SAP USAGE POLICY - 125.99.89.152

SAP USAGE POLICY

Approved by : CFO Date : 01 /03/2021

Issued by : Head-IT Date : 01/03/2021

Rev. No. : 01 Page: Page 1 of 15

1. INTRODUCTION SAP was implemented in 2006-07 and Alok went live in April, 2007 across all the

locations. We currently use ECC 6.0 (EHP 0) on Oracle database (ORACLE

11.2.0.2.0) and AIX Version 6.1.

SD, MM, PP, FI, PM and QM were rolled out in April 2007. However, HCM

was implemented only in 2010. Add-on solution IVL is used for export

documentation. Application is out of support since 2014.

There is no dedicated functional team to support users. We also have a large

number of cross functional users who transact in various modules (specially

at plants). Project to re-implement SAP is expected to be initiated soon.

2. SCOPE OF SAP DEPLOYMENT

a. Modules

Sales and Distribution (SD)

Materials Management (MM)

Production Planning (PP)

Finance (FI)

Plant Maintenance (PM)

Quality Management (QM)

Human Capital Management (HCM)

b. User Base

We have a user base of 1680 users with concurrency of

approximately 700 users. Out of these 152 are employee

licenses and deployed for report users. Following is the current

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license matrix

Deployment Date Quantity Prof. Ltd. Prof. Emp.

24-06-2005 200 100 70 29

31-12-2005 200 100 70 30

31-03-2008 300 150 105 45

01-12-2008 200 100 70 30

15-06-2009 60 30 21 9

18-12-2009 60 30 21 9

18-06-2009 450 180 270 0

15-09-2011 210 84 126 0

1680 774 753 152

3. LANDSCAPE We have a 3 system landscape consisting of development, quality and production environments. Solution Manager Infrastructure is also installed at the main data centre. Data is replicated on off-site DR servers using Oracle log shipping and Double Take application.

Type Instance/Client Server Model

Solman Solution Manager IBM P5-P520

Development 20/200,300,400 & 500 IBM P5-P550 & V-5000

Quality 00/500 IBM P5-P550 & V-5000

DB/CI 20/500 - Clustered IBM P6-P560 & V-5010

DB/CI 25/500 - Clustered IBM P6-P560

Apps 3 30/500 IBM P5-P520

Apps 4 25 & 30/500 IBM P6-P550

Apps 5 25& 30/500 IBM P6-P550

DR-Vapi Oracle Log Shipping IBM P5-P520 & V-5010

DR-Bangalore Double Take IBM P7-P570 & V-7000

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4. ADMINISTRATION/BASIS SAP being the core business application running across all business

functions, uptime and support for SAP is one of the top priorities for IT

department.

Authorization for administration with full rights is granted to 3 resources (IT

Head, Basis Administrator & ABAP Development Lead). They are not part of

any specific functions and hence shall not do any functional transactions in

the system. However, they do execute functional tcodes, to diagnose

functional/technical issues jointly with specific users, on a need basis. These

3 resources, are granted rights to execute administrative tasks required to

keep the systems up and running with best possible performance on 24x7

basis. A common id for this task is discouraged to identify tasks executed by

each resource. This shall be checked periodically to ensure compliance.

Key responsibilities of basis team are:

User creation and authorization

Transport management

User account maintenance

Performance monitoring

Deployment of patches/notes, Upgrade etc.

Shutdown-Restart on need basis

Backup

DR-Synchronisation monitoring

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User creation and authorisation: 1. Create users only on submission of a formal request approved by the

HOD. Maintain the initial password of “init1234” to be changed when

users login first time.

2. Our operation requires some generic ids to be maintained for users

(regular and contract employees) who work in multiple shifts. To optimize

license usage, generic ids are used in such cases. In the event of any

misuse or policy violations, actual user on duty on that specific day and

shift at a specific work centre can be traced through HR records. In these

cases SAP Personnel Number of employees are not maintained in user

master. For all other cases, SAP Personnel Number is maintained in “Fax

No.” of employee master. BKPF users are also checked to ensure that

such users have not passed any manual financial entries in the system

(customized modules used by them for production confirmation etc. may

trigger automatic entries in the system).

3. It is the responsibility of users to maintain the secrecy of their password.

Periodical forced password change may not be convenient to users.

4. Considering the operational issues and generic users working in multiple

shifts, automatic forced reset of password change is disabled.

