FAQ Business Process Monitoring

Which prerequisites have to be met in order to setup Business Process Monitoring?

A: Technical prerequisites are described in SAP notes 784752 - "BPMon in SAP Solution Manager - Prerequisites" and 521820 - "Availability of Business Process Monitoring".
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Is there a list of available key figures that come out-of-the-box?

A: Yes, there are more than 500 out-of-the-box key figures shipped with Business Process Monitoring. Please look at the presentation "Business Process & Interface Monitoring - Part 2" under (login required) https://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Customer Information.
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Can I configure my own (customer-specific) key figures?

A: Yes, Business Process Monitoring offers a complete Customer Exit framework in order to develop customer-specific key figures. This is described in the SDN Blog New Business Process Monitoring functionalities in SAP Solution Manager - Customer Exit . Please also have a look at the document "Setup Guide - Customer Exit" under (login required) https://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information. If your key figure should be used for Business Process Monitoring as well as Business Process Analytics then you have to use a newer framework that is based on ABAP OO and is described in Customer Exit: Create your own key figure for BPMon AND Business Process Analytics . In this case you should also have a look at the document "Setup Guide - Customer Exit with ABAP OO" under (login required) https://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information or SAP note 1556760 - Documentation for BP Monitoring: Customer exit in ABAP OO . In many cases you can even have it simpler than this. If your new key figure shall only consist of one select statement on one table with up to 5 fields within the where clause then you can use the Table Entry Counter as described in the SDN Blog Create your own customer-specific key figure for Business Process Monitoring within 5 minutes .
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Who is the target group for Business Process Monitoring?

A: In general the target groups are 2^nd or 3^rd level Application Support on IT side, IT Basis Support team and on business department side the business process or functional owners. For more details refer to previous SDN Blog Functional Scope of Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager
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How can I involve my manager and get the Business Process Monitoring data to him?

In order to provide Business Process Monitoring (or Business Process Analytics) data to managers who are only interested in the information itself but do not want to actively work with the data, so called Business Process Operations dashboards are provided since ST400 support package 26. For more information please refer to Business Process Operations dashboards - ALL AT A GLANCE for an overview and Business Process Operations dashboards - behind the scenes for some technical details.
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What are typical use cases that Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager can be used for?

A: Typical use cases are 1) Automating labor intensive monitoring tasks, 2) Internal benchmarking and gaining business process transparency, 3) Support and safeguard GoLives, 4) Monitor SOX compliance. More information can be found in the previous SDN blog Typical Use Cases for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager
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What is the typical effort to implement Business Process Monitoring?

A: The technical implementation of Business Process Monitoring is very simple and quick, as so many key figures are provided out-of-the-box. A simple pilot is always implemented within a day during the SAP CQC service for Business Process Monitoring. As explained in the blog Business Process Monitoring - Template configuration available for download it is even possible to implement a Business Process Monitoring pilot within half a day. A comprehensive monitoring pilot including the configuration of auto-reaction methods takes usually up to a week. But if you want to make a big global or regional roll-out of Business Process Monitoring which covers many different countries and organizational units then this might easily take 6-12 or even 18 months. Hence the challenge is the organizational change management and the collection of monitoring requirements, but not the technical implementation.
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Can I also monitor non-SAP and non-ABAP?

A: Yes, everything that is written into the CCMS within your whole system landscape can be included per copy & paste into the Business Process Monitoring. You can also use SAPCCMSR agents in order to monitor on operating system level. Besides you can use the Customer Exit framework as mentioned above in order to write your own data collectors. With the upcoming release there will be further options provided to simplify non-SAP and non-ABAP monitoring. But of course SAP will not provide similar out-of-the-box key figures for non-SAP as are provided for SAP applications. Please also have a look at the document "Setup Guide for non-ABAP/non-SAP" under (login required) https://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information.
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Can I create other auto-reactions than email, SMS or SAP Service Desk messages?

A: Yes, everything that is supported by SAPConnect can be used as auto-reaction method. With the next release there will be also a BadI provided so that you can create your own auto-reaction methods, e.g. raising an event. Also refer to SAP note 455140 - "Configuration of e-mail, fax, paging or SMS using SMTP" for technical details on SMTP configuration. You can also program your own auto-reaction methods via BadI .
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Can I send an email to more than one recipient?

