Dan Serban
Senior, SAP certified BW consultant, SAP technical expert Basis, ABAP/4
Business and personal information
|
Core skills: |
SAP BW, SAP Basis, SAP ABAP/4, LSMW, NetWeaver |
|
|
Certifications: |
SAP Certified BW Application Consultant |
|
|
Visa status: |
EU citizen, no restrictions in any EU country for up to 6 months |
|
|
Contact info: |
dserban01 [at] yahoo [dot] com, +40.740.874.085 |
|
|
Date of birth: |
20-NOV-1967 |
|
|
Foreign languages: |
Fluent English (spoken/written), German (written) |
|
|
Marital status: |
Single |
|
|
Residence: |
Bucharest |
|
|
|
|
|
Skills matrix |
|
|
|
|
Highly proficient |
Proficient |
|
ERP Software: |
SAP BW, SAP R/3 |
|
|
DB platforms: |
Oracle 9i / 10g |
MySQL, MS SQL, DB2 UDB |
|
Server OS platforms: |
Solaris , Windows 2003, Linux |
HP-UX, AIX |
|
Programming: |
ABAP/4, PL/SQL, UNIX shell scripting |
Java, PHP |
Employment History
Employer: Digital Intelligence Systems (DISYS) (Houston, TX) - Client: Shell Chemicals (Rotterdam, NL)
17 months (January 2007 - May 2008) SAP BW 3.5 Group Consolidation / Management Reporting development
The purpose of the project was to
move all functions from obsolete, non-BW based Group Reporting and Chemicals
Management Reporting systems, into SAP BW, as well as to implement a
reconciliation mechanism between both views on the same data.
Conducted face-to-face as well as
remote (NetMeeting) analysis and design review sessions with key users, data
guardians and other stakeholders from 4 different geographical locations across
the world.
Prepared comprehensive solution
design documents as well as test and cutover plans and coordinated their successful
passage through all review and approval stages of Shell Chemicals'
Sarbanes-Oxley change management processes.
Created necessary InfoObjects, ODS
objects, InfoCubes and BEx queries, performed data load tests in sandbox,
development and QA environments, working closely with business process owners
to gather valuable feedback, add new functionality and prepare a roadmap for
transfer rules based data cleansing.
Developed generic mapping solutions
for dynamic, versioned determination of consolidation accounts, product groups
and sign flips based on several inputs (R/3 GL account, material account
assignment group, customer account assignment group); implemented the mapping
solution in the form of an ABAP/4 function module which is called in the start
routine of the update rules, to provide a result table and to be applied as
data is moved from the first level data warehouse layer into either second
level ODS objects or directly into InfoCubes.
Developed checklists for data
guardians aimed at maximizing the efficiency of the data quality verification
process.
Prepared extensive documentation
suitable for and aimed at the production support team; worked closely with the
team to transfer knowledge of the new design as well as secure commitments to
deploy and operate in the production environment.
Prepared training materials and
held initial and brush-up knowledge transfer sessions with all interested
stakeholders.
Provided go-live support and
managed emergency helpdesk tickets related to the new functionality.
Provided post-go-live and
stabilization support both on-site as well as by e-mail / phone.
Employer: HRforce / SCC IT-Consulting SRL (Bucharest) - Client: SNP Petrom SA / OMV
6 months (July 2006 - December 2006) SAP HR data migration - R/3 4.7
Responsible for migrating into the
SAP PA (personnel administration) module, HR data from 17 Petrom branches (4
types of legacy systems: Siveco, EMSYS, BPCS, locally developed FoxPro
applications), a total of 8300 employee records, in a very challenging
OMV-Petrom post-merger environment.
