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January 2006

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Integrating SAP and Primavera at AOL

by Hugh Woodward

This case study was originally presented as a webinar by Impress Software and is published with permission.

America Online completed a year-long implementation of SAP in July 2005, installing SAP 4.7 with nine modules for 90 core users and 1100 limited users.

A key scope decision was to continue using Primavera TeamPlay as the project and portfolio management solution. Primavera was in use prior to the SAP implementation and project managers liked its graphical display and interactivity. 400 project managers and 300 other stakeholders were using SAP in addition to 4300 time-sheet users. AOL considered replacing Primavera with SAP’s PS Project Systems module but decided the switch was unnecessary and would have been too disruptive.

AOL’s average project activity involves approximately 1000 projects, with a duration varying from a few weeks to more than a year. 20 to 30 new projects are initiated every week. There are four project categories: maintenance, support, R&D, and development.

The SAP implementation was kicked off in June 2004 and went live in July 2005. It was championed by AOL’s CFO. IBM acted as the integration partner. The project team consisted of 100 people at peak staffing, some off-shore. Very few customizations were allowed, for example by making minimal use of the WBS user-defined fields. Most of the issues were culture related. For example, AOL’s previous ERP system did not use the WBS concept. Overall, the implementation was considered successful.

The decision to retain Primavera created a need to synchronize the WBS’s in SAP and Primavera. This is simplified a little by only synchronizing the financially relevant WBS levels. SAP is considered the system of record and is used for labor costing and settlement. Primavera is used for project labor estimation and forecasting, time sheet entry and approval, resource assignment, and scheduling including baselines.

Impress Software facilitates the transfer of master data and the nightly synchronization. The 1000 projects are arranged in four groups of approximately 250 each, with each group synchronized simultaneously. This allows the nightly synchronization to be completed in approximately 2 hours. The nightly synchronization is supplemented by a weekly run to report inconsistencies.

AOL lists a number of benefits of this solution:

AOL also reports some lessons learned:

About the Author:

Hugh Woodward is the President and Managing Editor of pmforum.org, and an internationally recognized leader of the project management profession. He served two terms as Chair of the Project Management Institute and almost six years as a member of PMI's Board of Directors. His professional experience includes projects and programs in manufacturing, construction and IT, and involving both the public and private sectors. He continues to promote the profession as a frequent conference speaker, having addressed audiences in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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