Change Control Management in

SAP Solution Manager

Accelerating Business Request Delivery in the Digital Era

Nathan Williams

July 11, 2018

Confidential - Do not duplicate or distribute without written permission from Techedge

Techedge Fact Sheet

Foundation Employees Growth Rate (CAGR) Offices

2004 1,500 30% 20

EMEA, NAFTA, LATAM

Certifications Services Clients Clients Retention

Business Solutions
1,000+ IT Services 150+ ~100%

2
What makes Techedge unique?

Combine the scalability and geographic COVERAGE of a GLOBAL provider

The commitment and AGILITY of a LOCAL partner

The COMPETENCE and FOCUS of a strategic, TRUSTED advisor

To provide PREMIUM, value added SOLUTIONS to our clients.

3
About

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-williams-
62aa234/
Nathan Williams
Global SAP Solution Manager Practice Lead
Nathan Williams is our Global SAP Solution Manager Practice Lead.
For over a decade, Nathan has supported organizations in their efforts to
leverage SAP Solution Manager as an integral component to manage their SAP
solutions across the entire application lifecycle. Coordinating with IT, business,
and program management teams, he has effectively defined strategies to help
SAP customers seamlessly transition to SAP Solution Manager processes and
capabilities.
Nathan is also a published author on the topic, having written: ITSM and
ChaRM in SAP Solution Manager and a co-authored the latest SAP Press
Practical Guide for SAP Solution Manager.

nwilliams@techedgegroup.com www.techedgegroup.com
Agenda
▪ SAP Solution Manager 7.2 – A Brief Overview
▪ A Business-Outcome Approach to Change & Release Management
▪ SAP Solution Manager’s Change Control Management Portfolio
▪ ChaRM Customer Success Story
▪ New Features Introduced with Support Package 7
▪ Q&A
SAP Solution Manager 7.2 in Summary

SAP Solution Manager Provides 4 Key Value Scenarios

 Accelerating, Optimizing and Improving Digital
Business Transformation Initiatives
• Transparent Requirements
to Deploy for efficient
solution delivery
Agile
Innovation

• Graphical Process Modeling • On-Premise

• Single Process Landscape for Process Cloud & • Cloud
IT & Business Artifacts Mgmt. Digital Hybrid • Hybrid
Business
SAP S/4HANA
Digital industries

• SAP Solution Manager can

• Fiori Launchpad New User
SAP HANA run on HANA
• Business Facing Applications Experience
• Management Dashboards
• Free and optional
consideration
Agenda
▪ SAP Solution Manager 7.2 – A Brief Overview
▪ A Business-Outcome Approach to Change & Release Management
▪ SAP Solution Manager’s Change Control Management Portfolio
▪ ChaRM Customer Success Story
▪ New Features Introduced with Support Package 7
▪ Q&A
IT organizations are transforming their role from IT-outcome-focused to
business-outcome-focused, with an emphasis on reducing risk for the
business.

These new objectives require the IT department to not only

accelerate business request delivery, but to do so with an
increased number of changes that must be managed securely, 84% of CIO’s main
preventing business disruption in a growingly complex IT efforts in 2018 are
environment. focused on
innovation and
While many organizations have overlooked the value of transformation.*
documented, accurate changes, the consequences of failure to do
so are costly – to business and IT.

*Gartner, CIO Agenda 2018

IT organizations are transforming their role from IT-outcome-focused to
business-outcome-focused, with an emphasis on reducing risk for the
business.

It is estimated that business disruptions can cost organizations

up to $100,000 per hour.

How much business For a mission-critical application, that figure could skyrocket to
down-time did your $500,000 to $1,000,000 per hour.
organization suffer in
the past year due to
preventable Furthermore, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley require that
disruption? organizations manage change through a system of monitoring
and checks and are able to provide a paper-trail in the event of
issue.
Securely manage business request delivery, reducing risk of business
disruption.

Effective IT Change Management enables IT to confidently and quickly manage complex

business transformation and digital innovation projects with lower risk.

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF EFFECTIVE IT CHANGE MANAGEMENT

✓ Flexibility to quickly deploy changes without business disruption or bottlenecks
✓ Improve the quality of software solutions and business continuity by having better
visibility into software logistics
✓ Automate mundane processes through the deployment of workflows and
notifications, improving efficacy of IT personnel
✓ Satisfy all your requirements in terms of monitoring, governance and compliance
while leveraging SAP best practices aligned to ITIL standards
✓ Protect your production system
✓ Satisfy audit requirements
Agenda
▪ SAP Solution Manager 7.2 – A Brief Overview
▪ A Business-Outcome Approach to Change & Release Management
▪ SAP Solution Manager’s Change Control Management Portfolio
▪ ChaRM Customer Success Story
▪ New Features Introduced with Support Package 7
▪ Q&A
 Change Control Management Portfolio
“The whole is more than the
sum of its parts”

