Every SAP Consultant may not be fortunate enough to get opportunity in different types of projects like Implementation (Green Field & Brown Field), Support, Maintenance, Upgrade and Business Consultancy etc. SAP Consultant who has started their career as fresher and eagerly looking for an experience in an implementation project would really wonder how will be an implementation project. For that matter, everybody in our life has wondered to be part of an end to end implementation project. There are so many questions in the mind of SAP Consultants to know about different things within the projects, understand the business processes and deliverables etc. In my entire life, I have come across number of prospective SAP Consultants who are always eager to learn things out of the projects. Everybody used to ask different questions what will be there in an implementation, what kind of calls you receive in a support projects, how the support calls are being handled etc.

Following are the questions posted to me by @Chirag_Shah (so many Chirags Confused) which provoked me to write this blog. Therefore, half of the credit must go to him. There were times when people are desperate to know the things, but nobody around there to suggest and guide. It was really difficult life as not sure where to start, how to read and what to practice etc. However, the things are changed at a faster and the knowledge has been assimilated rapidly across the globe with the invention of the internet. Now with the invention of social networks, the information has become a revolution. People are sharing on a daily basis through Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter etc. Now, fortunately, SDN also joined in the same league with its new look and other extended. In this current world, sharing knowledge is a privilege for number of people.

Probably, some of the following questions would help the Consultants and their understanding.

What is end to end implementation?

In a nutshell, mapping and transforming the business process into SAP and reaping the future benefits. There are number of stages required in an end to end implementation. In the past implementation used to take longer times, however, with number of methodologies the times are being drastically reduced. Most of the consulting partners may also use the same objects / programs with other clients, rather than reinventing the wheel. SAP has its own Accelerated SAP (ASAP) Methodology, the other consulting partners or consulting companies may have their own methodologies. Broadly, this end to end implementation consists of the following phases:

• Project Preparation
• Business Blueprint
• Realization
• Final Preparation
• Go Live and Support
• Run (newly added by SAP)

Please refer http://service.sap.com/asap for further details.

How to start and what is the correct and inclusive path?

Like none of the two people are same in this world (except Bollywood movies ), similarly, no two projects are same. Therefore, you cannot correlate the same things with other projects. Every project is a fresh start and the requirements may be different at the other client. Therefore, there is no standard / correct / inclusive path you must go in order to complete the project. “Project” does means that it is mix of number of uncertain activities, turning all these uncertainties into deliverables is the real challenge in the project. “Project” always runs in three boundaries, “Time”, “Cost” and “Scope” by maintaining the acceptable levels of “quality”. As soon as you are at a new implementation site, try to meet as many numbers of users as possible and discuss with them. You will realize number of issues; it is always the duty of the consultant to quickly understand their business processes. None of the business processes could be same.

What are the points that need to be taken care?

• Proper planning of projects
• Be meticulous at the time of collecting the business requirements (this is key phase)
• Proficient in understanding RICEF requirements (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements and Forms)
  
• Ensure that the all the items promised in the business blueprint are configured / developed
• Proper Testing has been done (Unit / Integration / UAT / Regression if in scope)
• Train the key users and educate the business users
• Maintain Proper documentations
• Ensure you have proper cut-over strategy is in place
• Master and Transaction Datas are loaded in DEV (Test Client), QA and Pre-production before loading into Production System, this would give you a chance to refine or rectify data loading errors.
• Ensure you have completed manual configuration if any (like FTXP tax codes, number ranges, reset asset reconciliation accounts etc.)
• Daily have meetings after go live and ensure you have documented all the user issues meticulously. Ensure proper accountability to resolve these calls. Discuss the progress on a daily basis.
• Proper Segregation of Duties Matrix is in place (SOD) follow Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Compliance if your client is US related
• Ensure that the roles / authorizations are being developed according to SOD.

What all important documentations are required?

There could be number of documents that are being prepared during the implementation or a life of the project. Some of the important documents are as follows:

