SAP has put in place a comprehensive set of quality services
to help customers during the process of implementing and supporting the R/3
system. These services include product information, education services
intallation and upgrade services, consulting and more. SAP bases it’s services
mainly on remote connections with customers through the international networks.
Administrators, support personel, and consultants should be
particularly familiar with the former SAP online
service system (OSS), now known as SAP net-R/3 front end, which is the
primary source of service and support. The next section of this chapter
includes an introduction to SAPnet-R/3 front end. SAP offers a certification
process in the technical, functional, and developing areas of the system and an
extensive number of training courses world wide.
SAP
Provides Several Types Of Services:
·
Consulting
services. This type of individualized consulting can be given on-site or
via a remote connection to SAP. With remote consulting, costumers receive
immediate and updated technical support and answers to their questions. SAP
also gives weekend support when upgrades or installations are done outside
regular working hours. Costumers open the connection so SAP consultants may
directly access their systems and evaluate the problems online. Once the
consulting session is finished, the costumer closes the connection.
·
Maintanance
services using SAP. This is the basic and most common type of support for
customers in the preproduction and production phases of an R/3 implementation.
This service deals with answering questions and helping to resolve the errors
or problems with the system. For maintenance, SAP has set up a helpdesk, or hotline, which monitors the
calls and resolves them or directs them to the appropriate SAP expert, and a first-level customer service team that
is in charge of resolving the problems, prioritizing the calls, and if needed,
referring questions to other experts. Costumers obtain this service via phone,
fax, or the SAPnet-R/3 front end. It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. For example, if you have a severe problem at 5 A.M., log it in on the
SAPnet-R/3 front end, give it a “very high” priority (meaning “my system does
not work”), and you may expect a fast call back from Japan, Philadelphia, or
Walldorf, Germany.
·
Preventive
services. The primary one is the early watch service which ensures
successful and efficient installation of the R/3 system in all phases. This
service makes regular (usually once a month) performance checks and analyzes
the system to identify potential problems and help system managers and SAP
administrators tune the system and realize its full potential. Soon after an
EarlyWatch session, SAP sends the customer a report with the results of the
analysis and recommendations for avoiding potential problems, such as database
tablespaces becoming full, shortage of system parameters, and buffer tuning.
SAP provides additional services such as the development
request service, which submits enhancement requests, and the first customer
shipment (FCS), which gives selected costumers the oppurtunity to test new R/3
versions’ functionality before the products are officially released.
In the search for total customer service map that gathers
the requirements for a full life cycle of services, including evaluation,
implementation, and continuous improvement phases for each of the identified
key costumer processes:
·
Management activities.
·
Business processes.
·
Technical management.
·
Development activities.
·
Knowledge transfer.
·
Help and care.
For each of these processes and phase, SAP and its partners have an extensive
portofolio of services. Update information and service map can be found at www.sap.com/service.
Online services. As started previously, SAP has made online
services through remote connections its preferred and most convenient way to
support customers. For this reason, obtaining a network connection to SAP can
become critical in an R/3 project.
SAP has built a worldwide network of support servers for
customers to use to obtain the support they need for successful implementation
and operation of their SAP systems. Customers can also download patches and
upgrades form those servers via ftp (a
file transfer protocol very common in TCP/IP networks).
SAP also offers extensive information and correction
services for customers and partners through the internet with SAPnet (sapnet.sap-ag.de
or sapnet.sap.com), which gathers most of the facilities previously found on
the Online Service Systems (OSS) but with much more content.
However, customers will still need a remote connection to
SAP for certain services, like EarlyWatch, Telnet, remote upgrade, and others.
Figure 1-9 includes a very simple scheme of the connection
between costumer system and SAP support servers. SAProuter is a program
provided by SAP which acts like a firewall, giving users control of who
accesses their R/3 systems. For more details, refer to Appendix A.
The only thing customers need in order to gain access to
these servers is a remote connection to the nearest support server. Currently,
SAP has support servers in Walldorf, Foster City, Tokyo, Sydney, and Singapore.
This is the connection that you use for the OSS, EarlyWatch,
and remote consulting. It is the only way that you can premit the SAP experts
to log on to your system and solve problems online. Imagine the costs saved in
travel.
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ReplyThank you so much for your comments. I am so pleased you find my information and service helpful.
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