Transport management: 1. Restrict the authorization for transport only to IT team (IT head, Basis and

Abap Lead).

2. Any configuration changes should be transported only if it is supported by

a document as per the standard template.

3. Reports may be transported to quality and then production on approval

from process owners/users, who have tested the program.

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User account maintenance: 1. Delete all users who have not used the application during the last 90

days.

2. Block ids of employees, at the closing hours of their last working day.

They will then get deleted as mentioned above.

Performance monitoring:

All SAP admin related activities should be planned in consultation with IT

team and process owners at all locations.

Do not carry out any database activity during peak hours. Peak hours of

business are 10:00am to 7:30pm. Plants work on a 24x7 basis and hence

packing and dispatch transactions are done round the clock. Hence ideal

time for any database activity should be restricted after 10pm and before

4am. This is required to be reconfirmed with plants every time we plan to

carry out any activity.

Regular monitoring of performance through SMLG, SM66, SM13 etc. is

the prime responsibility of basis team. In the event of any slow down and

the server response is slow, long running report jobs may be terminated.

Response time above 1000 ms or quality near zero or negative is very

critical and need to be cleared immediately on noticing the same.

It has been observed that many reports including standard SAP reports

run slow often, because of our large database size. Monitor these reports

and check if proper indexes are being used. If the tables are read

sequentially, check for the where clause and look for matching indexes.

The users have been requested to call IT when they observe any slow

down. However, maintain a proactive check every 1 hour.

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Deployment of patches/notes, Upgrade etc.

We are not entitled for any patches/notes, as we are out of maintenance

contract since 2014.

Shutdown/Startup:

All shutdown plans should be communicated to the IT department and

process owners well in advance. In case of emergency shutdowns, inform

them through phone.

Backup

Log of daily backup need to be checked in DB14 to make sure that the

process was completed without any error. The tapes then need to be

removed and secured.

In the event of any failure, diagnose, resolve and restart online backup

immediately.

DR-Synchronisation monitoring

Oracle archive logs are shipped DR server at Vapi. Shipping and

application of logs should be as online as possible. This is required to be

monitored every hour. This process may get impacted due to connectivity

issues, storage space issues or any other system failure at Vapi end.

Double Take application replicates data on the DR server installed at Sify

data centre, Bangalore.

Double Take facilitates snapshot to run SAP instance and is used

extensively to run reports. Though data replication is online, snapshot

considers data as at snapshot refresh time-hence should not be used for

any online real-time report. In the event of any requirement to run reports

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with latest data on DR server, Basis resources may be contacted to

refresh the snapshot.

6. CHANGE MANAGEMENT Development of objects (ABAP)

Any change required in the current objects or any new requirement should

be submitted in writing through email or using ZSOLMAN tcode. However,

requests related to creation of storage location, payment terms etc may

be either directly done on production or through development-quality-

production on the basis of email requests.

Our development and quality systems are very old with limited storage.

Hence they are not refreshed with latest data from production server.

They were last refreshed in 2010. Hence data required to test many

scenarios do not exist on these systems. Also performance measurement

is a constraint considering limited data on these systems.

Changes to standard objects are discouraged and will be taken up if and

only if there is no other option available. This is not feasible for most of the

standard objects, as we do not have access key for most of the objects.

Specification should clearly mention all the exceptions required, especially

when it comes to outputs and reports. Certain outputs such as delivery

challan, invoice etc. may require plant specific formats and contents.

Please clearly specify these.

The person requested for the change needs to provide test data for the

developer to do unit testing.

The person requesting shall be responsible for testing and giving a final

approval. Transport to quality and production is done only after testing

and approval. The person giving final approval need to make sure that the

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object is tested under various scenarios for various business requirements

before approval.

Developers take utmost care to make sure that the performance of the

object is highly optimized. However, it is possible that the application

slows down and affects other transactions/reports, in some scenarios.

Kindly monitor the performance of the application while testing and do not

transport to production, if the performance is not satisfactory.

Before you initiate any development request, look for similar reports

available in the system. It is possible that similar reports are available

under other functions. As we have many cross functional users, it is

possible that users from various departments look for similar details and

request for new reports. High level of interaction among process owners

and users is recommended in our environment and kindly consult others

before making any request.

Guidelines for ABAP development, Testing and Transport

Request description should strictly include Tcode as first string (eg.

