Understand the breadth and depth of SAP Solution Manager including what it is, its key capabilities, how it affects your SAP infrastructure, and its impact on current and future SAP applications. Examine the core components that comprise SAP Solution Manager, what application implementation and management processes it supports, factors that will affect its implementation and deployment, and infrastructure changes that will occur.

• Understand when you need SAP Solution Manager and the reasons other organizations are adopting it. Review the ITIL principles that can be addressed using SAP Solution Manager capabilities.
• Assess each piece of SAP Solution Manager functionality to determine what you must use, what you do not have to use, and what will make the most sense to use in your environment.
• Compare key SAP Solution Manager technologies for implementation versus those used for the ongoing operation, support, and upgrade of SAP applications.
• Find out how the ASAP methodology works with SAP Solution Manager and why ASAP accelerators and roadmaps are now a part of SAP Solution Manager.
• Examine how SAP Solution Manager can be used to centralize many IT implementation and support activities to decrease overhead and run a more efficient Center of Excellence (COE).
• See how SAP Solution Manager interacts with other SAP systems in your landscape.
• Understand the challenges and requirements for creating a business process-oriented (instead of application-oriented) organization, and how SAP Solution Manager will facilitate the transition and enforce your goals.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Marcel van den Top, BearingPoint

• Gain practical information and expert insights for creating custom and preconfigured reports using SAP Solution Manager reporting tools.
• Receive a detailed overview of SAP Solution Manager reporting tools, features, and capabilities including service level reporting, system availability reporting, system administration reporting, and more.
• Gain insights for creating reports to track key transaction data performance, business processes, and system availability.
• Find out how to leverage SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI) capabilities within SAP Solution Manager to build custom BI queries.
• Get tips and see a detailed, step-by-step demo of how to build a service level report using the reporting wizard capability within SAP Solution Manager.
• Learn how to display SAP EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) data in SAP Solution Manager and access detailed data for reports on multiple production landscapes.
• Hear how you can filter problems that SAP Solution Manager flags as “issues” in multiple SAP systems, such as SAP APO and SAP NetWeaver BI, and create one report showing all the open issues in your production system.
• Find out new ways to improve the usability and readability of standard, out-of-the-box reports that detail the status of your projects, documentation, business blueprinting, and configuration in-progress.
• Understand your options for monthly KPI reporting within service level reporting.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: John Krakowski, Jr., SAP

Making SAP Solution Manager a part of your support and management infrastructure often requires you to integrate or displace third-party tools being used for testing, help desk, and document management. This session will offer expert insight for preparing to make the right decisions regarding your third-party tools with SAP Solution Manager.

• Determine what third-party tools and tool types, such as testing, business process modeling, and analysis tools, will integrate and interface with SAP Solution Manager.
• Find out which tools can enhance SAP Solution Manager capabilities for help desk, testing, document management, business process modeling, and monitoring, and determine how you can populate SAP Solution Manager with your “AS-IS” processes from the Reverse Business Engineering tool.
• Hear strategies to inventory your current tool landscape and determine what will be replaced, displaced, and/or integrated with SAP Solution Manager.
• Get answers to common third-party integration questions, such as how third-party management tools integrate and what data is exchanged to and from SAP Solution Manager.
• Avoid pitfalls, such as over-engineered integrations.
• Prepare for additional costs and challenges when integrating SAP Solution Manager with third-party tools (i.e., licensing, maintenance, and additional hardware requirements).

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Winni Hesel, Enowa Consulting

SAP Solution Manager will become more strategic and essential for managing your SAP processes and systems in the future. Hear directly from SAP about where and how SAP Solution Manager functionality is evolving over the next three to five years and what that means for your organization.

