Streamlining SAP Authorization Reviews

Our client, a leading Indian manufacturer of refractory products, serves various industries such as steel, cement, glass, non-ferrous metals, and more. With a rich history spanning over six decades, they have established a strong reputation for producing high-quality refractory materials and providing innovative solutions for the demanding needs of their customers worldwide.

Authorization Review Process

The manual authorization review process in SAP plays a critical role in ensuring data security, compliance, and controlled access within an organization's SAP environment. This process involves the meticulous examination of user roles, permissions, and access rights to various SAP modules and functions. These reviews are essential because they help identify and rectify any discrepancies, excessive privileges, or unauthorized access that could potentially compromise sensitive data or lead to compliance violations.

Typically, the manual authorization review process in SAP is a time consuming and resource-intensive task. SAP systems can be highly complex, with numerous user roles and authorizations, making it challenging to keep track of who has access to what. Reviewing and updating authorizations manually can result in delays, errors, and increased operational costs.

CURRENT APPROACH

A fragmented approach to the manual authorization review process in SAP presents several significant challenges. First, extracting user authorization data from SAP systems can be a cumbersome and error-prone task, often requiring extensive technical expertise and time. Once this data is gathered, preparing reviewer-wise spreadsheets adds another layer of complexity, consuming valuable resources and increasing the risk of discrepancies. Sending these spreadsheets to individual approvers and subsequent follow ups to collect reviewed data can lead to delays and communication bottlenecks, potentially slowing down the entire review process.

Furthermore, the de-assignment of roles from individual backend systems poses a unique challenge, as it requires a meticulous approach to ensure that users are not inadvertently denied access to necessary functions. Finally, documenting approvals and maintaining a clear audit trail can be cumbersome when performed manually, increasing the likelihood of oversight and compliance risks. To streamline this process and overcome these challenges, organizations are increasingly seeking automated solutions and centralized tools that can efficiently manage user authorizations, track approvals, and maintain comprehensive audit records within their SAP environments.

CHALLENGES

Our client's primary challenge centers on initiating and effectively executing the User Access Review process. Throughout each phase of this undertaking, there is a significant reliance on manual efforts, involving activities such as data extraction, data consolidation, follow-up email communications, maintaining meticulous records of the approval process, and manual adjustments to user authorizations.

Additionally, auditors shoulder the cumbersome responsibility of manually examining change logs to oversee active users and monitor Tcodes and role usage information.

How we automated this process?

We executed the implementation of our User Authorization Review (UAR) solution - Review Now. Initially, we established clear user-tomanager mappings and subsequently, we synchronized data from various SAP systems across the landscape, ensuring a comprehensive assessment. Once these foundational steps were completed, we initiated the pivotal review process.

Within this review process, notifications were automatically generated and sent to Managers/Reviewers, making them to thoroughly examine the requests assigned to them within the UAR solution. They diligently assessed the user authorizations present in the system.

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How have we helped a leading refractories company in automating the Authorization Review process?