ZGDR: Addition of Basic Amount, GST Amount and TCS Amount).

When code is changed, add a comment on top with date, user who has

requested the change, ZSOLMAN request number and the change

requested. Do not add this in between-objective is to view changes done

in the program on various dates when you open the program.

Whenever a request is given for transport, basis resource needs to check

if the description is made as mentioned above. Also, open the code and

check, if change details are mentioned as shown above. If these 2 are not

followed, do not transport any program.

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Users need to strictly give test cases meeting multiple scenarios. For eg. if

there is a check on GST, test cases need to have a combination of

multiple GST codes to ensure that all are considered in the program. If

there is a report which reads multiple line items, test cases need to have

multiple line item scenarios. ABAP team should not accept any incomplete

test cases.

Most importantly, if any change request comes, first sort the list to check if

any earlier transport is pending. If any transport is pending, do not accept

the change request.

If any change request is pending for more than 1 week of any person, DO

NOT accept any further request from that person.

Always put appropriate titles in all modules. Use sentence case and

ensure spelling is correct in titles, headings, messages etc.

Basis - Change Management

No changes are permitted (except in very critical situations), as we do not

have any support available from SAP.

Direct Changes

Changes are carried out directly on production client or transported

directly from development server to production server (without routing

through zsolman) in exceptional cases such as addition/modification of

payment terms, factory calendar setting, creation of storage locations etc.

which do not impact any application configuration. These are done only on

receipt of a mail communication from respective functional persons (of

each business division). On such occasions, one of the administrators

open the client, carry out the change and close the client. Typically client

is never kept open for more than 15 minutes.

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7. USAGE MANAGEMENT Usage Policy

We have configured the system to permit 3 sessions per user. However,

try and avoid using multiple sessions as each session will use resources.

Often, users retrieve records or run reports for reference in inactive

sessions and forget to close them. Please note that by doing so, you are

using up system resources which could be effectively used by someone

else.

If one session is running slow, please do not start another session and

start the same job again. The system would have slowed for some

reasons and additional load will make it slower.

Please be very clear about the parameters you select while running any

report. Most of the standard SAP report interfaces provide for open

selections. If you leave company, plant, storage location etc. blank/*,

system processes all the records for all companies/plants/storage

locations, which will block the server and network. Please be extremely

careful while making selections. Right selection will generate faster

outputs thus helping you and others.

Many reports, if run for longer period such as full financial year or multiple

material groups or materials take very long to execute. SAP recommends

execution of such jobs only during off peak time. Please schedule these

jobs to run at night, if it can be run as a background job. If the background

option is not feasible for any techno/functional constraints, please run

such jobs early morning so that it gets complete by 10:00am. 10:00am to

7:30pm is peak time for us and hence please execute these jobs only

during off peak time. You may run these on Sunday as well.

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If queries (SQVI) are not made correctly, it can block the entire system.

Please be very careful when you make queries. Always consult a SAP

functional/technical consultant while making such a query.

Kindly notify IT department, whenever you come across any slowdown of

system. Most of the time, system slows down when many users run very

expensive SQL statements (complex reports). We have a concurrent user

base of about 750+ and even if 25% of users run complex reports without

proper parameter selection, the system may get blocked.

Standard reports of SAP are highly optimized and they generally do

perform very well. However, the customized reports do not perform as

good as standard reports if they are not optimized. Please try and use

standard reports as far as possible.

Our SAP landscape has one database server and 6 application instances.

A separate storage box (SAN) is attached to the landscape and data is

stored in this. All locations are connected through VPN. Like any other

communication system, there could be some incidences of disturbances

in connection occasionally. The guaranteed uptime by the service provider

is 99%. SAP runs on Oracle database and it does not permit any

incomplete transactions which can affect the data integrity. When any

communication break happens, there could be many updates which are

not completed and hence all further requests will get queued up. This

takes a while to get cleared once the network becomes steady. In such

instances, system would have given you a document number and when

you check the same document, system may respond that the entry does

not exist or is being locked by the user. This indicates that the database is

not yet updated and the requests are getting queued up. Please do not

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panic at this stage and make duplicate entries or start new sessions

(either as new session or login again, disconnecting the previous login).

Such panic actions can cause further delay and system blockage. Inform

IT department and all your transactions will automatically get saved once

the network is restored.