Developed a consolidated SAP-based
migration database, consisting of a set of custom Z-tables and programs the
purpose of which was to import several types of HR data delivered in CSV as
well as Excel formats. The data sets included legacy extracts of employee level
data in CSV format, code files which contain the relationship between infocodes
and long-text descriptions for those particular fields that are based on an
underlying value table for available options, additional data sources with
employee level data - not available in the legacy system - in a standardized
format agreed upon with the business community, mapping tables for translating
legacy infocodes into SAP infocodes - in both CSV and Excel formats.
Documented the data migration
application for knowledge transfer purposes.
Established field sourcing rules,
conversion rules and priorities, as well as default SAP values for those cases
where due to intense organizational restructuring, employee transfers and
new-hires were making it difficult to get good quality data on time.
Generated reports of employee
records where default SAP values had been used, in order to assist the HR
business community with the manual process of post-migration data cleansing in
SAP.
Coordinated and synchronized the process
of collecting data from all 17 branches which needed to be as of the same key
date in the entirety of the data inventory, a challenging effort due to having
to communicate efficiently with a large number of legacy system users from both
HR as well as payroll backgrounds with widely varying degrees of overall
experience in information systems, and located all across the country of
Romania.
Worked with Raiffeisen and
Romexterra banks to obtain IBAN codes for all employees' debit card account
numbers.
Generated error reports based on
which the business community made ongoing corrections to both the data in the
legacy systems and the additional Excel-based data sources.
Developed batch input programs for
each one of the 4 data streams: HR master data / basic pay, family members /
dependents, ID documents, ongoing extra pay. The programs generate batch input
screen data after dynamically reading configuration tables to determine which
InfoTypes / subtypes have been configured as part of both migration actions: PZ
for migrating active employees, and PX for migrating suspended employees.
Created 4 LSMW objects and
integrated the batch input programs into them.
Worked with team leads from the
business community to perform infocode mapping and organize the pre-go-live and
go-live acceptance tests.
Delivered a consistent, quality
accepted / signed-off set of employee master records to the SAP payroll team
for stage 2 of the go-live. The following InfoTypes were populated with data:
0000 - Actions, 0001 - Organizational assignment, 0002 - Personal data, 0006 -
Addresses: Home / Place of business, 0007 - Planned working time, 0008 - Basic
pay, 0009 - Bank details, 0016 - Contract elements, 0019 - Monitoring of dates,
0021 - Family members / dependents, 0041 - Date specifications, 0080 -
Maternity protection, 0185 - Identification, 0519 - Tax and insurance data RO).
Developed interactive ABAP/4
reports to assist the business community during the immediate post-migration
phase. Among other things, the reports allow a direct, quick and easy
drill-down into the desired InfoType screen based solely on the fully qualified
legacy employee number in the format <BRANCH_CODE>_<EE_NO>.
Consulting client: WellsFargo Bank (San Francisco, CA)
2 years (July 2004 - June 2006) Remote SAP Basis R/3 4.7 / BW 3.5 technical assistance / dev. support
Provided 24x7 technical on-call
support (3rd level) for an SAP landscape consisting of 3 production R/3 Enterprise
4.7 / NetWeaver systems, 12 non-production R/3 Enterprise 4.7 / NetWeaver systems,
1 production BW 3.5 / NetWeaver system and 3 non-production BW 3.5 / NetWeaver
systems.
Responsible for troubleshooting
system related issues (transport failures caused by stale DataSource replicas
in the target BW system) and integrity of data loads.
Configured and documented the
automated SAP BW background processing flow as a combination of SAP BW internal
process chains and batch job triggers originating in R/3 and legacy systems.
Set up automated data loads and optimized the Oracle database and BW server to
achieve desired performance.
Provided detailed disk layout based
on data model documentation provided by the functional configuration team.
Configured InfoCube tables and tablespaces for partitioning by fiscal period to
achieve optimal performance. Developed Oracle SQL scripts to move InfoCube
partitions between tablespaces and reorganize the bitmap indexes.
Provided support to the BW
development team in the areas of impact on database table design of using
available options during the InfoCube / InfoObject creation process, as well as
during creation of transfer / update rules.
