Question: Explain about Data Migration and Cut-over Activities in SAP

Answer:

A. Data Migration:

Data migration involves transferring the legacy data into SAP system

Those who are implementing SAP solutions, legacy data is exported into a spreadsheet format,
and the LSMW generates the input file to load the data into SAP.

The Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) is a tool recommended by SAP that you can
use to transfer data from legacy systems into an R/3 System.

The LSM Workbench carries out the following tasks:

- Reads the transfer data from one or more files (for example, spreadsheets, sequential files
etc.)

- Converts the data from the source format into the target format

B. Cut-over Activities

Cutover Activities are Master/Transaction Data uploading strategies depending upon the when
we are going live. As per that, you have to give the information to your core team. If you going
live at the middle you have to upload the all P&L Account items and B/S Items. If you going live
at the financial year start, you have to only upload the B/S Items.

Pre-Go live Activities:

a. Master Data uploads into production system

1. G/L Master Upload thru BDC or LSMW (FS00 & FS01)

2. Vendor Master Upload thru BDC or LSMW (Will be Taken Care by MM)

3. Customer Master Upload thru BDC or LSMW (Will be Taken Care by SD)

4. Asset Master Upload (AS90)

5. Cost Element Master Upload

6. Cost Center Master Upload

7. Profit Center Master Upload

b. Transaction data upload

1. G/L Balances (F-02)

2. Vendor Balances (F-43)

3. Customer Balances (F-22)

4. Customer Advances (F-29)

5. Vendor Advances (F-48) - Before uploading Vendor Balances you have to take care of TDS
Information.

6. Asset value uploads (AS91).

c. Controlling area related upload

1. Upload Cost center plan

2. Execute the allocation cycles within cost center accounting

3. Update planned activity

4. Calculate Activity prices

5. Execute product costing run.

d. Other Pre-Go live activities

1. Ensure all the customizing request is in the production system

2. Ensure all the number ranges for all the modules have been maintained in the production
system

3. Ensure that Operating concern has been generated

4. Ensure all material masters (all material types) have been loaded

5. Upload Open purchase orders

6. Stock upload

7. Mark and Release the cost estimates.

Explain Cutover Activities/Strategies in SAP FI.

Cutover Activities or Master Data Uploading Strategies

Depending upon the when we are going live. As per that, you
have to give the information to your core team. If you goling live
at the middle you have to upload the all P&L Account items and
B/S Items. If you going live at the financial year start, you have to
only Upload the B/S Items. Activities for Golive:
1. G/L Master Upload Thru BDC or LSMW (TC-Fs00 and
extended one co code to another company code Fs01)
2. Vendor Master Upload Thru BDC Or LSMW (Will be Taken
Care By MM)
3. Customer Master Upload Thru BDC or LSMW (Will be Taken
Care By SD)
4. Asset Master Upload(Thru As90)
5. Cost Element Master Upload
6. Cost Center Master Upload
7. Profit Center Master Upload
8. G/L Balances Thru F-02
10. Vendor Balances thru F-43
11. Customer Balances thru F-22
12. Customer Advances thru f-29
13. Vendor Advances thryu F-48
Before uploading Vendor Balances you have to take care of WHT
(TDS) Information.
------------------------------------------------------
the master data conversion
how data will be provided, converted, uploaded?
By who?
When?
The original system should run any procedure before?

-the planned data conversion

-the gudget data conversion

-the actuals

-the purchase documents related to projects

Consider that actuals, and purchase documents require a deep

analisys regarding the integration with the FI/CO/MM modules.

During the conversion is required any certification of the data?

When the system will be available to users?

Have the users the SAPguis installed and the network settings
properly setted?

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Cutover plan is to plan the strategy for go-live regarding upload of
master data, opening balances, dates, responsibilties, back up
etc.
Following are the diffrent cutover Activities...

Communication to Vendor, Customer and Excise etc

User Training by Core Team
Cost Roll ups and Validations - Test
Upload of Master Data in Sequence on Test
Start entry of Open Sales Orders, Quotation, Enquiries, Purchase
Orders in Prod
Stock Taking Activity at Plant
Stock Upload with SAP Material Code, Qty, Value and Storage
Location as on Go-Live Date
Enter Cash Balances as of Go-Live Dates
Enter Excise balances as of Go-Live Dates with monthly duty
payment for March
Configure Cut off Excise Number Range (Excise Invoice, RG
registers) as on Go-Live Dates
Back up of Loaded Production Server
Go Live
Availability of all balances
FI Balance uploads (For both ledgers/ subledgers/ assets/
customers/ vendors)

Refer below sample cutover checklist..

