SAP application management (or remote support for SAP users, SAP AMS – Application Management Services) is a service of remote assistance for SAP users in solving the problems occurring during the ongoing operation of the system.

The SAP application management and SAP maintenance support service complement each other, making up the so-called second line of support. The SAP application management creates one point of service requests for the customer and thereby ensures:

  • a direct solution for problems that are not eligible for support by an SAP software provider under the SAP maintenance contract (in practice, this is the vast majority of requests generated by users),
  • that other problems are forwarded to SAP support.

When the system does not work again …

There is nothing more annoying in everyday work than the problems and failures of a basic tool that make simple tasks take a disproportionate amount of time, ruining the whole agenda of the day. And this is an optimistic version. A much more serious consequence of the failure or bad adjustment of the SAP system may be the inability to perform basic business transactions, such as: sales, receipt in a warehouse, posting, payroll calculation. The method of restoring the availability of SAP functions by an organization and the time in which it is able to do it determine how effectively the SAP system will support the company.

Sooner or later, SAP system problems will appear in every organization, regardless of its size.
Therefore, it is essential to prepare the organization properly in order to know, in case of problems or system failure, how and from whom to obtain help. Companies usually choose one of three ways: they can have a dedicated support team in their own organizational structures (so-called internal support), outsourcing, or a combination of both.

Start from the inside

The natural trend in maintaining the system is to build support in the organization, usually based on an internal IT team. This solution is usually used as the first line of support, but it does not always work in the case of more complex problems, which require knowledge of cross-module issues or narrow, specific competencies and, moreover, occur with unpredictable frequency, making it difficult to guarantee the availability of the right people on time.

The key challenges facing internal SAP support teams are as follows:

  • providing and maintaining competencies of persons who will guarantee support for all business areas covered by the system (this concept should also cover long-term development of the competency maintenance and development plan);
  • ensuring the continuity of support availability, i.e. a guarantee that every problem will be solved within a time acceptable to business and not depending on when a specialist is available;
  • the organization of teamwork in such a way as to ensure that there is a sufficient number of specialists in specific fields and that they are available at all times (specialists should be able to provide support whenever necessary, also taking into account, for example, a shift work system in the production department);
  • planning the workload, i.e. planning the work of the team members in such a way as to ensure the security of the system during periods of increased work intensity (month-end closing, payroll calculation), and at the same time efficient use of resources when there are fewer current tasks;
  • a contingency plan – for emergency situations, such as unforeseen staff shortages, the need for periodic assignment of employees to other tasks (business or IT projects) that may temporarily limit the potential to provide support.

Transform challenges into requirements

Instead of devoting time and energy to solving problems, maybe it’s better to focus on making full use of the potential of the system and optimizing or developing it by outsourcing the SAP user support service to an external company?

The company that provides the SAP service has a significant advantage over the company focused on its core business, for which the SAP system is just one of many tools. For the former company, SAP services are its main activity, and the provision, maintenance and development of competencies form the basis of its operations and have the highest priority. A support organization, such as SNP (now All for One Poland) with a broad portfolio of customers, focuses all its efficiency potential on providing customers with the continuity of support, including receiving and handling requests in accordance with the terms agreed with customers. The provision of services for many customers enables the potential to be effectively used and the work to be evenly planned throughout the year. In addition, the consultants constantly develop their experience, work for customers conducting various types of business, learn about new functions, new system capabilities and new releases (e.g. new features in EHP update packages).

The outsourcing of services enables you to get rid of problems related to maintaining the potential of support teams and to verify whether SAP services are provided in accordance with the parameters agreed with the provider (SLA – a service level agreement).

Tailor-made contract

All customers share the need to fill gaps in their organizations and expect the service provider to be flexible in adapting the scope of cooperation to the changing realities. AMS in SNP is distinguished by its individual approach to partners. Cooperation models (a scope of support activities, availability time, guaranteed response times, a billing model) are tailored to the customer’s expectations and reflect their needs.

In fact, for each customer AMS is a dedicated package of services tailored to their needs.
The scope of activities usually performed as part of the All for One application management includes:

  • answering questions from key users,
  • restoring the SAP system functionality – reacting to reported issues,
  • diagnosing, analyzing and eliminating the causes of errors and faults,
  • assistance in correcting data errors caused by human error or system malfunctions,
  • proactive monitoring of the system and process,
  • adjustment of the SAP system in accordance with SAP technical notes,
  • verification of the impact of new business requirements on SAP systems,
  • blueprinting and specification of SAP system changes resulting from new business or technical requirements,
  • implementing approved SAP system changes,
  • tests of SAP system changes, including regression tests.

Dedicated teams and organization

The All for One AMS services are provided to customers by consultants in five dedicated teams corresponding to the major areas of the SAP system: finance and controlling, human resources, sales, distribution and CRM, materials management and warehouse management as well as production planning and quality management. The work of support consultants – in contrast to implementation consultants – is focused on the remote support for customers, solving current problems and handling service requests.