A: Yes, you can send emails to "Shared distribution lists" that you defined within the SAP Business Workplace (transaction SBWP) within the SAP Solution Manager. Those distribution lists can contain different recipients of different types like email or SMS.
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Can I influence the layout of an email that is sent as auto-reaction?

A: Yes, with the ST-SER release 701_2010_1 you are able to configure the email subject, provide text templates for the email body, generate URLs into the email or program your own auto-reaction methods via BadI .
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Can I forward alerts to other monitoring consoles?

A: At the moment other consoles are usually just pulling BPMon data from CCMS. As mentioned above with ST-SER 2010_1 several BadIs are provided so that you can create your own auto-reaction methods , e.g. pushing an alert to another console. Nevertheless you should evaluate what benefit you will have from forwarding alerts to other consoles. As only Business Process Monitoring provides the possibility to analyze the root-cause behind an alert, a logon to SAP Solution Manager is necessary anyway. Any other console provides just an option to display alerts but no root-cause analysis for BPMon alerts.
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Can I create other trouble tickets than SAP Service Desk messages?

A: Yes and no. There is no direct integration between Business Process Monitoring and non-SAP ticket tools. But you can connect SAP Service Desk and other ticketing tools via a bi-directional web service interface. For further information see http://help.sap.com/saphelp_smehp1/helpdata/en/b3/64c33af662c514e10000000a114084/frameset.htm. As mentioned above with ST-SER 2010_1 several BadIs are provided so that you can possibly use these BadIs in order to integrate with your ticketing system
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Auto-reactions are not created or sent out. What can I do about it?

A: A complete Troubleshooting Guide for Business Process Monitoring is available under http://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information or directly here
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Can business processes from the project part (SOLAR01) be reused for Business Process Monitoring?

*A: Yes, you can reuse your modelled business processes for the project. But they cannot be directly used. You have to copy them first from the project part into the "Solution Directory" for Operations. So go into the Solution Directory and use the F4 value help on business process level with the source "Project". Once the process is copied to the Solution Directory, this process can be used for Business Process Monitoring.
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In what way can process models from other modelling tools like Aris be reused?

A: There is no direct integration between Aris or any other modelling tool. Aris process models can be interchanged with the project part of SAP Solution Manager (where SAP Solution Manager is supposed to be the leading tool). From the project part then business processes can be copied into the Solution Directory and then be used for Business Process Monitoring.
Remark: Please be aware that Aris processes are in 95% of the cases not immediately fitting in order to be used for Business Process Monitoring. Aris processes are usually too granular for a daily operational alert monitoring like Business Process Monitoring, i.e. you cannot overlook a complete process on just one screen. So usually Aris processes need to be brought to a different abstraction layer for a meaningful Business Process Monitoring. However, maintaining business processes in SAP Solution Manager is of low effort. Hence, SAP usually recommends to either maintain business processes in SAP Solution Manager from scratch or to adapt in SAP Solution Manager the business processes derived from ARIS.
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How should a business process be modelled for Business Process Monitoring, i.e. what is the granularity expected?

A: The Business Process Monitoring is working with the 3 level hierarchy provided by SAP Solution Manager (business scenario, business process, business process step) where the lowest step level should be represented by a transaction code or a background job that is executed. This kind of granularity is SAP's general recommendation that is also expected from other SAP Solution Manager functionalities.
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How is the performance of the backend affected by Business Process Monitoring?

A: So far no customers reported significant performance decreases on the backend due to Business Process Monitoring. A system resource consumption of 2% is already considered as high for Business Process Monitoring, while other monitoring tools often consume 10-20% of system resources.
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Are there template processes available that can be used for Business Process Monitoring?

A: Yes, there are process templates available that contain Business Process Monitoring configuration. These templates can be downloaded from the SAP Service Marketplace under (login required) https://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information and then uploaded into your SAP Solution Manager via transaction SOLUTION_TRANSFER. Also refer to the previous SDN Blog Business Process Monitoring - Template configuration available for download .
Remark: The template processes in the Business Process Repository contain no monitoring configuration.
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Can I transport my Business Process Monitoring configuration from my development SAP Solution Manager to my production SAP Solution Manager?

A: Yes and no. As the monitoring configuration is considered as master data, there is no transport mechanism available. But you can transfer a complete solution (including monitoring configuration) from one SAP Solution Manager to another via transaction SOLUTION_TRANSFER. This can be done as an one-time effort but there is no delta mechanism.
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Is it also possible to monitor non-productive backend systems?

