ChaRM vs Rev Trac

[Former Member]

Hi Experts !

1. Which all features one need to compare between ChaRM & Rev. Trac. eg. Transport Validation, Authorization etc.

2. Any information of comparison between the two would be highly appreciated

Thanks,

Best regards,

Prashant

[khalil_serrhini · Accepted solution]

I would say here are the strengths and weaknesses of ChaRM from my experience

+

flexible (at least i think)

notifications for end users

adaptable workflow, UI

Many user exists that SAP has though about for more flexibility

Native plug to service desk of Solman, Project Management, Test Workbench ... That s what SAP calls Application Lifecycle Management. This is the biggest advantage I guess. Its how everything is interconnectable !

you can do abap and non abap transports

change control (critical object check, cts dependency (automatic and manual possible also for functional dependencies), CTS Projects Import that guaranties sequence within project, Cross System Object Lock, native STMS controls... Other User exits exists to add specific controls during: creation, release, add object or import of Transport Requests)

Quality Gate Management concept

Tracability of changes

Powerfull reports

Central

SAP product so maintenable by SAP experts tha you probably already have (whereas for Revtrack you might need help from people out of the company each time workflow changes or landscape change ... I guess)

How ChaRM guarantes sequencing of TR even when a TR passes faster than others (SDHF ticket of ChaRM) by reimporting TR at the end of cycle so urgency does not cause a regression at the end of maintenance cycles ...

-

maybe not easy to configure (as revtrack) especially when you do not have an expert of Solman or at least CRM and an admin for the STMS part

not easy for final users to handle at the begining if not used to sap world !

Transport of BI objects !

Hope this is what you were expecting from me

DO not hesitate asking for more clarifications.

Regards

Khalil

[former_member223537 · Accepted solution]

Thanks a ton Khalil ! This is exactly what i was looking at !

Thanks,

Best regards,

Prashant

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I've done a full blown Rev-Trac vs ChaRM analysis, interviewed project change managers who have used or considered both tools, and also compared what each vendor "says" their tools offer. In short, I agree with Khalil's points.

One thing I want to add is, if you do your diligence in comparing both tools (benefits, look and feel, shortfalls, etc) and find that Rev-Trac provides more change control features over ChaRM, please closely analyze each of these specific benefits. You need to put a $ amount on each of these benefits (e.g. # of hours a specific feature will save you in overall development process) and determine if they are worth the cost to procure, configure, maintain and license Rev-Trac.

What I am getting at here is, as an SAP customer you own ChaRM already and have the ability to take full advantage of SAP licenses, maintenance costs, etc. by deploying it.

This is just my opinion - good luck in your analysis!

[milton_zhu · Accepted solution]

Khalil & other experts,

Really appreciate this discussion, I personally discussed this topic with Rick from Rev-Trac, I evaluated the software in our very complicated landscape, overall it is a good product, but I don't thing "anywhere go everywhere" concept is right, so I am still stick on the Out-of-Box tool I developed for my company, because at the time ChaRM does not meet my requirement as well.

In past 3 month, a team between our Basis and Integration team setup a POC landscape to test the new ChaRM in SLM 7.1. The landscape contains the 5-system landscape Rev Trac is advertising, and our main objective is to see retrofit, urgent change vs implemetation wave, and federate changes between multiple SAP product and non-SAP changes. Although the ChaRM interface / concept is kind of difficult to understand, I think we get through most of the features.

But now I am going to turn it down as well, because of core concept ChaRM is following: Transport ALL by project. I can bare with other ChaRM bug or lack of features, but I cannot get around of this issue, hope you or other expert can help me out.

It is our lesson learnt that "Pick and Choose" is very bad practise in SAP change management, in past several years we are following a "Shavol" method, which is import everything in the buffer to production on release day, nothing left behind. Our theory is, if the changes are tested and approved in QA, that means all changes moved in QA should be treat as one release and let it go together. They may belongs to multiple implementation/maintenance project, only moving a particular project will break down the system if there are hidden dependency between projects. But ChaRM migrate changes in production by project, that means we have to "Pick & Choose" at project level. Because ChaRM work on the Task List at project level, I cannot put multiple project together and import all. This is the main reason I am going to turn it down, I hope experts like you can give me some suggestion, maybe I didn't see some ChaRM feature.

Other than this reason, the IMPORT ALL issue for BW objects is another show stopper, especially in SCM changes which contains both regular ABAP, Config and BW objects, although SAP have several notes talking about it, they are still not good solution. Similar issue apply to XI CTS+ changes.