http://hosteddocs.ittoolbox.com/KL122206.pdf

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Cut over activities to be followed (for PP - Discrete
Manufacturing).
Production Planning / Master data:
For Production planning, only master data shall be migrated to
SAP. In the 1st Stage, there is no master data. Following is the
master data elements relevant for PP:
Bill of materials
Routing.
Work Centres.
Transaction data:
As of the cut off date, ideally there should not be any work in
process. All the open production orders should be closed and
semi finished goods should be dismantled and should be added
to Raw materials. This strategy should be followed for all
production orders where lead time to complete the production
order is not large.
Since, the production orders are for longer duration and it is not
possible to dismantle the product and add it to inventory, following
can be the strategy for migrating the data to SAP:
Create a material master for the work in process and set the
standard price as the cost incurred for that product (ie. Work in
process)
Create a bill of material (which will be used only for this
production order) including this material and other materials still to
be consumed.
Create Routing for rest of the production process.
Bring the work in process material into inventory as of the cut off
date.
Create the production orders in SAP for the Work in process and
issue materials to production order.
Complete the production process after the cut off date of the
project
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http://sapdocs.info/2008/09/22/sap-go-live-strategy/

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It Involves deciding which tools you will use e.g. LSMW, CATT,
ABAP etc.
You need decisions on when you will cut off and establish these
items
and when you will do the physical transfer. You need to prioritize
this.
For example, I usually bring AR open items across before AP and
GL and
AA come last. Stock balances are also priority. If you have stock
and AR
OI in your system you can bill and do credit checks. Open sales
and
purchase orders also have to be brought across. You may have
open WBS
elements, Internal Orders and commitments to consider. You may
also need
to load your budget. If going live mid-year you need to consider
the P &
L account cumulative balances and cost centre / profit centre
history.
For all balance sheet items you need transit accounts which act
as
contra accounts for the OI and balances loads and zero out if
everything
is OK. Oh, and I always load in the last period of the old system
and
roll forward - i.e. for a January 1st Go-Live I load as at 31st
December
and use SAP standard functionality to bring balances and OI
forward into
the new year.

You should also get someone working on data scrubbing as soon

as
possible so that you do not load a heap of rubbish. Year-end
tends to be
a time when people have vacation and then come back and go
straight into
year-end closing, so there is personnel planning to do to have the
right
people available at the right time. You need contingency planning
for if
things go wrong. You need to do test uploads in a QA system,
etc., etc.

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The process involved when the company is going live in mid year,
how do we bring in the P&L balances from legacy to SAP.

This varies from company to company and depends largely on

how much
history you want to keep. If you want to keep all the CO postings
as
well as FI then you have to analyze the first half year and
summarize by
GL account by month, and, within GL account, by profit centre /
cost
centre. This is usually done in a spreadsheet. On one project with
an
October 01 Go-Live we had a junior accountant doing this over a
6 month
period before Go-Live. An accountant is the best person to do it
because
he can check the numbers as he goes and he knows his
accounts. There is
of course a mapping process between old GL and new GL, old
profit centre
/ new profit centre, old cost centre / new cost centre. This has to
be
done first, obviously. Summarized numbers month by month are
usually
enough - you do not need individual transactions.

There are several tools you can use to upload from Excel
including LSMW
and CATT. Once you have your spreadsheet it should fly into
SAP without
problems. You load into each monthly period separately.
If all the above detail is not required, then you simply bring over
the
balances from the TB at the end of the last period before Go-Live.

Usually the chief accountant wants the detail so that he has

comparative
figures for the first full year after Go-Live, but some people say to
heck with that and do their comparisons in Excel.

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http://sap.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/sap-
acct/cutover-activities-and-opening-balances-1851354

could you plz, tell me what do you mean by cutover activites and
what are the cutover activities are involved in final preparation
phase plz, try to give me a detailed answer that to i can
understand the basic idea and how do we upload opeing
balances in to sap of GL AR AP AND Asset accounting

1st custover data means : the data you should cut the entering in
legacy system and use the last figuers of this data as opening for
sap.

