Hi All,
I'm trying to compile a list of SAP IS-U Best Practices.
If you have others we currently use please post them in this post or on [http://www.sap-isu.net/|http://www.sap-isu.net/profiles/blogs/sap-isu-best-practices].
Billing - Billing Class
Best practice is to have billing class as residential, commercial, industrial.
Billing - Portions
Best practice is to have one portion for each billing cycle. For example if the company has only monthly billing and bills each day we would have 21 portions, 1 portion for each billing day.
Meter Reading - Meter Reading Unit
Best practice is to have one meter reading unit containing all the meters in a route that a meter readier can read in a day usually no more than 100 meters.
Portion - End of Billing Period
The month in the End of Billng Period date in the Portion should be January. For example if you need to define 21 portions for your project those portion should have the dates as (if we take 2009 as an example): 2.01.2009, 5.01.2009, 6.01.2009, 7.01.2009, 8.01.2009, 9.01.2009, 12.01.2009, 13.01.2009, 14.01.2009, 15.01.2009, 16.01.2009, 19.01.2009, 20.01.2009, 21.01.2009, 22.01.2009, 23.01.2009, 26.01.2009, 27.01.2009, 28.01.2009, 29.01.2009, 30.01.2009.
If there are customers who are read on the last day of the month you should create one more portion with end billing period date as 31.01.2009.
Billing - Manual Billing
Best practice is to give permission to Manual Billing Transaction only to a few (2-3) users which have been very well trained. Manual Billing transaction is a very flexible transaction and not very good trained users can make big mistakes.
Parallel Processing
When using a parallel processing transaction (Billing, Invoicing, Dunning, etc) the interval lenght should be 1000 for best performance. The number of jobs should be less or equal with the number of number ranges defined for that process.
Billing - Billing Master Data Naming Convention
Best practice is that Billing Master Data Naming Convention to contain a letter to designate the division. Then the remaining letters should be use to best abbreviate the meaning of the respective billing master data.
Example:
01 u2013 Electricity Division
Rate:
Naming Convention
E-XXXXXXXX
where
E = Electricity
XXXXXXXX = best abbreviation for the rate name
Regional Structure
Best practice is to use Regional Structure when default values need to be proposed from the regional structure (meter reading unit, temperature area, grid, etc).
Master Data Number Ranges.
Best Practice is to have different number ranges for different master data objects.
Example:
Business partner starts with 1
contract account starts with 2
contract starts with 3
installation starts with 4
premise starts with 5
connection object starts with 6
device location starts with 7
Error Processing
Best practice to handle errors in SAP IS-U is to use BPEM - Business Process Exception Management component. BPEM is a cross application functionality used to create exception cases from error log and to assign a correction procedure (manul or automatic) to each case.
Billing - Schema
Best practice is to have as many schema as products you sell. Lets say you have 2 residential products with different components: one has a daily charge and electricity consumption charge and the other has only the consumption charge. Is best to have them separate into different schemas as it is much easy to read and handle each product in it's schema then having all the products in one schema.
Customer Service - IC Web
Best practice is to implement IC Web client as the client interaction center. Web IC is want SAP is focusing right now. Old CIC0 will not be supported in the future.
Billing Serial Switching
Best practice in billing serial switching is to use the new Installation Groups concept rather than the old register relationship. Installation Groups is much more flexible and user friendly than the old register relationship.
Customer Service - Master Data Template
Best practice for creating master data (technical or business) is to use master data templates to create all the necessary data insted of creating the master data objects manually. Transaction EPRODCUST is used to create new master data templates based on existing master data template categories. Master data template can be used to quickly create test data in test client.
Business Partner Creation
Best practice is to set up the system to create an customer master in Accounts Receivable module even though there is no integration with SD module. Further down after go live it might be the case to integrate the SD functionalities with IS-U therefore having business partner already set up as customer master in AR would leas to a seamless integration.
Billing - Period End Billing
Best practice for period end billing is not to use it if you are planning to change MRU in the instalation in the middle of the period, or if you want to use alternative portion in the contract.
Who's next?
Thanks,
Daniel Toba
sap isu social network