Tag: SAP Cloud ALM

How to get started – step by step and with a clear focus

New requirements from the business, legal adjustments, technological innovations – all of this is daily business and has an impact on SAP landscapes.

This makes it all the more important to have change management that does not “paralyze”, but rather supports, guides and ultimately creates freedom again. However, the question often arises when starting out:

How much structure is enough? And how much freedom is allowed?

The answer is: it depends – on the maturity level of your organization, the governance requirements and the system landscape.

If done correctly, SAP Cloud ALM offers a flexible but clear model for this: change management with increasing maturity. It allows you to start lean – and scale up in a targeted manner when complexity or compliance requirements increase.

Our experience at blue.works

We have already implemented different variants in practice – from super lean to fully integrated. And our clear insight: 

There is no right or wrong – only “What suits the organization?”

Because every organization is set up differently:

• Some teams need quick implementation without a lot of bureaucracy.
• Others need clear approval channels and complete ITSM processes.

Our task: to develop the right setup together – pragmatic, efficient and capable of growth.

Feature-controlled start – “Super Lean”

Minimum effort, maximum effect.

This variant has a clear focus on teams that want to start quickly but do not want to compromise on traceability and efficiency.

How it works:

The “feature” object is at the center. This is controlled by defined statuses (“In test”, “Successfully tested”, “Ready for production”, etc.) and forms the basis for change verifications. Approvals or other control elements are partially omitted. Why “in part”? Quite simply, the feature in SAP Cloud ALM already provides a good status flow. In the future, it will also be possible to attach a test case to the feature and work with additional roles (developers, testers). If this is not enough, an external workflow engine can also be connected.

Advantages: 

• Good Workflow 
• Reduction of unnecessary permits
• Transparent implementation and simple test verification (later also via test case)

Restrictions: 

• No integration in incident or test case management (planned)
• Traceability is made more difficult for more complex projects
• No automatic link to ITSM processes

Recommendation: For organizations that want to get started pragmatically – without investing time in oversized processes.

Requirement-driven expansion – “Lean with approval”

More structure – without losing mobility.

This is where the request becomes the central control instance. It serves as the basis for approvals and can bundle several features. The request is therefore something like a “change request”.

What it brings:

• Simple extension of the change process if initial guidelines, approvals or internal specifications are to take effect
• Linking test cases directly in the request
• Possibility to group features with a common goal

Advantages: 

• Increased degree of control
• Better transparency for larger projects
• More security for quality-critical changes

Restrictions: 

• Not yet a complete incident process
• Depending on the governance, maintenance can become more complex
• The “naming” does not fit quite so well (“requirement” instead of “change request”).

Recommendation: For organizations with moderate compliance requirements that want to enable controlled freedom.

Fully integrated – “Lean with ITSM integration”

When all systems talk – and you keep track of everything.

In this variant, SAP Cloud ALM is integrated into an existing ITSM tool – e.g. via the blue.works alm360 Hub, which, thanks to its flexible architecture, can integrate any ITSM tool that offers an external interface (API). This creates a seamless process from incident to change and deployment management. This is an important step towards the “Business Transformation Suite”.

What this makes possible:

• Classic change process including approvals, documentation and traceability 
• Clear assignment of incidents to transports
• Consistent end-to-end transparency  

Advantages: 

• Optimal governance for complex environments
• Central control across all tools
• Traceability and compliance ensured throughout

Restrictions: 

• Technical integration required
• Higher initial outlay, but sustainable benefits 

Recommendation: For companies that want to set up their entire IT transformation strategically and do not want to take any risks in terms of quality and control.

Conclusion: Start smart. Scale with clarity. 

Every change needs structure – but not every structure has to be complicated. The big advantage of the SAP Cloud ALM approach is that you can start where you are today.

Whether you are a small, agile feature team or manage complex corporate IT: with the right setup, you not only achieve clean go-lives – you also create the basis for: 

• Efficiency in implementation
• Transparency across all levels
• Trust between business, IT and external partners

Want to know which model suits your setup? We accompany you from the idea to implementation – tried and tested, based on partnership and goal-oriented.

The latest SAP Cloud ALM-Updates enhancements are here! 

As SAP continues to evolve, new features and refinements are introduced to help optimize processes and improve efficiency. This update covers the most important improvements from the past two weeks, giving a clear overview of the latest capabilities designed to simplify workflows and enhance the user experience. 