My company has several big SAP implementations, one implementation using ChaRM for several years, Due to complicated ChaRM concept, that project team didn't manage ChaRM project very well. The ChaRM project dependency issue I worried above opened door to let a R/3 4.7 OSS note transport been migrated to ECC 6.0 production system, and bring it down for couple days. (Don't blame me, that implementation team keep ChaRM project open during their ECC 6.0 upgrade, so old release change get moved into upgraded system once move the ChaRM project to production). We have two bigger SAP implementation (each contains N, N1, even N2 landscape across R/3, BW, XI, SCM, GTS, CRM products) evaluating ChaRM, as the SAP Technology Architect, I don't want to risk our business, so I do hope someone can help me on my concern.

[Totorians0501]

I am a Basis person, used to move transports from UNIX using 'tp addtobuffer.....' and has 5.5 years experience in Rev-Trac.

No experience in CHaRM.

I love Rev-Trac.

[Former Member]

ChaRM is overly complex, difficult to configure, relies on SolMan being the center of the world, and just looks and feels awful.

RevTrac is highly configurable, but not complex to do so. Easy and intuitive to navigate, with a simple ABAP driven interface, and provides significantly more functionality that ChaRM does.

Apart from superior change request management, RevTrac provides the additional following functionality:

Parallel development

Delegated approvers

Multiple approvers

Quarantined transport concept

Comparison reports (really handy for system copies)

Request cloning (really handy when performing SAP upgrades)

Special migration instructions

OOPS checking functionality (this ensures that newer objects aren't overwritten with older objects unintentionality)

System log (so you can monitor the RevTrac system)

Health Check tool (this tells you if you config is wrong, or bits are missing (like RFC dests ..etc))

The following standard reports:

Propagation

Chronological

Comparison

Plan vs Reality

Migration logs

Quarantined Transports

Transport Dependencies

Revtrac Request Analysis

Progress Graphs

Transports per RevTrac

Orphan Transports

Transports only on Deleted Rev-Tracs

Missing / Unreleased Transports

Objects in Requests/Transports

and many more....

I'm surprised SAP haven't bought Revelation Software yet! RevTrac is a significantly better product.

SAP have a long way to go if they want to make ChaRM a more comprenhensive and user friendly change management tool.

[khalil_serrhini]

Hi Prashant

when i saw title of your post i wanted to show you link that you posted yourself but as you understood by yourself this is definitely not objective. I ve actually been more than once trying to justify solman over revtrack since i am at SAP now... I mean that was already the case before when i was working as an integrator.

Anyways; my view might not be objective as well so i ll just try to respond back on that comparaison made on revtrack website cause there are a couple of things i am not agreeing with.

RevTrack VS Solman

Completely configurable Change Request header fields and forms VS Not as flexible, extensive customization may be required (true, but with patience and tech knowledge you can end up have it very flexible. I am currently writing a webblog on that !)

Comprehensive change approval process configuration based on status steps, approvals required, approvers and so on (enforceable) VS Not as flexible, extensive customization may be required (false, same for Solman !)

Entirely configurable approval workflow and alerts (notifiications) VS Not as flexible, extensive customization may be required (false, you might need more than custo but false)

Every transport is change controlled, every user follows the correct change control processes and every signature is received VS Unavailable without extensive customization (completely false !! that is the point of ChaRM)

The addition and deployment of transports (via Rev-Trac Change Request) from any source system to any target system VS Unavailable (True, and thank god its the case. How can u have a proper change control when everyone can go from anywhere to everywhere)

Includes u2018transportu2019 for rapid deployment of release transports in time pressured u2018go liveu2019 situations VS Unavailable (false, SDHF ticket are objects that were created by SAP just to handle those kind of situations !)

u2018Sensitive Objectu2019 function can define which objects can be attached to which Rev-Trac requests to ensure predetermined u2018specialu2019 change control processes are enforced VS Unavailable (wrong, functionality is called critical object check and it does that !)

Manages transport dependencies both within applications and across applications ensuring synchronization of dependent changes VS Unavailable (False, CTS Dependency functionality does that )

Provides extended locking features and prevents inadvertent parallel development of objects or table changes VS Unavailable (wrong again! Cross System Object Lock functionality does that !)

and so on. I mean this is just a very non objective comparaison !

Anyways, i can maybe clear your doubts on concrete questions (at least i ll try) but i am just saying that you should definitely try finding a feed back of customer that tried both ! I think it would much better than any other comparaison made by revtrack on solman people

PS: By doing this comparaison i am supposing you ll do more than activating basic BC Sets but that you ll try customizing your own change process on Solman based on ChaRM Objects (as everyone do...)

