SAP Audits

A periodic audit of SAP transaction history and user activity reporting is important from two standpoints

• Application Management: Identifying poorly performing transactions, frequently and infrequently used transactions, anomalies in usage patterns, etc. This enables IT to fine-tune and improve quality and performance of SAP applications. This also supports capacity utilization and capacity planning initiatives.
• Regulatory Compliance: Demonstrating compliance with regulatory standards and requirements (such as segregation of duties).

Auditing SAP Transactions for Application Management

Traditional performance management relies on data averages and totals, which typically provide only partial visibility into a problem. For example, when average response time is high, only a small subset of long running transactions may be responsible. Or a problem may affect only those using a specific transaction or in a specific location. With Tidal Transaction Analyzer, a Performance Analyst can:

• Identify the slowest-running transactions in a given time period
• Identify locations with the worst response time
• Identify the load on SAP by transaction, department, and user

Transaction Analyzer allows IT to more efficiently balance loads to meet individual department needs. Analysts can understand the demands each business unit places on the system and quickly recognize the need for changes in service requirements. They can track changes in workload and link them to changes in headcount, new projects, and other business demands. With Tidal Transaction Analyzer, Analysts are more easily able to ensure that resource allocation is aligned with functional needs and service level agreements (SLA).

Auditing SAP Transactions for Regulatory Compliance

A compliance audit must identify potentially risky transactions and verify that company policies and procedures have been and are being followed. To do their jobs, Auditors need access to the “who, what, when, and where” of these transactions. Best practices dictate maintaining this data in a non-SAP repository; gathering it can involve an extensive IT services request. With Tidal Transaction Analyzer, data is maintained in a separate warehouse and retrieving it does not impact SAP operations or require a special services request. In addition, auditors have instant, web-based access to historical data directly without impacting the business or disclosing that an audit is in process.

As an example, using Transaction Analyzer, auditors can identify users who had the potential to violate Separations of Duties (SoD) requirements and track their transactions. Auditors can also map all transactions to users and departments and list users who ran specific transactions across departments. Audits can even be extended into security operations, enabling the review of sensitive financial transactions of individual employees, past or present.

Tidal Transaction Analyzer simplifies the process of auditing SAP transactions and transaction history, frees up IT resources from tedious and error-prone data collection, and empowers business and IT users to create and access easy-to-use, granular reports to support application management and regulatory compliance needs.

Learn how Tidal's Transaction Analyzer can benefit your datacenter.