Responsible for the ongoing
configuration of the FI-AA fixed assets module of R/3 as well as the
monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting of data loads and OLAP queries
pertaining to FI-AA on the BW side. Designed required queries and associated
objects and performed all tasks related to the BEx Analyzer.
Facilitated knowledge transfer by
way of documentation in the areas of application design and software
configuration to other project team members.
Developed UNIX shell scripts to
automate daily tasks.
Performed the installation and
configuration of a separate, Internet-accessible Oracle 10.2.0 server along
with the Application Express development environment to provide secure web
access to a limited set of SAP R/3 data - via DB link - to a select group of
corporate customers of the bank. Worked with the customer's network specialists
as well as with the security audit team to tighten up security around this
business solution.
Performed ongoing maintenance of
SAP R/3 and BW authorization profiles.
Responsible for the SAP R/3 / BW
integration of a third party data mining application aimed at managing
compliance with U.S. corporate governance legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley). The
application, called Business Assurance PRO, makes use of the standard Business
Warehouse extractors available in the SAP R/3 plug-ins for BW to gather
historical data as well as deltas from the customers' SAP systems.
Responsible for keeping performance
/ response times of SAP R/3 and BW systems within parameters specified in the
service level agreement.
Involvement in the weekly testing
of disaster recovery readiness.
Employer: Siemens Business Services Romania SRL (Bucharest)
15 months (March 2003 - June 2004) SAP ABAP/4 projects
Participated in a very extensive
and ambitious ABAP/4 project the purpose of which was to develop a large scale
custom extension to the MM and PP modules of R/3 to fit the special
requirements of the customer. Developed reports, BAPI-based migration programs,
user exits to be used in conjunction with MM17 (mass maintenance of materials),
field exits, extensions to custom dialog programs. Client: AMAG (Austria Metall
AG). The project was a success.
Developed a methodology to standardize
and streamline the development of inbound R/3 interfaces, thereby reducing
considerably the development effort necessary to import data on an ongoing
basis from any legacy system into R/3. Successfully applied this methodology to
the customer master data interface requested by MoldCell, a very important
client.
Changed existing corporate
consolidation reports to include and provide a breakdown by the fields partner
ID and subitem ID. The reports' output was in the form of CSV files which are
fed on a monthly basis into the customer's financial consolidation system.
Adapted most ABAP/4 lists and
reports to allow for additional table lookups and for storing query results
into newly created Z-type tables in the database, in addition to outputting
that data on the screen. These changes were necessary in order to feed data
into a highly specialized MS SQL Server marketing / consumer preference
database to be used by the call center.
Developed other ABAP/4 reports and
BDC interfaces for the FI, AA, CO, MM and SD modules as requested by customers.
Developed additional reports using
the ABAP/4 Query tool.
Developed CATT scripts for initial
data loads.
Provided technical leadership and
expertise for the financial group consolidation project of an important customer
in the retail industry.
Employer: Siveco Romania SA (Bucharest)
3 months (November 2002 - February 2003) SAP-to-Oracle business intelligence miniproject
The purpose of the miniproject was
to integrate SAP R/3 and Siveco Analyzer, the decision support solution offered
by this local ERP vendor. Client: Holcim Romania.
Created ABAP/4 extraction routines
for 2 key multidimensional reports requested by the client: TPM (Transaction
Price Management) and COS (Cost Center Report Planned vs. Actual).
Created ABAP/4 code by merging
standard R/3 transactions and lists such as FBL5N, FS10, MCTE and MMBE into new
Z-type programs, customized the new code to allow output of and filtering by
the customer specific XREF1, XREF2 and XREF3 fields. These fields have different
meanings in different R/3 modules, tables and transactions, including
combinations of sales rep code and plant, or business area and sales territory.