• Examine why SAP is asking customers to move to SAP Solution Manager.
• Understand how SAP Solution Manager fits into the broader SAP ecosystem (e.g., business and technology partners and customers).
• Hear SAP’s plans for enhancing the capabilities of SAP Solution Manager and how you can access the latest enhancements through service packs and new releases.
• Understand what types of solutions, services, and features will be available exclusively through SAP Solution Manager.
• Navigate through and understand your upgrade options and technical prerequisites for moving to the latest release of SAP Solution Manager.
• Get insight into the support strategy for SAP Solution Manager.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: John Krakowski, Jr., SAP

Get a list of answers to the most frequently asked questions about SAP Solution Manager, plus advice and best practices that will help you overcome initial challenges and ensure the success of your SAP Solution Manager project.

• Understand and prepare for hidden costs that may arise in implementing SAP Solution Manager (e.g., See when and where you might need to plan for buying additional servers).
• Get best practices for launching your SAP Solution Manager project and determine what really happens after installation.
• Receive detailed strategies to keep your project moving forward successfully, such as assigning an owner who has visibility over all key processes.
• Get expert insights to demystify the hidden art of sizing your system for SAP Solution Manager.
• Determine how to build a business case for SAP Solution Manager and hear who will be your best sponsor.
• Get answers to questions such as:
  • What is the recommended IT budget?
  • Can SAP Solution Manager be used with non-SAP systems?
  • Is SAP Solution Manager really free?
  • How do end users work with SAP Solution Manager?
  • How much training is required to use it?

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Winni Hesel, Enowa Consulting

• Whether you are evaluating, upgrading, or implementing SAP Solution Manager, you'll receive valuable advice to create a sound SAP Solution Manager strategy. This session will help you define and refine your strategy for implementing SAP Solution Manager, determine the key decisions you will have to make prior to deployment, and the factors impacting its successful use.
• Hear how other organizations have implemented and, later, expanded their use of SAP Solution Manager and get detailed recommendations for executing on-time and on-budget projects.
• Learn how to prioritize a phased implementation of SAP Solution Manager functionality that aligns with your organization’s urgent requirements; for example, find out why you may want to implement Service Desk if you need a ticketing system immediately.
• Learn why and how you need to inventory and carefully review your current use of existing SAP and non-SAP document tools, procedures for requirements tracking and testing, and unique infrastructure needs — before you deploy SAP Solution Manager.
• Find out how to successfully assign and manage ownership of SAP Solution Manager (Caution: it’s not just a tool for your Basis team!) to ensure that it is properly used both strategically and tactically.
• Explore the key roles and responsibilities necessary for your SAP Solution Manager operations and implementation teams, including application consultants, project managers, integration leads, system administrators, and more.
• Overcome common challenges of using SAP Solution Manager — for example, if you did not use SAP Solution Manager for your original implementation, then it will not be able to give you delta information when you upgrade!
• Pinpoint which of your key business processes SAP Solution Manager will enhance, such as unwieldy change control processes.
• Prepare for the infrastructure, staffing, and operational changes that will occur after you deploy SAP Solution Manager.
• Determine how to prioritize your implementation and which piece of SAP Solution Manager you should implement first.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Winni Hesel, Enowa Consulting

Learn how your solid grounding in SAP Solution Manager's capabilities can be used to implement SAP ERP, mySAP CRM, mySAP SRM, SAP NetWeaver, and other SAP applications. Understand how to use SAP Solution Manager's implementation functionality from project preparation and business blueprinting to configuration and testing.

• Learn how to use SAP Solution Manager during an implementation and how to build a foundation for future enhancements, upgrades, and rollouts.
• See a demo of how to set up and use specific document types for your implementation project. Assess how SAP Solution Manager can serve as a documentation repository for your current and future implementations and upgrades.
• Determine if you have the appropriate system landscape and how it integrates with the SAP Implementation Guide (IMG).
• Evaluate the central repository capabilities available in SAP Solution Manager and hear how you can leverage them to automate and streamline testing via eCATT.
• Hear dos and don’ts for designing your enhanced change management processes, and avoid pitfalls such as overcomplicating your status value design.
• Gain a comprehensive understanding of the Business Process Repository (BPR) and learn how you can leverage it to structure your project.
• Walk through demos detailing the important how-to’s for structuring projects.
• Exploit SAP Solution Manager’s business blueprinting documentation which can help you create and manage task lists.
• Find out how to use the SAP Solution Manager configuration structure properly, and learn why you should avoid duplicate structures.
• Learn how the Business Process procedure affects testing, and review the e-learning capabilities available to train and update end users and project team members.
• Why, and how to facilitate your next SAP implementation with SAP Solution Manager.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Marcel van den Top, BearingPoint

