Workflow level of effort

[Zmudzin,Tomasz,FRANKFURT,Extern LG-DM]

Hello Kathleen,
 
a couple of points that may be of interest for you:
 
- you don't have to build your workflow from the scratch -- there's a
standard SAP template which you can use directly (or as a template if you
find out you really want something more)
 
- get someone experienced in WF to help your internal developmer. Being a
consultant myself I may be biased, but single days of quality assurance
(with some guidance on how to improve it) can really do wonders here. You
will definitely get your WF going without this help -- but getting this kind
of support will definitely pay off in the long run.
 
- think twice on how you want to integrate Outlook. There's a couple of
possible options here, each with its benefits/drawbacks.
 
- 6 months seem to be a very long time in your case. Depending on experience
/ procedures / project cycle you can cut it to a fraction of the time
 
Purchase requisition approval is a workflow evergreen -- fairly standard,
simple, entry-level type of scenario. [It can always be made into a monster,
but your case does not seem to be one -- not at all]. If you wanted to do
this all by yourself, the effort really depends on what "relatively new to
workflow" really means. Without going into detail I'd estimate the effort to
be:
- in the "days" range with a standard SAP scenario and some support,
- evolving into low "weeks" range if you want to depart badly in directions
not exploited before and still have support,
- blowing up into higher "weeks" ranges if you do the latter without
previous experience, your developer is also occupied by other issues, your
project is strangled by procedures etc.
 
Sorry for not providing you with detailed estimates, but we'd need to
discuss if you want to use SAP's standard scenario, in how far you see the
need to modify what SAP already offers etc.
 
Kind regards,
Tomasz
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Bradshaw-Long, Kathleen [mailto:Kathleen.Bradshaw-Long at getronics.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 2:49 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Workflow level of effort
 
 
Hello Workflow experts,
 
I have a very general question regarding estimated labor hours for
workflow.  My company is considering using workflow to route purchase
requisitions to approvers.
We have an average of three levels of approval required for a purchase
requisition.  In the first phase, we'll set up workflow for five
departments,  and there'll be approximately 30 approvers who will have
to be set up with workflow ID's.  Our approval process is going to be
fairly straightforward.  The approval of each level will be sequential,
and as each approver approves or rejects the requisition, an event will
trigger a workflow.  We'd like to route the workflow notifications to
Microsoft Outlook, instead of the SAP inbox. All of our requisitions
will be generated manually, and not by MRP. We have rougly estimated a 6
months project duration and our internal workflow developer is
relatively new to workflow.
 
I'd appreciate any "rules of thumb" for estimating workflow effort.
 
        Kathleen Bradshaw-Long
        BP/IS
 
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