• Project Charter - High Level document describes statement of scope, outline project objectives, identify main stake holders and define authority of project manager.
• Project Plan - as per PMBOK, "a formal, approved document used to guide to execute both project execution and project control".
• Business Process Documents (BPDs) - This document sets out the guidelines for documenting business process, which is collection activities that produce outcome.
• AS-IS Templates - Usually prepared by the business team, documenting the present business scenarios (pre-SAP)
• Business Blueprint - A kind of legal document that binds both business as well as consulting company to deliver the commitments, usually includes GAP analysis.
• Business Process Master List (BPML) - List of high level business processes of the client, usually used to monitor the progress.
• Gaps Issue Register - This entails the GAPs that can be fulfilled and its impact on the project.
• Configuration Document - Configuration documents relating to various business processes, shows how it is being mapped in SAP.
• Functional Specifications - Mostly written in a business language how a new requirement has to be achieved.
• Technical Specifications - This contains the minute technical details of the functional specification, prepared by developers with the help of fuctional consultants.
• Unit Test Documents - This document is proof of the testing of the transaction done in Testing Client of the Development Server
• Integration Test Documents - This document is the proof of the Integration Tests done in the system (could include screen shots)
• Test Plan - Test Plan is a high level documents emphasizing how the test activities are to be completed detailing scope, approach, resources and schedule etc.
• Test Scripts - Detailed step by step document which are used for the purpose of testing, these are very helpful to the testers in order to test the transactions.
• User Acceptance Test Documents - These documents are proof of the tests that are being conducted by the users.
• Testing Issues Log (accountability required) / Defect Log - This is a log contains the brief description of the defect, accountable person, close date etc.
• Transaction User Guides (TUGs) / End User Documents - These are end user documents which are being used by the business users for future reference.
• User Training Presentations - These are power point presentations that are prepared for the purpose of train the businessusers.
• Risk Register - Risk register is important document, this include anticipated risk, probability, impact, counter-measures and risk owner etc.
• Go-live metrics - This document summarises the end user experience, end user satisfaction levels etc.
• Post Go-live Issues Log (accountability required) - This is a log of every day issues, accountable person and its status, until the project is handed over to Support Team.

The above mentioned list is not exhaustive, but the minimum required for a project.

What are the roles of various SAP consultants, Program Manager & Project manager?

There are number of people involved from Consulting firm’s side:

Program Manager – Having authority to go or no go etc. kind of decisions, could be budget holder for consultant budgets, any high level escalations may goes to him / her

Project Manager – Responsible for day to day and overall management of the project, very key person in administrative decisions / arranging the resources / tracking the project.

Functional Leads – Mostly responsible for drafting business blueprints / leading workshops / arranging sign offs / training the key users / monitoring and mentoring various consultants / coordinating with technical team like ABAPers etc.

Junior Functional Consultants – Configuration / Preparing configuration documents / user guides / training normal business users / helping the users in testing etc.

Technical Leads – Monitoring overall development / Mentoring junior technical consultants / coordinating with Functional Team Leads

Junior Technical Consultants – Coding / Testing / Reporting to Technical Leads

Basis Consultants – System Build / All system related activities / Resolving any system issues / Ensure that the availability of system access

Project Management Office (PMO) – Looking after all administrative needs of the project

How do SAP best practice can be useful in it?

SAP Best Practices are much useful when the Clients intend to go with Vanilla type of standard configuration. In such cases, these best practices would much useful. The consultants are much happy as most of the things are standard and only requires minimal changes to the standard functionality of SAP. Using SAP Best Practices would drastically reduce the cost of project and ensure adequate quality. The other advantage is that it will give the benefit of the SAP Best Practices, which are being used by number of clients across the industry. This gives the confidence to the Client that numbers of other organizations are successfully implemented by using this.

What are building blocks and how to make best use of it?

Whether you call it Best Practices / Building Blocks they are more or less the same. This gives a good opportunity particularly for functional consultants in order to practice in the demo / sandbox system. There more number of times that you are going to practice the more confidence you will be getting. You also must concentrate not only on the configuration but also on practising the business process steps. This would help you to understand what is being expected from the users.

The following links could be useful

http://help.sap.com/saap/sap_bp/baio_frame/BL_ERP606_EN_IN.html

http://help.sap.com/bp_bl604/BL_DE/html/Content_Library_BL_EN_DE.htm

http://help.sap.com/bp_bblibrary/470/BBlibrary_start.htm

http://help.sap.com/bp-baseline/

http://help.sap.com/saap/sap_bp/BBLibrary/General/How_to_download.pdf

Found following thread with summarization of various Finance materials / documentations

http://scn.sap.com/thread/349500

Not sure if all the links in the above thread are working or not.

What is testing process and what is the correct time to switch on to production server?

There could be different types of testing activities are expected. In general, you will find the following types of testing:

Unit Testing – This is done by the Consultants mostly in DEV (Testing) Client to check whether the transaction Codes are working properly or not

Integration Testing – This test is conducted with most realistic data with number sequence of number of modules

Interface Testing – Testing of various interfaces at different points of your projects. You should be clear when you need to test what interface.

User Acceptance Testing – One or more users would test the and sign off whether the transaction codes are working proper or not. This would also include a scenario type testing.

SAP Stress / Load / Performance Testing – This mainly to test whether the system response time is acceptable / performance is as expected.

