Scenarios
The following common scenarios show how you can use the ERP Connector Solution Starter for Microsoft Office Project 2003. The use case examples include tables of input and export data for the following ERP Connector modules: human resources (HR module), orders and projects/tasks (Finance Projects module), and work actuals export (Finance WBS module). Data includes the resource breakdown structure (RBS) for resources in the organization and the work breakdown structure (WBS) for tasks in a project.
- Updating the Project RBS from Human Resource Data
- Creating Projects from Internal Order Data
- Creating Projects and Tasks with WBS Data
- Exporting Actuals to ERP Financial Applications
In each case, an administrator in Microsoft Office Project Web Access first uses the ERP Connector administration page to set a shared folder for exchanging XML files.
Updating the Project RBS from Human Resource Data
An initiator process in mySAP™ ERP Human Capital Management starts the data exchange for resource and organization data. mySAP ERP HCM processes the data into a single XML file and exports the file to the XML file drop folder for the Project Server Service for Enterprise Data Maintenance (EDM). The values set on the administration page provide an "administration mask" for data exchange. The HR module of the ERP Connector processes the XML input data for Project Server. Tables 1 through 3 summarize the data that is exchanged.
Table 1. Employee data
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| Employee ID | Unique ID for resource identification. |
| Employee Name | First name and last name of the resource. |
| E-mail Address | The resource's e-mail address. You can define a default data mask for the e-mail address. |
| Standard Rate | Standard hourly rate of the resource. You can define a default value in the administration mask, if mySAP ERP does not provide the value. |
| Overtime Rate | Overtime hourly rate of the resource. You can define a default value in the administration mask. |
| Windows Account | Not provided by mySAP ERP HCM; you must define this account in the administration mask. |
Table 2. Organization data
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| Organization Unit ID | Unique ID for organizational identification. |
| Organization Name | Name of the organization. |
Table 3. Resource to organizational mapping
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| Employee ID | Unique ID for resource identification. |
| Employee Name | First name and last name of the resource. |
| Organization Unit ID | Organizational unit assigned to the resource. |
| Manager Flag | Indicator that resource is a manager. |
Project Server monitors the drop folder through the Service for EDM and imports the XML data. The Project Data Service (PDS) supports creating and updating resources as well as the organizational structure into the RBS in Project Server. Depending on the configuration, the ERP Connector can deactivate resources in the Project Server resource pool that are not part of the input data and activate resources which were previously deactivated if they are part of the input data. The XML hierarchy establishes the organizational hierarchy; therefore, you must not modify the organizational structure in the XML file. The ERP Connector assigns resources to organizational units based on XML data that maps resources to the organizational structure.
Creating Projects from Internal Order Data
An initiator process in mySAP ERP Financials CO subsystem starts the data exchange for project master databases on an mySAP ERP internal order. mySAP ERP exports the data to the XML file drop folder. Table 4 summarizes the data that mySAP ERP sends in an XML file to the EDM shared folder.
Table 4. mySAP ERP project master data
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| Project ID | Unique ID for project identification. |
| Project Name | The name of the project. |
| Project Start | The start date of the project. |
| Project Manager | The manager of the project. |
| Plant ID | ID of the plant according to the internal order in mySAP ERP Financials. |
| SAP Accounting ID | The mySAP ERP Financials CO subsystem internal order ID. |
The Service for EDM imports the XML file for Project Server. The Finance Projects module of ERP Connector checks whether the projects exist, and creates new projects if they don't exist. The ERP Connector does not support updates to existing projects, and returns an error if a project already exists.
Creating Projects and Tasks with WBS Data
An initiator process in mySAP ERP Financials CO subsystem starts the data exchange for project master data and the WBS. mySAP ERP exports the data to the XML file drop folder that is set in the ERP Connector administration page in Project Web Access. Table 5 summarizes the data that mySAP ERP sends in an XML file to the EDM shared folder.
Table 5. mySAP ERP project master data and WBS structure
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| Project ID | Unique ID for project identification. |
| Project Name | The name of the project. |
| Project Start | The start date of the project. |
| Project Manager | The manager of the project. |
| Plant ID | ID of the plant according to the internal order in mySAP ERP Financials. |
| WBS Element ID | Unique ID for the WBS element in the mySAP ERP Financials PS subsystem. |
| WBS Element Name | The name of the WBS element. |
| WBS Element Start and Finish Dates | The start and end date of the WBS element. |
| WBS Element CO Internal Order Assignment | CO internal order assigned to the WBS element. |
The Service for EDM imports the XML file for Project Server. The ERP Connector checks whether the projects exist, and creates new projects if they don't exist. The ERP Connector creates project tasks from the WBS elements, applies the WBS hierarchy, and assigns the WBS ID and the CO internal order number to each task. If a WBS element has more than one CO internal order number, the ERP Connector maps the first number to the task. The ERP Connector does not support updates to existing projects.
Exporting Actuals to ERP Financial Applications
You can export actuals captured in the Project Web Access timesheet to mySAP ERP Financials based on the mySAP ERP internal order number, WBS Element ID, and association with the mySAP ERP resource ID. A Project Server administrator starts the actuals export in the administration page. The detail level of exported data is based on project level, as shown in table 6.
Table 6. Project timesheet actuals
| Input data | Description |
|---|---|
| SAP Accounting ID | The mySAP ERP ID for cost accounting. |
| SAP Resource ID | The ID of the resource in mySAP ERP. |
| Start of Period | The start date of the period for the actual work in this record. |
| End of Period | The end date of the period for the actual work in this record. |
| Actual Work | Amount of actual work, reported by this resource. |
| Actual Unit | The time unit of the work actuals (hours or days). |
The Finance WBS module of the ERP Connector saves data as an XML file in the shared folder configured in the administration page. You can apply a transformation with XSLT to convert the resulting XML file into other formats such as a flat file. An administrator of mySAP ERP Financials must start the import process.