on 05-18-2006 1:31 PM
What can the business do to convince the IT-Basis group that it is necessary to implement changes, specifically Support Packs?
We had a corporate wide Go-Live January 28, 2006 in 4.7 ext 2.0. We have not implemented any Support Packs since the start of our testing in April 2005. Basis is currently at SAPKA62047. HR is at SAPKE47041. Finance and Logistics are at SAPKH47022. Yet, the Basis team is reluctant to make any changes in the system until September at the earliest.
In Finance and HR/Payroll it is essential to be up to date with the current laws and reports. Thus, the business side is supporting the implementation of all the Support Packs from April 2005 to current. What arguments, data or assurances can we present that would ease the fears of "making a change" that IT will understand?
Hi Paul
One way I Can think of is using side-effects report
Please visit www.service.sap.com/notes
Select Side -effects of SAP Notes
Now there you can select the product and current SP levels
and the target SP levels
It gives you report of SAP notes which relates to bugfixes which are contained in the newer SP levels
Now someone need to go through and find critical notes of these
Ravinder
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No response or over 2 months - assumed answered
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First off, you dont specify the amount of custom created ABAP within your SAP system nor the number of individual SAP notes that need to be applied since you are not up to date with current SP/LCP.
I would suggest that the business makes the case for an ITIL compliant change management process to be implemented (if not done so already). This would then allow for a balanced approach to the number of changes being created and applied to any production system and the amount of testing required to be SOX compliant and to be confident of continued business continuity. ie your production system is still safe.
Tools to help include Service Desk and CHARMS, both of which can be found within SAP solution manager. There are a number of external tool sets that also add value including the Mercury Test Toolset for automation of test cases. Lastly , the timely application of SP & LCP is just good house-keeping, this should actually mean less work for the Basis IT team in the long run.
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Paul,
I believe it the right time for your organization to put in place a change management strategy.
Like said above there are few tools available to you to suppor the process.
What we usually recommend our client is to automate their regression test strategy as much as they can, so testing does not become a burden and IT is not afraid of moving things to production.
Since your project is still recent you should capitalize on your documentation that not yet too obsolete to create automated regression test using SAP eCATT. You have been almost 6 months live, you can compare your original test plan with your system usage, adjust the plan with what you actually use. Automate your testing so you can test every support pack with less effort and make IT happy.
I hope this help.
Gilles
samoun@innovantconsulting.com
Paul,
I always thought the IT is there to serve Business, not the other way round ...
Apart the option to read all SAP Notes (which is a good one, but also a very time consuming one), there are a number of (non SAP) Tools that could do impact analysis of SAP Support Packs, to determine Risk Factors and get Lists of things to Test.
Two Examples: For HR Legal Packs: Clone & Test,
for "the Rest": Assessor Support Pack Edition.
Search the Web, our feel free to contact me directly.
regards,
Fritz
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