An important benefit of SAP Solution Manager is improved reusability and the tool's widespread application across your entire SAP solution landscape. Learn how SAP Solution Manager's templates serve as the cornerstone for ensuring an efficient and repeatable implementation or upgrade, and how they can help with ongoing maintenance and configuration management. In this session:

• Find out how to build your own solution repository with templates of best practices to benchmark against existing SAP applications, and discover how to replicate those best practices in other implementations.
• Enhance your understanding of templates and how they are defined, used, and stored in your SAP Solution Manager system.
• Find out how SAP Solution Manager can be a key part of a comprehensive configuration management approach (e.g., See how a solution repository allows you to maintain a clean image of deployed processes for use in regression testing and further process enhancements and changes).
• Determine the scenarios in which a global template would be most useful (e.g., How do companies with a single SAP instance benefit?).
• Get instruction for using templates to align core processes across your organization.
• Learn how other organizations use templates to manage global rollouts of SAP applications and how to avoid common pitfalls (e.g., See what it takes to maintain a distinction between global and local process components).
• Assess potential cost savings related to leveraging templates, including significant reductions in future setup costs for implementation projects.
• Evaluate your predefined template options for scenario descriptions, diagrams, installation guides, configuration documents, test cases, and more.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Marcel van den Top, BearingPoint

You can use SAP Solution Manager to help identify the scope and streamline the key phases of your upgrade roadmap. Find out how you can manage your SAP upgrade process and determine where and if SAP Solution Manager can support your entire project.

• Learn how to navigate through the latest SAP Upgrade Roadmaps available in SAP Solution Manager, compare and contrast the roadmaps to existing ASAP-based principles, and find out how to take advantage of the tool’s important accelerators for executing your upgrade.
• Assess the benefits of using the SAP Upgrade Roadmaps to mitigate risk and reduce upgrade costs, and understand why it is important to evaluate the content provided in SAP Solution Manager.
• Take advantage of SAP Solution Manager’s upgrade planning resources, including key recommendations delivered in the system landscape report.
• Get tips to document and analyze your organization’s “AS-IS” situation and prepare for pitfalls that might arise: for example, learn why you need to build a base line using SAP Solution Manager’s “AS-IS” situation prior to your upgrade project so that you can compare your current SAP processes with functionality available in your target release.
• Determine if and how to take advantage of third-party tools to help you analyze your “AS-IS” situation and fill in business content automatically.
• See a live demo of an SAP Solution Manager accelerator that can help you identify who should be trained on changes caused by the upgrade.
• Understand the functions of an upgrade project in SAP Solution Manager and how accelerators are actively linked to establish a single place for all of your upgrade project activities.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Winni Hesel, Enowa Consulting

• Master the technical and architectural issues that will impact your SAP Solution Manager landscape and get insights for optimizing its design, configuration, and maintenance.
• Understand the post-installation steps necessary to get up and running with SAP Solution Manager.
• Receive recommendations for designing your SAP Solution Manager landscape, including specific sample landscapes, scenarios, and guidelines (and find out if you’re going to need more than one landscape!).
• Learn how the SAP Implementation Guide (IMG) plays a critical role in SAP Solution Manager configuration.
• Examine key IMG configuration activities that must occur after installing SAP Solution Manager, such as issue management and Business Configuration (BC) set activation.
• Hear tips for applying support package stacks for SAP Solution Manager, and learn how and why you need to define extended support package stacks to introduce new functionality into your current SAP Solution Manager system.
• Take home best practices for defining logical components for your system landscape.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by:John Krakowski, Jr., SAP

SAP Solution Manager Service Desk offers unique functionality that helps you manage end-user support requests and communicate and collaborate with SAP to solve critical support and system management issues. Learn how, when, and why you can enable this service to speed resolution of system problems.