SAP Security / Authorizations Testing – This is to ensure that the end users are only able to execute the transactions that are intended as per SOD.

SAP Cut Over / Dry Run Testing – This is just to simulate number of single time events such as extraction of data from your legacy systems, validating the data, data conversions etc.

Regression Testing - This is to test whether changes to configurations has made changes to functionality intended for.

There could be other different types of testing activities, but mostly, you would observe the above.

Production server is the final hurdle. There is nothing like switch on to production. As soon as the objects are being tested and signed off they will be moved into Production. Therefore, Production will come along with you through out the project.

What is the Process for proper Sign off?

There is no standard procedure for sign off. It is mostly the understanding between the business and the consulting firm. However, mostly important documents such as business process documents / business blueprints / configuration documents / functional specifications / technical specifications etc. are to be signed parties from both the end (business as well as consulting). They will be binding on both the parties and you can treat them as a kind of legal documents. Tomorrow if there is any deviation, then they can refer to these sign off documents. Consulting Company should be able to deliver what they have committed on these documents and the business should stick to what they have expected. Therefore, these are very important documents for ascertaining the accountability. Usually the sign off documents includes, project manager (business side) business heads, key users from business side; delivery managers, lead functional and technical consultant from consulting side.

What is the difference between Implementation project & Support project?

Implementation Project is mostly transforming the whole business process and mapping into SAP. As explained earlier, it could have number of phases. In most of the cases, the support activity could goes to the same implementation partner or could be other implementation partner depending on the business constraints. Support Projects are mostly for longer duration may be 3 to 5 to 7 years usually. These are being driven by various Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between Client and the Supporting Organization. There may be different types of tolls used like Remedy, Console etc. Remedy is a tool which is used in order to keep track of issues / logs etc. whereas Console could be a password mechanism tool, where you are supporting more than a single client, in such cases, remembering the password is not possible. Furthermore, there could be number of people supporting the same client at different shifts / time intervals, in such cases, this Console would help them.

You need to really experience the life after a SAP Certification. It will not make any much difference for the professionals who are already working in SAP arena. However, the life of the people, who are really anticipating a job in SAP arena or breaking into SAP Consulting world, is with full of anxiety and tension. Taking any SAP certification will surely require considerable amount of time, resources, money, effort and patience. This is particularly true in case if you are going for the certification through training. Some people are lucky enough to know which SAP Certification they are going to do it. However, it is not the case with all the people. They have to first of all enquire which certification is suitable for their future career. This may take a couple of months research in the market. Once they have finalized the Certification to be written, then they will have to plan for the Certification in terms of arranging for the money, taking leave from the current employer (if any), collecting the documents / materials etc. This would further take another two months of time. Then, if they are planning to attend the training, you can add further one month time. Some people are usually eager to give the certification immediately after training. This is good to some extent, because you will be surely in that flow. However, some people are really sceptical whether to go for certification after training or prepare for another month or so and then give the certification. This may also be good to some extent that you can plan well but at the same you will become more and more frustrated and nervous. Because you are reading the same material again and again, this makes you much nervous. By, putting all these items together, it may roughly take six months of your time from the day you decided for Certification in your mind to the day you really attempted the Certification. If the people are not lucky enough to pass for the first time, probably, they may have to add another month or so, which is really nerve wrecking period. You are already giving the Certification for second time, this makes more nervous, because you are investing more amount of money with lot of uncertainty. Therefore, six months of period in a professional’s life is really a big amount of time.

Congratulations!!! You have passed the Certification, you are happy and everybody is happy. However, the real test is going to be started from the next day. The days are more nervous after certification, particularly for the people who are looking for a job / SAP consulting job based on their certification. They might have invested large amount of money and spent 6 months of marathon preparation and effort, but it does not give any guarantee that you are going to get a job in the market. The market has become extremely competitive and employers are more cost intuitive in rolling out the offer letters. You might be attending number of interviews and blowing off each interview with different reasons. In some cases, you are going up to last round, but at the end of the story you are listening story like you have not selected for the position. This type of interviews are really painful to the heart, it will take a week’s time to come out of that disgust. The number of interviews you are going to fail, you would be getting mentally that much stronger.

I am not going to put down the pessimistic views but even I had to undergo all these difficult periods in my life. There could also be some fortunate people who have taken a month’s leave to attend the training and certification, but as soon as the certification, they had to go back to their previous job, which is in a remote area. However, most of the consulting companies are in cities and they may need the people at a shorter notice. Furthermore, nowadays companies are expecting the candidates to attend the interviews by face to face interview. It would be difficult for such candidates every time to come for an interview from such remote area to the cities and attend personal interview. Due to logistics constraints, some of the opportunities might have been evaporated for such candidates.

