Support Upgrade Projects with SAP Solution Manager

by Doreen Baseler, SAP AG

While the Upgrade Roadmap is the framework for keeping track of your entire upgrade venture, SAP Solution Manager comes into play when you need to plan and execute your upgrade project (see Figure 2). So exactly how do SAP Solution Manager and the Upgrade Roadmap work together? For example, how would they help an SAP R/3 4.6C customer - one that already has SAP Solution Manager in place - upgrade to mySAP ERP and speed the process along?


Phase 1 - Project Preparation, with Documentation and Analysis of Your Current Landscape
With Solution Manager, you start by creating a new upgrade project in SAP Solution Manager’s project administration screen.5 The resulting upgrade project - which we’ve named Project UP_DOR in our example - bundles all forthcoming upgrade activities and results. In this initial phase of your upgrade project, you must specify the IT infrastructure for system components of the SAP solution you are using. SAP Solution Manager downloads information for selected SAP components and systems.This information can be enhanced in SAP Solution Manager so that you have a complete picture of your system landscape (see Figure 3). From SAP Solution Manager’s System Landscape screen, you can select parameters to report on, for example:

■ Software components and support packages of the product/system to be upgraded
■ Plug-ins, add-ons, and other additional software
■ Related SAP systems that are part of your solution
■ Third-party products
■ Database software and patch level


This system landscape information can also be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet, for example, and serve as the basis for the target definition of your IT landscape. In addition, you must document or verify existing business processes and documentation, such as interface and modification documentation. By ensuring that all such information is uploaded into SAP Solution Manager, you store and manage all documents centrally, for a complete picture of your “as-is” landscape.

Phase 2 - Upgrade Blueprint: Defining Target Solution Requirements
Having documented the current, as-is situation, you can now start planning where you want to be after the upgrade. Your next step is to identify business processes and functions that are changed or new in the upgrade release. This information can be retrieved via the Upgrade Roadmap, which links you to SAP Service Marketplace release notes and to information stored in SAP’s Product Availability Matrix (PAM). In this phase, you also define how to handle modifications and interfaces, create new test cases, or evaluate existing ones for their upgrade validity. Whatever format your current test cases may be in (Microsoft Word or Excel, for example), SAP Solution Manager allows you to simply upload and store them centrally.You also have the possibility to include third-party testing tools. Additionally, in this phase you determine initial concepts for training. As you do so, SAP Solution Manager serves as the central point to access, reuse, or create this kind of information in your upgrade project - which comes in handy for better managing knowledge transfer from the project team to end users. Existing SAP Solution Manager customers benefit from the centralized documentation of their past projects and can quickly adapt this information to their new upgrade project in a structured manner.

Phase 3 - Upgrade Realization: Implementing and Testing the Upgrade
Having completed the blueprint, you are now ready for the technical upgrade of your non-productive systems. In this phase, the Upgrade Roadmap assists you with access to proven SAP technical upgrade tools like the Upgrade Assistant. But when it comes to upgrade and delta customizing, how do you know which configuration activities are needed - and which are unnecessary - for your upgrade project? You could go through all the IMG activities, and painstakingly evaluate each one for the new or additional configuration settings needed. Instead, SAP Solution Manager helps automatically answer this question by presenting upgrade and delta IMG views for each component to be upgraded (see Figure 4). Based on SAP component release notes information, all upgrade-relevant IMG activities are automatically determined and proposed for configuration in SAP Solution Manager’s upgrade configuration functions (those checked under “Upgrade Flag” in Figure 4).To prevent overlooking any relevant IMG activity that may be missing, SAP Solution Manager also lists those configuration activities that are not assigned to your upgrade project, so you can review these activities as well. After configuration is complete, you can now begin upgrade testing. Using the integrated testing suite in SAP Solution Manager, including Test Workbench functions, you can:

■ Generate process-oriented test plans based on the test cases that were verified and assigned back in the Upgrade Blueprint phase
■ Split test plans into smaller test packages
■ Assign test packages to testers, who will then perform acceptance tests according to the specified test packages The test organizer can track all relevant test activities and status (e.g., TEST_OK), including problems and error messages, on a single screen at any time using SAP Solution Manager’s test reporting function (see Figure 5). For all testing activities, you can get an overview at different granularity levels - package level, test plan level, entire project, whatever is needed.



Phase 4 - Final Preparation for Cutover: Completing the Upgrade
System and integration testing finalize the test series, so you can make sure that business processes are running smoothly after the upgrade. Often overlooked is how to inform end users of the changes resulting from an upgrade - a critical step for maximum user adoption. Based on the training concepts you set up back in the Upgrade Blueprint phase, you can prepare training material rapidly and easily with the e-learning environment, namely the Learning Map Builder, integrated in SAP Solution Manager. You can create role-specific Learning Maps based on documents generated during the project that are relevant to end-user training (see Figure 6). Simply open the learning materials, such as SAP Tutor study units,PowerPoint presentations, or other documentation that was included in the project during configuration, then drag and drop the appropriate items from your project structure list to your Learning Map Structure. By selecting the “Open in Browser” button, you can preview exactly what end users will see in their browsers. From here, customers can distribute Web-based training material to end users. Returning back to the Upgrade Roadmap, you can complete the upgrade of your productive system landscape, then move into the final phase - production cutover and support.