Release Management in SAP David Osborne, Planning & Release Management, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency May 20, 2003 Session 2909

2 Agenda Canada Customs and Revenue Agency The Beginnings Upgrade Evolving to Release Management Challenges

3 The CCRA at a glance $300 billion revenue; $1.2 billion a day 23 million individual / trust returns 35 million public enquiries every year 102 million travelers $4 billion operating expenses 52,000 employees at 750 sites across Canada

4 CCRA Business Lines 1. Tax Services, 2. Benefit Programs and Other Services, 3. Customs Services, 4. Appeals, and 5. Corporate Management and Direction

5 ITB at a Glance 3000 Head Quarters Staff (Employees & Contractors) 800 Regional Staff 52,000 PCs 2 DataCentres 7 mainframes 1600 servers 300 plus applications

6 CAS at a glance “Wall to Wall” SAP (Finance, HR and Logistics) 500+ Business Process Scripts 16,500 named users across Canada 2 million dialog processes/day 1.8Tb database and growing

7 The Beginnings Common Administrative Systems in Government Y2K April 1999 – Go Live August 1999 – HR Go-Live November 1999 – Agency: A New Governance Model

8 Maturation April 1, 1999 – Go Live (4.0B) May 2000 – Platform Upgrade December 2000 – 50 LCPs November 2001 – Stabilization July 2002 – 4.6 Upgrade Present (current on support packages – planning ESS, etc)

9 Release Management Release Strategy Document 2000 – Using “Release Map” May 2001 – Planning and Release Management evolves as a team Sept 2001 – Upgrade tools and processes for release management Present – Release management is a “Way of life”

10 Goal of the Release Strategy To work together to consolidate processes, procedures and solutions to support current CAS functionality and future initiatives

11 Why a Release Strategy? To ensure CAS work plan is linked to the CCRA goals and objectives To better serve our clients and the Agency To ensure funding is managed wisely To ensure funding is available in a timely manner To organize the scheduling of maintenance To enhance CAS reputation

12 Why a Release Strategy? To identify links between initiatives to best serve all our clients To increase awareness/knowledge between teams To reduce emergency changes To improve end user satisfaction To provide employees with the tools and the information that they need to do their jobs

13 Expected Results A central repository Participation of all employees in CAS work plan Consolidated implementation process for development and maintenance

14 Next steps Map current procedure for gathering work in CAS Solicit input from all employees for the Planning and Release Strategy Establish criteria for prioritization of work

15 Landscape Management Evolved from platform upgrade May 2000 Development –Two Sandboxes, Dev, QA and VT Production Support –Dev, QA, PROD, Training

16 Technical Landscape

17 Change Management Acquired Software Tool - Comprehensive (linked to BPML) - Complete repository - Built-in workflow function - Transport management Function - Lack of reporting (needs to be addressed)

18 Testing Management Already have an automated testing tool (Mercury) Moving to automate Integrated Testing as much as possible Facility to record and store tests centrally

19 Emergencies – Part of Release Strategy – “Urgent” Criteria – Change Control Board – Added later on: – Delegated authority

20 Pieces of Release Management Release Strategy Change Management Landscape Management Testing Strategy

Upgrade Impetus for change - Required review of all documentation - Needed tool to track and manage changes - Had to test everything - Requirement for landscape management

22 Results… Work flow Change Management tool BPML recorded in tool Links between transports and documentation Complete testing documentation

23 Testing Automated tools Mercury Suite Comprehensive Test Set – 5000 recorded unit tests – 28 integration tests (end to end) Documented + signoff Visuals / status reports

24 Evolving to Release Management Release Strategy Change management Testing Strategy Landscape Management

25 Release Management Ability to plan into the future Sufficient development and testing time Priorities are managed better Multi-year view Maximize scarce resources

26 Release Management Constraints Tax Program –September to April – Warehouses –January to May – Tax Centres Government Fiscal Year: Apr Mar. 31 SAP HR Support Pack Strategy –Currency at mid year and year end Agency Anniversary: November 1

27 Release Dates End of March End of June End of November

28 Lessons Learned Incremental Steps Management Support Processes, not tools Clear Definitions Persistence 4.6 Trigger

29 Challenges Staying the course Planning affects everyone Managing priorities Internal communication External communication

30 Questions? Thank you! Contact me:

Thank you for attending! Please remember to complete and return your evaluation form following this session. Session Code: 2909