Employer: Data Foundations Consulting Services (California)
Project description:
6 months (April 2002 - October 2002) SAP BW project - consulting client (Cox Ohio Publishing)
Performed the installation of SAP
BW 2.0B and later the upgrade to 2.1C on the customer’s development, QA and
production systems.
Provided recommendations for how to
organize SAP objects in transports to ensure efficiency as well as
successfulness of transports. Trained the Basis team on how to use the
Transport Connection and how to deal with the BEx bucket impacting the query
development process.
Provided input into the data
modeling process with respect to future data load and query performance.
Monitored after-go-live BW query performance and re-adjusted aggregates to
optimize response time.
Scheduled special background jobs
to update database statistics for tables and indexes belonging to the Business
Content.
Conducted benchmarks to measure and
document timing and resource consumption for transfers from R/3 to PSA, PSA to
ODS and ODS to InfoCube loads as well as InfoCube compress jobs, aggregate
builds / rollups, scheduled queries and realignment runs affecting critical
hierarchies and navigational attributes. Documented aggregate usage by queries.
Trained power users in efficient BW
query design from a performance perspective.
Employer: Data Foundations Consulting Services (California)
Project description:
18 months (October 2000 - April 2002) SAP BW OLAP 2.0B-2.1C project - consulting client (West Group, MN)
Conducted demos of the BW
functionality to facilitate the assessment of requirements against Business
Content, using both the BEx Analyzer and web queries. Evaluated and documented
the need for custom work and custom structures in SAP BW.
Participated in the requirements
gathering process and produced the BW blueprint documents for phases I, II and
III.
Facilitated the creation of custom
InfoCubes, InfoObjects and underlying BW structures to provide multidimensional
query access to required R/3 data. Activated Business Content and published
queries to the web as needed.
Provided the BW administration team
with a checklist of daily tasks to ensure that all InfoPackages are executed
properly and to validate the data.
Managed interdependencies between
BW loads and R/3 batch runs to avoid 'orphan records'.
Identified, documented and resolved
all issues related to ETL – extraction, transformation, loading.
Conducted pre-production benchmarks
to measure performance of web queries and set quality of service levels for
inclusion in the service level agreement.
Provided the customer with
performance-by-design best practice recommendations (data placement for master
data, ODS objects, fact / dimension tables, aggregates and indexes, InfoCube
partitioning strategies, isolating partitions of large tables into their own
tablespaces, buffering of number ranges for master data SIDs and DIM IDs).
Worked with the customer's BW team to implement these recommendations.
Monitored long-running ad-hoc
reports after go-live to ensure that hardware resources are efficiently
utilized while ensuring the best possible response time for highly
business-critical queries. Documented the resulting configuration for Oracle
partitioning and Parallel Query and provided hands-on knowledge transfer to the
in-house Basis team on how to manage BW performance on an ongoing basis.
Provided expertise in SAP BW
database tasks.
Provided key feedback to SAP in the
development of methodologies, best practice procedures and BW product
enhancement.
Employer: Data Foundations Consulting Services (California)
Project description:
3 months (July 2000 - October 2000) SAP BW OLAP 2.0B - Panasonic Corporation
Provided the customer with a
technically consistent SAP BW / UDB EEE landscape by installing software
components and support packages provided by SAP / IBM in the correct sequence.
Provided data load resource
estimates in terms of timing and sizing for inclusion in the project schedule
and the hardware purchasing process. Evaluated statistical performance of the
running systems and documented future resource consumption for pay-as-you-grow
budgeting.
Managed BW / UDB EEE databases and
associated storage.
Employer: Data Foundations Consulting Services (California)
Project description:
2 months (May 2000 - July 2000) SAP R/3 OLTP 4.5B performance tuning - BASF Corporation
Provided performance analysis and
tuning services for two R/3 systems (releases 4.5B and 3.1I) used by over 4000
users in 14 countries across North and South
America. Identified hard capacity
constraints and database bottlenecks, performed row-level and block-level
selectivity analysis on proposed indexes, made recommendations for table
buffering / unbuffering, worked with ABAP/4 developers to improve less than
optimal SQL.
