What is Portfolio Item?

Hi everyone, this blog aims to throw some light on the some of the topics at an advanced level for those who are new to SAP PPM module and eager to know what it is. In no way, this piece of information could be used as a master reference for your organisation’s SAP PPM implementation. An experienced consultant should be guiding your application in all aspects according to your organisation’s business processes and specific requirements.

Where are we now?

We have covered SAP Portfolio Management Introduction and Portfolio Buckets in our previous blog postings @ www.ksatech.com.auWhat is Portfolio Item?Current StateIn your Organisation, you are using SAP ERP software for handling your Investments and Projects. Let's say that you are aware of  SAP Internal Orders, SAP Project System, SAP SD and SAP cProjects. Your company’s other divisions in other states or other countries also use SAP ERP software. In some cases, some of your divisions are using other project management software like Microsoft Project. Your Capital Controller needs the complete view of all the projects in a single Dashboard. The Portfolio Management and its Portfolio Item object are the answer to all your varied requirements.Future StateYour Organisation has decided to implement SAP Portfolio& Project Management. You will have Portfolio Management to handle your investment, expenditure and external services programme.What are the uses of Portfolio Item?

1. Portfolio Item is a strategic project, used as planning object at the start of the project and as the project progresses, it collects and displays all the key figures for the project.
2. It can be used to perform risk analysis.
3. It can be used to perform detailed financial planning in SAP Portfolio Management. It stores initial plan versions and other versions of the Project system(Internal orders). Business /Resource planning and reporting are one of the high points of SAP Portfolio and Project Management (SAP PPM).
4. You can perform capacity planning at the Bucket and Portfolio Item level. It stores initial capacity values and later during the execution of the project collects the actual values from the project management(or Project System).
5. Organisations prioritise their projects using Portfolio Items. It uses scoring models and facilitates informed decision making. The Scoreboard is used to evaluate project scores based on selected scoring models.
6. It can be used to store relevant supporting documents of a project.
7. Portfolio Item combined with the decision points defines the exact status of the project.
8. Portfolio Item's graphical report output is displayed in Reporting Cockpit. The reporting cockpit will contain risk reward diagram, schedule chart and financial breakdown by fiscal year, etc., of a Portfolio Item.

How Portfolio Item integrates with other SAP Modules?The figure and the table above shows how various project financial key figures related to investment, expenditure and revenue can combine in a single dashboard for different options.What is the use case for Portfolio Item?Here we are going to see a typical use case. We will have a Portfolio Structure based on the Organisational functional divisions. The Portfolio Structure can be designed based on the Business functional or based on the departments in the organisation.We will have Portfolio Items, cProject and  SAP Project System modules for Capital Investments management and associated projects. Also, We will use Internal Orders and assign them to Portfolio Items in the Portfolio Management for direct asset purchases and direct sales.Where does a Portfolio Item position itself in the Programme hierarchy?Fig 3: Portfolio Item Position in Portfolio hierarchyHow can I access Portfolio Item?Portfolio Item Dashboard will allow users to see the Items as;1. List of all Items in a PortfolioAt the Portfolio level, you can see all the Projects of the programme2. List of all Items in a BucketAt a Bucket Level, you can see all the projects under a Sub-program3. My Portfolio ObjectsThis Portfolio Item view is the most famous one. The users must be assigned to the Portfolio Item.Then users can easily access these Portfolio Items under "My Portfolio Objects" tab. How to create Portfolio Item?Let us go through the various steps in creating a Portfolio Item;1. Click Create in the Items DashboardPlease note that you can create Portfolio Items from Initiatives and from within a Bucket too.2. You select the Bucket in the next screen (Fig-8).3. Enter Name and ID, Save the Portfolio Item4. Now you can complete the remaining tabs master data of a Portfolio Item. After completing the General page, you can save the Portfolio Item and come back again to continue the process of creation.The information that you are supposed to enter entirely depends on the system configuration and the custom fields.Classification:  This tab will require input in agreement with the Classification hierarchy design and usage in your organisation.Financial Information: Please check the screen shot below for the details of the financial information. We will discuss more in detail while covering the financial planning of Portfolio Item.Capacity Information: Please check the screen shot below for the details of the financial information. We will discuss more in detail while covering the Capacity planning of Portfolio Item.Fig 12: Portfolio Item Creation Phases & Decisions: The Portfolio Items can have decision points. This "Decision Points" acts like different stages of a Portfolio Item. The Portfolio Item decision points can have statuses.Relationships: Here you will create the dependency between two Items. This dependency is only for information purpose. The "dependency" will use dependency types (Finish –start, start-finish, start-start and finish-finish).Object links: Object link is used to link primarily Project system project or SAP Internal order. You can also choose from long list of other SAP Objects. If what you are looking for it is not available, it is possible to enhance and object link another SAP object. We will cover the object link purpose in detail later under financial planning topic. Related Object: Related object tab is used to connect the Project Management Project (c-Project) which is an integral part of the SAP Portfolio & Project Management. If you want to use external c-Project (another instance) then, you will use link object feature for this purpose. Authorisation: Project Management Projects (c-Project) can adopt the authorisation from the related Portfolio Item.You can use "user" or "user role" for authorisation.Item Versions: You can create versions for Portfolio Items. The versions type available project version and simulation version. The difference is Project Version cannot be modified, but the Simulation Version can be amended.Print fact sheet: You can electronically print the contents of the Portfolio Item details using this featureReporting Cockpit: You will use Reporting cockpit for viewing the graphs and charts for Portfolio ItemsCharts: You can configure Charts to see the Portfolio Item financial and Capacity values. We have planned to cover the Charts in detail in the Financial Planning.We will see Questionnaires and Scoring model topic under Review, and our next blog posting will cover the Portfolio Initiative in detail.Stay tuned for the next blog.If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below.