Workflow level of effort

[Bradshaw-Long, Kathleen]

Dear Tomasz,
 
Thank you for your reply.=20
Kathleen
-----Original Message-----
From: Zmudzin,Tomasz,FRANKFURT,Extern LG-DM
[mailto:Tomasz.Zmudzin at de.nestle.com]=20
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 3:27 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Workflow level of effort
 
 
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
 
> North America Operations
> 836 North Street
> Tewksbury, MA 01876
> Tel: 978-858-8909
>
        Kathleen.Bradshaw-Long at getronics.com
> <www.getronics.com>
>
>