2nd for openning balances you should do1-create contra

accounts in your COA (create account group for it , esp. no. range
)
2-we'll take the open items for customers as example use the
invoice in AR module so the debit will be customer and the credit
will be the contra account related to are open items.
and so on for others fixed assets , vendors
gl accouns and so on
3-you should care about the profit centers if it's required do not
miss also for profitability analysis you should create internal order
and link it to profit cenetr and send you entries incloding that
Internal order no, and if you depend on the profit center concept
for BS or p&l you should know the transaction 3keh and 1kek and
the othe transactions so you can build the pc BS statment... yours
hany refaat

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Cutover activities the name itself tells you cut the business data
ex: legacy transactions are stopped from today onwards means
today is cut date and will take all balances as on todays date and
upload into sap system by using LSMW, BDC, Ecatt etc., It is part
of final preparation at 4th phase in the ASAP methodology. That
includes upload the balances, sign off from end user, user
acceptance test etc.,

Financial Accounting:

The following account numbers will be used for the takeover of

the opening data:
Open balance assets <No.>
Initial stock uploads <No.>
Open balance GL <No.>
Open balance of Receivables <No.>
Open balance of Payables <No.>

Trial Balance:-

1.The certified trial balance as on <date> will be taken over in the

SAP system.

2.It may be noted that this trial balance needs to be broken down
profit center wise for the balance sheet accounts and cost center
& profit center wise for the revenue accounts (Profit & Loss
Accounts)

3.The Balance sheet items excluding AR/AP/FA will be taken as

the closing balance, whereas, open line item will be taken for
AR/AP/FA – respective sub-ledger wise. AR/AP line items will
compulsory have payment terms. CWIP will be uploaded asset
wise. So CWIP accounts will be broken up accordingly.
Accounting Entries while data upload:

1.Inventory Takeover:
When inventory will be uploaded, following entry will be generated
by the system depending upon the valuation class specified in the
material master.
Inventory Account………….Dr
To Initial stock upload account

2.Receivable Takeover:
Account Receivables will be uploaded customer wise and only the
open items will be taken over to new system. At the time of
upload following entry will be generated.
Customer Account (with actual reconciliation account Dr
To Opening balance – account receivables

3.Payable Takeover:
Account Payables will be uploaded vendor wise and only the
open items will be taken over to new system. At the time of
upload following entry will be generated.

Vendor Account Dr
To Open Balance – Account payables

4.Asset Takeover:
The asset balances will be uploaded asset wise. This will not
create any accounting entries initially and asset balances will be
loaded.

In case of Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Assets, it

should be ensured that the sub ledger balances are tallying with
the general ledger.

5.Other GL Takeover:
All the GL Accounts (other than above) will be taken over by
debiting / crediting to the account code <No.> (open balance GL)
The closing balance of balance sheet accounts will be taken over
and the profit and loss accounts will be taken cost center wise.
At the end of the data takeover exercise, all takeover accounts
together shall show a ‘zero’ balance. These accounts shall be
blocked for posting after the data take on activity.
GR/IR account:
It would be ideal to ensure that all invoices relating to goods
received be booked in the legacy system before the cut off date.
Alternatively, all provisions made in the legacy system relating to
goods received but invoices not received will have to be adjusted
against corresponding vendor invoices received after the go-live
date. In case of invoices relating to goods that have been
received before the go-live date, the following entry shall be
passed in the production system:
Corresponding Provision Account………………..Dr
To Vendor Account

The invoice for such receipts shall be passed using the FI invoice
booking transaction and not through Materials Management. The
verification of the invoice shall be manual.
Apart from the above-mentioned data, the budget data for Cost
center and Profit center also needs to be uploaded into the SAP
system.

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http://www.sapfans.com/sapfans/asap/be_06_e.htm