Some of the people might have resigned their jobs with a hope of getting job after certification and taken a huge amount of loan. For those kinds of people, the life is really unimaginable. Because, the monthly income from salary might have been stopped and the bank might be started charging the EMIs on a monthly basis, otherwise, the interest might be charging to your loan account, if they have taken the loan by pledging gold or valuables. For them the life is astonishingly difficult and every day is a sleepless night because of the amount they have spent on training and certification. They would really praying every day, that any type of SAP job is OK and even they are really ready to compromise in terms of salary. The employers who really can gauge these candidates may benefit out of the salary negotiations. Those candidates who are desperately looking for a break into the market may not be much worried about the salary and ultimately this turns to be a heaven on the part of the employers.

Let us think you have done everything you would like to do in order to get a job. However, unfortunately, fate, market conditions, luck, economy is not in your favour. You have spent lot of amount for training and certification. You have attended few tens of interviews (if not hundreds), still you have not received any job offer from any employer. What are the things you must essentially concentrate after passing for your SAP Certification?

1.     Prepare up to date CV

As soon as you have appeared and passed the SAP Certification, take 2 – 3 days rest, which you really deserved, this would make your mind refresh. Then prepare up to date CV, may be you need to emphasize on the following points while preparing your CV

     a) Detail your SAP knowledge or skills you have acquired

     b) If you have any SAP project experience / end user experience / core team member experience, write down specifically what type of important tasks that          you have performed

     c) Try to give more weight to SAP Skills than your previous non-SAP skills

     d) Always try to show positive attitude and willingness to learn qualities

     e) Use your SAP Certification logo that you have received from SAP Education Team

2.     Improve the contacts

You do not know who is going to help you or guide you. Everybody is looking like a god in their own way. You must have increased your listening skills for getting best and improved suggestions. You may better use different social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin etc. to your advantage. Particularly, you should utilise the power of Linkedin and update all your achievements, experiences, Certifications etc. Furthermore, try to be in touch with number of HR consultants, who are looking for skilled people. In addition, regularly watch the job sites and different reputed companies’ career sites. It would also beneficial if you could send your CVs to the companies through employee referral rather than directly applying on the website, as thousands of people might be uploading their CV and they might not have any time to look into those. Last but not least, do not forget to give a copy of your CV to training Institute, they might be having some contacts with some of the companies and they should be able to arrange the interviews for you.

3.     Read and practice regularly

As soon as you are certified, your responsibility will be increased and you need to improve the habit of reading. There are different sites particularly https://help.sap.com, https://service.sap.com, www.sdn.sap.com, where lot of information and knowledge is available. Continuously reading these important sites would give you an up to date knowledge. This will not only improve the knowledge, but also give an idea what is happening with new technologies in SAP. In addition to this, continuously practice on the system. The better way to practice is to get the documents from SAP Best Practices and configure them. You have configuration, business process documents and presentations for different industries / countries. The more number of times you are configuring them, the confidence will be increased. No experience can replace you a real implementation project. However, these guides will gain you tremendous hands-on experience and keep you ready for next assignment.

4.     Keep attending interviews

Interview is a chance to showcase your knowledge and skills and every interview is different in its own way in terms of expectations. There is no need to worry much even if an interview gone wrong. There could be different reasons why an interview has gone wrong and it is not necessarily relating to your skills and knowledge. However, each interview would give you an opportunity to know the expectations and what type of questions are expected. These interviews would give you an opportunity to refresh your knowledge and better prepared for the next interviews. Usually, your confidence will be increased from the interview number one to interview number five or so on, as you might be sensing the level of expectations from the interviews. At some time point, you would reach to a stage that you are going to convince the interviewers. This is almost like driving test, wherein only few lucky people are able to pass in the first time, but others have to try little more times. Perseverance is the key here.

5.     Do not leave your passion and hard work

The most important thing you must remember is you are learning not just for job and money, but to keep up your passion on SAP. If you believe in your passion and hard work for SAP, the money will follow. Even after getting the job, you should never lose the same interest and intensity on SAP. This intensity and eagerness to learn will always put you ahead in getting the new skills and knowledge areas. Enthusiasm and passion to learn more and more areas in SAP is the key for success. Please remember that the skills are not developed over night. It takes years and years of continuous hard work to get to an master level. The kind of projects you are working will also take pivotal part in quickly developing skills. Working on few end to end implementation projects may give you more overview of the system than working on few years of support project. Whatever be the project, be pro-active and take every challenge as opportunity and try to help your colleagues and share knowledge. This is the key for your success.

Looking forward for your valuable comments.