Services 

In Issues and Actions Management it’s now possible to set the status of a standalone action to Accepted to acknowledge the action to SAP. 

Issues and Actions Management now allows to view the System assigned to an issue or a standalone action by the service delivery consultant. This gives users an insight into which System the issue or the standalone action is associated with, and users can take the necessary steps to execute it. 

Implementation

In Projects and Setup, when users add systems to a system group, the business types of the systems are now displayed. 

Processes now allows to create scope from a DDA spreadsheet file for SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to avoid manual effort on users side, as well as for the public edition. In addition, for the SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition solution scenario, the Solution Scenario Version drop-down list now shows the latest version only. 

Keep in mind that the DDA spreadsheet file format for the private edition differs slightly from that on the public edition.    

Process Hierarchy Assignments introduced side panel UI redesign. Now, the information presented in the tabs in the side panel is formatted in the form of tables to make navigating and viewing the contained information easier. 

For the Features app, the Developer role is now available. With this role, users can create and assign transports and transport references, and create transport of copies.  

Analytics has 2 new updates.  

New features have been added to enhance defect reporting in the Defect Reporting app. It works by aligning the Time Frame filter with the start and end dates of chosen test plans. This ensures accurate data representation across all tabs. In response, charts and tables in the History, Created vs. Resolved, and Defect Distribution tabs adjust accordingly. 

The requirement distribution by release feature allows users to view requirements categorized by release through a new dropdown entry in both the Overview and Analytics apps. This feature is beneficial for tracking and analyzing requirements across different releases, enhancing project management and planning efficiency. 

The new app Guided Implementation is now available. It provides a structured step-by-step approach for the work on the tasks that were assigned to users and user roles. 

There’s a welcome screen in the app, which provides guidance on the topics that should be worked on. Project leads can also use it to navigate to the Analytics app. 

Project Leads can now create projects from within the Guided Implementation app. 

Operations 

Health Monitoring now supports SAP Market Communication for Utilities. As a first metric, information about the certificates of the customer tenant and their expiry is available. 

In Integration & Exception Monitoring, users can now view the business attributes of messages that contribute to the alert in email notifications. A new column, Business Attributes, has been added to the Additional Information table of the email. Where, you can view the business attributes of the messages that provide more context about the messages. 

Business attributes include: 

The business attributes sent by the service or system. 

The attributes defined in the Collect Additional Attributes section. 

A new option, Update, is added to the Memory Used by Messages table in Integration & Exception Monitoring. When triggered, the memory usage details for each service / system is calculated and presented in a tabular format. 

In Job & Automation Monitoring users can now view the run time data (raw data that is in the selected time but not yet aggregated) and the aggregated data as per your selected time frame in the Analysis table and in the Trend Charts. Earlier, only the aggregated data as per hourly aggregated timestamp was displayed irrespective of the chosen time frame. 

Job & Automation Monitoring also allows now to further refine the jobs or automations displayed using the Name filter in Monitoring Filters and Analysis Filters. Users can do this by specifying the initial or the final characters of the job or automation name using the asterisk (*) symbol. The following can now be applied to refine the jobs or automations displayed: 

• Using * before the characters. 
  • example: *xyz. This retrieves all jobs or automations whose names end with xyz. 

• Using * after the characters.
  • example: efg*. This retrieves all jobs or automations whose names begin with efg.  

Administration 

Landscape Management has 2 new updates. 

To provide more clarity, SAP introduced the Deployment Mode field for services and systems in the Landscape Management app. 

It shows in which kind of landscape a service or system is deployed, for example: 

• SAP public cloud 
• Other public cloud 
• SAP Private Cloud 
• On-premise 
• BTP-Systems

For cloud landscape directory systems with the roles HEC* (SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud), SAP Cloud ALM now displays additional landscape information on the Instances & Databases tab:  

• Instances
• Databases 
• Related Systems

RISE with SAP 

In System View dashboard, three new cards were introduced under the Extensibility category: 

• Setup for ABAP Cloud Development 
• Unused Customer Objects
• Execution of Customer Objects 

Each card represents a KPI that helps users to monitor system’s extensibility compliance according to SAP’s clean core principles. These KPIs let users identify deviations and take corrective actions as needed.  

Check whether best practices are followed when setting up an ABAP Cloud development environment. Identify the share of unused customer objects in the system and determine their proportional contribution to overall code execution. 

Bi-Weekly SAP Cloud ALM Update Is Here!