A: Yes. Although Business Process Monitoring was designed to monitor core business processes which are running on productive backend systems, it is technically also possible to monitor non-productive systems. The preferred way is to create a second solution in your SAP Solution Manager where the "Leading Role" is non-productive (e.g. Test or Development). You can then re-use the same business processes and the same logical components in order to monitor your test or development system. Alternatively you can make it "quick & dirty" and create a new logical component where your test or development system is put into the productive role.
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Is it possible to track single documents with Business Process Monitoring?

A: The main BPMon functionality is not tracking single documents as this task is far too performance intensive (esp.for high-volume scenarios) and the added value is little.

The question is why you want to track the single document. In most cases customers are asking for this because at some point of time the support organization gets the single request "Some document was not created, so please tell me where my document is" and then the search for the needle in the haystack begins. With the BPMon approach of providing crucial key figures for important watch points this question is obsolete. You get to see the complete entirety of documents causing problems. So if you work on this problematic documents in a timely manner then you won't get the support calls for missed documents any longer.
The big advantage with our approach is that you can identify systematic errors as you see all problematic documents. Hence you can resolve the root cause of problems (e.g. customizing errors, process design gaps, process deviations from defined template) and avoid similar incidents in the future, instead of just solving a single incident (one document lost).
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Some of the application related key figures return several thousand backlog documents. How can Business Process Monitoring help in analyzing this data more thoroughly in order to reduce the backlog?

A: The Business Process Monitoring as an alert monitoring is not designed to analyze such document backlogs in a systematic manner. It is designed to raise exceptions based on meaningful threshold values. As so many customers actually encounter exactly this problem of high document backlogs and as this backlog should be reduced to a meaningful and acceptable level before the Business Process Monitoring is switched-on, that is the reason why the Business Process Analytics application was developed on top of the Business Process Monitoring. With Business Process Analytics you can identify organizational units and document types with the highest backlog and you can also analyze the age structure of the identified documents. More information on Business Process Analytics is provided in the SDN blog New functionality "Business Process Analytics" - how to improve your business processes . For customer testimonials refer to Customer testimonials on Business Process Analytics .
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Which SAP BW is used for Business Process Monitoring trend reporting?

A: You can decide which SAP BW should be used. Either you use the SAP BW 7.0 as part of SAP Solution Manager or you use an existing SAP BW solution in your system landscape. The large majority of customers chose option 1 in order to not mix business and IT reporting.
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What is the difference between Business Process Monitoring/Analytics and the traditional SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse?

A: Please refer to the blog Traditional Business KPI approach vs Business Process Monitoring in order to understand how the bottom-up approach with Business Process Monitoring/Analytics can possibly complement your current top-down approach when it comes to Business KPIs.
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What is the difference between Business Process Monitoring and SAP NetWeaver BPM?

A: Business Process Monitoring tries to ensure the stable and smooth operation of a company's core business processes with a focus on traditional transaction-based processes (see also the previous SDN Blog Typical Use Cases for Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager ). The target groups are 2nd or 3rd level Application Support on IT side, IT Basis Support team and on business department side the business process or functional owners as described in further details in the previous SDN Blog Functional Scope of Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager .
SAP NetWeaver BPM is focusing on the development of rule-based composite business processes as "own practices" (usually SOA-based and often workflow related). These composite processes target at enhancing existing application core business processes and should provide the fast competitive and innovative edge versus competitors. For this SAP NetWeaver provides a combination of a process modeling and execution environment with a complex rules engine (SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management), where you can flexibly model your business process first, assign simple or complex business rules in order to automate business decisions and finally generate executable process logic. The monitoring part for these processes is mainly targeting business end-users and business managers. For more information on SAP NetWeaver BPM refer to http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-bpm.

You can also check out the SDN blog Why SAP offers different tools for Business Process Monitoring & Business Process Optimization .
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What is the difference between Business Process Monitoring and SAP Event Management?

A: The difference between Business Process Monitoring and SAP Event Management is explained in Kevin Wilson's blog Explaining the difference between Solution Manager's BPMon (Business Process Monitor) and SAP Event Management (SAP's best kept secret) . Also see the SAP EM wiki describing the difference between the 2 technologies in more detail.
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If you are interested in further reading. The following blogs provide further details about Business Process Monitoring functionalities within the SAP Solution Manager.