Best Regards,

Ravi

SAP Certification is the most sought after certifications in the Information Technology (IT) world. In every nook and corner of the world, it has created tremendous buzz among the IT professionals. Probably, SAP Certification is one of the most criticised certifications, but at the same, it is one of the biggest dreams for number of individuals. Many people have criticised in many ways by writing blogs, articles and even books. But, nobody can rule out the craze that it has created in this fast moving IT world. SAP Certification is one of the most successful IT certifications in the recent past. Either directly or indirectly, it has given employment to millions of people across the globe. Though, there are many contenders for the top certification position from Microsoft, Cisco, Sun and Oracle, but still people go so mad for this SAP Certification. SAP Certification is undoubtedly the number one product based IT certification in the current market trend. If you see the number of people enrolling for SAP Certification across the globe is a benchmark for other certifications.

Though there are number of restrictions and hurdles kept by SAP policies for people in particular regions, still it has not lessen the interest for this SAP Certification. Personally, I am not in favour of the SAP discriminatory policies for appearing SAP Certification based on their region. Not just me, many of the professionals from APAC region are not happy with these rigid rules framed by SAP. As a global company and equal opportunity employer, SAP should have made the similar kind of rules in allowing the people for appearing the SAP Certification. Unfortunately, they have different rules for people residing in UK, USA and people in APAC region. If a person from APAC region comes to UK, USA for short term visit, then they can still escape those weird rules of implementation experience and letters from employers etc. There are people even intending to cross the border in order to write the SAP Certification (even I had to cross the border to write my SAP BW Certification ). In this context, my question to SAP is, why cannot you have the same policy across the globe and what is the reason for this discrimination?

SAP should have made the same rules for any human being on this earth. If they have the knowledge, then they are going to pass, otherwise, a simple fail. This is as simple as that. But, I do not understand what is there in SAP Education policy makers mind. I see this policy is also not commercially viable option for SAP. If they make the fair rules across the globe (remove restrictions in APAC region), it would generate more than one million SAP Certification enrolments in a year in India alone. This will create a big rush like first day movie tickets of Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood in India . This small policy change can easily earn SAP half a billion dollars per annum from India alone. If SAP has the “one globe” policy, then the number of enrolments from India alone will be definitely more than double the number of enrolments from the rest of the world. For me it looks, just to protect the commercial interests of some SAP Education Partners in APAC region, they have come up with these discriminatory policies. Unfortunately, these policies are being further discriminated by local SAP to decide their own rules on case to case basis and undue preference has been to the employees working with their local partners. I am not sure whether other IT Certification providers are making this type of discriminatory rules based on their regions / partnerships.

Anyway, we can easily understand how the people are going mad for SAP Certification. Please do not think that this craze for SAP Certification is only in India. It has the same madness across the globe. I would like to point out some of the reasons for this madness. There could be million reasons, why people are doing SAP Certification, but these are my Top 10 reasons why people are getting so mad for SAP Certification.

1. Job

This is the most primary reason that most people are enrolling for SAP Certification is with a hope that it will get them a decent job in SAP arena. There are number of precedents, where numerous people have achieved decent career in SAP based on their SAP Certification. Finally, their stories are turned out to be the most successful stories. Many of these people have achieved professional success and served number of top Global Companies. SAP Certification has helped them to move from remote areas to one of the world’s top most cities. Their friends, juniors, colleagues and others are motivated by this and they are also hoping to repeat the same success stories. Most of the people still believe that they can get a decent job in SAP arena and that job will turn their and their next generations’ fortunes. It is the reason why there are people ready to leave their jobs even with more than 20 years of domain experience and wanted to do the SAP certification in order to break into SAP world.

2. Money

Many of the people who are enrolling for SAP Certification still believe that it is a good way of long term investment. They are hoping that this SAP Certification still able to fetch them a reasonably good amount of returns on their investment. Some of the people still believe that SAP Certification can be a Euro Million Jackpot in their lives. It may be true to a certain extent as number of consultants have seen rapid growth in their professional careers, even it has given them the more than thousand percent of growth and money. The markets are very volatile and the ever increasing demand for quality people, still some of the employers believe that SAP Certification is a good way of measuring the knowledge of the people. With this intention, they are still looking for knowledgeable SAP Certified consultants. The hope of getting good amount of money from those employers is one of the best motivator for people doing the SAP Certification.

3. Reputation

SAP Certified Consultants will have a incredible reputation by their employers of being certified. They will enjoy this special reputation from their employers, colleagues, friends and family members. They will visualise this kind of reputation in the society and still motivate themselves to a greater extent in order to become Certified Consultants. The precedents of reputation that is being enjoyed many number of people is one of the main encouraging factor in order to do the SAP Certification. Everybody would like to see themselves as successfully reputed individuals and professionals in their lives. Nobody is an exception to this rule. This is the basic and fundamental human psychology and it is one of the main encouraging factor why people would go for SAP Certification.

