Managing Change Releases with SAP Solution

Manager

Steve Christian
NIMBL
Produced by Wellesley Information Services, LLC, publisher of SAPinsider. 2016 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
In This Session

Identify the constraints and challenges in managing multiples releases within an SAP
landscape

Learn about tools included with SAP Solution Manager to help manage projects, releases,
and change within an SAP landscape

Understand how we can deploy tools to support ITIL standards-based release

management

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What Well Cover

Challenges with change management

SAPs change and release management tools
Tool features and functionalities
Object protection capabilities
Wrap-up

2
Challenges from the Business

Investing into new functionalities Business requires new functionality

and enhanced capabilities within
software is required to support and Blend of IT services and solutions on-
sustain the growth of our premise and cloud-based applications
organization

Keep the lights on Maximize current investments

Manage a complex and growing or Maximize the value of our SAP
changing IT environment maintenance agreements we should
Growing and changing market be implementing the latest
conditions require quick adjustments functionality from SAP

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Challenges Within IT
Reduce IT cost of ownership while
maintaining a complex landscape of
systems and staying legally
compliant
General Issues
No overview about all changes
Unnecessary changes, doubling
of effort
Compliance to audit rules (e.g., FDA,
SOX)
Growing complexity of IT
More and more systems
More and more people
Unclear responsibilities
Organizational Challenges
No adherence to change process
Missing control over external
developers
Process is too complex
4
Typical Change and Release Management Tasks

Organize requests in a central repository

IT and business requests

Categorize, validate, and review

Assign priorities

Perform capacity planning for resources

Do we have the resources to deploy?

When can we promise delivery?

Coordinate and control the implementation

From development to testing and deployment

Determine dependencies and risks

Understand impact to organization

5
What Well Cover

Challenges with change management

SAPs change and release management tools
Tool features and functionalities
Object protection capabilities
Wrap-up

6
 Change Management in SAP Solution Manager
SAP Solution Manager provides the
tools required to implement and
operate SAP landscapes in
accordance with industry best
practices
Implement Without Fear
Detect and analyze the impact of
enhancements to your SAP Business Suite
system before implementation
Leverage Scope & Effort Analyzer, BPCA,
Test Mgmt.

Improve Visibility and Planning

Leverage SAP Innovations
Leverage Change Request
Centralize process documentation support
Management (or QGM) to plan,
Go-Live, then monitor and maintain
organize, and manage change in both
applications long term
SAP and non-SAP applications

Source: SAP 7
SAPs Change Management Tools

Change Request Management (ChaRM)

Manage the Request for Change process

Govern the implementation of change for all applications (SAP and non-SAP)

Integrate with IT ITSM, Test Management, and Change Impact Analysis

ITIL-certified, browser-based UI, central repository

Quality Gate Management (QGM)

All the technical capabilities of ChaRM, no UI

Change and release documentation not stored in SAP for example, Remedy,
ServiceNow, JIRA, Cherwell, etc.

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What Well Cover

Challenges with change management

SAPs change and release management tools
Tool features and functionalities
Object protection capabilities
Wrap-up

9
 SAPs Request and Change Process

Source: SAP 10
 Change Types in ChaRM

Source: SAP 11
 Best Practice Workflow

Workflow is highly customizable based

on SAP CRM

Actions and conditions already created

Features pre-configured email

notifications

Emails based on HTML mail

functionality of SAP CRM

Source: SAP 12
Typical Change Scenario

Project 4 Project 7

Project 2 Project 11

Project 9 Project 8

Project 1 Project 10
Project 6

timeline

Difficult time managing testing

Overburdened resources
Resource turn over has significant impact on delivery
Firefighters always deployed

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Controlled Change Scenario

Joint Integration Test Phase

Build & Functional Test Go-Live

Project 1

Build & Functional Test Go-Live Synchronized

Go Live
Project 2

Build & Functional Test Go-Live

Project 3

Scope Build Test Deploy Hypercare Operate

Release 1

Maximize valuable test resources

Leverage Agile during Build and Functional test
Reduce cross-project impacts

14
 Release Management

ChaRM supports release management processes for better change deployment control
and risk mitigation

Source: SAP 15
 Managing Changes and Transports

Changes can be reassigned to another Project A Project B

project and cycle

Changes can be taken out of release

and preliminary imported if required

Transports can be assigned or decoupled

from a change document

Source: SAP 16
 Risk Mitigation

Process workflow for request for change approval

Email functionality and completely customizable
Multiple level approval procedure
Business partner check for approvals integrated with delegates functionality

Mobile app for approvals

Source: SAP 17
 SAPs Request and Change Process

Transport of copies is built into standard ChaRM

Iterative testing in QA without releasing original

transport

Setup change analysis directly with Business

Process Change Analyzer (BPCA)

Integration with Test Management

Source: SAP 18
 Using ChaRM User Interface

What Project?

Whos Involved?