Performed system copies and
refreshes as needed for test events.
Assisted the UNIX team with the
migration of the main production system to Sun Ultra E10000 clustered servers
with EMC 8730 Symmetrix array. Teamed up with the customer’s lead DBA and EMC’s
on-site personnel to develop the best possible physical layout for the
relocated database.
Employer: Cap Gemini Package Based Solutions (Houston, TX)
Project description:
18 months (November 1998 - May 2000) SAP BW OLAP 1.2B - Harrods Retail (Knightsbridge, London, UK)
Performed the sizing and
installation of two BW release 1.2B systems. Activated Business Content
according to the customer's data modeling requirements. Installed the BW
plug-in on the customer's development, QA and production R/3 systems.
Installed, restored and
reconfigured software and database files on the customer’s test and production
systems on an as needed basis.
Provided the customer with custom
performance analysis scripts.
Implemented an Oracle standby
database scenario using the old hardware as fallback to address the customer’s
key high-availability concerns.
Provided first-point-of-call
support for performance during divisional rollouts.
Planned and executed support
package applications.
Maintained backup and recovery
operations and procedures.
Detected, documented and resolved
system incidents.
Provided expertise in the
configuration, deployment and troubleshooting of ALE (Application Link
Enabling) communication between the point-of-sale management system and SAP
R/3.
Employer: Cap Gemini Package Based Solutions (Houston, TX)
Project description:
12 months (December 1997 - November 1998) SAP R/3 3.1H implementation (ANC Company, IL)
Provided detailed disk layout for
the SAP R/3 installation.
Performed the necessary
pre-installation steps for the SAP R/3 installation, executed the installation
and initial configuration and documented the steps.
Designed and tested the customer’s
backup and recovery strategy as a combination of weekly offline backups and
daily online backups.
Configured security authorizations
using the Profile Generator.
Designed the transport landscape
and provided the customer with automated transport and conflict detection
scripts.
Provided initial and ongoing
training to the customer's Basis administration team.
Configured the FI-AA / fixed assets
module of R/3 and provided training to end-users.
Employer: Metro Cash & Carry International (Budapest & Bucharest)
Project description:
4 years (January 1994 - November 1997) SAP R/3 2.2F Basis / Oracle 7.0 integrated implementation
SAP and non-SAP (Oracle DBA)
related data processing responsibilities.
Went through a comprehensive 1-year
training in Metro Hungary (SAP Basis / Oracle / Solaris administration).
Learned the specifics of administering and optimizing performance for
enterprise-strength ERP/OLTP systems running on Oracle databases.
Devised policies for streamlining
operator tasks and reducing human error with the overall goal of achieving as
close to 24x7 availability as possible.
Responsible for troubleshooting
highly complex SAP / Oracle system related issues.
Performed R/3 system copies using
offline backups for development purposes.
Performed R/3 client copies.
Developed UNIX shell scripts to
automate daily tasks.
Provided support to the ABAP/4 /
PL/SQL / SQL*Forms application development teams in the areas of performance
impact of using advanced SQL features provided by the ABAP/4 and PL/SQL programming
languages.
Designed the SAP stress testing
strategy and monitored performance during the stress test; reviewed settings
for table buffering, created custom indexes where necessary and provided
feedback on expensive SQL statements to in-house ABAP/4 developers.
Other Information Technology and Industry Experience
Deep knowledge of Oracle's and
SAP's Data Dictionary.
Other software: Visio, MS Office,
MS Project.
Programming: ABAP/4, UNIX shell
scripting, Java, PHP, Oracle PL/SQL.
Technology training
SAP America
SAP Certified BW Application
Consultant (2-week certification academy)
BW 3.0 Delta Training
BW 2.0 Technical Administration
