ATUL PATANKAR [ ASUG INSTALLATION MEMBER MEMBER SINCE: 2000 LINDA WILSON [ ASUG INSTALLATION MEMBER MEMBER SINCE: 1999 JUERGEN LINDNER [ SAP POINT OF CONTACT MEMBER SINCE: 1998 [ ] The Nuisances of Leveraging SAP CHARM for SAP Release Management [ April 16, 2010 / Steven Shim

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. 2  Before SAP Solution Manager and CHARM (Change and Release Management) Hospira documentation was kept in a system called DOORS. Transports were migrated manually. SQA determined and approved which transports were to move with specific change requests. A Release Manager runs a Change Advisory board to manage conflicts. Change requests were managed on paper and routed manually. Basis team manually migrates the transports.  After SAP Solution Manager and CHARM Implementation Documentation is now kept in Solution Manager and approvals acquired through electronic workflow. Transports are managed in Solution Manager and are directly associated with a change request. Solution Manager now manages the transport migration to compatible SAP landscapes. Changes are put on a release schedule managed by a release manager. A Release Manager runs a Change Advisory board to manage conflicts. A Release Manager migrates transports based on planned and approved CRs. The idea of transport migration has shifted from Transport Management to Release Management. Change and Release Management process before & after CHARM.

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Application Change Release Schedule What is the Application Change Release Schedule? The Application Change Release Schedule provides a structure that enables IT function to implement application changes in an efficient and safe manner. When a user reports an issue or a required system change, that request is prioritized, along with all other requests. Based on their priority level, requests are given an estimated/targeted release date. Typically, the next monthly release date. Urgent requests can be expedited if required to address critical business issues. Why do we have an Application Change Release Schedule? By implementing changes in a grouped and coordinated approach, IT is better able to manage risk, prioritize activities and communicate to customers. IT receives application change requests on an ongoing basis. The release schedule enables a set of changes to be placed into production (made “live”) as a grouping of changes at one time. This approach reduces risk by giving better visibility to simultaneous changes happening to an application. It also improves communication, enabling application changes to be reported as a single monthly set or release. 3

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Release Management Schedule : Benefits Provides better coordination of business and IT schedules for user testing. Limits changes to a defined time of the month which increases more effective business planning. Reduce risk associated with migrations to production as all changes are tested as a bundle and migrated in the same sequence. Improves the transition from projects to support by giving time for the support team to identify and understand the nature of changes. Improves efficiency and effectiveness of the Change Management process and reduces labor effort required to administer a non-scheduled process. Provides a window of time to plan and execute periodic data refresh activities in the Development and Quality systems. 4

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Release Management Process 5 SAP Solution Manager Change Request Support Ticket DEV QA & Stage PRD R e m e d y C h a n g e R e q u e s t M a n a g e m e n t Change Document (Correction) (Normal vs Urgent) Help Desk Project Manager Developer Change Manager Requestor Approvers (e.g. BPO’s \ Managers \ SQA) Import dependent on correction status & schedule

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. What is a correction document? The correction is a document created by the Change Manager after the CR is Authorized, and is tied to the CR. The type of correction created is dictated by the Project Manager, and is based on how the CR was completed. Allows the Project Manager to create transports for Developers in the satellite systems. Eliminates the possibility of a developer creating a change in Development without a change request. Manages the ability to migrate a transport through status changes and ties to the task list to move the change. 6

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Normal vs. Urgent Corrections  The correction is created by the Change Manager after authorizing the CR.  Normal Corrections Uses a global task list, which manages the entire maintenance cycle. Transports are removed from the buffer after import. Transport of copies are used when moving to Q and S environments. Importing normal corrections from the global task list results in an “Import All” scenario.  Urgent Corrections Urgent corrections are transported individually and thus have no dependency to other corrections when imported. A separate task list is used to maintain an Urgent correction (based on the task list of the maintenance cycle selected). Transports remain in the transport buffer after import to Q, S and P. Normal corrections in the same maintenance cycle are dependent on Urgent correction with released transports moving to Production. 7

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Migration Activity Using Normal & Urgent Corrections 8 Transport 2 Dev Transport buffer QA Prod Transport Transport 2 Transport buffer Transport 1 Transport 2 Transport 3 Transport 4 Transport migration moving with Urgent Process Transport migration moving with Normal Process to QA Transport migration moving with Normal Process to Prod When a transport moves through the landscape with the Urgent process, it remains in the transport buffer until the Normal release cycle is executed. Importing normal corrections from the global task list results in an “Import All” scenario. Transport Copy 1 Transport 2 Transport Copy 3 Transport Copy 4 Transports created in Dev: Transport 1 Monthly release cycle Transport 2 Urgent Change Transport 3 Monthly release cycle Transport 4 Monthly release cycle

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Documentation  Recommendations: Use transactions Solar01 or Solar02 to store documentation in a folder structure defined by business processes. Maintenance and Implementation projects can be used to define the structure. Use the defined structure to store deliverable documentation as defined by a specific Change Request. Use customizations to tie the documentation to the CR. Once the CR is tied to the document, approvers on that CR can be used to build workflow for route and approval of documentation. Use links to provide a single location for Project and System documentation consumption. Organize it by calendar month and CR number to ease finding documentation in the approval process. 9

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. Documentation 10 Documents located in several different project locations are all linked to a common project defined by CR number.

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. What are the challenges? Managing urgent and normal releases to minimize risk of conflict. Managing changes to a release schedule. For larger projects, changes must be broken into separate CRs to implement changes in phases. Documentation should be organized in a fashion to ease consumption. 11

[ Real Experience. Real Advantage. 12 ]  Thank you.