4. Recognition

SAP Certified consultants will enjoy a special recognition with their employer and the prospective employers. Many prospective employers still publish their jobs by stating that “SAP Certification is mandatory / value added advantage”. You will see there are number of jobs in the market with this kind of statements. These statements will drive the number of SAP job hoping aspirants to get them certified.  For those employers, SAP is a third party, which is certifying that the said individual has adequate knowledge in a particular area at that point of time. They have to believe the certification from SAP as a third party and consider that as one of the yard stick in selecting the candidates. In addition, SAP is also serving Logos, ID cards (not sure whether ID Cards are discontinued) to the individuals who have passed the SAP Certification. People still have same craze for these logos and ID cards to put on their CVs and show ID Cards to the public. These logos are still fetching the good amount of recognition from the recruiters. (These logos are just .jpg files, which can be easily used any unscrupulous people; I still wonder how SAP is taking steps to prevent this misuse). Individuals enrolling for SAP Certification are still hoping that they are being recognised by these employers.

5. Prospects

SAP Certification gives the people a special cushion in their career and opens up with many prospects. Just before certification, nobody even bothered to talk about them, but as soon as they are certified, their marketability has increased tremendously. Everybody, talks about their stupendous success. This is just like a person who received their ‘driving license’ and they are recognised to drive on the road. People still believe that one such opportunity will turn their future. They can utilise that opportunity to their advantage in professional career, by working further hard to achieve their professional goals. They believe that the SAP Certification can give them number of prospects, could be one of the intending reasons to go mad for SAP Certification.

6. Promotion

Decent number of employers has promoted the certified consultants in their organisations, particularly in the initial booming days of SAP. In those days, everybody, who has certified by SAP has reaped number benefits from their employers and used SAP Certification a spring to reach the top hierarchies at a faster rate. But, on day by day, within the market, the number of certified consultants are increased on a larger scale. However, organisations in remote areas find difficult to get good quality consultants, are still encouraging their employees to do the SAP Certification. Many of them who want to grow their career in that organisation will go for the SAP Certification to their own mark with that company.

7. Self-respect

SAP Certification is a confidence booster and it gives a lot of self-respect for them. The recognition and reputation among the people make them feel special. To visualise this feeling make them much more stronger and they believe that they are not inferior to anybody. There are many ways of developing one’s self respect, but when they are being certified by reputed organisation like SAP, it gives them a strong sense of responsibility and self respect. This kind of self respect is one of the most strong motivating reasons to enrol themselves for SAP Certification.

8. Prestige

Some people believe having BMW car is a symbol of prestige, some believe having Sony 70" 3D LCD TV is a symbol of prestige, some believe having Nikon high end DSLR is a symbol prestige and  some believe having a posh bungalow is prestige etc. In the similar way, there are many number of people believe that having SAP Certification also gives them the similar kind of prestige in their life. If you see physically, it is just a piece of A4 size paper. But, still there are number of people believe that A4 size paper from SAP is a prestige symbol. You cannot resell unlike other luxury products, still there are people who has strong emotional bond for SAP Certification. You will still find number of parents and family members proudly say that their sons / daughters / brothers / sisters are certified by SAP. This symbol of prestige is still a stronger reason for somebody to get the invaluable A4 size paper from SAP.

9. Prove

There may be some employers / bosses, who neglect their invaluable employees or miserably failed to treat them with respect. Sometimes, people might have worked with such unfortunate and adamant bosses, who never care about the human relations. Those employers and bosses might have used every small opportunity to de-motivate the individual to the maximum extent. In an indirect way, these types of employers or bosses are also strong motivators. The people will make it a point to prove that they are not less to anybody. In order to prove themselves something special, they would opt for SAP Certification. People may find this is a strange reason for going to be certified. But, if you observe the individual with a close human look, you will definitely find large number of such certified people.

10. Benefits

People luckily find some benevolent employers, who sponsor the employees' education. They will take every effort, even in a most depressed economic situation, to allocate training budget and train their employees on the key skills. Some employers will reimburse the certification costs (unfortunately, I am yet to find one). You will find many people who will never be motivated if their own money is to be invested for education. If somebody is else is ready to invest for them, then they will be amazingly inspired and wonderfully motivated to get them certified. The prime reason being, mentally they never intended to miss that free deal. In their opinion, if it is a free deal, they will go and grab like an Olympic gold medal . You will find such lucky employees working with such lovely employers, gets easily motivated at a faster rate to grab the reimbursement benefits for passing the SAP Certification.