Please remember that the success of any system depends on how

diligently we use it and it is our collective responsibility to make sure that

all the aspects of the system are taken care of. The environment needs to

be looked at in totality and IT needs your help to make sure that data is

safe and secure and the performance is best optimized.

8. BACKUP PROCEDURE

The database is online backed up on another SAN (Storage Area

Network) at Vapi through Oracle log shipping. Data is also replicated on

another SAN at Bangalore using Double Take application. We also take

scheduled backup on tape every night. This being online backups (copied

to tape while users are using the application), some transactions get

backed up as incomplete transactions. As per the standard backup policy,

we need to take offline backups as often as possible to have a copy of the

fully integrated database on a media which can be kept away from work

place. The system is required to be shut down for offline backup for 8-10

hours and hence this is not practiced.

Replication status of SAN at Vapi and Bangalore are monitored regularly

and documented every day evening.

The backup logs of tape are checked every day morning to confirm

successful completion of backup.

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9. DISASTER RECOVERY(DR)

Production data is replicated on SAN installed at Vapi using Oracle log

shipping. Archive logs are shipped over MPLS link online. This is the

primary source for recovery of latest data. Data until last archive log (3

mins delay expected) is targeted to be available here.

Double Take replication at Bangalore is another source for recovery of

latest data. Data until a couple of minutes back is targeted on this

SAN.

Data centre is supported online UPS systems which can supply

uninterrupted power for 4-5 hours. Premises also have generator

systems backup.

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) with present infrastructure is high at

24-48 hours while RPO (Recovery point objective) is only a few

minutes (approximately <10 minutes data loss).

10. DOCUMENT RETENTION PERIOD Soft copies of all related documents/templates shall be retained by IT department

for a minimum period as mentioned in the following table.

Sr. Description Period

1. User Id creation – Annexure 1 1 Month

2. Request for new development or change 3 months

3. Basis change management 3 months

4. Daily monitoring check list 1 week

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11. SUPPORT ESCALATION

Support Team (By Location)

Vapi-L1 Bhargav Kansara [email protected]

Silvassa-L1 Sumit Barik 9328672114 [email protected]

Vapi-L2 Hetal Desai 9909033470 [email protected]

Support Team (By Module)

SD-L1 Suhas Awad 9820546984 [email protected]

MM-L1 Vivek Adurkar 9869342227 [email protected]

FI/CO-L1 Vivek Adurkar 9869342227 [email protected]

PP-L1 Rajnish Kharkar 9833985523 [email protected]

QM/PM

HCM-L1 Geeta Ganpule [email protected]

Basis/ABAP Development

Basis-L1 Pavan Sharma 9930179499 [email protected]

ABAP-L1 Kushal Naik 9687000091 [email protected]

ABAP-L2 Mathew Thomas 9879550097 [email protected]

Escalation-L2 Shaji Varghese 9833213625 [email protected]

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Template for SAP user id creation (Submit original or mail scanned copy with signature to IT Department

[email protected]) Company ALOK Plant (eg. 1001)

SAP Employee No. Function SD/MM/FI/PP/CO/HR/PM/QM

Department Designation

Mobile Number Extn. No.

Email id @alokind.com

Usage Type Entry/Modification/Approval : Only Reports : Only View

Reference user id:

Tcodes for transaction and reports (required only where reference user id is not given):

Tcode Purpose Tcode Purpose

Requested by Approved By (HoD) Process Owner

Name

Signature

Date & Time

Note to users:

Please fill all the columns

SAP Personnel Number is mandatory to create SAP User Id

If user id is to be created similar to any existing users, please mention the reference user id.

Plant codes: 1001:HO, 1002:DELHI, 1003:SAILY, 1004:RAKHOLI, 1005:DADRA,

1006:MADEUP&GARMENTS, 1007:POY, 1008:SPINNING, 1009:VAPI processing

Note to IT (Basis):

SU01 mapping to be strictly followed: “Building”=Plant, “Floor”= Division, “Room”= Sub

Division (Eg. Building=1003 for Silvassa, Floor=POY for POY division, Room=Unit1-if there is a

further sub division)

Assign “Contractual User Type: AZ mySAP ERP Employee” for “Only Reports” or “Only View” users

Enter name exactly as mentioned in PA30

Email id should be strictly entered

Enter “Valid From” under “Validity Period” as the date of creation

Do not create any user id if information provided is incomplete.

Documents

SAP USAGE POLICY - 125.99.89.152