Retrofit without ChaRM in 7.1

[Vivek_Hegde]

Fellow Members,

I was going through the blog by Hannes Kerber on retrofitting in 7.1 (http://scn.sap.com/people/hannes.kerber/blog/2013/06/13/do-i-need-charm-to-use-retrofit) This seems to be an interesting feature. Does anyone here tried Retrofit without ChaRM in solman 7.1 ? If yes, would you pls share some insight into how it works and use case etc?

Looking forward for some helpful inputs.

Regards,

Vivek

[raquel_pereiradacunha · Accepted solution]

Hi Vivek,

I have done Retrofit only using ChaRM, in SolMan 7.0 and SolMan 7.1 (just went live before summer). Retrofit is indeed very interesting. But to clarify to you, it is only relevant when the customer works with two different landscapes, what we call Dual Landscape: One for Projects and one for Production Maintenance. When you have this situation, it's important to keep both landscapes in sync, which means that changes that were developed in the Maintenance Landscape and go to PRD must go to the Development system of the Project Landscape too. That's why it's not so common to find use cases.

I haven't seen the Retrofit tool without ChaRM yet, would also like to hear some inputs.

For more information on Retrofit tool (with ChaRM):

https://scn.sap.com/community/it-management/alm/solution-manager/blog/2013/07/09/fixing-error-with-t...

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41654

Regards,

Raquel

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

Hi Raquel/Jansi/Prakhar,

Thank You for the detailed answer. Appreciate it as always.

I have implemented retrofit in 7.1 but it is a part of full blown ChaRM framework. When I came across above mentioned blog; i was surprised and wanted to know how we can implement retrofit standalone, without ChaRM. So I asked the same question to Hannes, who is a author of above blog and I got below reply from him;

Basically two things need to happen:
1. A ChaRM Tasklist needs to be generated in the SolMan still as it is the main infrastructure for retrofit
2. Enable transport mechanisms in a way that SolMan is notified about transport activities and retrofit data to actually perform it later is created

This is interesting, because I had a perception where 'Standalone Retrofit' refers to Retrofit WITHOUT ChaRM (even the blog title says Do I need ChaRM to use Retrofit? ). Now I understand, it is nothing but simpler version of ChaRM with a lean Tasklist. I would try to implement the same and let you know if I succeed

Regards,

Vivek

[Hannes_Kerber · Accepted solution]

Just to add to this:

It is possible to use retrofit without performing transports through SolMan. But as stated on the blog and replied ==> then coding and the inclusion of Exit Implementation is involved.

That is why I split the 2 use case:

1. Retrofit with Tasklist only ==> the task list is actively used as transport tool

2. Really Stand Alone Retrofit where the task list is only an infrastructure which is there, but not used ==> this involves enhancements and coding

Cheers, Hannes

[vinod_kumar70 · Accepted solution]

Vivek,

Were you successful in configuring Retrofit without ChaRM , I was looking for a similar solution

Thanks

Vinod

[Vivek_Hegde · Accepted solution]

We used the normal ChaRM with Retrofit. The conclusion is there is nothing like Retrofit without ChaRM. We just got lost in the translation.

Regards,

Vivek

[prakhar_saxena]

Hi Vivek

Retrofit is not new ...I have implemented back in 2008 -09 ..one of my older replies in the forum

http://scn.sap.com/thread/1483151

infact we have a similar strategy of pushing changes for non SAP systems for many customer even who don't use SAP

w.r.t Solman ChaRM provide many advantages and over the years I have seen lot of new features included with it

for e.g. now its very much automated also with CSOL and other features its adds value to business

even at many places today where people are using manual retrofits etc. its not fully automated like charm but yes it is possible to do manual.....

Hope this helps

Regards

Prakhar

[Former Member]

Hi Vivek,

retrofit the term we used most in Charm, but we can understand its purpose by the word itself from wikipedia, "addition of changes from new system to older systems".

We hav clients, where they dont have Charm, have duall landscape ( 5 system landscape ) like one project track and development track.

This case, after certain point of time development track should be sync with project track, so they collect the transport from project track, add cofile and data file manually to the files system and add the TR into Other transport request in STMS of development track and import to Dev track, read the retrofit content from here, its good to understand.

Thanks

Jansi