What is SAP Project System (SAP PS)?

Work breakdown structure in SAP PS

In SAP PS, every project is neatly organized by its tasks using a work breakdown structure. The WBS is a hierarchical model of project tasks that clearly shows the work required to complete a project and achieve its goals.

By splitting the project into manageable units known as WBS elements, a WBS in SAP PS facilitates planning, coordination and resource allocation. It also facilitates project implementation and improves collaboration and communication among team members.

Each WBS element is a task or a partial task that can be subdivided further into work packages, which are elements that cannot be subdivided further. The WBS is complete once all the work packages are identified. That said, the WBS can be modified and edited in SAP PS as the project progresses and if unexpected things happen.

SAP PS provides project managers the flexibility to structure a WBS in one of three ways: by phase, by logic and by object.

Regardless of the method chosen, a detailed WBS with all its elements properly identified and labeled helps to reduce the complication that is typical of large or complex projects.

There are multiple ways to create and edit a WBS in SAP PS. An existing WBS can be copied to create a new one, in which case SAP PS will automatically copy the following master data to the new WBS:

• Organization data.
• Calendar.
• Time unit.
• Operative indicators.

A standard WBS can also be used as a template (in this case, the values for the project definition will also get copied from the template) or include elements from an existing WBS in another WBS. SAP PS also adds numbers to each WBS element, which can be useful for managing and coordinating complex projects.

Standard terms used in SAP Project System

The following terms are commonly used in relation to SAP PS:

• Work breakdown structure. In SAP PS, the work breakdown structure refers to a way to organize projects and the work involved. Using a WBS allows project managers to create a project model and then use the model as the functional basis to plan and assign the work and keep track of its various steps.
• Network. Network refers to the flow of a project or a project task. In SAP PS, all the structural elements of a project (activities) plus their relationships (the chronological sequence of activities) and interdependencies can be graphically displayed as a network. This facilitates the planning, analysis, control and monitoring of project schedules, dates and resources.
• Subnetwork. A subnetwork is a smaller network that covers only part of a project. Multiple subnetworks may be linked in relationships with other subnetworks within the same project.
• Activity. In SAP PS, activities are the various components of a process. These may be internally processed, externally processed or general cost related. Regardless of its type, each activity has a defined duration, defined start and end dates, and incurs costs. Also, activities are processed without interruption and require resources to execute them.
• Milestone. A milestone in SAP PS marks the transition between the various phases or departments of a project. Identifying milestones enables project managers to perform milestone trend analysis for controlling dates, conducting earned value analysis, for triggering certain events to initiate a business process, and to determine the dates in a billing plan.

Other key features and components of SAP Project System

Apart from WBS, SAP PS includes these features to help project managers plan and execute different types of projects:

• Project Builder. This is a user-friendly way to access SAP PS that provides a screen structure, a workspace and a detailed project overview. These features enable project managers to quickly view and edit projects.
• Project planning board. The project planning board allows integrated project processing and provides a graphic overview of various project objects to help simplify planning and control. The appearance of the planning board can be customized to meet specific requirements.
• Claim Management. This feature is useful to prepare and submit claims against contract partners. With this feature, any claims against a partner resulting from variances resulting from delivery difficulties or capacity bottlenecks can be submitted at the right time. This ensures that the contracting parties are able to establish who is responsible for the variance and accordingly initiate follow-up activities.
• Collaborative Engineering & Project Management (CEP). This is a feature in SAP PS to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge between project owners and external partners involved in the project. CEP is particularly useful for managing globalized projects where project teams are at different locations or where different technical environments are involved.
• Commitments Management. Allows commitments to be entered and analyzed at an early stage of the project. This helps to streamline the cost monitoring process and account for the commitments in Controlling (CO). CO is an SAP component that enables project managers to perform tasks related to cost planning, checking and control.
• Simulation. SAP PS includes a simulation feature that allows project managers to use simulation versions of a project. These versions can be changed, costed and scheduled without affecting the operative project. This feature is particularly useful in planning complex projects.

Finally, SAP PS includes many Fiori apps to help with various aspects of a project. These apps help users do the following:

• Confirm the processing of an activity within a network.
• Graphically display network activities and their relationships.
• Change network activity status.
• Confirm project milestones.
• Change the status of WBS elements.
• View the project schedule.
• Display the master data details for a WBS, network or milestone.
• Analyze actual and planned costs.

Benefits of SAP Project System

Most projects and their associated activities and resources require precise planning and control, ideally by a project manager to ensure efficient execution and on-time/on-budget delivery. It's also important to precisely describe the project goal and create a project-specific organizational structure.

SAP PS enables project managers and other users to establish a defined start and end date of a project to get things off the ground and moving toward an end objective. A project can be separated into its discrete elements and activities, which helps participants understand the project scope and ensure that the resources and funds required for the project are available.

Graphical displays of a project's structural elements and interdependencies help with planning, monitoring and control, particularly of schedules, dates and resources as well as setting expectations around delivery timelines using milestones.

Components for comprehensive cost accounting and control, revenue comparisons, capacity planning, purchase requisitions and bill of material transfer enable the effective management of the various moving parts of a project toward completion and delivery.

SAP PS helps minimize the complexities associated with project documentation. Users can easily create and store documents in the SAP Document Management System and access project documents that were not created in the SAP system. These documents can be shared with team members and added to the company's knowledge base for post-project analysis and to provide future project knowledge support.

The Project Information System in SAP PS allows users to monitor project data. This information can be shared with project personnel to ensure that everyone is on the same page at any stage of the project. Project data can also be shared with top management using the reporting features of SAP Business Information Warehouse, facilitating management oversight and decision-making.

Finally, SAP PS enables organizations to standardize the way they manage and deliver projects by referring to data from existing or previous projects. Standardization helps manage structured projects more efficiently and economically. It also facilitates greater project control, makes project processing more transparent and increases accountability.

Integration with other SAP components

SAP PS is tightly integrated with other SAP components for seamless data access between SAP PS and the other departments involved in a project. For this reason, it can be used for projects along the entire continuum of size and complexity, though its features lend themselves to more complicated, mature projects. Manufacturing projects, including procurement and the monitoring of machine and labor capacity, can also be managed in the SAP PS environment.

The components within SAP PS integrate with each other, providing project teams with a comprehensive way to plan, execute and control all aspects of a project. For example, project managers can integrate the milestone billing plan with the resource-related billing document in order to allocate received down payments to the billing plan with both fixed billing documents and by using the billing documents created using resource-related billing.

Once a project is underway, it is important to keep it on track and within scope. Various project management tools and strategies are available to help teams do that. Also, project, program and portfolio management are related but represent distinct disciplines. Learn about the responsibilities and goals of each as well as how they differ.