Depending on the needs in a particular company, All for One AMS can take over the second level of support and/or the “last bastion" support (i.e. when all other levels of support have failed). In addition, our implementation consultants get involved in solving the problems, if necessary.

Another advantage of using AMS in SNP is easy access to the full range of SAP/IT outsourcing services offered by SNP (hosting, collocation, SAP/IT administration, system and network monitoring, a backup data center, etc.). A single partner “for everything", providing a full set of services means a clear assignment of responsibility for the system maintenance, access to a wide range of competencies, easier handling of SLAs and consolidation of the costs of services.

All these services are integrated by a dedicated support organization – All for One Outsourcing Center. It ensures the quality and continuous handling of all maintenance and outsourcing agreements. The Center operates in accordance with the standards and best practices applied in support organizations. The most important of them are the IT Service Management System compliant with ISO 20000 and the Information Security Management System compliant with ISO 27001. In the daily work, this means that a customer using a wide range of support services reports a problem in one place (Single Point of Contact – a support application). The support organization ensures that the problem is forwarded and solved, regardless of the SAP area that it pertains to.

Various requests and priorities

As part of AMS, we offer four priority levels: critical, high, medium and low, as well as guaranteed service levels, so-called SLA (Service Level Agreement) parameters for failures or incidents related to SAP production systems. Definitions of priorities are each time agreed and adapted to the expectations of our Customers.

Communication with customers and handling of service requests are coordinated by the All for One Service Desk team, which is responsible for sending customer requests to relevant teams of specialists. In this way, the rule of a single point of contact (SPOC) is implemented. Customer requests are recorded and processed in a dedicated service application, available free of charge for the duration of cooperation. As a result, customers can be confident that their problem is handled by the relevant specialists regardless of its type, time and method of reporting it, and that it will be solved in accordance with the contract and SLA provisions (including the provisions on response times). At this point, it is worth noting that the service application allows you to evaluate the way of handling requests when they are closed by service consultants, which makes it possible to track of the level of satisfaction with the services provided and to take corrective actions, if necessary.

Service Manager for each customer

Another dimension of the All for One application management is the provision of a dedicated Service Manager for each customer. Such a person takes over the supervision of the contract implementation, being responsible for:

  • monitoring the performance of the application management service during cooperation,
  • a cyclical summary of cooperation – organizing periodic teleconferences or meetings with the customer,
  • responding to irregularities, if any,
  • contract accounting – preparation of monthly reports summarizing the workload related to the handling of requests in a given month, which in turn is the basis for the billing of services.

Signing the contract and what next?

After making the decision to start cooperation with SNP (now All for One Poland), the next step is the so-called knowledge transfer between the customer’s organization and SNP. This phase is of key importance in the process of taking over the application management of SAP systems. On the basis of many years of experience, we have developed our own knowledge transfer methodology, consisting of three stages:

Stage 0 – Start. Knowledge transfer is planned and scheduled in detail, responsible persons are designated and structures are established.

Stage I – Preparation for knowledge transfer. The consultants familiarize themselves with all kinds of SAP system documentation received from the customer. The documentation includes: technical specifications, interfaces, extensions, processes. Of course, the lack of up-to-date or complete documentation does not prevent support from being provided.

Stage II – Gaining knowledge on SAP systems. Getting acquainted with the configuration of the SAP systems that will be supported. At this stage, our consultants discuss the following issues with key users:

  • the functional scope of SAP systems, with particular emphasis on custom solutions,
  • extensions,
  • interfaces,
  • differences between documentation and actual configuration of the system,
  • procedures and standards related to the maintenance and development of SAP systems,
  • the history of support provided so far, with special focus on repetitive problems.

This stage ends with a knowledge transfer report for individual or all SAP system areas that will be supported.

Stage III – providing access to systems. Preparation for the actual support of SAP systems, first of all, obtaining access to all systems and organizing the request handling procedure.

The described approach to knowledge transfer is a kind of template that we adapt to specific customer needs.

Pricing models

We have 4 standard/baseline pricing models for AMS, the most popular of which is a monthly fee with a pool of hours included. The advantages of this model are: a wide range of maintenance activities billed by hours in the pool, SLA variants, pre-determined workload to be used.

Michał Adamczewski, Support Services Deputy Director, All for One Poland

Why the SAP application management in SNP?

  • Continuous availability of the support service
  • Unrestricted access to expertise, no technical or organizational constraints on the scope or volume of support
  • Flexibility in adjusting support to changing needs and requirements (additional people, additional areas, minor development work)
  • No problems with maintaining an internal support organization (elimination of staffing and organizational problems)
  • A tailor-made SLA

When to use the SAP application management services?

  • after completion of each SAP implementation project (green/brown/blue field, roll-out)
  • after completion of transformation projects (e.g. migration to S/4HANA, merger, carve-out) – as support for a new system,
  • shortly before and during each transformation project – support for a source system – to release resources for tasks related to transformation projects
  • change of system/hardware/hosting version or transition to the cloud – to improve service quality and reduce system maintenance costs
  • after the loss of an SAP specialist for any reason, as immediate, temporary or long-term assistance.