We’re back with the latest enhancements in SAP Cloud ALM! As SAP continues to refine and expand its capabilities, we’re here to keep you informed about the newest features designed to simplify your workflows and maximize efficiency. In this update, we’ll break down the key improvements from Week 12.

SAP Business Transformation Center

In Scoping, it is now possible to apply the time slice solution pattern to digital blueprints whose scope includes company codes that have different fiscal year start dates allowing more flexibility when using the time slice solution pattern.

Cycle and Monitoring has a new option, Health Check to validate the correct setup of the system landscape in the Manage Cycles app. The checks in the prevalidation phase are enhanced to validate certain aspects of the target system. In addition, the Health Check option allows repeated validation of the health of the target system.

Implementation

Processes have 2 new updates.

The new solution scenario, SAP Services Content for Core Retail, is now available.

Processes has also a new filter Scope State allowing to display all solution processes that are In Scope or Out of Scope. This can make other tasks more efficient, such as if the user wants to set multiple processes into scope using the mass editing feature, for instance.

Keep in mind that if choosing the Out of Scope value while viewing the list of Open Solution Processes in display mode, the list will be empty as the list view was already prefiltered to show scoped processes.

Test Plans allows now to create copies of test plans, for example, to reuse them for subsequent testing cycles.

The copy of the test plan is created in the same project and with the same attributes as the source test plan. Any existing test results associated with the source test plan aren’t copied. By default, the title of the copied test plan is Copy of <Title of the Source Test Plan> and the status is In Preparation.

Quality Gates has a new feature, allowing users to modify multiple checklist items of a quality gate at once. The following values can be modified in Edit mode:

• Status
• Planned Completion
• Team
• User Type
• Responsible

Process Authoring has many new updates this time.

When calling up the details for a solution activity in the Solution Activities list, we can now see information about any Applications that are assigned to it.

As well as the name of the application, we can also see which application type it belongs to. Some examples of possible application types are the following standard content types, although other custom content application types are also possible:

• SAP Fiori Application
• Transaction
• URL
• Program

A new filter has been added, allowing users to filter the list of solution activities shown by Process Hierarchy Node. The filter is displayed by default.

Theres also 2 more new filters added.

First one allowing to filter the list of solution activities shown by Source. This filter helps to identify the solution activities that have been transferred into SAP Cloud ALM from a different source, such as SAP Solution Manager.

The second one allows filtering the list of solution activities shown by External Reference Name using a free-text field.

Similarly, a corresponding column has been added to the list table for both new filters. Both the filter and column are not displayed by default but can be added using the Adapt Filters button and the table settings.

Process Authoring displays now any process hierarchy nodes assigned to solution activities both in the list view and in the Object Page view. In the Object Page view, it’s possible also to maintain the process hierarchy node details for the solution activity that have been selected.

It’s possible to assign new process hierarchy nodes by choosing Assign, and unassign existing ones by selecting one or more existing entries first and then choosing Unassign.

Guided Implementation introduced 3 new updates.

It’s now possible to view flow graphs showing the predecessors and the successors of tasks with dependencies.

When users log back in to the system, they are now directed to the project or task that they previously worked on in Guided Implementation.

When users navigate to the task Setup Project in a new project that hasn’t been selected a template for, they can now change the project title and select an SAP Activate Roadmap in the Guided Implementation app.

Documents have now relations to configuration library available.  

Users can now assign or unassign relations to the configuration library elements from within the Documents app. The assigned relations are listed in the table Configurations on the object page of a document.

In Implementation area several applications have new feature available.

When users are assigned to a task, a quality gate, a requirement, or a defect as an involved party, they will now be notified by the system. Users can use the notification to navigate to the respective item in the corresponding app.

Operations

Business Process Monitoring has new KPIs available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Business Suite 7:

• Overdue Purchase Requisition Items Blocking PP/PM Orders
• Production Orders Not Settled
• Outbound Delivery Order Items Overdue for Picking

New KPIs are available from ST-PI version 7.40 SP29.

Configuration & Security Analysis allows now to monitor SAP security recommendation data for SAP Datasphere.

In Synthetic User Monitoring SAP redesigned UI of the configuration options to enhance and standardize user experiences for SAP Cloud ALM users.

This includes aligning navigation, visual elements, and status interpretations to improve user efficiency and mitigate errors. Moreover, the standardized interface helps in simplifying the technical navigation process across a variety of usage scenarios.

Real User Monitoring now supports the use of variants when creating event actions.