Best Regards,

Ravi

PS: These are not the endorsements from SAP, but only my positive thinking personal views why people are crazy and mad for SAP Certification. It is not my intention to tell that you are going to get these benefits by evening with the help of SAP Certification. SAP is only a cushion for your career, but not a short cut. At the end of the story, hard work matters and there is no other way for your success. As usual, I would like to invite your constructive criticisms on my blog.

Me, after passing Six SAP Certifications, I thought it is time for me to share my experiences, tips and ideas with the user community on passing a SAP Certification. SAP Certification is a tensed affair not because of its toughness, but, because of the money involved in it (gambling on one day cricket match ). This is particularly true, in case if you have also attended SAP Training at SAP Education or SAP Authorised Training Institutes. There are many people who have invested everything for just a Certificate. Me also one of such bunch of jokers (my wife says !!! ) who invests everything in education / certification, and at the end of the day, what you get is a peace of paper. However, the value of certification will come along with you and definitely recognised your efforts in the long run. There are many people still blame the certification process itself, because they feel that SAP has not tested their knowledge properly or they might have failed in one of their SAP Certifications or they may feel SAP Certification is a waste of money. Probably, this blog is not for so called intelligent people. I know the importance of hands on experience, but at the same time your fundamentals must be clear to work on a system. I have seen people who are having very good knowledge and 5 end to end implementations under their belt, but failed. I cannot blame their knowledge, I feel, there is a GAP in approach in attempting SAP Certification. This blog is for those who are really motivated to crack the SAP Certification at any cost and prove themselves to add one more A4 size paper to the list of their certificates

I would like to summarize some my personal experiences, tips and ideas, may be helpful in approaching and cracking SAP Certification.

Identify your strengths: Before writing a certification first know your strengths. If you want to write a certification in a particular area, you should know whether you have worked in any of those areas and gained any functional knowledge / domain knowledge / end user experience / configuration experience / coding experience / training etc. Note that everybody cannot get all the opportunities in all the above areas. But, you should able to Identify your strengths with respect to these areas, then decide which Certification you are required to attempt.

Understand SAP Certification Policies: Unfortunately, SAP is having different type of policies with reference to SAP Certification in different countries. I had to travel from India to Malaysia in order to write my SAP BW Certification . Dictionary meaning says Policy means, the rules are same for every one. But, unfortunately, SAP Education policy change from country to country, person to person and organisation to organisation. They are very complex, layman like me cannot understand . First contact your local SAP Education Team and understand what is their policy applicable for your case and get a written confirmation that you are eligible to write the certification. Sometimes, it may so happen that you are eligible to write SAP Certification on day 1 and surprisingly may not be eligible on day 2.

Formal Training: If you are really new to an area, but intended to write SAP Certification, you need to attend the formal training. In some countries, SAP says, you must get trained from SAP Education / SAP Authorised Training Partner. But, in other countries, you can register yourself and write the exam. If you are fortunate enough to afford the money, then, it is recommended to get some sort of formal training. There may be some exceptional people who has written some Certifications without formal training. But, please note all the certification you cannot adopt the same approach. Some of the Certifications really test your ability and conceptual knowledge. Please note that unless you are formally trained, you cannot reach the level of passing the Certification Exam. If you pass such certifications without having any knowledge and training, then you are a star

Plan in advance: You must plan in advance. At least couple of months are really required from the date of start of your formal training and attempting the certification. If you are privileged to get a formal training from SAP, you would get lot of new concepts every day and will have less time to practice and study, then your next day starts for new movie . Therefore, hardly you get any time to master the things. Since, you have gone through every page in detail, probably, you may in a better position position to attempt the examination.

Exercises: At the end of the each chapter, there used to be exercises, but do not worry if you are not able to complete them. In my whole life, I could not complete all the exercises in a book (little incompetent !!! LOL ). Please note that the exercises are given only to get clarity on the theoretical and conceptual knowledge. They are not intended to make you master or test your hands on exercises. Therefore, do not put much stress even if you cannot complete them.

After Training - Before Examination: I would say this is the real crucial stage. During the training period, you never had chance to revise anything. But, this is the period where you will really put the concepts into your mind.