• Explore the full breadth of its functionality, receive important configuration tips, and walk through the steps for building your solution database.
• Understand the functions, benefits, and drawbacks of SAP Solution Manager Service Desk.
• Step through a typical support scenario and see a demo of its execution using SAP Solution Manager from an initial call to the Help Desk, to the addition of contextual data about a business process, to the escalation of a call to SAP OSS, to resolution and confirmation.
• Understand what needs to be configured, how your support team can be organized, how to categorize and automatically assign messages, and how to apply expert tips to complete the configuration.
• Hear how to integrate Service Desk with the SAP OSS system to download SAP Notes automatically.
• See what standard reports are available to review and track system incidents through SAP Solution Manager, and find out where you may need to build your own reports.
• Weigh your options for integrating with non-SAP help desk software solutions.
• Determine how you might place the Service Desk within a broader context of issue management during your implementation and upgrade projects.
• Learn how SAP defines issue management and how you will now work through service related problems.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: Marcel van den Top, BearingPoint

• Equip your system support organization with strategies and insights to help ease their transition to SAP Solution Manager, and understand how the tool will affect some of the team's fundamental processes for resolving support issues, receiving service packs, collaborating with SAP on problems, and monitoring SAP and (non-SAP) systems.
• Weigh your options for system and business process monitoring.
• Understand how SAP Solution Manager integrates with existing SAP management tools, such as the SAP Computing Center Management System (SAP CCMS).
• Learn how future maintenance of SAP systems and solutions will be handled exclusively in SAP Solution Manager and what you need to do to prepare for this transition.
• Gain an understanding of SAP Solution Manager diagnostics for analyzing problems within your SAP solution landscape.
• Discover why you need to use SAP Solution Manager to perform support activities, such as root cause analysis diagnostics for Java-based components.
• Learn about an alternative to the SAP Service Marketplace to open and maintain support messages, and hear how SAP Solution Manager will eventually fill that role.
• Understand how your support organization can leverage SAP Solution Manager to communicate more effectively with SAP to resolve problems that arise in your system.
• Learn how SAP Solution Manager’s Service Desk functionality helps you link service messages, issue management, diagnostics, service plans, and delivery together.
• Walk through examples of how to utilize SAP Solution Manager to monitor end-to-end business processes, such as order-to-cash and procure-to-pay.
• Receive tips for using transactions, such as RZ20 and SDCCN, that can improve how you configure solution monitoring.
• Determine both the benefits and disadvantages of using SAP Solution Manager system monitoring, and find out if you need to add a third-party tool to enhance monitoring capabilities for your SAP database and custom applications.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: John Krakowski, Jr., SAP

• Learn how SAP Solution Manager's Change Request Management functionality can help you better manage the application of transports, patches, and other fixes to your SAP landscape.
• Understand and prepare for the impact this tool can have on your infrastructure.
• Get detailed instruction about the features and functionality in SAP Solution Manager that enable you to manage the change request and application process from end to end.
• Learn new ways to increase the transparency of your transport management activities (e.g., Change Request Management with SAP Solution Manager provides central oversight across multiple SAP environments such as SAP R/3 and mySAP CRM).
• Find out why you must use the Maintenance Optimizer, a tool that governs your maintenance process and downloads required support packages, if you are running SAP NetWeaver 2004s.
• See how Change Request Management provides an audit trail that can be utilized to support audit requirements. Manage and execute both changes within SAP Java environments using SAP Solution Manager as well as technical changes within key SAP projects, such as upgrades, migrations, and compliance initiatives.
• Get recommendations for configuring, testing, and using Change Request Management.
• Learn what you can do today to ease the transition to Change Request Management, and manage the dramatic impact it has on your environment.
• Determine if, when, and how SAP Solution Manager can help your organization ease the burden of critical change control problems, such as diverging systems, a large number of urgent corrections, or a stressed-out Basis team.

Releases covered: SAP Solution Manager 4.0
Session presented by: John Krakowski, Jr., SAP