Change Control
Management …..or is it?
Transport Management with the Change and
Transport System (CTS)
▪ The Change and Transport System (CTS) is the foundational (and required)
infrastructure needed to leverage all components in Change Control Management

▪ Three components:
▪ CTS
▪ CTS+
▪ cCTS
“CTS Projects” in TMS
Transports are organized into project-specific sub-queues by using assigning the “CTS Project” attribute to transports

Traditional TMS queue With “CTS Project”

▪ TMS Queue is treated as one ▪ Tags transports to simulate separate
monolithic queue queues

DEVK900125 DEVK900125
DEVK900127 DEVK900127

Project 1

Project 2
DEVK900131 DEVK900131
DEVK900134 DEVK900134
DEVK900136 DEVK900136
DEVK900139 DEVK900139
DEVK900141 DEVK900141
Change Control Management vs TMS
TMS automates the transport process
▪ Press the truck button in SE09: your code is exported!
▪ Press the truck button in STMS: your code is imported!

Change Control Management automates the paperwork:

▪ Approvals
▪ Change Cycle concept
▪ Document reasons, related docs
▪ Integrates with TMS
▪ Transport of Copies
 Quality Gate Management
QGM manages software distribution in a flexible and low-impact manner, in a central view that’s
transparent for certain roles in quality process

▪ QGM uses Quality Gates to control flow of transports from

source to target systems, as milestones are met
▪ Q-Gates represent milestones
▪ Quality Manager and/or Quality Advisory Board “approve”
Q-Gates which then enable the transports to be distributed
downstream
▪ Segregation of duties support 4-eyes approach for
approving Q-Gates
▪ Transports can be moved by scenario, change or individual
transport
▪ Transport of copies supported
▪ Documents can be uploaded as part of milestone
requirements
Phases in Quality Gate Management
▪ Four phases delivered with standard scenario
▪ 2 Q-Gate Options at the end of the Deploy phase{
o Deploy to Scope: If there is more than one change cycle
o End of Deployment: When scenario is complete
▪ Additional Q-Gates can be created
Cycles in Quality Gate Management
▪ Change cycles “divide” the lifecycle of a QGM scenario
▪ And the end of the 1st deployment, if there are open changes they
can flow to a subsequent change cycle (automatically)
▪ For new implementations, typically there is only 1 change cycle
Roles and Responsibilities

Role Responsibilities
Development Lead • Creates and releases transport requests

IT Operator • Triggers the import of the transport requests to the QAS and PRD
systems
Quality Manager • Performs quality checks across each Q-Gate and milestone
• Supports the Quality Advisory Board in providing approval to begin
a subsequent phase
Quality Advisory Board • Manages and supervises risks that may arise throughout the
change cycle(s)
• Supports the quality manager in defining and monitoring quality
standards across the implementation
 Differences Between ChaRM and QGM

Quality Gate ChaRM

Management
Out-of-the box Solution X X

May compliment 3rd Party Change Control tools X

Can accommodate complex workflow requirements X

Can accommodate individual customizations X

Minimal impact to the organization X

Ability to leverage CTS, CTS+, and/or cCTS X X

Integrates into other SAP Solution Manager functions X

Transport bundling and handling only X

Change Request Management (ChaRM)
Who Uses ChaRM?
▪ Change Manager
▪ Tracks changes, expedites the processes, controls the maintenance cycle
▪ Developer/Configurator
▪ Makes transportable changes and releases to tester
▪ Tester
▪ Tests in QA and confirms successful test
▪ IT Operator (Basis)
▪ Automates QA imports
▪ Manually performs production imports
ChaRM: Documents

Non-ChaRM documents
•Incident: Bug report, user complaint…
•IT Requirement: Request for new functionality

Request for Change

•Change Manager approval

Change Document
•Development, Testing

Transport Organization and Automation

•Technical movement of objects
 ChaRM: Document Flow (Simplified)

Request for
Change
Authorized Implemented

Change In Successfully Imported Into

Created To Be Tested
Document Development Tested Production

Transport Transport
Create of Copies
Release

QA
Queue Import copies to QA Import to QA

Prod Added to Prod Queue

Queue Prod Queue Import
ChaRM: Types of Changes
▪ Normal Changes
▪ Suitable for new features and enhancements
▪ Imported into Prod together at end of maintenance cycle
▪ Urgent Changes
▪ Bugfixes that are affecting production
▪ Imported immediately upon approval
▪ Re-imported again at end of maintenance cycle
▪ Others
▪ Defect correction
▪ Standard, Administrative, General
Release Management New
in 7.2

▪ Schedules, plans, manages and coordinates release activities

▪ Leverages controlled release processes and technical best practices
to harmonize the testing and go-live of parallel initiatives
 Release Management: Multiple Concurrent Projects