• Read each Certification Curriculum book for not less than FIVE times, very RELIGIOUSLY, before going to examination. First time, it would take longer period, but the more number of times you read, the time would be reduced. You must keep a notes and note down the important points. Meanwhile, you also highlight any important points with marker and note some questions with pencil. But, all my Certification books are filled with different marker colours, so could not read anything
• Give more importance to chapters with +++ or ++ ratings in the syllabus. You may expect more number of questions out of these chapters.
• You are not advised to memorise the things, but, try to read in order to understand the concepts. Because, in certification, SAP is trying to test your conceptual knowledge, but not your memory.
• Try to answer the questions given at the end of the each chapter.
• Practice number of questions during this period. There are number of yahoo / google groups, where you can find number of sample questions. Try to attempt them. Do not worry, if you are only able to correct few in your first attempt. Even me used to get few correct answers only. If it is wrong, understand why it is wrong, if it is correct, why it is correct, this is the only way, you can clear the conceptual understanding, rather than blindly remembering the answers.
• There are number of pictures / graphs that are being given in the Certification material. Please do not look them as nice looking coloured pictures. Try to analyse them in functional / technical perspective. Hopefully, you will find lot of meaning from them. Then read the underlying text in conjunction with those pictures. You will see much and better confidence view.
• If you have any time try to go through help.sap.com, where the concepts are written in crystal clear language. If you find any time and also go through some of the threads on SDN, that would be a bonus.

Day before examination:

• Know the address of your examination center. Otherwise, you may get panic in searching for the center tomorrow morning
• Go to bed little early.
• Do not read too much the whole night, it may not help, moreover, you may be sleepy in the examination.

On the day of examination:

• Get up little early and have relaxed bath, take adequate breakfast.
• See if you have time and can rush through pages, but not spend too much time here, you will forget going to exam.
• Ensure that you have identity card (passport / driving license) or admission ticket, pen / pencil etc.
• Ensure that you reach half an hour in advance to the examination time. One time, I could not reach the examination center due to traffic and I am forced to reschedule my examination.
• Whoever be the person, there will be definitely some tension boiling inside. But, try to keep yourself as much relaxed as possible. Just think, even if you do not pass, it is not the end of the world, still there is a tomorrow. Be calm.

In the Examination Hall:

Before coming to the examination, you must have enquired the pattern of the examination. In earlier pattern, you can still get partial credit for partially correct questions. However, for new pattern, SAP only will award  marks if all your answers / sub answers are correct in a question. Even if you make one sub-question incorrect, you will not get any marks for the total question. Therefore, your concepts must be crystal clear, you cannot take chances to put lotteries in the examination center , whereas in old pattern, many people used to put lotteries for unknown questions (including me ), as you were not going to loose anything. No negative marking is there in either current or old pattern of valuation.

• Ensure you have completed all the formalities, like filling the form containing the name, contact details, address (where you should get your certificate) etc.
• Use elimination technique - First try to identify the wrong questions, which you can identify very easily, then finally you will reach the right answers.
• Concentrate on Single Answered Questions - For certain questions are called single answered questions, which will have radio buttons, only one question will is the correct answer. I heard that they have higher weightage, but not sure. Ensure that you reach the correct answer by using elimination technique.
• Try to attempt the easy questions first - Try to attempt the easy questions first, then this will give you confidence and keep you in better frame of mind.
• Mark the questions - If you cannot answer the question completely, then put them as "Marked question", then at the end you can easily identify such questions and complete the answers. Even if you do not put as "Marked Questions", still you can come back and complete them, it would waste your valuable time.
• Take few minutes break - Go to wash room and come back, your mind may be recharged.
• Do not worry much about the time - You should usually get ample time. Every time, I used to get time to go through all the questions 3 to 4 times. Therefore, in my opinion, time will not be a constraint, unless somebody spends more than an hour on a single question
• Give last ten minutes for re-look at all questions - At this point of time, you do not have the time to read the question, only look at the question with your eyes and ensure that you have answered all questions. So, go through in this fashion for all the questions.
• Relax - If you are confident, then you can click submit button, if you are shivering, just sit, relax and close your eyes, the system will take your session and issue the results. If you pass you will see Congratulations, otherwise, you will see your failed message. You can note down the marks obtained chapter wise on a plain paper.
• Even if you pass or fail, do not much worry about it, calm / relax and come out of the examination hall.

After the Examination:

• You should get your hard copy of the certificate within 4 - 6 weeks of time from the date of your Certification.
• If not contact your Local / Global SAP Education Team, they should be able to help you out.
• Contact SAP Education Team for password of your S ID. This you can use in order visit Service Market Place (https://service.sap.com). Do not share this User ID and Password with others.
• Contact SAP Education Team for your Certification Logo, which you can use on your CV.
• Earlier SAP used to send S ID cards. I got for my three certifications, but not for other three. But, I do not know where I misplaced

Hopefully, I believe that I have covered most important points and will be useful for SAP Certification aspirants. This is the approach I used to follow. If you have any better approach, you are always welcome with suggestions and updates.

All the best.

Best Regards,

Ravi

PS: Please do not waste your money on bogus web sites, who are selling the questions / useless materials.