Configured
Categories

Measure
delivery
Reference other tools

Enhance text fields

to capture decisions,
minutes, & updates

Source: SAP 19
 Detailed Logs and Change History

Track
Who Who
did what?
did what? background
jobs

Source: SAP 20
 Transparency Transport Management

Instantly see all transport and task information

Track the status of imports from the change document

Get notified about potential risks or transport errors

Source: SAP 21
 Audit Assessment

Many agencies such as the FDA and EU authorities consider electronic records
equivalent to paper records and electronic signatures equivalent to traditional
handwritten signatures

For example, FDA regulation 21 CFR Part 11 Electronic Records

Electronic Signatures

Custom Report

Digital Signatures.
Functionality in
Solution Manager
made available in
ChaRM

Source: SAP 22
What Well Cover

Challenges with change management

SAPs change and release management tools
Tool features and functionalities
Object protection capabilities
Wrap-up

23
Object Protection
Retrofit
SAP supported method to perform cross platform/release transports

Can be enabled once ChaRM or QGM is activated

Cross-System Object Lock

Limit conflicts between project and production support teams

Creates awareness of shared object usage

Downgrade Protection
Validate objects in transports will not downgrade target

Critical Object Lock

Create a blacklist of critical objects and control changes to those sensitive objects

Mandates approval to override

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 SAPs Request and Change Process

Worklist of all transports to be synchronized

Less manual effort for double maintenance (conflict and sequence visibility)
Synchronization is tool-based
Ensure integrity and safety for your IT infrastructure

Source: SAP 25
 CSOL and DGP

Cross-System Object Lock: Identify changes on the same objects in different projects/
Dev environments

Downgrade Protection: Minimize risk of downgrades and over takers

Change Checks executed at release, re-assignment, and before import of transport

CSOL DGP

Trigger checks,
view conflict
and ignore if
authorized

Source: SAP 26
 Critical Object Lock

Create a blacklist of critical objects and control changes to those sensitive objects
Avoid critical situations caused by changes on important objects
Creates awareness and mandates approval to override

The error

The blacklist.
Workbench and
Customizing

Source: SAP 27
 Reporting Monitoring and Search

Automatic Change
Tracking no need
for Excel tracking
sheets!!!!!
Multiple search
criteria
Save search filters
Export results to
Excel
Graphical
representations
of results

Source: SAP 28
Typical Implementation
Feb 1, '15 Feb 8, '15 Feb 15, '15 Feb 22, '15 Mar 1, '15 Mar 8, '15 Mar 15, '15 Mar 22, '15
Project Project Execution
Preparation Mon 2/2/15 - Tue 3/24/15
Mon 1/26/15 - Fri
Requirements Development Configuration & Test
1/30/15
Gathering Tue 2/10/15 - Tue 3/3/15
Mon 2/2/15 - Mon
ITSM Analytics User Acceptance Testing Training
2/9/15
Configuration Wed 3/4/15 - Wed 3/18/15 Thu 3/19/15 - Tue 3/24/15
Thu 2/26/15 - Mon
Project Go Live
3/2/15
Thu 3/19/15 - Thu 3/26/15

Configuration Template Configuration Complete Go Live

Populated Tue 3/3/15 Thu 3/26/15
Mon 2/9/15

AGILE implementation Baseline configure, scenario test, user acceptance test, and go-live
ITIL certified out of the box
Common enhancements
Field label changes, custom categorization, minor process steps

Email content development and notifications, reporting

Custom UI fields

Special enhancements
Interface development

Digital signatures and audit reporting

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What Well Cover

Challenges with change management

SAPs change and release management tools
Tool features and functionalities
Object protection capabilities
Wrap-up

30
Where to Find More Information

SAP Ramp-Up Knowledge Transfer on the SAP Support Portal

https://support.sap.com/ekt-solutionmanager

Nathan Williams, ITSM and ChaRM in SAP Solution Manager (SAP PRESS, 2013).
ISBN 13: 978-1592294404

http://help.sap.com
SAP Help Portal

Technology Platform SAP Solution Manager SAP Solution Manager 7.1

https://scn.sap.com/people/dolores.correa/content
SCN blogposts by Dolores Correa

U.S. FDA Title 21 CFR PART 11 Compliance Assessment of SAP Solution Manager
www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/20a3ed42-f1d6-2a10-609f-
c3a003949060?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true&26341034465133

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7 Key Points to Take Home

SAP provides the tools customers need to manage change in simple and complex
landscapes
ChaRM provides ITIL-certified, out-of-the-box, functionality to manage releases and
change
ChaRM can solve release management challenges
Unauthorized changes, visibility into change status
Systematic control of change and change documentation
Retrofit, Downgrade protection, and Cross-System Object Locking replace manual
process steps especially useful for geographically dispersed teams
ChaRM integrates with Change Impact Analysis tools and Test Management tools to
provide a complete end-to-end solution
Prior to implementation, document your current and desired change process
Determine (hire if needed) tool and change process owner
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Your Turn!

How to contact me:

Steve Christian
Email: steve.christian@benimbl.com
Twitter: @solman-ninja

Please remember to complete your session evaluation

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Disclaimer
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countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Wellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled by SAP SE.

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