Phase 4: Final Preparation

The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation of
the R/3 System for going live. This includes testing, user training,
system management and cutover activities, to finalize your
readiness to go live. This Final Preparation phase also serves to
resolve all crucial open issues. On successful completion of this
phase, you are ready to run your business in your productive R/3
System.
In Phase 4, your end users go through comprehensive training.
The last step will be to migrate data to your new system. In
particular a going-live check is carried out and an R/3 Help Desk
set up.
Fig. Xx: Main work packages of Phase 4
This phase builds on the work done in the previous two phases so
that R/3 can be handed over to the individual departments for
productive operation. This includes creating the user
documentation and training the end users. The technical
environment is installed for the productive system and the project
managers make plans for going live, including the transfer of data
from legacy systems and user support in the startup phase.
End-user training can be the area an organization spends the
most time and money to complete, since proper training is critical
if the project is to be successful. A high-level training plan should
have been developed within the Project Preparation phase, but
now more detail is added. The training program is set up
according to the number of users, their location and their tasks.
Once the site of the courses and the trainers have been chosen,
the courses can be held.
To accelerate your training activities, you can purchase the R/3
Info Database (InfoDB), a blend of R/3, multimedia content, and
tools. The R/3 InfoDB contains over 250 standard courses that we
use in our SAP training facilities worldwide. These courses are
available for multiple R/3 releases in up to 14 languages.
Computing Center Management System
As part of setting up the Computing Center Management System
(CCMS), the system administrators are trained and the network
administration, backup, archiving, and capacity monitoring
systems are prepared and tested. Some of the tasks involved
here are configuring the printing facilities, conducting system
volume and stress tests and conducting a going-live check.
Furthermore, R/3 logon groups are now set up, enabling you to
provide application servers with improved response time for
particularly important work groups using time-sensitive
transactions.
Operation modes (resource configurations for each instance of
the R/3 System) now need to be defined, with the times that the
services are available. Alert monitors and backup schedules are
set up. Productive system printing procedures and spool
administration procedures are defined according to the Systems
Operations Manual set up in the Blueprint Phase. Finally, the R/3
job scheduling system needs to be configured, as well as alert
monitors and backup schedules defined.
Also in Phase 4, the system administration staff needs to be
trained in a workshop session. Topics include troubleshooting,
tape management, and user management, as well as escalation
procedures.
Fig XX: R/3 technical implementation cycle
In Phase 4 you simulate the productive operation of your R/3
System, a step of great importance. The test plan contains all the
most important situations that arise in the normal course of
business:
Testing conversion procedures and programs
Testing interface programs
Conducting volume and stress testing
Conducting final user acceptance testing
Developing a final go-live strategy
The test situations are selected on the basis of importance and
frequency of expected use. Printers and other output devices are
also included in the tests, in order to, for example, check print
volumes or print layouts in printed invoices or purchase orders.
End users are included in the planning and execution of the tests.
Volume testing also involves checking the critical parameters for
specific business procedures, for example, adhering to a two-
second average processing time to create a sales order.
CATT Test System
The Computer Aided Test Tool (CATT) can be used to automate
test sequences for key business processes. The results are
logged in detail and then reviewed. CATT is also used for quality
tests during release changeovers and for simulating complete
business processes.
System administration testing involves testing the activities of a
System Administrator, such as managing job scheduling,
administering corrections and transports, reacting to R/3 System
alerts and logs.
Phase 4 also provides for the testing of the disaster recovery plan
and of the procedures defined for the productive environment. If a
third-party provider has been engaged for these services, their
services and responsiveness can also be tested. Disaster
downtimes are verified and details on de-escalation procedures
are documented.
Now that the technical configuration for the productive system is
finalized, plans are drawn up for transferring legacy data. At this
point, the system settings (Customizing) and R/3 Repository
objects are transferred from the quality assurance system, and
automatic and manual data transfers to the productive system are
carried out and tested.
GoingLiveTM Check
The GoingLiveTM Check involves an analysis of the major system
components of the R/3 installation with regard to system
consistency and reliability. For this, SAP experts log on your R/3
System via a remote connection, inspect the configuration of
individual system components, and provide valuable
recommendations for system optimization. By analyzing the
individual system components before production startup, SAP can
considerably improve the availability and performance of the
customer's live system. In addition, the technical application
analysis provides information on how to speed up the core
processes within R/3.
In the second step of optimization the transactions with high
resource consumption are searched for and necessary
adjustments made. In the third step of verification, the changes
from the two prior sessions are validated. This check is performed
in the productive operation system.
After a system goes live, some fine tuning and eliminating of
potential bottlenecks is still necessary. This is carried out four
weeks after going live with the R/3 System.
Refining the Cutover
At the end of Phase 4, it is necessary to refine and validate the
cutover plans generated in the Realization phase. Among other
things, this includes tasks such as the reviewing of the runtime of
test runs to estimate runtime for the complete data size. A
conversion checklist for transporting all changes into the
productive system is provided for all the configuration settings to
be imported.
At this stage, it is important to verify that required tasks have been
successfully completed, for example, that the technical
environment is in place, the cutover programs are ready and the
application data is verified. Approval is now sought from project
management and company senior management to start the
cutover process.
Here you can also refer to the Data Transfer Made Easy
Guidebook created especially for this purpose. It is located in the
Knowledge Corner of the ASAP CD.
The help desk is particularly important in the first weeks after
going live, but you will require help desk support throughout the
productive life of your R/3 System. An internal help desk should
be staffed and supported mainly by employees of the enterprise.
Setting up a help desk involves, among other things, installing
office and technical equipment and defining OSS users. Problems
which cannot be solved by this internal help desk are forwarded to
SAP via the OSS system.
As soon as you know when you will go live with the R/3 System or
with new R/3 applications you should inform SAP. Thus you can
ensure that SAP can provide optimal support throughout your
going-live phase. For the last weeks before and first weeks after
the go-live date, SAP offers the R/3 GoingLive Customer Care
Service, accessible via SAPNet and OSS.