Monthly Maintenance Project

May June July August Sept Oct Nov Dec

Corporate Merger Release 1.0 Merger 1.1 Merger1.2

New GL Release 1.0 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3

Each change “cycle” ends with a project import of all approved changes
• All approved changes for the cycle are imported – NO EXCEPTIONS
• Changes are imported in the same order they were released – NO EXCEPTIONS
Retrofit
▪ Automatic tools to facilitate synchronization between your N
Development system and N+1 Development system
▪ For quick, efficient and low-risk updates to your N+1 development
system with little to no manual intervention
Retrofit: How it Works
Retrofit: How it Works
Bug fixes and enhancements must be retrofitted into the project
landscape
Agenda
▪ SAP Solution Manager 7.2 – A Brief Overview
▪ A Business-Outcome Approach to Change & Release Management
▪ SAP Solution Manager’s Change Control Management Portfolio
▪ ChaRM Customer Success Story
▪ New Features Introduced with Support Package 7
▪ Q&A
Project Overview
Customer Overview:
▪ Provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world.
▪ Working together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, they help people thrive
by applying insights and over 150 years of experience.
▪ They are made up of 150,000 employees in 70 countries reducing environmental impact and
improving the communities where people live and work.

Customer Objectives with ChaRM:

▪ Develop a single SAP Change Control Management solution, leveraging ChaRM, that can globally
manage changes across all SAP landscapes
▪ Improve the success rate for all SAP changes by protecting the production systems and reduce
transport inconsistency
▪ Build upon existing technological capabilities by introducing advancements made available from
SAP Solution Manager 7.2
ChaRM 7.2 Scope
Request for Change • For intake, categorization and validation of changes
• Adoption of SAP standard functionality

• Production support changes (break/fix, process improvement,

Normal Change etc.)
• Adoption of SAP standard functionality
• Added approval steps for PRE and PRD import

• Emergency break/fix changes to production

Urgent Change
• Adoption of SAP standard functionality

• Business Unit Deployments, Support Packs/EHPs, Retrofit changes

N+1 Change • Copied from SMMJ (Normal Change)
• Process terminates at “Successfully Tested” status

Phase Cycle

Retrofit Downgrade Protection

CTS+ Cross System Object Lock (CSOL)

Effective IT Change Management
Aligning people, processes & tools to securely manage and deliver business requests

CURRENT STATE FUTURE STATE

Disconnected resources with primary focus Effective IT Change management unifying

on utilizing transport management people, process & technology
capabilities only
Effective IT Change Management
Aligning people, processes & tools to securely manage and deliver business requests

CURRENT STATE FUTURE STATE

Loosely defined roles with expansive permissions Strategically defined roles to enforce segregation of duties

Change approval procedures lacking a meaningful approach Enable a true SAP Change Advisory Board

Implementation activities initiated without approvals & planning Prevent landscape inconsistencies and transport proliferation

Disconnected procedures across varying toolsets and teams Enterprise Change Management harmonizing the IT and business

Change processes unique to team, region or application A global, standardized, and scalable change control solution

Excel, email and phone call based Centralized tool integrated with the SAP ecosystem
Effective IT Change Management
Aligning people, processes & tools to securely manage and deliver business requests

We offered our customer the ability to activate effective IT change management and deliver business value
quickly and securely through the implementation and enhancement of 3 main pillars within the organization:

TOOLS PEOPLE PROCESS

✓ SAP® Solution Manager 7.2 (capabilities such
as ChaRM for best-in-class for IT Change
Request Management) to facilitate the transfer
of changes across systems;
✓ Ability to integrate ChaRM with an Enterprise
Change Management System
(i.e. Remedy, ServiceNow) in order to keep one
global standard for the enterprise.
✓ Defined user roles to identify who manages
specific activities (i.e. import, monitor, test,
transport) for streamlining change process and
avoiding audit risks;
✓ Ability to establish an SAP Change Control
Board to govern the change model.
✓ Definition of internal processes that allow
you to maximize value of the tool, taking full
advantage of its functionality while utilizing
people in the most efficient way.
✓ Guidance, leveraging lessons learned and
best practices, to prepare your teams to
quickly adjust to unique scenarios that often
arise as a result of transport management
What’s Next?
▪ Learn more about our Future Focus Roadmap
▪ 1 day workshop for ChaRM
▪ Deep-dive into each “individual part” of Change Control Management
▪ Live demonstrations based on Support Package 7
▪ Interactive discussions specific to your scenario and requirements
▪ Recommendations and roadmap document
▪ 3 day workshop for Solution Manager 7.2
▪ Covers all SAP Solution Manager scenarios
▪ An agenda collaboratively developed between Techedge and your Business
and IT teams
▪ Recommendations and roadmap document
▪ Our Roadmap offerings are available for a fixed-fee that is waived if your
team decides to move forward with an implementation
Change Control Management in
SAP Solution Manager
Accelerating Business Request Delivery in the Digital Era

Nathan Williams

July 11, 2018

Confidential - Do not duplicate or distribute without written permission from Techedge