the ISU Billing Master Data from one client to another there are 2 reports:
- REA_RTRANS_DOWNLOAD_MUSTER - for downloading the Billing Master Data.
- REA_RTRANS_UPLOAD - for uploading the Billing Master Data.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Delete a material master - MM module
If you created an material by error and you want to delete that material from the data base you can do it in this simple 4 steps. The only condition is that this material has to have no material movement recorded.
These are the steps:1
1) Flag material for deletion. transaction MM06
2) Run report MMREO001 - Selection of materials flagged for deletion and select the material
3) Run report MMREO050 Archive Materials to archive the material (some customisig settings might be required)
4) Run report MMREO110 Deletion Program for Archiving Materials to delete the material from the database.
These reports are called by the SARA transaction too.
These are the steps:1
1) Flag material for deletion. transaction MM06
2) Run report MMREO001 - Selection of materials flagged for deletion and select the material
3) Run report MMREO050 Archive Materials to archive the material (some customisig settings might be required)
4) Run report MMREO110 Deletion Program for Archiving Materials to delete the material from the database.
These reports are called by the SARA transaction too.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Teaching SAP
In the SAP Consultant career there is a time in a project when she or he must teach the project team some courses. Last week I had my first such experience, I teached a class of 12 people the IUT230 Billing and Invoicing course. It was an wonderful experince and I think I did good. Every student had to evalate the course and the instructor and I got the maximum score possible.
My objectives were to make my class understand the concept rather than to know each transaction and each screen. So in my explanations I kept repeting some key concepts and it worked like a charm.
Anyone wants to share their teaching experince? Feel free to participate with comments.
My objectives were to make my class understand the concept rather than to know each transaction and each screen. So in my explanations I kept repeting some key concepts and it worked like a charm.
Anyone wants to share their teaching experince? Feel free to participate with comments.
Friday, May 20, 2005
MM Reopen posting period - MMPI transaction
Today I had to deal with this MM reopen period issue.
Problem: One user opened by mistake period 06 year 2005 but they still had documents for posting in period 04.
Solution: The solution is running the MMPI transaction and read note 48781.
This is a post I found on sap.ittoolbox.com SAP forum which explain some basic steps to reopen the MM period.
1. Lock all users out of PRD
2. Take snapshot of MB5L for all materials at company code for current and previous periods
3. Add User parameter MMPI_READ_NOTE with value = current date in this format YYYYMMDD
4. Stop all processing that updates inventory values
5. Run t-code MMPI with correct period
6. Run Z_DEl_HIST_ENTRIES program
7. Take MB5L snapshot for all materials at company code fs01 for current and previous periods
8. Validate that values match on MB5L pre-post snapshots or are appropriate.
9. Unlock all users in PRD
10. Remove User parameter MMPI_READ_NOTE from user ID
Good luck if you have such a problem.
Be carefully if you want to reopen a period that is far in the past!!!!
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
SAP BW Learning Guide
Check out this SAP BW Learning Guide from searchSAP.com. There's also other SAP Guides on this site.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
SD - Minimum Order Value
In the SD module there is no starndard configuration for issueing a warning or message error if the order value is less than a certain value. But the system can be configured to add a surcharge calculated as as difference between minimum order value and actual order value.
All the configuration is described in this SAP note: 18173.
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