Hope this helps

regards

Khalil

Edited by: Khalil SERRHINI on Jul 29, 2010 10:34 AM

[former_member223537]

Hi Khalil,

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation. Yes i do agree that the comparison from Rev looks to be more with sales pitch & not an objective comparison.

We do want to check with few customers who are already working on ChaRM/Rev-Trac. But for that we are looking for some objective features of the application which are important from business perspective & ideal to be compared. This will help us to come up with a questionarrie which we can share with Customer to get inputs wrt ChaRm/Rev-Trac.

2 points which we could think of is ChaRM Transport Validation & ChaRM authorization method. This we can very well compare with Rev-Trac. Similarly could you let us know if you are aware of any additional features which are very useful in ChaRM & should be compared with Rev-Trac ?

Thanks again.

Best regards,

Prashant

[Former Member]

Hi Khalil,

A couple of things.

Firstly, I work with the company that develops Rev-Trac and so my views are certainly likely to be one sided.

However, I do appreciate the straightforward views expressed below and it would be good to gain a better understanding as to how ChaRM matches Rev-Trac in these areas so we may update the comparison table. If you are able to contact with me with these details it would be much appreciated.

It can be difficult to obtain the latest and most uptodate information on ChaRM features because each user's experience differs and each user views their ChaRM customization requirement differently too. To what one seems significant to another may seem minor or standard. When you add to this each user's expectations on what a change and request management tool should do then immediately one has a variable result.

Regardless of similarities however, unlike CHaRM, Rev-Trac will fully automate and enforce any change control process required out of the box with very little configuration effort and no code customization. Most ChaRM implementations require a significant effort and do vary in outcome based on the experience and expertise of the implementation partner.

Rev-Trac user training effort is minimal. ChaRM user training ranges from 3hrs per user to a more standard 6hrs but can be up to 12 hrs depending on training methods used

This will be the same for a single ECC landscape (ChaRM's specialty) or for an extensive SAP environment with multiple solutions, complex system landscapes and/or multi stack technologies.

Naturally, I would like to respond in detail to a number of points raised,but the following observation does require some further explanation.

The addition and deployment of transports (via Rev-Trac Change Request) from any source system to any target system VS Unavailable (True, and thank god its the case. How can u have a proper change control when everyone can go from anywhere to everywhere)

Once Rev-Trac is configured and running, transports are very carefully controlled according to preconfigured transport paths. Rev-Trac knows the source systems of the transports and so knows the target systems. There is not the option for the user to push transports into any system at any time as may have been implied by the Rev-Trac statement. The key benefit is the one change request to many transport relationships that enable dependent transports (and their iterations) from within the one solution landscape or from several solution landscapes to managed as a single unit of work.

Regards, Rick

Revelation Software Concepts

http://www.xrsc.com

[Former Member]

Hi Rick-

Thank you for your response. I don't work for SAP or Revelation so my analysis is strictly objective.

Both ChaRM and Rev-Trac come out of the box with standard processes for managing change control. If the customer has different requirements (e.g more status values, additional levels of approval, extra alerts, a variant on standard worflow etc) then these processes must be enhanced either with configuration and / or code development. This is where the "significant effort" comes into play. So if the customer accepts ChaRM or Rev-Trac out of the box then minimal configuration effort is required to get up and running. This applies for any change control tool.

To the other points on the Rev-Trac tool (the last 2 paragraphs in your response) - since ChaRM sits on top of standard TMS it achieves the same thing. It's approvals and workflow enforce the same control as described also.

As I posted above, a cost analysis and close comparison of the tools (not user experience and views but actual availability of features) must be presented to a COE before selecting a change control tool. Each change control tool has pros, cons, advantages, disadvantages. It's important to select a tool which will benefit the client the most.

[RajeevP]

Hi Prashant,

I feel the question is not quite clear.. could you please explain a little more?

Rajeev

[former_member223537]

Hi Rajeev,

Rev-Trac, Revelation Software Conceptsu2019 SAP change control application is similar to Solution Manager - ChaRM. So we want to have a comparison of the above 2 applications to understand their benefits/pros/cons.

The comparison should be something similar to the below link :-

[http://www.xrsc.com/rev-trac-comparison.html]

The above comparison is from Rev-Trac perspective, hence looking for another view from SolMan-Charm perspective.

Thanks,

Best regards,

Prashant